From the front

The following dispatch was received by my mother, a nurse in Wilmington, N.C. It's from a former Wilmington doctor stuck at the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans. He's helping to set up a hospital in the hotel. It's a fascinating account:

Aug. 31, 2005

Thanks to all of you who have sent your notes of concern and your prayers. I am writing this note on Tuesday [Aug. 30] at 2 p.m.. I wanted to update all of you as to the situation here. I don't know how much information you are getting but I am certain it is more than we are getting. Be advised that almost everything I am telling you is from direct observation or rumor from reasonable sources. They are allowing limited internet access, so I hope to send this dispatch today.

Personally, my family and I are fine. My family is safe in Jackson, Miss., and I am now a temporary resident of the Ritz Carleton Hotel in New Orleans. I figured if it was my time to go, I wanted to go in a place with a good wine list. In addition, this hotel is in a very old building on Canal Street that could and did sustain little damage. Many of the other hotels sustained significant loss of windows, and we expect that many of the guests may be evacuated here.

Things were obviously bad yesterday, but they are much worse today. Overnight the water arrived. Now Canal Street (true to its origins) is indeed a canal. The first floor of all downtown buildings is underwater. I have heard that Charity Hospital and Tulane are limited in their ability to care for patients because of water. Ochsner is the only hospital that remains fully functional. However, I spoke with them today and they too are on generator and losing food and water fast. The city now has no clean water, no sewerage system, no electricity, and no real communications. Bodies are still being recovered floating in the floods. We are worried about a cholera epidemic.

Even the police are without effective communications. We have a group of armed police here with us at the hotel that is admirably trying to exert some local law enforcement. This is tough because looting is now rampant. Most of it is not malicious looting. These are poor and desperate people with no housing and no medical care and no food or water trying to take care of themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the people are armed and dangerous. We hear gunshots frequently. Most of Canal street is occupied by armed looters who have a low threshold for discharging their weapons. We hear gunshots frequently. The looters are using makeshift boats made of pieces of styrofoam to access. We are still waiting for a significant national guard presence.

The health care situation here has dramatically worsened overnight. Many people in the hotel are elderly and small children. Many other guests have unusual diseases. ... There are (Infectious Disease) physicians in at this hotel attending an HIV confection. We have commandered the world famous French Quarter Bar to turn into an makeshift clinic. There is a team of about seven doctors and PAs and pharmacists. We anticipate that this will be the major medical facility in the central business district and French Quarter.

Our biggest adventure today was raiding the Walgreens on Canal under police escort. The pharmacy was dark and full of water. We basically scooped the entire drug sets into garbage bags and removed them. All under police excort. The looters had to be held back at gunpoint. After a dose of prophylactic Cipro I hope to be fine.

In all we are faring well. We have set up a hospital in the the French Qarter bar in the hotel, and will start admitting patients today. Many will be from the hotel, but many will not. We are anticipating dealing with multiple medical problems, medications and and acute injuries. Infection and perhaps even cholera are anticipated major problems. Food and water shortages are imminent. The biggest question to all of us is where is the National Guard. We hear jet fignters and helicopters, but no real armed presence, and hence the rampant looting. There is no Red Cross and no Salvation Army.

In a sort of cliché way, this is an edifying experience. One is rapidly focused away from the transient and material to the bare necessities of life. It has been challenging to me to learn how to be a primary care phyisican. We are under martial law so return to our homes is impossible. I don't know how long it will be and this is my greatest fear. Despite it all, this is a soul-edifying experience. The greatest pain is to think about the loss. And how long the rebuid will take. And the horror of so many dead people.

PLEASE SEND THIS DISPATCH TO ALL YOU THING MAY BE INTERSTED IN A DISPATCH from the front. I will send more according to your interest. Hopefully their collective prayers will be answered. By the way, suture packs, sterile gloves and stethoscopes will be needed as the Ritz turns into a MASH.

Greg Henderson

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Looting

Interesting post from Jonah Goldberg on the looting in New Orleans:

Philosophically, I am very sympathetic to the argument that in a crisis, when no legal means are available, theft is morally permissible to save a life. Stealing a bottle of water for your thirsty kids, food for your starving brother, etc. These things are morally defensible and the state and/or juries should have the power to forgive them.

But looting for personal gain is repugnant and inexcusable.

I'd have to agree. I wouldn't think twice about stealing to feed my kids but would accept your judgment if I grabbed a Playstation on the way out the door.

