Peggy Noonan:

We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?

Only a very great one. Maybe the greatest of all.

Do we teach our immigrants that this is what they're joining? That this is the tradition they will now continue, and uphold?

Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No, not always, not even often. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don't want to be impolite. We don't want to offend. We don't want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas.

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Check out this guy's Web site. He's a talented photographer who does touch up work on models. Look at the model on the top row, fourth from the left.

Look at how much he changes in her appearance. No real people can compete with the beauty this artist fabricates. I'm sure many magazine models go through similar Photoshop ringers -- but unsuspecting youth don't realize that this level of beauty can only be obtained through computer wizardry.

I'll have to try to keep my daughter away from Cosmopolitan.

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The headline on this AP story in the New York Times reads: "Rise in Consumer Optimism Confounds Analysts." However, the story doesn't feature one analyst who actually expresses dismay about consumer confidence numbers.

In fact it only quotes one expert, who says, "The improvement in consumers' assessment of present-day conditions is yet another sign that the economy gained steam in early 2006 ... Consumer expectations, while improved, remain subdued and still suggest a cooling in activity in the latter half of this year."

So, where did the headline writer come up with that headline?

Perhaps the headline should have read: "Rise in Consumer Optimism Confounds NY Times' Headline Writer."

Would have been more accurate.

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The Speaker of the House sure doesn't update his blog very often.

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My boss saw Prince last week. Check it out -- she posted a short video on her blog. I never realized he was such a guitar player.

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Given late events, I thought I'd repost my comments on immigration from a month ago:

I agree that we have a huge immigration problem in this country. But I don't think it will be addressed by simply building a big fence to keep Hispanics out. I think the best solution would be to grant amnesty to all the hard-working illegals in our country and to vastly increase the number of immigrants we allow into America every year. Once they get here, we should make them American citizens, teach them English, and start taxing their paychecks. With eight million illegal immigrants already here, it's pretty clear to me that we've got plenty jobs to go around.

Still sounds good, except that now people are banndying about the number 11 million. Whatever the number, we can't just export those millions of people.

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Searching for a trip down 80s memory lane? Look no further.

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From today's WSJ:

WASHINGTON -- Amid broad congressional concern about ethics scandals, some lawmakers are poised to expand the battle for reform: They want to enact legislation that would prohibit members of Congress and their aides from trading stocks based on nonpublic information gathered on Capitol Hill."

Shouldn't that law already exist?

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Interesting column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution written by Daud Azizi, a Muslim doctor living in Georgia. He points out that the Quran doesn't demand the death of non-Christians:

As far as I know, the degree of intolerance displayed by the action of the Afghan authorities who arrested Abdul Rahman for changing his religion has no basis in the Quran.

Here are some verses from the Quran related to the subject at hand:

2:256: "Let there be no compulsion in religion."

18:29: "Say, the Truth is from your Lord. Let him who will believe and let him who will reject [it]."

Critics often say that extremist Muslims must represent all Muslims since nobody ever denounces the extremists. Well, here's a moderate Muslim who clearly doesn't subscribe to the beliefs of the extremists in Afghanistan. Perhaps more like him should speak out.

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Pretty incredible Final Four this year. I doubt many people picked UCLA, Florida, LSU and George Mason. No number one seeds made it -- the first time that's happened since the tournament was expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

And, the George Mason Patriots beat former national champs UConn to gain entry to the Final Four -- an incredible feat for a team from the Colonial Athletic Association. The coach apparently used his team's diminutive conference to his advantage:

There was also motivation from Larranaga, who fired up his team during timeouts by telling them that UConn's players didn't even know which conference George Mason is in.

"That's a little bit of disrespect," guard Tony Skinn said. "Coach told us the CAA stands for 'Connecticut Assassin Association.'"

Apparently, it worked.

Of course, my alma mater, East Carolina University, left the CAA to join a bigger, bolder conference. The brightest star in our new conference, C-USA, is surely the Memphis Tigers -- one of the four No. 1 seeds who'll be sitting at home next weekend. Sigh.

By the way, I'm gonna pull for George Mason -- after all, he was a Libertarian.

