Rosemary and Dean have some news.

We hope they are going to register online, and set up a P.O. Box for us to send presents to. Another suggestion that was made: a week-long virtual baby shower.

This won't be the first baby born into a blogging family, but it might end up being the one most spoiled by the blogosphere.

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I eased into the Siggraph thing today; this is the luxury of living in L.A., where it's being held this year.

Drove downtown in the afternoon to get my badge and attend the "Electronic Theater," which is basically a few hours worth of promo reels from the best computer graphics houses in the world—some very artsy stuff mixed in with special effects done for Lord of the Rings, Van Helsing, and the Harry Potter movies.

Last year in San Diego I wandered around with my friend Scanmaster, looking for my other friends, who were elusive. This time I found most of them the first day. As I chatted with Scanmaster's wife, the Punk Poetess, Mr. Mathematics came up and joined us. A few minutes later Professor Fractal emerged from the crowd with some of his students in tow. ("Are these your diciples?" I asked him a little later.)

The Electronic Theater was stunning, though a little long. One highlight came at the beginning, when large inflated oversized silver-matte "beach balls" were released into the audience. We eventually figured out that we were part of an interactive game in which we had to aim the balls toward certain points at the periphery of the theater in order to "win." This required some thought, and cooperation among audience members. But we eventually mastered it, and won a round or two of the game before it was on to the conventional film clips. Despite getting hit on the head once by one of these things (and thereby flashing back to P.E. in grade school), I honestly really got into this game by the time it was over. It was fun: I applauded as loudly as anyone when we won.

I'll be back there tomorrow night for a party, and I'll hit the exhibits on Wednesday and/or Thursday. Art is good, and it's great to be alive.

By the way: God bless capitalism, and—more than that—God bless those visionaries who funded the computer graphics industry back when it wasn't making a dime. We must all realize that places like Pixar were doing cutting-edge films back in the 80s before they ever saw any income from this. Even Disney, much as I love to hate it, put a lot of money into R&D in this field in the 80s. Before Terminator II made it finally look profitable, there were a lot of guys spending a lot of time making shapes rotate on black-background screens, or creating programs that made explosions that resembled plants—and vice versa.

Thank you, Gentlemen, for creating a whole industry and bringing movie special effects to a new level. Thank you, long-term R&D.

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Is back, and badder than ever.

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Discusses the slippery slope of addiction:

I went to Amy's Ice Cream in the shopping plaza where Cabo's used to be and picked up two random pints and a cup of Dark Velvet.

At first, I used to reward myself with Amy's when I was really good.

Then, I rewarded myself when I was good.

After that, I switched to when I wasn't bad.

Now, it's when nobody faults me for my evils.

Sure, I may have gotten worse over the years, but Amy's ice cream hasn't.

For some of us, these matters have turned into "whenever I can get my hands on it." Of course, that may explain why that extra ten pounds won't go away, but I don't want to talk about it.

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Via Kathy Kinsley comes this FrontPageMag piece about the unholy alliance between paleoconservatives and some elements of the antiwar left. (There's a faintly antisemitic smell to their joint projects, as you might imagine.)

Left or right, this is something you need to know about.

UPDATE: The phrase "some elements of" added above to make it clear that I don't think every opponent of the war is complicit in these shenanigans.

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I missed Lileks on Friday, but I'm making up for it now. He discusses what it's like to be his age—my age—with Vietnam potent only in an iconic way:

It was a Symbol and a Warning – a reminder of American failings, not American failure. It was a template, too; every war was seen through the terms of Vietnam, which for us meant THE DRAFT, the ultimate mellow-harsher. Most of my reflexive anti-militarism of the early 80s came not from any deep-seated conviction about the ethics of force, but from a desire to stay in coffeehouses smoking cigarettes and reading books as long as I wanted to. It was selfish and cowardly, but I had a vast body of literature and philosophy to help me convince myself otherwise. As the 80s wore on Vietnam receded in my mind, replaced by fear of nuclear war. That prospect had been a specific terror since I was ten, and I knew it intimately. That one I felt in my gut. Vietnam was a hand-me-down.

Revisiting Vietnam in 2004 seems about as useful as debating the Phillippines war while the troop ships are sending Doughboys to the trenches in France. We have more pressing issues, I think. The news today noted that the men arrested at the Albany mosque were fingered by some documents found at Al-Ansar sites in Iraq, of all places. Iraq! Imagine that. I would sleep better if I could snort sure, itÂ’s a plant and tell myself that itÂ’s all made up, itÂ’s all a joke, a phony show designed to make us look the other way while a cackling cabal of Masons and Zionists figure out how much arsenic they can put in the water next year. (Arsenic: the fluoride of the left.) But no. I am one of those sad little pinheads who think itÂ’s really one war, one foe, with a thousand fronts. And I want us to win.

I do wonder sometimes how much easier life would be if I were like most of my friends, if I could convince myself we weren't locked in a mortal struggle with people who want us to die—not because of anything we did, but because of what we are. But it's not about what's convenient to believe. It's about what's true.

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I should probably just take the Site Meter off this page entirely; it's turned into a caricature of itself. It's one thing that it under-measures traffic, but I've always hoped it under-measured everyone at the same rate, so at least we can use it for comparisons.

But this is just beyond the pale: my numbers are now going backward. A few days ago I reached the 20,000-hit mark. These things are relative, of course, but that's a nice little landmark for a tiny blog. As of yesterday, however, the Site Meter had actually gone backward, so I'm now supposedly back below the 19,000 visits. Several hundred unique visits just vanished. Amazing.

And then there is the matter of the Ecosystem, which still has me at the old Blogspot site. I've sent N.Z. Bear two e-mails, as well as "going through channels" and sending him the updated information through the Ecosystem. It's been over a month, and the link is still incorrect.