On another note, doesn't it seem a little early for the looting to start? My pantry could probably feed my family for three to seven days before I began to worry about running out of food. Of course, I'd probably have to eat that Hormel chili that's been in the back of the cupboard for three years. Perhaps, some residents aren't prepared to take such drastic measures.

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Space elevator law

Interesting read from Glenn Reynolds on the sticky legal issues that would surround any effort to build a space elevator. The stability of equatorial countries would also become a pressing concern.

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More Hurricane

Here's a sobering quote from New Orleans:

"We have a major looting problem," said Col. Terry Ebbert, the chief of homeland security for the city. "These are not individuals looting; these are large groups of armed individuals."

This has the makings of an immense tragedy. Here's a good roundup of media coverage.

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Hurricane Katrina

Check out the wikipedia entry for the Hurricane. That's a larger, more comprehensive account of the current situation than I'd expect to read in tommorow's NY Times.

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Air filters

Just got new brake pads and the oil changed on my minivan. Used a coupon for both and got out of there for under $100 -- definitely a good deal. The price quote (before coupon) for the brake pads alone was $150. But, this place clearly offered such a great deal to to lure me in to charge for other services. I always decline all that stuff and then think about it later. That way I know I'm not getting screwed by the man.

My receipt detailed more than $300 of work they recommended for my van. One item jumped out: Air filter - $53.21. I find this incredible because I just changed my air filter less than 1,000 miles ago. I picked it up from an autoparts store for $12 and replaced the old one in less than 5 minutes.

Ha! I'm no moonpie eating lackey to the man.

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Ropes Course

Sorry for the nonexistant blogging yesterday; I was attending a ropes course for one of my classes at the University of Georgia. That's me, above, standing atop a 20-foot tall telephone pole. I had to jump from there to a trapeze bar. As Maxwell Smart said, "Missed it by that much."

To make up for my for my missed day, let me recap what I would have likely blogged: "The media's biased, Iraq coverage is skewed, and Sean Connery was the best James Bond."

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Grand view

They want to build a glass-bottomed extension over the Grand Canyon. Great idea, but I'm not sure I could walk out on it.

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Dwight

I really feel sorry for Dwight Gooden. The guy needs a 12-step program. Stat.

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Camp Casey

Turns out a few liberal groups are bankrolling Camp Casey. A TV News station in San Francisco looked into the finances of the protest.

Instapundit sums up my feelings:

But I bet that if a GOP group were to send servicemen's families to picket Democrats it would be getting more play. And more negative play.

By the way, we've heard very little about Fort Qualls. Compare coverage in in the New York Times for Sheehan and Qualls.

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Corrections

Can't wait to read the NY Times correction for this one.

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RandomThis

Here's the first vlog that I can actually recommend. She makes a great point.

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Homer nods - Wikipedia

I wrote a wikipedia entry.

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Gas

Hawaii will pay dearly for their move to set caps on gasoline. Price caps only cause supply to decrease because fewer firms will want to risk providing a service if they can't be guaranteed a profit. This is basic economics. But, some politicians and most journalists have never accepted this reality.

Get ready for long gas lines in Hawaii; I bet someone will blame President Bush for the problem.

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Alenda Lux: Iraq's Constitution

Great take on the media's portrayal of the Iraqi Constitution. Basically, both the New York Times and Washington Post are showing concern that the Constitution could result in a theocracy. But, the Iraqi Constitution differs little from the Afghanistan Constitution -- however the latter document received no howls of criticism. The only difference? Everybody thought Afghanistan was a good idea, so no need to play up the negatives. But, Iraq must be viewed through a much darker filter.

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Bond

I was planning on writing a long post about James Bond, whose films I've been enjoying on AMC for the past week of so. But, I went to the wikipedia entry for a brush up and got bogged down for 45 minutes. Is wikipedia a curse or a blessing?

So here's a briefer-than-planned summation:

Sean Connery is undoubtedly the best James Bond, and "Goldfinger" was his finest film. But he shouldn't have come back for "Diamonds are Forever" because he got too old. (I won't even mention "Never Say Never Again" which is apparently not recognized as part of the James Bond canon.)

George Lanzenby was nearly as good as Connery in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." I would have enjoyed seeing him again, but his agent urged him to turn down a 7-movie deal. Arguably one of the worst bits of career advice in the annals of film history.

Roger Moore positively sucked as James Bond.

