October 2003 Archives

A lovely treatise on the power of positive-sphincking.

One more Halloween Post:

Jack Chick does Halloween. For all you Chick Tract fans out there.

Good thing I'm Jewish and don't believe in Satan. He looks mighty scary here.

Found on the robot filter.

Sydney

Toy gun shuts down U.S. House office building

The incident began shortly after 1 p.m. when U.S. Capitol police noticed an image of what appeared to be a .38-caliber revolver on an X-ray machine at the building's south entrance.

Police notified employees in the building that they were searching for a man and a woman who breached security. They said a man grabbed a backpack and ran off after the apparent revolver was detected.

After learning of the incident, two women who work in the office of Rep. John Shimkus, R-Illinois, came forward. Shimkus' office notified Capitol Police, according to a statement released by his office.

The women had placed bags containing Halloween costumes through the X-ray machine, U.S. Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer told reporters shortly before 3 p.m.

The clothing and prop that triggered the situation was a costume of "Sydney," the character Jennifer Garner plays in ABC's "Alias."

Passenger's trunk sets off bomb scare: Wanted to look like 'Ghostbusters' characters

Items packed in a steamer trunk -- intended for Halloween costumes, said the trunk's owner -- set off airport explosive detection systems Thursday, causing a bomb scare and delays for passengers at West Palm Beach Airport in Florida.

The steamer trunk was one of two pieces of luggage passenger Eric Valleca, a 28-year-old Florida resident, checked on a United flight from West Palm Beach to Chicago, airport officials said.

Officials said the trunk set off the alarm, and X-rays showed several suspicious items, including radios, distributor caps attached to wires, batteries, PVC pipe painted black, stereo speakers and an alarm clock.

Officials initially considered blowing the trunk up, but sent in a robot to take a closer look first.

A Mechanical Farting Dog.

Happy Halloween everyone!

It turns out that the latest critic of Ariel Sharon's Palestinian policies is ... (drumroll please) ... the Israeli army chief .

[blatantly out of context excerpts below]

The chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces has added his voice to those criticizing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's hard-line policies for dealing with the Palestinians.

In a "background" briefing given to three of Israel's top political commentators, General Yaalon sought to describe an ongoing debate within Israel's military establishment over how to handle the conflict.

According to Nahum Barnea's account in the Wednesday edition of Yedioth Ahronoth, Yaalon said many officers favored easing a strict "closure" on the Palestinian territories because the restrictions ultimately exacerbate tensions

Yaalon also outlined the frustration that many senior officers apparently feel about the government's policy toward former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Abbas stepped down in early September, saying he had been undermined by Israel and the government's call for the removal of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, which has served to reinforce the Palestinian leader's popularity among his people. The chief of staff also relayed criticism of the route planned for the "security barrier," which Israel is building to prevent terrorist attacks by walling in the Palestinians.

In Thursday's coverage of the controversy, military officers were quoted supporting Yaalon's view. "Yaalon felt a public duty to warn and to bring to the public's attention the sense that many commanders feel, which is that the IDF is putting the Palestinian people into a pressure cooker that is liable to blow up in our face," said one unnamed officer quoted in the Maariv daily.

Professor Van Creveld, author of a history of Israel's military, says Yaalon was not necessarily out of line in sharing his views. "I would be inclined to think it is rather the duty of the chief of staff to speak out," he says. "I'm a bit disappointed that he's done it only now."

[p.s. what's with LGF anyway ? They make Fox News look Fair and Balanced, and the last time I read it, it was nothing but radio call-in show style vitriol. I saw one article where people claimed that Jews were prohibited from getting security clearances in the US government (?!?). They love Boykin there, but ignore the fact that he thinks of America as a Christian nation. Basically, they think that Islam is the enemy and that any muslim is inherently a traitor. Sorry, I'm not going back to get the links to link this properly, I don't want to look at it any more.]

National Beard Registry

You may have wondered what idiots in the Fox legal department could have possibly allowed the filing of the amazingly stupid lawsuit against Al Franken's "Liars" book. But you would be unkind to wonder such a thing. After all, they have their hands full killing even stupider lawsuits. For example, how about the time Rupert Murdoch wanted to sue himself?

Read it

I spent the next several hours believing I was actually going to jail. I knew this nation's draconian drug laws, and worse yet, the jocular, simian photo of George W. Bush was hanging on the wall of the customs lobby, lurching over me with his moron eyes. I looked at him and thought, 'you have done more blow than I will ever see in my lifetime, yet I am going to jail because I have kidney stones.'

Not to be outdone by Ennis, who's said that he thought this blog didn't have enough Farrelly Brothers style toilet humor and informed us all of the Colossal Colon Tour, I bring you -- Farts in the News!

Last January, right after the blogosphere laid Lott low, Ish turned its collective attention to fellow Mississippian Judge Charles Pickering. In these very pages he was called an "evil Maestro" and, more damning, "a little hard to deal with." So now Nat Hentoff at the Voice sticks up for Pickering, saying the case that has caused the most furor -- a cross-burning case -- isn't as bad as Pickering's opponents make it out to be. This is the 2nd of 3 articles by Hentoff on this subject; clearly he thinks Pickering's been railroaded. What do you think?