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Buck Owens has died. He was 76.

I first knew him as the guy who played guitar next to banjo-picker Roy Clark on "Hee-Haw," but he was much more than that. Owens was extremely influential in the country music scene, creating the twangy "Bakersfield sound" later emulated by Dwight Yoakum.

I had an album with some of his early country hits -- including the classic "Act Naturally" -- and they always made me smile.

And, of course, what would life have been like without "Hee-Haw?" Soupy Sales' career would have been over decades too early.

Mr. Owens, "Saaaloot."

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Article comparing the Rolls Royce to the Maybach. Not that I'll ever drive either one, but it's fun to read paragraphs like this:

The Phantom does that thing that a Rolls-Royce has to do. It's a unique skill and no other car even comes close. The term Rolls-Royce engineers have used since the 1930s is "waftability." You do not drive the Phantom. You control it and it carries you, as if gliding over the ground, around turns, in and out of traffic.

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Michael Yon's my favorite Iraq correspondent. Here's his take on the civil war debate:

There is nothing written in any holy scripture -- so far as I know -- that says Iraq cannot make it. Iraq can, but will it? Not if we don't stop quibbling over definitions and just come to grips that the fire is growing. This is not a fire we can afford to leave to natural forces. Not in that tinderbox we call the Middle East.

Seems like a good point.

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A new editor at The Economist. A Brit, of course. Certainly the coolest job in journalism.

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Duke just lost to LSU. About 54 percent of the country's March Madness brackets just became worthless. Not mine, baby. Not mine. Memphis took care of business tonight.

By the way, a loss is always a good thing for Duke and their elitist fans.

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This software exec says the days of paid software are numbered:

Software becoming is increasingly commoditized, Stein said during his keynote presentation, and more of it is available free and it is easy to get.

He cited the OpenOffice office automation package as an example of free software to replace Microsoft (Profile, Products, Articles) Office. "As the [open source] stack grows and grows and takes over more areas, there's less money available in packaged products," Stein said.
... He estimated that in five to 10 years, most software used today will be free.

Five years sounds ridiculous, but the world is certainly moving in this direction. I'm going to load OpenOffice on my laptop. I've heard it's awesome.

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Here's another number you can text message to get info. Dial 44636. I found some great Thai restaurants ealier today.

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Google's doing so many cool things, I don't think people can keep up anymore. Look at this. You can enter the text message "Pizza" and a zip code to Google, and they'll send you back the address of a pizza shop.

It works for movies too. I just text messaged GOOGL (46645) the words "Aquamarine" and 30075. In less than a minute I received three separate text messages telling me where the movie's playing in my neighborhood. Folks, that's positively freaky.

Here's a PDF cheat sheet to use the service.

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Pretty embarassing correction from the New York Times:

A front-page article last Saturday profiled Ali Shalal Qaissi, identifying him as the hooded man forced to stand on a box, attached to wires, in a photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2003 and 2004. He was shown holding such a photograph. As an article on Page A1 today makes clear, Mr. Qaissi was not that man.

The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph. Mr. Qaissi's account had already been broadcast and printed by other outlets, including PBS and Vanity Fair, without challenge. Lawyers for former prisoners at Abu Ghraib vouched for him. Human rights workers seemed to support his account. The Pentagon, asked for verification, declined to confirm or deny it.

Despite the previous reports, The Times should have been more persistent in seeking comment from the military. A more thorough examination of previous articles in The Times and other newspapers would have shown that in 2004 military investigators named another man as the one on the box, raising suspicions about Mr. Qaissi's claim.

The Times also overstated the conviction with which representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International expressed their view of whether Mr. Qaissi was the man in the photograph. While they said he could well be that man, they did not say they believed he was.

The New York Times: Run the story first, ask questions later.

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Pac-Man Fever

In searching for response to one of the comments below, I Googled "Pac Man Fever." I found this site which I perused for about 6 minutes. Having filled my brain with knowledge of this classic song, I feel that my life is complete.

Did you know that the original song was rejected by every major record label? Imagine that.

