November 30, 2004
The main market is clearly going to be developing countries, but since this is a non-upgradeable, "disposable" machine, it would also be terrific as a kid's first computer, or as one to present your mother-in-law with, having established that she only needs to get her e-mail and write an occasional letter.
And it's green! It uses very little energy for what it accomplishes. Don't tell the other Republicans, but I have a soft spot in my heart for things like that: I also own hemp clothing, and fantasize about Light Rail actually being a viable approach to public transportatation. Sick, sick, sick.
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November 29, 2004
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Pray for freedom, democracy—and the safety of the protesters on both sides.
(Orange image via Dean Esmay, who got it from Secular Blasphemy. Please also see Le Sabot Post-Moderne, Tulip Girl, Daniel W. Drezner, and Chrenkoff, all of whom are updating regularly on the situation.)
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November 28, 2004
Blogger Melanie Phillips compares this to other subjects that have declined in Britain, including the study of languages. (Of course, I'm from the U.S., where we don't study other languages because we so often don't have to: other than Spanish in the South and French in the North/South, there's just nothing but English as far as the eye can see. [Look at a map: living in Europe would be like if I needed to learn another language to visit Nevada or Colorado. We're just spoiled here, for better and worse.])
Professor Purkinje, let me know just how things look from Cambridge: is it as bad as the News.Telegraph suggests? Will the Ghosts of Science's Past fight the trend? Phone home.
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November 27, 2004
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(2004-11-27) -- Inspired by a public pledge from Ukrainian TV journalists to provide unbiased reporting from now on, CBS News has launched an internal investigation to assess the potential impact of such a move."If it tests well in our focus groups, you can bet that Dan Rather will break the story," said an unnamed spokesman for CBS.
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"It is," my husband point out, " an organization responsible to itself."
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November 26, 2004
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Bridget Johnson wonders why there has been no outcry from the Hollywood crowd against the murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by Islamic terrorists. Just off the top of my head I’d say that unlike disgruntled Christians, Republicans, and law-abiding gun owners, Islamic terrorists will actually kill you if you piss them off, and for all their spouting about “free speech” and the “chilling effect” on Tinseltown of four more years of Bushitler, actors and screenwriters and so on are simply afraid of dying. Of course since their mere existence has already pegged them in fanatical Muslim eyes for the Big Sleep they are in a sense living on borrowed time, so the only solution to Hollywood’s buttheaded insular assurance that Appeasement Is the Only Way is to sit back and wait for the killings to begin. After a few big name celebrities are sent to kingdom come by exploding limosines and the like maybe we’ll see some changes in perspective.Nah. They’ll just screech that it’s all Hitler McChimpy’s fault for not protecting them better. They’re hopeless.
So there's two depressing thoughts in a row.
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November 25, 2004
There have been a number of stories in the news this year about schools that have banned any reference to God in connection with Thanksgiving. Which raises, obviously, the question: to whom are we giving thanks, if not to God? I think the real answer, although always unspoken, is that instead of being thankful to God for our blessings, some would have us be thankful to the government.In the end--and the end may be quite far off, for, as Adam Smith said, there is a lot of ruin in a country--there are only two alternatives for any nation: religious faith and tyranny. Because if each individual is not, as the Declaration says, endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights, then those rights are only the creation of governments. And what governments give, they can, and surely will, take away.
In the end, it is only the religious belief that each person, by virtue of being created in the image of God, is of transcendant value that stands between all of us and the boot heel of tyranny. Absent such belief, people are but cattle and, sooner or later, will be treated as such.
That dramatic broad statement—that it's religious faith or tyranny for a country or a society—is actually worth pondering. I know that some of my favorite bloggers who are slightly right-of-center are athiests, and if anything that strengthens those of us who do have a belief in God; it certainly keeps us honest in any number of debates. But our nation's founding documents posit that rights come from God, not man. And for that reason no one is in a position to take them away. It gives us moral authority to defend rights that already exist, rather than demanding ones that are the state's to withhold or dispense at its whim.
Not a preachy bit of fluff, after all. Some of my favorite thinkers are still athiests, but it's nice to be reminded that they don't always win the intellectual arm-wrestling. Not by a long shot.