If you've ever wondered how to get a lot of hits on your blog, look at blogdex, the daily index of what bloggers are linking to. Certain themes come up again and again. This story hits the blogdex trifecta: Microsoft-is-evil, MS-vs-Mac, and blogging itself. All it needs is for the RIAA to be suing this poor guy for sharing an MP3 that reveals information about a conspiracy behind the 9/11 attacks. And something about a new iPod.

Just another blog listing thing. Pay no attention.

Aiv loopemem.

The last of the League. Mr. Hyde turns out to be the most interesting character of this series. It's sort of a shame that Moore's ended the series, which was vastly fun. Maybe he'll write about the earlier incarnation of the League, with Lemuel Gulliver, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Doctor Syn, Fanny Hill, and Natty Bumppo?

We all knew this was a factor but it's easy to forget how large a constituency white evangelicals are for Bush:

"white evangelicals accounted for about 40 percent of the votes that Mr. Bush received in the 2000 presidential election. In 2004, political analysts say, he is unlikely to be re-elected without the strong support of this constituency, which is predominately but not wholly Republican, and which in other years has thrown significant support to southern Democrats like Bill Clinton. Mr. Rove is now tending to the constituency with great care." [NYT on evangelicals and human rights in foreign policy]

So now, when you do a search on Amazon, you're not only searching titles, keywords, authors, etc., but the actual text of 120,000 books. For instance, search on "everett lane" and you'll find my name referenced in the acknowledgements of The Harvard Business School Guide to Careers in the Nonprofit Sector. (Also on page 660 of The Healthy Living Space: 70 Practical Ways to Detoxify the Body and Home -- apparently there's an Everett Lane in Mokena, IL, home of the Pure-Pro USA Corporation). There's a Wired article on it here. For some reason, the "Amazon Light" search tool (over there on the right -- see?) doesn't have this functionality yet, but we'll see if it gets upgraded.

They've just created the single largest searchable text index ever. Now that's cool.

I can't believe no one has yet mentioned the appalling situation in Florida, where a vegetative woman's feeding tube was removed after a court found that she would have wanted to die (although she had no living will) but was then restored after Jeb Bush and the Legislature passed a law, tailored to this specific case, which allowed Bush to order the feeding resumed. The religious right is calling this obviously unconstitutional maneuver a victory over the tyranny of the courts. I don't know what to think about this one, except that I feel sorry for the woman.

Who wants to go to the Freakatorium ~ El Museo Loco?

Mixed media is often, well, a mixed bag, and this very-loosely-hung-together show was no exception. Stuff we liked: Ben Katchor's comics, narrated by Bill Irwin; a video by Douglas Aitken set to a languid cello-and-voice rendition of the VU's ''Heroin''; and two films (with music by Michael Gordon) by Bill Morrison -- one (City Walk) a trip through Brooklyn and into Manhattan (yes, Debbie, that was the Manhattan Bridge) as seen through a xerox machine, the other (Light is Calling) a gorgeous and haunting screening of a silent movie on decaying nitrate film (see pic below).

What if the Marvelverse had happened in Europe in 1602? Gaiman is clearly having fun with this, although I really did need the annotations to understand who some of the (for me) more obscure Marvel characters' analogues were.

I can't believe I'd never seen Kurosawa's masterpiece. Simply amazing in every frame.

Ha, ha.

Hitchens on the rush to canonize Mother Teresa. Hitchens (as usual) has an axe to grind, but that doesn't mean that he's wrong. The bits of his argument that can be confirmed are worrying.

From Liz H: eBay auction: Collection of 26 Beanie Babies from Ex-Wife.

Found on Done Deal: Script and Pitch Sales - Updated Daily

Title: Foundation
Log Line: The human race is put on autopilot by a scientist who has mathematically mapped out exactly how the world will run. However, the program goes awry with the arrival of an evil mutant bent on conquering the universe.
Writer: Jeff Vintar
Agent: William Morris Agency
Buyer: 20th Century Fox
Price: n/a
Genre: Science Fiction
Logged: 10/14/03
More: Writing assignment. Vintar will adapt from the classic book by Isaac Asimov. Created By’s Vince Gerardis will produce. Shekhar Kapur will direct. Vintar will write two screenplays that could be released as a single epic but will most likely become two films.

Below we've been discussing the meaning of the word "terrorist" and when that word can be applied. (Right now, it seems that "Vork" is carrying the day as a neutral word to apply to a non-goverment person who is using violence and fear for political ends.) So it was interesting to read this in an article on Open Source and Linux called Pros, Priests and Zealots: The Three Faces of Linux. In it, Rob Enderle writes:

The Linux Zealots are similar to religious zealots and political extremists.

I have a hard time seeing the Zealots as any different from terrorists because of the nature of their threats. I expect one of them -- or perhaps a group of them -- will go too far at some point and do significant damage to the open-source movement, the ongoing litigation with SCO or their employers.

I strongly believe that if September 11th showed us anything, it was that zealots of any movement represent a huge risk to that movement because they do not consider the repercussions of their actions.

I'd heard of problems with the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain but this article about the geologic risks is pretty disturbing, especially this:

The potential for volcanism at Yucca Mountain remains a contentious issue as well. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts the probability for volcanism at the repository an order of magnitude higher than does DOE.

With the "exuberantly non-scientific" Weasel Poll!

Color scheme picker. For your website, not for your house.

Talking Ann Coulter Action Figure! Listen to those sample phrases!