Apparently, there's a new film coming out in 2006 -- sans Pierce Brosnan who did a much better job than his two predecessors (Moore and Timothy Dalton.)

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Tectonic Shift

Great column from Larry Kudlow on oil prices:

I say three cheers for higher energy prices. Why? Because I believe in markets. When the price of something goes up, demand falls off (call it conservation) and supply increases (call it new production). We're seeing a tectonic shift.

(Via: Instapundit)

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China cracks down

It would suck to live in a country that's not free. This seems like a particularly stupid thing for the Chinese government to attempt to ban.

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O, Canada

Interesting article from the BBC on the Canadian Navy sending two warships into the artic circle. The Canadians want to establish their ownership of the area in case enough ice melts up there to produce a true Nortwest Passage. Given recent history, going to war over a trade route seems positively quaint.

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I swear

A judge in North Carolina doesn't want Muslims to swear their oath on the Koran -- just the Bible. Guess he figured the religious right wasn't getting enough bad press.

Good legal analysis at the Volokh conspiracy. By the way, here's how you pronounce Volokh.

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Good news

Pretty exciting development about the Iraqis reaching an agreement on a Constitution. Of course, last week we were hearing the pundits talk about the possibility of civil war. I wish I could get some work as a professional naysayer.

Here's an interesting read about the failure of al Qaeda in Iraq. (Guess it depends on how you look at it.) Buried inside is this truly amazing revelation -- Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani has issued a fatwa against using the words "kurd," "sunni" or "shia." Instead, he wants everyone to call each other "Iraqi." I'm all for free speech, but this seems like a very big shift coming from the most important religious leader in Iraq. His edict repudiates the al Qaeda strategy to incite ethnic strife in Iraq.

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Why not?

Fascinating read by Bradley Carl Edwards describing his practical plan to build a space elevator. I've been hearing about this since I was a kid reading Odyssey magazine. (Site of my first published words -- a letter to the editor when I was 11.)

The idea of having a cable attached on Earth that goes all the way to a satellite in orbit sounds like pure science fiction, but Edwards' piece convinces me it could be done.

The guy's clearly thought of everything. How much it would cost ($20 billion), how long it would take (10 to 15 years), where to put the anchor (South Pacific floating platform), and how to start it (launch a craft halfway and then start lowering and raise the cable at the same time.)

Mars is great and all, but I wonder if this wouldn't be the smartest endeavor for us to tackle next. It seems like a incredibly daunting task, but that's exactly was we should do it.

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Fair play

According the AP, a father who lost his son in the war has set up camp outside Bush's ranch:

The camp is named "Fort Qualls" in memory of Marine Lance Cpl. Louis Wayne Qualls, 20, killed in Fallujah, Iraq, last fall. His father, Gary Qualls of Temple, said his 16-year-old son also wants to enlist, and he supports that decision.

"If I have to sacrifice my whole family for the sake of our country and world, other countries that want freedom, I'll do that," said Qualls, a friend of the local business owner who started the pro-Bush camp, Bill Johnson.

I'll be pleasantly surprised if this gets one-tenth of the coverage that Cindy Shaheen received. This should be an excellent example of the double standard of the press.

Let me spell it out. Most editors and journalists are liberal. They hate Bush, think he's stupid and think the Iraq War is a worthless endeavor predicated on lies. They looked at Cindy Shaheen as a compelling story that also happily coincided with all of these views. Thus, we got way more coverage of her than was warranted.

Qualls, I'd guess, voted for Bush. Judging by his quote, he believes in what we're doing in Iraq -- that by making it a free country we'll spread democracy in the Middle East which will hopefully abate the production of terrorists. Qualls believes this so fervently that he's not bitter about losing his son in the war. And he'd support his son's enlistment. What an incredible, compelling story.

But, most journalists and editors will dismiss it quickly because they can't understand how anyone could rationally think this way. He's just a nut, they'll say in hundreds of editorial board meetings tomorrow, as they give his story one day of coverage on some inside pages. If the profession cared at all about hiring people who didn't subscribe to a myopic view of the world, then travesties like this wouldn't happen.

I predict we'll hear very little about Bill Johnson. And that's what's wrong with the media.

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Costas

Bob Costas refused to guest anchor on Larry King live because the show focused on the Aruba-missing woman story. Good for Bob. That's a local news story that has no business on the national airwaves. Too bad there's a bunch of journalists with no integrity happy to play the sensation card.

By the way, Costas' late-night interview show was the best I've ever seen. And no, Charlie Rose doesn't come close; he's overrated and talks way too much.