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Another sham election in the former Soviet bloc. Hopefully, this one will turn out like the last in Ukraine.

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This would be cool:

NASA, the American space agency, has unveiled plans for one of the largest rockets ever built to take a manned mission to the far side of the moon.

It will ferry a mother ship and lunar lander into Earth orbit to link up with a smaller rocket carrying the crew. Once united they will head for the moon where the larger ship will remain in orbit after launching the lunar lander and crew.

Deficit, schmeficit. Let's do it.

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I just realized that "Back to the Future" was released 21 years ago. I'm old.

But, that Huey Lewis theme song, "The Power of Love," never gets old.

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As you recall, I bought a stock a few months back because the CEO impressed me when he came to speak to my MBA class. A couple of weeks later that CEO was fired. Since that time, the stock has nearly doubled. Funny how things work out.

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Funny article about an Volkswagen ad campaign featuring the word "cajones." Apparently, some Spanish speakers were not amused.

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I'm running the office pool at my new job -- not sure if that reflects on me positively or negatively. I found a piece of software that runs the management of the pool for you, but I still have to enter the data. With 18 entrants, it's a time-consuming task.

Kind of fun to see the picks that everyone made. One poor soul picked Nevada to make it to the championship game. Oops.

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Had a long day today. Went to work and then drove to Athens to take my comps for my masters thesis. It went pretty well.

Here's an interesting article from my mole at CBS News about how partisans interpret the news:

To rape and pillage fine science with rough paraphrasing, this is what they discovered: When 30 self-described partisans were presented with contradictory quotes about the candidates (President Bush supporting, then denouncing Ken Lay; Sen. John Kerry supporting, then denouncing a Social Security overhaul), it was the portions of the brain that process emotion, not rational thinking, that became active. "The thinking caps went off and the feeling caps went on," is how Westen put it to me.

I've been slowly coming to this same conclusion. I see little reason to debate anyone anymore -- at least I get to vote.

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Turns out those blogs that were shut down by the Chinese government last week were actually shut down by their authors. They said they wanted to make a point about how the media reported on China:

Within hours, English-language bloggers and Western news media spread the word that the Chinese government had closed the sites. The BBC news service reported that Massage Milk was "closed down by the authorities," adding that the act had coincided with the annual session of the Chinese legislature. Picking up on that report and others from news services, French free-press group Reporters Without Borders issued a statement condemning the closure of the blogs.

Yep, just another case of the media printing as fact a ginormous assumption.

That said, this guy makes a good point:

"If some bloggers start crying wolf this way ... nobody will listen to us when we try to support those who really need help. Censorship exists, as well as repression against Internet writers."

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I've been noticing the term "creative destruction" a lot recently. Had to look it up in wikipedia. Apparently its been around since the 40s but is pretty applicable today.

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Yeah, goodie bags for birthday party guests are a waste of time.

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Fantastic article from businesses on the evolution of our economy. Here's a good bit:

But the structure of the U.S. economy has changed dramatically. In 1959, when the Standard & Poor's 500 began, 7.2% of U.S. workers were still employed in the agricultural sector, and 28.7% of nonfarm employees were in manufacturing. In 2005, those percentages had dropped to 1.4% and 10.7%, respectively. Education and health care has risen to 13.0% of employment, from 5.3%, while professional and business services have jumped to 12.9%, from 6.7%.

The difference can also be seen by looking at the largest companies in the U.S. In 1959, the list was dominated by big manufacturers. Today, the service sector dominates. The table shows the largest 10 companies (excluding those in oil) by market capitalization in 1959 and 2005. Only one outfit remains on the list from 1959: General Electric (GE ). In 1959, there were no financial firms in the top 10; today, there are three. Five of the top firms did not even exist in 1959, at least in a similar form.

There's a treasure trove of information in those paragraphs. Suffice it to say that our economy heavily tilts toward information and service -- not manufacturing. That's why I can't get up in arms about trade deficits, Chinese imports, and free trade agreements.

Check out the Top 10 list of largest companies at the bottom. Pretty fascinating. General Electric is a constant, of course. But General Motors, Dupont, Union Carbide and two steel companies are gone. Microsoft, Bank of America and Wal-Mart took their place. Imagine that.