New links in our reciprocal link department: The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page, Frank's weekly essay on a Samuel Johnson quote, and his non-Johnson blog. Head on over and say hi to the neighbors. Our grand total of blog links is 31. Soon we shall control the blogosphere! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

According to Oh Dog, You Sleuth!

It started out as an ordinary morning. I had to go to a recording session in the Graybar building. The engineer is somebody I've been working with a lot for the last year and he showed me a Simpson's t-shirt he just got. 'Oh, painfully lame,' I thought. And it must have translated on my expression cause then he upped the ante and said, 'Yeah, they're coming in right after you leave.'

WHAT!?!

And then it turns out that this guy Bill records voices for The Simpsons. Mostly, the show is recorded in L.A., but whenever talent is in NY, they always go to Bill. So I'm freaking out rather seriously now. 'So is Julie Kavner about to walk through the door as I'm leaving?' I scream (I've wanted to be her best friend since the Tracy Ullman show). And he was like, no, no. They were just doing some guest appearance voices today: Thomas Pynchon.

And I'm like, Back the Fuck Up!

The Thomas Pynchon, author of 'Gravity's Rainbow', 'V', 'The Crying of Lot 49', who is never photographed, interviewed, etc. around whom an entire literary cult is formed?

Yes.

Found on Long story; short pier.

The Eater of Meaning is not only fun, it's a useful accessbility testing tool! Found on Sisyphus Shrugged.

• If the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade were unionized, and they hired scabs, would the union try to put the inflatable rat into the parade?
• I wonder if anyone's ever done a point-by-point comparison of actress Salma Hayek and economist / political theorist Friedrich Hayek? [Googles.] Oh, of course someone has...

ashidomenyc: hey, what does c.b. mean when its used to refer to material in a document
ishbadiddle: i don't know
ishbadiddle: what's the context for "c.b."?
ashidomenyc: i'm reading this book on how tolkien created a new mythology based on the philology of words
ashidomenyc: (don't ask)
ashidomenyc: actually its cp. not cb
ishbadiddle: cf. means "compare"
ishbadiddle: cp. --> chapter?
ashidomenyc: ane every now and then he will write something like:
ashidomenyc: ... their most important title after 'king' is marshall, borrowed int English from French but going back to an unrecorded Germainic *marho-skalkoz, 'horse-servant' (and cp. the name of the hobbits' Hengest).
ashidomenyc: i'm pretty sure its not chapter
ashidomenyc: and somewhere there was a key but i can't seem to find it
ishbadiddle: you're sure it's not cf.?
ashidomenyc: yeah
ashidomenyc: i just looked at the book
ashidomenyc: and it appears a bit
ashidomenyc: i've been picking it up and putting it down often
ashidomenyc: but now i'm chugging through and i'm like, wait, i don't really understand that
ishbadiddle: google is coming up with some interesting ones

Just so NS doesn't have a lock on posts on white terrorists, here's a post via This Modern World's blog, who cites "the story of a terrorist discovered to have

a bunker containing a cache of weapons and explosives worthy of an army: an anti-aircraft gun capable of firing 550 rounds per minute up to four miles away, machine guns, explosives, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and booby traps. Investigators also find pictures of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with scope cross-hairs drawn over them.

Full story here. Using "Militia member" in the headline is pretty much akin to calling a suicide bomber a "militant" instead of a terrorist. Words count, kids.

According to Transparency International's International Corruption Perceptions Index, international perceptions of corruption in the US have worsened. Last year, we scored at 7.7 (on a scale of 1-10, with Finland at 9.7 and Bangladesh at 1.3), but this year we scored 7.5. The scores are based on surveys of business people, academics, and risk managers. But hey, we're in good company! According to the survey, Argentina, Belarus, Chile, Canada, Israel, Luxembourg, Poland, and Zimbabwe also got worse since last year. This year's most improved? Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Germany, Ireland, Malaysia, Norway, Tunisia -- and France.

From the robot filter comes the 50 CDs you're most likely to find in your used record store.

Frank Bigelow: I want to report a murder.
Homicide Captain: Sit down. Where was this murder committed?
Frank Bigelow: San Francisco, last night.
Homicide Captain: Who was murdered?
Frank Bigelow: I was.

by Philip K. Dick. Fewer of his 'what does it mean to be human' stories, and a suprising number about the power of celebrity and advertising. There's a particularly hilarious story about time-travellers who go back to the 20th C to infiltrate a 'pre-cog' convention -- which is of course a convention of sci-fi writers. Would make a great script for those in on the joke.

Excerpts from a wire service story about the Toledo Blade's series of stories on a particularly horrific set of war crimes in Vietnam.

A U.S. Army unit known as Tiger Force committed numerous war crimes during the Vietnam War, including killing scores of unarmed civilians, but an investigation was closed with no charges being brought, The [Toledo]Blade newspaper reported on Sunday.

The Blade said it found the Army had investigated the unit for 4 1/2 years, and found 18 soldiers had committed war crimes. But the Army filed no charges, and allowed soldiers who were under suspicion of committing war crimes to resign.

The newspaper said the accusations against the unit included killing women and children, torturing prisoners and severing ears and scalps for souvenirs.

According to The Blade, two soldiers who tried to stop the atrocities were warned by their commanders to remain quiet before transferring to other units.