Also, the wikipedia entry on Costas already mentions the Larry King incident. Incredible.

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Thanks wikipedia

I'm officially addicted to wikipedia. I just spent the last 20 minutes reading about the Doolittle Raid and Japanese baloon bombs.

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Care for a wager?

In my academic circles, you're pretty much perceived as a "flat Earther" if you question whether the present global warming has been caused by humans. (I'm not clear on how humans caused the last global warming -- the end of the Ice Age.) But, as noted by David Adam in the London Guardian, two skeptical scientists are asking staunch defenders to put their money where there mouth is:

Two climate change sceptics, who believe the dangers of global warming are overstated, have put their money where their mouth is and bet $10,000 that the planet will cool over the next decade.

The Russian solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev have agreed the wager with a British climate expert, James Annan.

The pair, based in Irkutsk, at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics, believe that global temperatures are driven more by changes in the sun's activity than by the emission of greenhouse gases. They say the Earth warms and cools in response to changes in the number and size of sunspots. Most mainstream scientists dismiss the idea, but as the sun is expected to enter a less active phase over the next few decades the Russian duo are confident they will see a drop in global temperatures.

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Iraq & Roll

My views on Iraq are pretty much summed up by a song. Guess I'm not very intellectual.

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Another perspective

Here's a good column written by a father whose son died in Iraq:

Thirty-five years ago, a president faced a similar dilemma in Vietnam. He gave in and we got "peace with honor." To this day, I am still searching for that honor. Today, those who defend our freedom every day do so as volunteers with a clear and certain purpose. Today, they have in their commander in chief someone who will not allow us to sink into self-pity. I will not allow him to.

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Richard Dreyfuss

Hello, Richard. You were hilarious in "Let it Ride."

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Inspirational

Great article from cbsnews on one soldier's efforts to provide shoes for kids in Iraq.

"To help people I don’t know, to help protect the freedoms of people I’ll never meet, but I’m serving the United States, and there’s nothing that can beat that."

Stories like this make me proud to be an American.

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Just the facts

A soldier tries to set Matt Lauer straight:

LAUER: Don't get me wrong, I think you're probably telling the truth, but there might be a lot of people at home wondering how that might be possible with the conditions you're facing and with the insurgent attacks you're facing... What would you say to people who doubt that morale could be that high?

CAPTAIN SHERMAN POWELL: Well sir, I'd tell you, if I got my news from the newspapers I'd be pretty depressed as well.

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Ford

Try to watch this Ford commercial and get emotional. When the little kid salutes the soldier in the airport, I nearly lost it.

I'm sure this ad was created knowing the Internet would provide an audience. It's nearly five minutes long, way too much time for television -- but perfect for this new medium. Perhaps, this is a harbinger of things to come.

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Bush

Joseph Britt has an interesting post on Dan Drezner's blog about the Bush presidency. I'd say this is an accurate assessment:

But all these things suggest a rather negative kind of strength -- a mastery of means but not necessarily of ends. Consider the veto, used by every President since Garfield to block enactment of legislation the President opposed. Bush has never used the veto even once. By contrast Bill Clinton vetoed 37 bills in eight years, Ronald Reagan 78 in eight years, Bush's father 44 in four years (the Chirstian Science Monitor has a handy reference chart and some context). One could argue that this merely signifies that Bush has such mastery over political Washington that Congress only passes the legislation he wants. To me it looks more like he has a talent for surrender.

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Danger zone

Vladimir Putin channels Michael Dukakis.

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Garbage shortage

The NY Times confirms the much-ballyhooed garbage dump shortage never materialized. I remember reading a P.J. O'Rourke essay about 15 years ago in which he argued the same point. I'll think he'll be proven right about this one as well.

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Lance in Iraq

Reality check from soldier in Iraq.

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In Mosul

Fantastic reporting from blogger Michael Yon in Iraq:

Deuce Four is an overwhelmingly aggressive and effective unit, and they believe the best defense is a dead enemy. They are constantly thinking up innovative, unique, and effective ways to kill or capture the enemy; proactive not reactive. They planned an operation with snipers, making it appear that an ISF vehicle had been attacked, complete with explosives and flash-bang grenades to simulate the IED. The simulated casualty evacuation of sand dummies completed the ruse.