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I'm thankful to inventors, who gave me air travel, my reliable car, electric lights (essential for insomniacs), and my beloved internet, "contained" at present in my 12" PowerBook.
I'm grateful beyond words to the men and women who are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, putting themselves at risk to so that it will be less likely that a bomb will go off at Sears Tower or LAX. I'm grateful to the Marines in Fallujah.
I'm grateful to my parents, for instilling curiosity in me, along with a rudimentary notion of fairness, and for all the books and sketchpads that flowed like water when I was a kid.
I'm grateful to live in a peaceful part of the world, in a tree-filled lot that provides glimpses of the San Gabriels (soon to be covered in snow).
I'm grateful to Los Angeles, that petri dish for ideas and imagery; I'm grateful to live in such a concentration of creativity and intellect.
And I'm grateful to my husband, who keeps the rats out of the attic, makes me laugh daily, almost never loses his temper, cherises me, protects me and always sees the good in me—even when I'm in danger of losing track of it myself. He's an amazing guy, and I'm lucky, lucky, lucky.
Let's do this more than once a year, okay?
Have a terrific Thanksgiving; enjoy your family/friends. Eat a nice meal and reflect, this evening, on how good you have it.
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November 23, 2004
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I'd like to think my strategies would be slightly less self-defeating. If I die in the line of duty, do I get 72 young bucks with nice shoulders and chiseled biceps? Will they peel grapes for me when I need to take a break for a few minutes? Will they share like good boys?
I must admit that I'm very excited by the Muslim innovation of envisioning heaven as a place to experience the pleasures of the flesh. I'm assuming there's a large-screen TV there, and that they play the classics (e.g., The Devil in Miss Jones). And that there's lots of lube. And Kleenex. And bottled water on every bedside table (I know I'm always thirsty afterward).
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November 21, 2004
How many of them are there? I'm crushed. And Juliette and I are friends; I just can't believe . . . you bounder.
Yours,
Little Miss Attila
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Micheal would love to see him as the GOP nominee in '08—enough to register GOP and vote in the primaries.
I still like Condi, because I think she'd energize the Republican base a little bit better. OTOH, Giuliani comes with automatic crossover (and crossdressing) appeal.
That would be a tough choice for me, really, if they both ran in the primary. Very tough. Michael:
James Dobson, Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Fallwell would finally, at long last, get the political nightmare they've deserved for a long time - a cosmopolitan socially liberal Republican president. IÂ’d love to see them form their own party where they can talk to themselves about how godless, decadent, and depraved everyone else is.
Yes. Ditto.
Giuliani is neither red nor blue. HeÂ’s purple, like most of America. I canÂ’t think of anyone (except perhaps for Barack Obama or John McCain) who would be better able to rally the country. Unlike George W. Bush he really is a uniter.
I'm not sure whether Bush's failure to "unite" the country has everything to do with his policies or actions; some of it is just the fact that he's continually demonized.
And John McCain? He never met a civil liberty he didn't want to abridge. If he were running I'd break my arm to make sure I didn't vote for him by accident. Between his temperament and his troubled relationship with the Bill of Rights, he's got to be the worst possible choice. I'd rather vote for a roast beef sandwich.
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They don't have a separate category for "gun chicks." Or "GOP femmes." Nor "warmongering from the distaff side."
So someone will have to just nominate me for either best conservative or best essayist.
Or, you know: not. That's fine, too.
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The President intervening in an altercation between his own security detail and that of the Chileans. He pulled his primary agent away from the fracas and into the dinner being held for world leaders.
Normally, the President must have two Secret Service agents near him at all times, but in this instance the second agent had been whisked away and was being manhandled (to which he did not, apparently, react). But the primary agent, whom the President likes a great deal, was fished out of the crowd and pulled along.
(Trying hard to imagine a President Kerry rescuing one of his Secret Service agents.)
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November 20, 2004
It's unclear from the reporting whether this is a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good or rather it was a wise avoidance of a hastily-considered bill. Clearly, the idea of merging all intelligence functions, including tactical level military intelligence, under a single civilian head was a bad recommendation. The 9-11 Commission had numerous big names on it, but few of them had any expertise in intelligence matters.
I second that emotion; however, I kind of get the impression that there were two threads of opposition, and one was reasonably principled/appropriate. The other . . . hm.