The Blade said the Army's Criminal Investigation Command refused to release thousands of records from the investigation It also said Army spokesman Joe Burlas could not explain why no charges were brought in the investigation.

Note that this unit was using terror as a political instrument, so we would have a different name for what they did if they had been a non-governmental group.

Also note that the Army has changed significantly since its low point in Vietnam. The Army is very proud of the distance they have come since then, and the changes they have made. However, I wish they would take a stronger stand against what happened, even if only for symbolic reasons. In cases like these, often you want to bring charges simply to name and shame the individuals involved, even if your ability to get a conviction is slim. It would also demonstrate clearly that this kind of behavior will never again be countenanced.

[I haven't read the investigation yet. If I get around to it soon, I might try to digest some of the more relevant parts]

From extra medium:

The Army be thuggin' it

Three times a week, 48 weeks a year, a four-man team drives a huge yellow Hummer to a different location. It might be a college or high school campus, a major fraternity gathering, an NAACP event, MTV's Spring Break, or BET's Spring Bling: If lots of African-American teens will be there, the Hummer wants to be there, too.

Spray-painted with patriotic images (a rippling American flag, a smiling white woman in a U.S. military officer's uniform), the yellow Hummer is the signature vehicle for the U.S. Army's "Taking It to the Streets" campaign, a hip-hop-flavored tour launched a year ago by Vital Marketing Group, the Army's African-American events marketing team. During these events, the Taking It to the Streets team lets possible recruits hang out in the Hummer, where they can try out the multimedia sound system or watch Army recruitment videos. The Army's team often throws contests, too: Which possible recruit can shoot the most baskets, do the most push-ups, go up the rock-climbing wall the fastest? The winners are awarded Army-branded trucker hats, throwback jerseys, wristbands and headbands. Want a customized dog tag? They've got a machine that makes them. Want to see what it's like to fly a plane? There's a flight simulator.

It's all to convince urban teens that the Army understands hip-hop culture: The Army knows you play basketball and wear jerseys, because the Army is down with the streets.

"You have to go where the target audience is," says Col. Thomas Nickerson, director of strategic outreach for the U.S. Army Accessions Command, who says that the Army just reached its recruitment goal of 100,200 enlistees this year. "Our research tells us that hip-hop and urban culture is a powerful influence in the lives of young Americans. We try to develop a bond with that audience. I want them to say, 'Hey, the Army was here -- the Army is cool!'"

A US judge has handed down an unprecedented rhyming "diss" in court to a man who claimed rapper Eminem's lyrics defamed him.

According to The Macomb Daily in Michigan, Judge Deborah Servitto told DeAngelo Bailey: "Mr Bailey complains that his rap is trash,/so he's seeking compensation in the form of cash./

"Bailey thinks he's entitled to some monetary gain,/ because Eminem used his name in vain./ The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact,/ they're an exaggeration of a childish act./

"It is therefore this court's ultimate position,/ that Eminem is entitled to summary disposition."

From the BBC.

More precisely, I just read in the Washington Post article about Clark that:

He was born in Chicago with the name Wesley Kanne, the only child of Veneta Updegraf, a bank secretary, and Benjamin Kanne, a lawyer and Democratic alderman from a large Jewish family.

This beloved father died in his sleep at 51, when Clark was 4.

Clark's mother was forced to move back to her home state of Arkansas and return to work. She concealed her son's Jewish heritage from him, and he did not see his Chicago family again for two decades. (Clark, raised a Baptist, eventually converted to his wife's Roman Catholic faith.)

OK, so under many definitions Clark isn't Jewish. For those who are Orthodox, what's important is that Clark's Mom wasn't Jewish. For some who are reform, what's important is that he doesn't identify with being Jewish. Clark's certainly no Joe Lieberman. But his father was Jewish, and that's noteworthy.

I remember being particularly affected by the death of Danny Pearl, the journalist who was killed in Pakistan for being a journalist, for being an American, for being a Jew. Here then is MS's review in Zeek of Who Killed Daniel Pearl?. As always, MS's essay is thought provoking.

Found on The Virtual Stoa, the beautiful The Ulysses Project from artist Chris Miller.

Blogs and Expertise

I read my comics online, through the Wash Post, and this week I found an odd message when I tried to read Boondocks:

The Washington Post has decided not to publish this week's Boondocks strip. The comic will return to washingtonpost.com Oct. 19.

This week's comic is about Condy Rice's love life, namely Cesar and Huey's efforts to save the world by "finding her a man". It's all done clearly tongue in cheek, and they realize (and even say) how sexist it is.

I'm just kind of surprised that they chose to suspend the strip over the content (as a recent column in Salon claimed).

Ancient purple frog discovered.

. This season was better than we remembered. Favorite eps: Hush, Wild at Heart, Superstar, New Moon Rising, Primeval, Restless.

Gaiman finally returns to the Endless -- each one gets their own story. A bit uneven, but Death and Desire get the best ones, IMHO.

I forgot just how 80's-strange this French opera-romance-thriller was. Was Dominique Pinon in every French movie ever made?

Is Halliburton guilty of Iraqi gas gouging?: "According to a study released on Wednesday by Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and John Dingell, each gallon of gas sold in Iraq has cost American taxpayers $1.59, and possibly as much as $1.70. In the rest of the Middle East, gas costs about half that amount; even in Toledo, Ohio, gasoline's cheaper than it is in Baghdad.