The Deuce Four soldiers left quickly with the "casualties," "abandoning" the burning truck in the traffic circle. The enemy took the bait. Terrorists came out and started with the AK-rifle-monkey-pump, shooting into the truck, their own video crews capturing the moment of glory. That's when the American snipers opened fire and killed everybody with a weapon. Until now, only insiders knew about the AK-monkey-pumpers smack-down.

Read the rest.

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Strange

Apparently the Earth is being bombarded with strange matter. Our sensors are only now good enough to detect this common occurence.

(Hat tip: Instapundit.)

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Covering Iraq

Newspaper editors are complaining about the Associated Press coverage of Iraq. Katharine Q. Seelye in the New York Times quotes the Tampa Bay Tribune's editorial page editor:

"The bottom-line question was, people wanted to know if we're making progress in Iraq," Ms. Goudreau said, and the A.P. articles were not helping to answer that question.

"It was uncomfortable questioning The A.P., knowing that Iraq is such a dangerous place," she said. "But there's a perception that we're not telling the whole story."

It's an interesting topic that speaks to the difficulty of reporting accurately in a chronically unsafe environment. Mike Silverman, managing editor of The A.P. makes some good points:

Mr. Silverman said the wire service was covering Iraq "as accurately as we can" while "also trying to keep our people out of harm's way."

"The main obstacle we face," he said, "is the severe limitation on our movement and our ability to get out and report. It's very confining for our staff to go into Baghdad and have to spend most of their time on the fifth floor of the Palestine Hotel," which is home to most of the press corps. The hotel was struck by a tank shell in 2003, killing two journalists.

But, there's plenty of information accessible to reporters that's not dangerous to collect. Plenty of U.S. government and military Web sites describe the daily progress in Iraq -- look here, here, and here. Click here for the weekly construction update from US AID, updated on August 11, 2005.

The problem with these sources? All this information comes from the U.S. government. In the post-Watergate era, most journalists (I've worked with a lot) are thoroughly cynical and distrustful of the government -- especially the military. Many feel information from the these sources should be viewed skeptically. Some journalists believe they'll become purveyors of propaganda if they amplify the government's company line.

Now, journalistic skepticism is certainly a great character trait. Oftentimes officials in the government are indeed trying to hoodwink us. But reporters and editors often take this distrust to a level that makes them biased against the government -- and the U.S. cause. It's time for the AP to find a happy medium and start reporting some of this good news.

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Our friends, the Germans

Gerard Schroder has another election to win. Here's how the Financial Times says he kicked off the latest run:

Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, has called on the US to leave "the military option off the table" in its dispute with Iran, in a speech aimed at boosting his re-election campaign.

Seems reasonable to me that one should negotiate from a position of strength -- not weakness. Perhaps this tenet won't be lost on the German people. But, it probably will.

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Roberts vs. NARAL

Interesting post on the NARAL ad that defamed John Roberts. And on the quick reaction of the blogosphere.

This is a major victory for the Bush administration and a major defeat for the left-wing groups that exist to prevent confirmation of Bush judicial nominees. The Post contributes a fine editorial headlined "Abortion Smear," and liberal columnist E. J. Dionne weighs in with a negative column on the ad.

Even so, one wonders whether the NARAL ad would have been shot down so soon without the blogosphere-speed postings of the Committee for Justice and the determination of Senate Republicans to see that Roberts and other Bush nominees are treated civilly.

I doubt the Willie Horton ad would have survived the blogosphere either.

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Waterfall found

Here's a neat story about a giant waterfall recently discovered inside a California National Park. They found it by looking at a 3-D satellite map. Pretty amazing that something like an 80-foot waterfall inside the United States could still remain undiscovered.

Reminds me of a bit I've always remembered from Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." The narrator of that short novel was intrigued by places where the mapmakers hadn't yet traveled:

Now when I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth, and when I saw one that looked particularly inviting on a map (but they all look that) I would put my finger on it and say, 'When I grow up I will go there.' The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven't been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour's off. Other places were scattered about the Equator, and in every sort of latitude all over the two hemispheres. I have been in some of them, and . . . well, we won't talk about that. But there was one yet -- the biggest, the most blank, so to speak -- that I had a hankering after.

I don't suppose there are any blank spaces left on any maps these days. Perhaps the narrator should have spent some time in the California wilderness.

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In all fairness

Instapundit notes a positive Iraq story on the front page of the New York Times. Must've been hard to sell that story at Friday's budget meeting.

Great photo of a soldier checking out TVs at one of the base stores.