If there's someone out there who either ranks higher-than-mammal or has a personal rapport with him, that would be great; I'd like to get that changed, but he has to open my e-mail first.

And if someone has a hit meter that's actually accurate, let me know. I feel like I'm running in sand, here.

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Whaddya know? George W. Bush has a blog now; check it out. (Make sure to read the sample blog page included: the nuclear launch code segment is priceless.)

Via Baldilocks.

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I saw The Manchurian Candidate. I knew what they were trying to do, but it didn't bother me too much.

What really disturbed, me, though, was the Meryl Streep character. She's obviously someone with a lot to give who has been stepped on in her life. She's essentially misunderstood by most of those around her. It was such a shame to see people react to this sensitive, caring individual as if there were something odd about having ambitions for one's child--as if everyone doesn't have aspirations they'd like their children to fulfill.

And having your own son fail to appreciate you: that must hurt. She's obviously one of those tragic figures who suffer in silence.

I guess I really related to her myself--so sensiitve, so brilliant. So ignored by those who could do so much good if they'd only fall in line. There's tremendous pathos here.

But that's great art--the story of this unfortunate woman whose genius is ahead of her time.

Like mine.

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Scrappleface outdoes himself on this one. I won't quote it, since I can't do it justice.

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Baldilocks knows what it is:

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McQ of QandO gives us the story on what Kerry was doing during the time he now feels Bush should have sprung into action, donning his tights and cape, ready to fight evil.

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Bill at InDC lays out a spirited defense of Smirky McHalliburton.

(h/t: protein wisdom)

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He gives us another "real-time empirical observation":

As you read this post, the DNC is drawing up the paperwork for a legal challenge to “right turn on red” laws in a number of key swing states.  Lawyers for the DNC will argue that principalities allowing right turns on red “are creating an unfair advantage for the Republican party by rewarding motorists who turn right.” Because the DNC, as everyone knows, has lost its motherfucking mind.

Now go read his entire main page, which is pure gold. (Or pure Goldstein.)

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Blackfive has the transcript of the TV confrontation between the two men who are arguing about Kerry's Bronze star, and what happened that day in 1969. Good discussion in the comments section (as always, skip past the trolls).

The Swifties are definitely losing some credibility. However, there is a lot of real rage at John Kerry among Vietnam veterans who feel that he betrayed the cause by coming home and agitating against the war. Many feel strongly that he is lying in his allegations of widespread war crimes by Americans.

So this schism between Kerry and most members of the military is not going to go away, irrespective of whether the Swifties are telling the truth.

And we're still waiting to see Kerry's medical records; a lot of people are having trouble wrapping their minds around the fact that this guy bailed out after 120 days or whatever, without having sustained severe wounds. (The "musta been a papercut" allegation.)

Live by your service, die by your service. Kerry opened himself up to this.

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This is turning into a "he said, they said" kind of situation. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth strongly dispute Kerry's accounts of how he got decorated in Viet Nam. And they appear credible. The catch?—some claim none of these men were actually on Kerry's boat at all. For that reason alone, I'd like to see more from the guys who were actually at Kerry's side. And not those two men who are part of the Kerry campaign, either.

John McCain is furious about the new Swift Boat Vets ad—viewable on the first page of the link above—and says it's untruthful. However: 1) McCain has also asked, in the past, that everyone shut up about Viet Nam, and the Kerry supporters have done no such thing; 2) McCain is, after all, the architect behind Campaign Finance Reform, and clearly isn't any bigger on the first amendment than he is on the second. And these "issue ads" are now a lot more important to the campaigns than they used to be before Campaign Finance muzzled the political parties. This is one unintended consequence of McCain-Feingold. Furthermore, 3) McCain wasn't there. He is a true hero, and he may be inclined to assume Kerry was cut from the same cloth when it isn't so.

The fact is, if Kerry wants to put to rest the speculation about how he might have gotten the wounds that led to his Purple Hearts, he should release his medical records. Until that happens, we only know that they were minor injuries that he himself submitted requests for Purple Hearts for. And we know that once he had accumulated three, he used a little-known clause to end his tour of duty after serving only three months. Heroic? Hardly.

Once he got back, he talked about having participated in war atrocities, which—if they happened—he should have reported at the time. Clearly, either he was lying, or he's a war criminal. Yet no one is asking about these things. Our little Old Media friends are asleep at the switch.

(Thanks to the Commissar for the McCain reaction story.)

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Bill at INDC mentions the Wall of China separating the Democratic Party from reasonable discourse. Its name, of course, is Michael Moore.

If for nothing else, the post summarizes very quickly the case that Moore shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone (much less a former Head of State), and features a lively comment section that includes reasonable discussion a lot of the time: it's a blogger's wet dream.

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Dean Esmay points us to one online petition that everyone should sign. This is an issue that is close to most of our hearts—whether we're male or female, black or white, right or left. Please—help out now.

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The Commissar has once again rounded up the gang. It's the bloggy equivalent of dropping by the diner for a hamburger and dropping a nickel in the jukebox: a good time will be had by all.

Timeless Commissar satire.

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I'll be past the 20,000-hit mark within the week—heck, with my current enhanced traffic, it'll only be a few days. The time that elapses between these watersheds gets shorter and shorter. I know 20,000 doesn't sound like a lot to some of you, but it's all relative. And for a small-time blogger who's only been at this for 16 months, it's a fine thing indeed: I remember when I was getting maybe six hits a day—all from people I knew—and now it's better than ten times that, and growing by leaps and bounds.

Now if I could only get N.Z. Bear to update the link for Little Miss Attila so it goes to this site, rather than the old Blogspot one, I'd be a happy camper.

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