Why is getting gasoline to oil-rich Iraq costing Americans so much money? The congressmen have a one-word, obvious answer: Halliburton."

Jews run the world, must be destroyed, etc. etc. etc.

Michael S. sent in this link:

Malaysia's prime minister has told Muslim leaders that Jews run the world and has called on Muslims to unite against them.

Dr Mahathir called on Muslims to use brains as well as brawn to fight Jews who, he said, "rule the world by proxy".

He told the leaders of the Islamic world that 1.3 billion Muslims could not be "defeated by a few million Jews". "This tiny [Jewish] community has become a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our brains as well," he said.

Jews, said the Malaysian prime minister, had "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy" to avoid persecution and gain control of the most powerful countries.

Stressing that Muslims also needed "guns and rockets, bombs and warplanes, tanks and warships" to defend themselves, he added that "the Jews" were "beginning to make mistakes" and Muslims could have "windows of opportunity... in the future".

Dr Mahathir, who has used such conferences to make scathing attacks on the West in the past, bows out as prime minister in a week's time after 22 years in office.

Meanwhile, in Germany

A couple of months ago, Patrick sent me this article from CNN (it's expired, hence no link):

One-third of Germans under age 30 believe the U.S. government may have sponsored the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to a poll.

And about 20 percent of Germans in all age groups hold this view, according to a survey of 1,000 people conducted for the weekly Die Zeit.

The poll also said 68 percent of all Germans felt the media had not reported the full truth behind the attacks, in which some 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes were crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Well, evidently the view that the US was behind 9/11 is not the only craziness that's going on in Germany. In Germans as Victims, Anne Applebaum at the Washington Post examines another trend among German bestsellers:

But if German bestseller lists reveal a German reassessment of the United States, they have also in recent years revealed an even more vigorous German reassessment of Germany. Not one but two books have become popular through their descriptions of the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945, which resulted in fires that caused tens of thousands of deaths. One of the authors used the word "crematoria" to describe the burning buildings, described the Allied bomber pilots as the equivalents of Nazi police units that murdered Jews and concluded by wondering whether Winston Churchill, who ordered the bombings, ought to have been condemned as a war criminal.

These books have also been effective: According to another opinion poll, more than a third of the Germans now think of themselves as "victims" of the Second World War -- just like the Jews. Nor has this new interpretation of history remained limited to books. Lately momentum has gathered behind a movement to build a new museum in Berlin dedicated to Germans expelled from their homes at the end of the war -- just like the Holocaust museum. It's not wrong for Germans to remember their relatives who suffered, but the tone of the campaigners is disturbing, because they seem, at times, almost to forget why the war started in the first place. Their leader, for example, is the daughter of a Wehrmacht officer, and was born in occupied Poland. Tragically, she was expelled from her childhood home when German troops were defeated -- the adverb "tragically" representing a certain point of view here, not an objective observation.

Could it be... Satan?

The former commander of Army Special Forces, Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin .... was promoted to deputy undersecretary of defense, with a new mission for which many say he is uniquely qualified: to aggressively combine intelligence with special operations and hunt down so-called high-value terrorist targets including bin Laden and Saddam.

But that new assignment may be complicated by controversial views Boykin ? an evangelical Christian ? has expressed in dozens of speeches at churches and prayer breakfasts around the country. In a half-dozen video and audiotapes obtained by NBC News, Boykin says America?s true enemy is not bin Laden.

In June 2003, Boykin spoke to a church group over a slide show:

"Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He?s called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan."

Why are terrorists out to destroy the United States? Boykin said: ?They?re after us because we?re a Christian nation.?

During a January church speech in Daytona, Fla., Boykin recalled a Muslim fighter in Somalia who bragged on television the Americans would never get him because his God, Allah, would protect him: "Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol." The Somali was captured, and Boykin said he told the man: "Mr. Atto, you underestimated our God."

Boykin also routinely tells audiences that God, not the voters, chose President Bush: "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he?s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."

Creative ways to manage online communities

Identity theft is no laughing matter. (Memo to self: buy shredder.) But you have to appreciate the irony of this story: A good rule of thumb for an identity thief is not to steal the name of someone whose reputation is worse than yours:

So, about a month ago, I asked Ish to opine on a tax policy issue that has always bothered me: When it comes to tax cuts/laws, why do low-income people vote against their interests, yet high-income people vote for their interests?

Well, it turns out better minds than mine were pondering that exact question. Professor Larry Bartels (Princeton) has published a paper titled, "Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind." I don't have a copy of the paper, but here is a link to this morning's New York Times article summarizing his findings.

His conclusion? People are stupid.

The Colossal Colon is coming to New York, N.Y.!

The Colossal Colon Tour is free to the public!

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2003 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 23, 2003 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 24, 2003 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 25, 2003 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Plaza at the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building 163 W 125th Street

"I think this is a great town," said Wells. "It's unbelievable. It's fun. We're driving home last night to the hotel and every block, everybody is flipping us off. I wish I had a video camera. I've never seen anything like it."

Aaron, our architect-in-residence here at Ish, writes:

I went down to see the new AIA New York chapter building when it opened to the public this morning since it's on my walk to work. Maybe you'll to see it soon if you haven't already, although it's quite unlikely to be published in anything beyond AIA's own publications.