Today's good news about progress on the Iraqi constitution should make the front page on Sunday. That'd be two positive stories in a row. Stop the presses.

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Duece Bigalow

Funny review from Roger Ebert on the highly anticipated Duece Bigalow sequel. He gave it zero stars -- a dubious honor shared by only 61 other films.

It's hardly a review, in fact, since the second-half of the article is a defense of a journalist who Rob Schneider attacked earlier this year. At first, I thought Ebert was being overly defensive of a colleague in a profession that takes itself too seriously. But, by the end, Ebert won me over.

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Drezner

Good post from Dan Drezner about Focus on the Family's gaydar for children. Read Drezner's post until you see the word "gaymatron." It should make you laugh out loud.

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Corrections

A good take from Powerline on the latest NY Times errors from their coverage of the Roberts' nomination. This is great:

Let me translate. In other words, according to David Kirkpatrick and the Times correction, the left's "biggest complaint" about Judge Roberts is premised on an error or misrepresentation of fact.

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Supercomputing

Good overview in the New York Sun of the story about the Department of Defense being aware of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers. I haven't read anything on this case until now because I could care less about ways we could have prevented Sept. 11. Seems like a pointless exercise.

But, the story definitely has present-day repercutions. As reporter Josh Gerstein points out, the DOD found Mohammed Atta by using a supercomputer to mine an enormous amount of public and private data. That effort was cancelled in 2003 after it was labeled a "big brother" invasion of privacy:

... [A] broader Pentagon data-mining effort, known originally by the Orwellian name, "Total Information Awareness," was shuttered in 2003 after an outcry from privacy advocates. Some who were critics of that program say the recent developments suggest that the data-intensive technologies now deserve a second look.

"We did dismiss it too quickly," said Sonia Arrison, the director of technology studies at a San Francisco think tank, the Pacific Research Institute. "I was really against TIA when it first came out," she said.

Ms. Arrison said it makes little sense to demand that the government abandon a technology that is being used more and more widely by retailers and others in the private sector. She said the government should move forward with the program but eschew the secrecy that usually surrounds such efforts. "Let's embrace a TIA-type system, but let's have everyone understand how it works," the analyst said. "The technology is really just a tool. It can be used for good or evil. ... You can't put it back in the bottle."

Seems odd to possess the technology to identify future terrorists, but not use it. Perhaps, it's time to turn the supercomputers back on.

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Red Dawn

Just watched bits of "Red Dawn" last night on cable. The film details the Soviet invasion of America in the early 1980s. Amazing how times have changed.

It's an oddly compelling film. The movie features incredibly overwrought acting, a fairly thin plot, and ridiculous battle scenes. Nevertheless, I can't seem to watch even one scene without getting choked up.

John Milius directed the film. Although he never gained fame as a director, Milius did co-author Apocolypse Now and also helped pen the best scene of dialogue ever written -- the tale of the USS Indianapolis as told by Richard Shaw in the film Jaws.

Here's an extensive entry on Red Dawn in Wikipedia. Check out the diligent detailing of the alternate history that led to America's collapse. Obviously, someone out there is a fan.

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Hidden-ball trick

Mike Lowell of the Florida Marlins tagged a runner out on third last night using the old hidden-ball trick. Here's a great account of how it works.

Yet another reason that baseball is greatest sport in the world.

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We will be Rubies!

Pretty funny kernel from the cab driver who carried those prison-break fugitives:

Wagers said he had doubts about the Hyattes' story because they "just didn't fit the type."

"They didn't strike me as the Amway type because to be honest they weren't very pushy about their product and I've dealt with them before so — that was my only real suspicion," Wagers said.

Now, that's a headache for the Amway PR department.

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Team America

Finally saw Team America. Incredibly funny. Just discovered another article (in addition to the permanently posted one) by Brian C. Anderson that details more of what makes the creators of the film and Southpark so funny.

Here's a good quote from Trey Parker:

People in the entertainment industry are by and large whore-chasing, drug-addicted [expletive] ... But they still believe they're better than the guy in Wyoming who really loves his wife and takes care of his kids and is a good, outstanding, wholesome person. Hollywood views regular people as children, and they think they're the smart ones who need to tell the idiots out there how to be.

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On the passing of Jennings

Referring to the Jovian authority once granted to the network news anchors, Oxblog observes accurately that journalists shouldn't be pining for nostaglia:

Well you know what? Jovian authority sucks. Jovian authority is what gave us Jayson Blair and CBS's forged documents about Bush and the National Guard.