WaPo:
The sidetracked bill would have created a director of national intelligence and a counterterrorism center, along with scores of other changes to the nation's approach to gathering intelligence and battling terrorism. The measure would have given the new intelligence chief authority to set priorities for the Central Intelligence Agency and 14 other agencies that gather intelligence, including several at the Defense Department. Hastert refused to call the proposal dead, saying Congress may reconvene Dec. 6 to try again, although lawmakers had planned to close out the 108th Congress this weekend.Even some key Republicans, however, said prospects appear slim for producing a compromise that the House and Senate can pass. "I don't now see a process for which we can get this done in the next few weeks," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee and the House's top GOP negotiator.
Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the committee's top Democrat, said, "I think those who are vehemently opposed are not going to come around." She said it is up to Bush, Hastert and other GOP leaders to overcome the House conservatives' resistance. If a bill is not enacted by year's end, efforts would have to start anew in the 109th Congress that convenes in January.
I hope the legislators who blocked this bill—which, keep in mind, might have passed had it simply been voted on—feel really good about themselves if we have a terrorist attack in February of 2005.
Hastert said the two chief opponents to the compromise were House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.). They persuaded scores of GOP colleagues to join their opposition in a sometimes emotional closed-door meeting of House Republicans. There, in a Capitol basement room, Hastert tried in vain to find enough votes to pass the bill without relying mainly on Democrats, a scenario too embarrassing for Republicans to endure. His failure seemed to stun many lawmakers, and some Democrats denounced the GOP for being unable to deliver a high-profile measure backed by a Republican president.
Is it starting to sound like "laws and sausages" yet? Keep going:
Hunter said he opposed the bill because Senate conferees had removed a White House-drafted section ensuring that tactical or battlefield intelligence agencies would still be primarily directed by the secretary of defense, even as they reported to the new national intelligence director. The compromise called for the president to issue "guidelines" on the respective authorities of the director of national intelligence and defense secretary, which Hunter said, "was elevating for the DNI but detrimental to the defense secretary . . . a change that would make war fighters not sure to whom they report and translate into confusion on the battlefield."Collins called Hunter's argument "utterly without merit," saying the measure actually would improve the real-time satellite intelligence that troops receive in combat. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), another key negotiator, said: "The commander in chief, in the middle of a war, said he needed this bill" to keep the American people and military safe.
Hunter's opposition—in a point James hinted at at OTB—at least appears reasoned in the sense that there must be some instances wherein information should be confined to the Pentagon initially, before being shared with civilian analysts (without even getting started on the fact that the current incarnation of the CIA is leaking like a damned colandar).
And then there are those who appear to be 100% obstructionist, linking intelligence issues to immigration, which should be a whole 'nother debate. Wisconsin voters, please write letters to this guy, and never mind whether you're in his district or not (matter of fact, I may write one myself):
The past two days of negotiations were spent almost entirely on the immigration issues raised by Sensenbrenner, with the Judiciary Committee chairman often accepting proposals, then returning after consulting with colleagues with demands for new changes, sources said. At one point, the Senate staff by mistake offered language for one section that had been submitted by Sensenbrenner, and he returned it, saying it was not good enough, according to one participant.
What an idiot. A dangerous idiot. Please, please—someone spank this man.
Meanwhile, some Democrats have forgotten that the point of all we've been through since 9/11 has to do with our country being under attack:
Democrats ripped into House Republicans for blocking the bill. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that "their inability to overhaul our intelligence system is a staggering failure." Harman called it "a tragedy for America." Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that "the Republican leadership had a choice between protecting the security of the American people and placating its extreme right wingers. The American people lost, and the extreme right won."
Harmon's remark seems reasonable enough, but Pelosi and Van Hollen appear to think any day is a beautiful day for scoring points off of national security.
I'd love to see military intel stay under the control of the military. But marrying intelligence concerns to immigration is foolish and destructive.
And now the possibility exists that President Bush will have to limp along, doing what he can via Executive Orders, and that getting the situation fixed will have to wait till next year.
Would someone remind these people that, had Flight 93 not been delayed by 45 minutes on the morning of September 11, 2001, they would most likely not have a Capitol building at all to meet in and play their political games?
If these people break for Christmas without resolving this I'm going to be pretty pissed off.
Lean on them.
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