Personally, I am pretty depressed about it. Not that I would particularly look to the AIA for leadership in, let's say, the field of architecture -- it's just that this time there are clearly no excuses for a carefully constructed mediocrity. Maybe the architect or the AIA (in a nice reversal of roles as client) would complain that the budget was limited. I think that's what i heard. But clearly money was generously sunk into some aspects of it, such as the high-end light fixtures, some of the storefront details, and if the budget had a limit that constrained the design, it makes even less sense that money was poured into those things.

I've been wary of the lovefest around Wesley Clark, but I'm gratified and even inspired to see that he's become the first presidential candidate to propose a major new initiative for civilian national service. I'm a big fan of having civilian service options as well as military ones (I might even support a civilian+military draft for the sake of national cohesiveness), but I've always doubted that the feds could make a civilian program work at a scale any larger than Americorps--it seemed likely to founder under the weight of its bureaucracy. But Clark's proposal for a Civilian Reserve sounds more feasible than others I've heard. Modelled on the military reserves, it has people indicating their skills, registering for a five year period and serving if called for six months at a time. If it existed today, I'd join up. Something tells me, though, that this isn't a new idea, and maybe it's proved unworkable in the past. Anyone know?

Swedes Puzzled by Discovery of Butter-Filled Shoes. Found on robotpolisher.

Is this what we've been looking for? I have to try this out. Replay Radio.

NS sent over this link to unfortunate church signs.

My husband runs upstairs and says, "Prince is at the door!" I said, "No way." (Via robotfilter.

Further proving that Stephen Hawking was right -- robots really are going to take over the world...

To our newest addition to the blogroll, WhatsAPundit. Head on over and say hello to Mark, check out his political and other writings. Tell him Ish sent 'ya.

I kept waiting for somebody else to relieve me of this burden, but I guess I should do the posting. This is something that happened on Fresh Air, I believe during the High Holy Days. I haven't seen any response from the ADL on this subject, nor has any major news media outlet picked it up (I did send it on to an editorial writer at one of the big papers, but I don't expect this to be big on their priority list)

What am I talking about ? Well, I'm talking about Grover Norquist juxtaposing the Holocaust and the Estate tax. He says he's not comparing the two, but I'll let you come to your own conclusions on the matter:

Whaddya think? Collectively, can we take on the Album Cover Challenge? I'm pretty sure I got 5, 8, 15, 23, 26, 27, 32, 36, 43, 52, and 59 -- but those are the easy ones.

The U.S. Army now ghostwrites propaganda for unwitting soldiers laid up in the bed of a M.A.S.H. unit, reports the Gannett News Service.

(My first post; sorry, I haven't been able to find the hypertext mechanism yet.)
[NB -- fixed it for ya, Matt! Welcome to Ish!]

"In the past six months, five men on probation were caught using a realistic-looking prosthetic that dispenses synthetic, drug-free urine, Lubbock County sheriff's officials said. One was caught by an alert officer who heard something unusual in the restroom. "

[Source: The AP story on the 'Whizzinator']

I thought this blog didn't have enough Farrelly Brothers style toilet humor

Here's a visual effect we've seen a lot: election return maps, like the official one for the California recall, that make the election look like a landslide because the winner took the largest-landmass precincts. On style.org, Jonathan Corum digs deeper into the county-by-county data to produce an alternate set of maps that reflect population densities and the decisiveness of each county, producing both a more complex picture of the way Californians voted and a nifty information design tutorial. Not that it matters to most Californians at this point, but it's worth keeping these principles in mind now that the "red state/blue state" dichotomy presented by traditional election maps has become the pundit shorthand of the moment.

You know, every time I post something I find interesting, I find something even better ten minutes later. So, once again, I ask your apology for a double post.

MoveOn.Org is a left-wing political action group that started up as an "Anti-Impeachment" organization and has since branched out into other pro-Democrat/anti-Republican activities.

Today they launched an e-mail spam campaign (sent originally to their own mailing list, but with the usual spam exhortations to "forward this e-mail to your friends and colleagues," which means I'm going to get twenty of these pesky things).

I won't bore you with the contents of the e-mail (though you can see much of the text, minus the spam elements at their website page devoted to this issue), but the basic idea is that they suggest that while President Bush could easily flush out the Valerie Plame traitor "in a day" by simply "ask[ing] his staff to sign a legally binding affidavit confirming that they weren't involved, and referr[ing] anyone who wouldn't to the FBI . . . [yet] the President hasn't even discussed this [option.]"

My question for the crowd here is this: Seriously?

I see no indication on the MoveOn.Org site that they take themselves anything less than very, very seriously, so it isn't clear to me that this is a joke. It seems they are really suggesting that it would be a reasonable course of action to circulate these affidavits to every member of the administration and have the FBI investigate anyone who refuses to comply - and that President Bush is unreasonable for not considering such a great idea.

Am I totally missing an obvious joke? Or am I too stupid to see why this would be a great way to deal with an issue like this? Am I just imagining the Heller-ish sound of this Great Loyalty Oath Crusade?

So, you all know that Arnold Terminated Davis on Tuesday (and stomped Bustamonte by over a million votes). But what about the other fun candidates? What ever happened to them?

For a prize of one million dollars*, rank these actual California gubnatorial candidates in the order of the number of votes they received:

1. Angelyne
2. Gary Coleman
3. Mary "Carey" Cook
4. Bob Dole
5. Larry Flynt
6. Ariana Huffington
7. Michael Jackson
8. Ted Kennedy
9. David Robinson
10. Richard Simmons

No peeking at the actual results!