But what's really ironic here is that journalists should be the first ones to remind us that Jovian authority sucks. In the crucible of modern American journalism known as Vietnam, correspondents earned their stripes by pulling back the curtain that protected the Jovian authority with which President Johnson and his generals declared the war effort to be a great success.

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On James Dobson

Fantastic editorial in the Wall Street Journal on the shrill voices from both the left and the right. David Gelernter notes that James Dobson of Focus on the Family recently compared embrionic stem cell research to Nazi death-camp experiments. Comparing someone you don't agree to the Nazis seems to be the insult du jour:

Dr. Dobson's analogy is grotesque. It's not just that embryos (as he himself noted later) feel no pain when they are destroyed. Not just that they leave no grief-stricken survivors in the sense that full-fledged human beings do, and rip no comparable hole in the community and the universe when they are murdered. Just as important is the gaping difference in the actors' motives. Stem-cell researchers want to help "mankind," defined to exclude embryos. Nazi experimenters wanted to help "mankind," defined to exclude Jews. If the first definition is wrong, it might nonetheless be proposed by morally serious persons. No morally serious person would go anywhere near the second, which epitomizes Nazi evil.

In arguing for the rightness of our war in Iraq, I often encounter left-wingers who insist that Saddam killed Iraqis and America's war does so, too--so what's the difference? It's tragic when any part of a national community grows incapable of moral distinctions. Drawing moral distinctions is what human beings are for. But Dr. Dobson's analogy is far more simple-minded than the pacifist position on Iraq.

Agree.

Great point too on public apologies:

Besides which, the whole business of demanding apologies is out of control in modern America. The constant clamor for apologies suggests young children demanding the Mommy-kiss that magically heals. Those who think Dr. Dobson wrong should concentrate on explaining why he is wrong, not on extracting a worthless, grudging "I'm sorry." An apology ripped loose by the tightening rack of public opinion is worth exactly what any extorted concession, compliment, confession or retraction is worth.

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Wal-Mart

Interesting article on the latest efforts to demonize Wal-Mart. By the way, I love Wal-Mart.

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Infinity

Check out this box score from last night's Red Sox game.

We (still a Red Sox fan) just picked up a pitcher from the Cubs, Mike Remlinger. When you go to a new team in the middle of the season, your stats start over (not a bad deal for Remlinger since he was boasting an ERA of 4.91.) Note the INF beside his name in the Season ERA (earned runs average) column. It stands for "Infinity." Since ERA is calculated by dividing runs given up by innings pitched, this rare mathematical calculation occurrs when a pitcher with no previous record gives up a run without getting an out. Gotta be the most embarrasing stat a pitcher ever sees.

The Sox won anyway.

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Teaching

Here's (reg. required) an interesting article by Bridget Gutierrez of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the effects of standardized testing on teachers:

In these high-stakes days where students' performance on standardized tests can determine whether they earn college credit, graduate from high school, get promoted to the next grade or pass a class --- or whether their school meets federal standards --- teachers have little time to waste, even on the first day of class...

... With 180 days in a school year --- even less until the crucial state exams by which students and schools will be judged --- teachers are keenly aware that every minute counts.

"Back in the '60s and '70s, it was 'OK, this is the first day of school. I'm your teacher,' " Hubbard said. "With the emphasis we're putting on public education now . . . a day wasted is a day you can never get back."

Good. It makes me wonder why we ever tolerated anything but this no-nonsense approach. Standards and accountability are exactly what the doctor ordered.

(Hat tip: Ann.)

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On the job

Click here (reg. required, sorry) if you'd like to see pictures of the Runaway Bride mowing grass as part of her community service requirement. I kid you not. Bet that newspaper photog was excited about that assignment.

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The ACLU's 30 Years War

Here's a great column on the ACLU's battle against the Boy Scouts. It also contains excerpts from President Bush's speech to the Scouts last week. Here's a good line from the President:

In the years ahead you will find that indifferent or cynical people accomplish little that makes them proud. You'll find that confronting injustice and evil requires a vision of goodness and truth. You'll find that many in your community, especially those younger than you, look to you as an example. For your sake, and for the sake of our country, I hope you'll always strive to be men of conviction and character.

Well said.

I can't wait till my kids are old enough to be Scouts. I don't agree with every one of their policies, but I sure do agree with them more than the ACLU.