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Browse USA Today's Web site for a few minutes. Think the boys in marketing got a little carried away with the online ads. I'm sure their readership will drop after readers get a whiff of these intrusive advertisements. It's like being inside "Blade Runner."

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The engineers at British Rail apparently had a little extra time on their hands. So, they patented a flying saucer in the 70s. It uses fusion technology.

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Another good obituary from the Economist. This one's on Hartmut Mehdorn, the man who privatized Germany's railroads. Betcha never heard of him.

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This Economist piece on the fusion thingee is a little more readable.

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Cool article on a new theory regarding dark energy, the enigmatic matter that explains the accelerating universe. According to these scientists, black holes may not exist at all:

Black hole expert Marek Abramowicz at Gothenburg University in Sweden agrees that the idea of dark energy stars is worth pursuing. "We really don't have proof that black holes exist," he says. "This is a very interesting alternative."

Of course, this development would further invalidate this film.

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Check out this cool Ninja for Hire video. The most original resume I've ever seen.

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I've been hearing about the potential of fusion power every since I was a kid. And not just that cold fusion fiasco, but the idea that one day we would harness atomic fusion ("The power of the sun!") and live in utopia off nearly free, unlimited energy. Well, this eminent scientist says after 40 years of trying, we should probably give up.

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Video of a creepy, buglike robot climbing up a tree.

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Read the new post from Bad News Hughes.

I also loved to discuss "Doctor Who" as a child. And I was also a Webelo -- the odd, one-year stage between Cub Scout and Boy Scout. According to my recollection, Webelo stands for "We Belong" -- although I really didn't. My strongest memory from Scout camping (apart from the camp counselor who liked to "tickle" one of the older scouts in his tent) was a kid who caught a frog and cooked him on a stick over a fire -- "Mmm, tastes just like chicken."

Speaking of "Doctor Who," the latest version of the series is arriving on SciFi Channel later this month. I'm embarrassed to admit how excited I am.

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Taking a little time off from the ole blog. Saw the Queen show in Jacksonville last night. It was awesome. Will see it again tomorrow in Atlanta.

Should return to blogging on Wednesday.

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There's no such thing as dynamite in the world of rock, paper, scissors. Here's proof.

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Never knew that children's author Roald Dahl invented the Gremlin -- the michevious critter that tears up airplanes, not the car.

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Welcome news:

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into online music pricing at the world's major music labels, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

I'm not in favor of the heavy hand of government getting involved in everything, but this seems to be a case where something needs to be done.

After all, it's certainly suspicious that every song you can buy online costs 99 cents. If you buy 12 songs, that's $12 -- exactly what you pay if you buy the CD at the store. Of course, then you get a real CD, a case, printed liner notes, and delivery from a warehouse.

Perhaps the songs I buy online should be a little cheaper.

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Seems some Nazi cryto-messages were never decoded -- until now.

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Here's more from Peggy Noonan regarding airport security and our increasingly less-virtuous society.

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William F. Buckley Jr. saying we've lost the effort in Iraq appears to be a pretty big blow. I'm not sure I agree with him, but the column's a good read. His point seems to be that exporting democracy is still a good idea, even if it hasn't gone too well in Iraq.

I'm not so sure that Iraq isn't going just fine. After all, there's no civil war yet. Perhaps this is the tipping point.

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In an article about Saddam's trial, I welcome this bit:

In contrast to the outbursts, insults and arguments that characterized past proceedings, the defendants listened silently as the documents were shown. When they wanted to make a point, they raised their hands, and Abdel-Rahman often told them to wait, then let them speak later.

I don't know what joker was running the last trial, but this guy's doing a much better job. Saddam looks much more guilty trying to argue that these executions were legal -- part of the normal checks and balances of a fully functional govnernment.

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Here's a pretty dire warning regarding cell phone use on airplanes:

[D]evices like cell phones 'will, in all likelihood, someday cause an accident by interfering with critical cockpit instruments such as GPS receivers.'

And I always thought it was bunk.

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