Good luck!

Try WiFi Speed Spray Today!

Duude. Check it out here--around minute 36:30. He walks out on Terry Gross!

OK, so that's limited bright news on the day the Terminator became governor, but, still--it'll tide me over until the next recall 6 months from now. Can't wait to find out why the next recall will be bad--kinda like how sexual harrassment stopped being bad when Arnis did it...

And a couple of neat webby things:

• Tube Map With Walklines. Tufte Alert! Can someone do this for the MTA?


• Evolution of Alphabets. Animation of the evolution of various alphabets -- check out the Latin one.


• OK, not a designy thing, but some interesting stats for the blog-minded in this survey. Turns out most blogs live fast and die young.

Of course, it's all about Arnold today, but a few stories I pulled from Blogdex you might have missed:

• GAO: Pentagon sold biolab gear. I don't know what's worse about the story -- the fact that the GAO could buy biowarfare equipment from the DOD over the Internet, or that they could spend "a little over $4,000 for equipment that the Defense Department originally bought for some $46,000."


• An Open Letter to Paul Krugman. I generally like Krugman's pieces, but I think Kling is right here: Krugman is better when he sticks to the facts, as opposed to when he paints an overall consipracy of motives in the Bush Administration.


• Phelps To Erect Matthew Shepard Monument. Sort of a misleading headline, as the Rev. Phelps' memorial (in Shepard's hometown of Casper, WY) will read: "MATTHEW SHEPARD, Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22." I can't even begin to say how Bad Culture this is.

Once again, I've been passed over for a MacArthur Grant. Helloooo, MacArthur guys! I've got call waiting, so I know the phone wasn't busy when you tried to call. Well, there's always next year.

I'm glad, however, to see that the Czech illustrator Peter Sís got one. I first heard of Sís through a PBS documentary on Jackie Onassis, actually. She edited him (at Doubleday?) and encouraged him to write The Three Golden Keys, about Prague. These gorgeous, mysterious images floated across the screen, and I thought: I have to find this book. I tracked down a copy through a used bookstore and gave it to Debbie, and we've been Sís fans ever since. Other favorites include Madlenka, a love letter to New York; Trucks Trucks Trucks and Fire Truck (need I tell you what they're about?); and Scranimals, a book about genetic engineering. No, it's really about vegetable-animal hybrids, like the Broccolions and Spinachickens. Ben particularly likes the Mangorilla and the Radishark. Next time you're in the bookstore, check him out.

Can anyone identify this yellow bird which flew into our 25th story office this morning? (It left, coaxed out the window with the application of scone crumbs on the sill.)

So, this got a little out of hand. Mike, if it's too long, feel free to kill it. And all caveats submitted (as you'll see). But I wanted to share this adventure I just went on. I was just reading the letters to the Times about the California recall when I came across this:

To the Editor:

It seems to me that the women casting belated accusations at Arnold Schwarzenegger should ask themselves what is more humiliating: to be "groped," or to be used in a political smear campaign attacking a person's character.

The party or parties encouraging the accusers should realize that such transparently manipulative behavior sets back, rather than advances, women's rights and our political process.
LISA KOLE
New York, Oct. 3, 2003

What woman -- I wondered -- would see these women coming forward as a 'smear campaign.' Either the women are telling the truth or they aren't. If they are, then I'm not really sure it's a "smear campaign"; if they're not, then there's something much more serious than a "smear campaign" going on (yea, verily, the very undermining of democracy... oh, wait). Somehow this Lisa Kole is insulting these women to defend women's progress. There may be something to the "belated accusations" issue (though credible accounts don't need to be contemporary to be news), but this just smacked of an agenda.

I immediately envisioned the twisty doublespeak of Ann Coulter. I wondered who Lisa Kole might be. Was she a right-wing pundit, like Ann of the Damned? Was she a soccer mom with congressional aspirations? Anyway, I Googled her.

I could be grasping at straws here, but it may be that she's the same Lisa Kole whose profile appears on the Baker & Botts website.

Baker & Botts? Baker & Botts? I know I've heard that name somewhere. Let's see: who are they, again?

"The American Billboard singles chart top 10 is made up exclusively of tunes from black artists for the first time. "
If I hadn't seen this article in the BBC, I wouldn't have known at all !

As I may have mentioned to many of you, although not officially in this blog, I go off to [REDACTED] in January to teach at [REDACTED]. [Lately I've started to joke that they've recruited me for their defensive line. I don't know anything about football, but I figure if I have to learn, the best way to remember will be by building jokes around it.] It's going to be a cultural shift in many ways, some of which I plan to blog about. Here's one that I encountered today, while filling out classroom request forms.

From "Classroom Questions & Answers" (These are selected Q&A out of a longer list, the italics are mine. The crucifix and clock questions follow each other immediately in the list)

Q. What if the lights are not working and/or burned out? A. Call Building Services - 1-5615

Q. What if I need chalk or erasers?
A. Each building housekeeper has a supply or you can call Building Services - 1-5615

Q. What if the heat/air conditioning is not working?
A. Call Facilities Operations - 1-7701

Q. What if there is no Crucifix in the classroom?
A. Please call Academic Space Management - 1-5773 and we will replace it.