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Consistency

The Star-Tribune's reader representative (read ombudsman) addresses the semantics of terror. Here she notes the paper's inconsistencies:

In July, a month riddled with terrorism, examples abounded on how inconsistent this approach makes the language in this newspaper. The bombings July 7 in London were quickly labeled terrorist attacks by the wire services. But a July 12 suicide bombing outside a Netanya, Israel, shopping mall was attributed to "Islamic Jihad militants," a group on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations. On July 13 in Baghdad, a suicide bomber drove into a crowd of children clustered around U.S. soldiers handing out candy, killing 27 and wounding 50. In the first story this was referred to as "insurgency." The first story after the July 22 attack near a Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, resort hotel where three car bombs killed 88 and injured 119 never described this act as terrorism or anything else, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions. Subsequent coverage called it terror.

Hopefully, more news outlets will join the Dallas Morning News in coming up with a consistent style in which all acts of terrorism are referred to for what they are: terrorism.

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Test scores

This is a pretty interesting interesting article from the Christian Science Monitor:

Americans cheered the latest release of the test called "the nation's report card," which showed marked long-term gains in math and reading for elementary and junior high students. But the loudest applause is due for the South, as it turns out. Largely missed in the initial hoopla was a startling fact:

Much of the national progress reported for 9- and 13-year-olds was driven by gains in the South. For example, while 9-year-olds in the Northeast gained 10 points in reading achievement (the equivalent of a grade level) over the past 30 years, the South gained 24, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). While reading scores for 13-year-olds barely budged in most of the United States, the South gained 12 points, more than a grade level.

It's vindication for a generation of Southern governors, business groups, and educators who launched the standards movement in education a decade before it was picked up by the rest of the nation.

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Polling

Yes, you can trust some polls -- just make sure you read the fine print. A good start: Look for a large sample size that truly represents the audience it purports to represent.

Under those criteria, this poll doesn't look trustworthy.

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Plame kerfluffle

Wow. Look at this. It's the Who's Who entry for Joe Wilson. There's his wife's name, Valerie Plame, right there since the late 1990s. Quite a national security leak.

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The quaint old coup

Interesting take from Dan Drezner on the decline of successful coup d'etats. Drezner notes that only two military overthrows have occurred outside of Africa in the last decade. If you think about it for a second, you should be able to recall both of them (see comments for answer).

That said, I couldn't name one coup that took place in Africa over the last decade. I guess she really is the forgotten continent.

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Iraq coverage

Interesting account of Iraq fighting at Michael Yon's firsthand blog. Check out the photos.

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Me too

This is certainly true for me:

Broadband Internet surfers in North America watch two fewer hours of television per week than do those without Internet access, while those using a dial-up connection watch 1.5 fewer hours of TV.

Channel surfing is now a foreign concept to me. But, I do waste the same countless hours surfing the news and blog sites on a daily basis.

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Profiling

Please don't call me a racist, but it's probably about time that more of our elected leaders starting saying things like this:

"The reality is that there is a group of people who want to kill us and destroy our way of life ... Young Arab fundamentalists are the individuals undertaking these acts of terror, and we should keep those facts prominently in our minds and eyes as we attempt to secure our populace."

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Admission

The NY Times editor admits a bias in his paper. In a memo (PDF link) to his staff, Bill Keller said "even sophisticated readers of The New York Times sometimes find it hard to distinguish between news coverage and commentary in our pages."

Perhaps journalists and journalism professors will take this criticism seriously. But, I doubt it.

Not surprising that this admission made little news, as noted by this blogger. The people in charge of most media outlets share the bias and therefore don't see problem.

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Blog links

A welcome development. Newsweek provides a link to blogs that comment its articles online. Nice to see old media embrace new media.

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Speaking of yellowcake

Very sloppy reporting at the NY Times regarding the whole Uranium-Niger story.

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Music downloads

Interesting article in the WSJ on why some music can't be found for digital download.

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Twinkies

Went to the bread outlet the other day and loaded up on Twinkies and Zingers. I haven't had a Twinkie in about 15 years. They are tasty.

I haven't opened the Zingers yet.

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Oh Howard

Classic. Howard Dean blames the eminent domain ruling on President Bush and his "right-wing Supreme Court." This despite the fact that Bush hasn't appointed any sitting members. He never lets the facts get in the way of a good argument.

Dean's the best thing that ever happened to the GOP. As a rule, aren't national chairmen supposed to fly under the radar? I don't even know the name of the RNC chair.

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