Q. What if there is no clock in my classroom?
A. The University stopped putting clocks into classrooms in the early 90's due to theft.

Interesting article on Slate about the difficulties people might have if they were to try to prosecute under the law, given its narrowness. I disagree on the details (it seems that the CIA did give her a cover in the past 5 years, see the recent Washpost article on "Brewster-Jennings & Associates") but it's still pretty useful.

On a different note -- Novak's credibility as a journalist must be shot by now, given the number of different times he's changed his story. I was not impressed that he claimed that "Brewster-Jennings & Associates" didn't exist, given that the Post found it was listed in Dun & Bradstreet at the time. Lost in the shuffle is that Novak himself was not very pro-war, and that many Neo-Cons had fallen out with him over this issue.

After many years, many miles travelled, many archives visited, many footnotes cited, many pages written, many pints of Ben & Jerry's consumed, many late nights, and many many pages, IT IS FINALLY DONE. Debbie turned her dissertation in yesterday! Ya-hoo! She defends next month. And then: the big party.

Well, he's evidently too modest to promote it on his own blog, so heck I'll do it for him: Chris wrote a book! Hurry to Barnes & Noble to get your copy of Kurt Cobain: Voice of a Generation. And hey, it's less than ten bucks! You can read about the genesis of Molanphy's Opus No. 1 here. Zach and I went to a book party last week (thrown by his employers, not his publishers) -- gee was it ever swank! Earlier, Ben pointed at the picture of Kurt on the cover of the book (reproduced on the party invite) and announced that Cobain was "not happy." Which sort of sums it up, no?

"A new study based on a series of seven nationwide polls conducted from January through September of this year reveals that before and after the Iraq war, a majority of Americans have had significant misperceptions and these are highly related to support for the war with Iraq.

  The polling, conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and Knowledge Networks, also reveals that the frequency of these misperceptions varies significantly according to individuals' primary source of news. Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely....

  While it would seem that misperceptions are derived from a failure to pay attention to the news, in fact, overall, those who pay greater attention to the news are no less likely to have misperceptions. Among those who primarily watch Fox, those who pay more attention are more likely to have misperceptions. Only those who mostly get their news from print media have fewer misperceptions as they pay more attention."

Sorry for the two posts today, but this one just cracked me up: New Scientist Magazine has announced the happiest countries in the world. Guess where we fall? 16th. Yes, there are 16 countries in this world that are happier places. Plausible? Well, shucks, yeah. I mean, happiness is a pretty culturally relative, term and there are certainly plenty of Americans with reasons to be unhappy. I'm not sure I could actually name 15 countries I would want to live in more, but I'm not so jingoistic as to be absolutely sure that a Sweden or Brunei doesn't kick our butts in a given year on a pure "top-to-bottom who's-all-happy-all-the-time" basis.

So who do you think is the happiest nation on earth? Go on, guess! Hell, take ten guesses.

O.K., ready?

Nigeria.

Yes, Nigeria is the Happiest Place on Earth. Followed by happiness powerhouses Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador and Puerto Rico. Yeah, I hear a LOT of people are clamoring to get out of dumpy old America to whoop it up in El Salvador.

Why Nigeria? Well, what could be happier than a 28% unemployment rate, a 60% poverty rate and having e-mail scamming among your major exports? Yes, there are many points of views to consider when extolling the virtues of Nigeria. In fact, you can find a copy of the happiness article at Nigeria.com (along with other happy headlines like "Metrorail's Bloody War" - an article noting that at least 35 people have been brutally attacked and a woman raped as former Metrorail security guards wage war against newly-hired Metrorail security guards)

Why are the people of Nigeria so darn happy? "Survey after survey has shown that the desire for material goods, which has increased hand in hand with average income, is a happiness suppressant," the magazine noted. No word on whether any of its staff (based in England, the world's 24th happiest country) is planning on giving up their material goods or, say, moving.

Conservative author and attorney Ann Coulter blasted liberals during her speech, specifically with regards to their positions regarding the war in Iraq. "Let’s just say that this was a war just for oil,” Coulter told the crowd of about 300. “Why not go to war for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities think fuels their jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered?"

Well I haven't seen Blogdex this lit up over one issue since Trent Lott, or maybe iTunes. I presume I don't need to outline what's happened with Wilson, Plame, Novak, Bush, Rove, Ashcroft, and Schrödinger's cat in the last few days. (OK, the cat has nothing to do with it, but a little quantum mechanics is good for a break from politics, eh?) So here's a quick, but by no means complete, roundup of what the bloggers are saying:

Antoine Doinel, still charming.

No, seriously. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

Perhaps not as gripping as the question of "Why Do Men Hog The Remote," or the heated competition to find the world's oldest genitials, but hard-hitting science nonetheless.

Rather liked it. But did they have to give everyone a mate at the end? That felt rather false, and I wondered if the book ends the same way. Oh, and now I have ''Santa's Super Sleigh'' stuck in my head.

Actually, kind of a boring history lesson. We decided this would be one of the worst movies to see if you didn't understand English. But there is that cool dual-focus lens shot.

Ulmer did film noir on the cheap. But how can you lose with Ann Savage in the cast? Rodriguez could even learn a thing or two about cheap movie tricks.

SimpleBits | Accessible Image-Tab Rollovers.

I'm Mr. Ctrl-Alt-Delete!