EdDriscoll.com

Posted 7/19/2002 12:44:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
ANN COULTER: I can't say I'm Ann's greatest fan, but this is one riot of an interview with her. Check out this riff:

At the moment, she is without a boyfriend; curiously, her last beau happened to be a Muslim. "The relationship was complicated by his interest in committing jihad," she jokes. "I took away his box cutters. At first, I thought he was a terrorist. I just kept on running into this handsome Muslim on the street. He was a fan of mine." So was he stalking her? "He was, but he was a good-looking stalker. I'd been so looking for one of those."

UPDATE: Here's Coulter's take on Phyllis Schlafly, who received as many brickbats in the 1970s as Coulter gets today. (See also Orrin Judd's thoughts on Schlafly, complete with hyperlinks to her books and his reviews of them.)

Posted 7/19/2002 12:34:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
OUT OF OPTIONS: Just as Group Captain Mandrake has been exploring the loss of civil liberties in England, the Brothers Judd Blog links to an excellent post by Iain Murray on England's crime, rapidly dwindling civility and what its options are. Orrin adds some of his thoughts on what the US's option are, and says that while we're a little better off (in general), the clock is ticking for us as well.

Posted 7/19/2002 11:45:37 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, A DEAN KAMEN PRODUCTION: Segway News says the Segway has come to San Francisco, if only for a temporary trial by the US Post Office.

Posted 7/19/2002 11:34:33 AM by Edward Driscoll
OK, MAYBE WE ARE GOING TO PARTY LIKE IT'S 1999: Assorted headlines on the Drudge Report today:

Hillary Clinton Shouts Down Senator... Little Rock Library Dogged By Controversy... Tonight's Janet Reno dance party a hot ticket... Gore Leads Polls on '04 Democratic Race

I don't mind the retro-thing, but I don't do Regis ties, OK? UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts on that last headline. If he's right, personally I can't wait to see the '08 model Gore run!

Posted 7/19/2002 11:25:55 AM by Edward Driscoll
AMERICAN MUSLIM COUNCIL THREATENS JEWISH JOURNALIST: Howard Fienberg has the details on his Kesher Talk Weblog. Check out these quotes, from the Eli Kintisch, the journalist who was apparently threatened:

Could you imagine, I asked him, the outrage that would have followed if an official at a Jewish organization had kicked a reporter from an Arab paper out of an event? He apologized, saying he retracted any comment that I may have found threatening. "Sometimes people flare up," he told me, referring to the crowd. "I just wanted to protect us, the council, and you from that." ... Alamoudi may have been inclined to muzzle me because he's "been burned" in the past himself. In 2000, he told a Washington rally that "we are all supporters of Hamas." He added that he supported Hizbollah. Alamoudi says that he supports Hamas for its humanitarian efforts. In 1995 in The Washington Post, however, he defended Hamas leader Abu Marzook as "a moderate man on many issues. If you see him, he is like a child." American authorities deported Marzook to Jordan in 1997 after an American judge found probable cause that he had he had helped plan 10 terrorist attacks against Israeli targets. I wish my run-in with Alamoudi, mentioned in this week's Weekly Standard, was an isolated case. But for all of my good relationships with officials at Arab-American organizations, Arab reporters and Arab diplomats, many members of the "other side" in town won't speak to me. Some Arab reporters in town are unwilling to meet a Jewish reporter, and I've never gotten my calls returned from Saudi, Syrian or Iranian diplomats here.

Posted 7/19/2002 02:20:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
COMRADE FORD PILOTS DRIPPY SHIP: Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News says K-19: The Widowmaker has just enough pizzazz and novelty to keep it afloat, and gives it two and half stars:

The subtext of the movie is about being a good parent, a clash between the "good" father (Neeson) and the relentless one (Ford). The faceoffs provide the lead actors with plenty of meat. But because Ford is an executive producer, his bad guy isn't all that bad, ultimately, and he sees to it that he gets the most traffic-stopping speeches, even if his accent is all over the map and the script has him uttering such clunkers as "Men, you have done your duty for the Motherland!"

In the late '80s, I remember reading a GQ profile of Ford, where the author said that Ford knows his limitations as an actor, and accents were one of them. Too bad Ford seems to have forgotten that self-limitation: judging by the few minutes of trailers and commercials I've seen for K-19, Ford's Russian accent sounds painfully bad, right up there with Mr. Chekov from Star Trek and Boris from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Posted 7/19/2002 02:03:41 AM by Edward Driscoll
ARMEY REJECTS NATIONAL ID CARD AND DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE VOLUNTEERS: The Washington Times says "House Majority Leader Dick Armey, in his markup of legislation to create a Homeland Security Department, yesterday rejected a national identification card and scrapped a program that would use volunteers in domestic surveillance". Good man.

Posted 7/19/2002 02:01:28 AM by Edward Driscoll
JEWISH SCHOOL CHOICE: The Brothers Judd weigh in.

Posted 7/19/2002 01:59:06 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS HAVE A NEW $430 million stadium. Click the link for a description and photos.

Posted 7/18/2002 10:54:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOW THE TIMES WISHES HISTORY UNFOLDED: Robert Leiter says the New York Times' bias in their Israeli reporting is becoming more and more obvious.

Posted 7/18/2002 10:44:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
BUSINESSMAN AS HERO: Bob McNair spent 700 million dollars to bring football back to Houston.

Posted 7/18/2002 10:24:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
IS THE ECONOMIST ANTI-SEMITIC, ANTI-ISRAELI OR NEITHER? Arnold Beichman asks the question, and has some thoughts, in the The Washington Times.

Posted 7/18/2002 05:44:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
TIME TO BUY? Remember that old "buy low, sell high" cliche? The first thing you learned about investing? Well, Reuters says, Stocks Hit 5-Year Low on Dismal Profits. As a wise man once told me about investing, "where there is no fear, there is no value". This is NOT an investment blog. This is NOT meant to be investment advice. But, if you're in it for the long haul (by long haul, I mean at least five years), if you're patient, if you're diversified, this might be a very good time to consider buying. Here's some historical data to chew on.

Posted 7/18/2002 04:39:58 PM by Edward Driscoll
GOVERNORS VERSUS THE CONSTITUTION: Jon Reisman says that New England Governors pledge to implement Kyoto, and thereby violate the Constitution.

Posted 7/18/2002 04:36:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
HONOR: James Bowman analyzes the events concerning Mukhtaran Bibi, (the 28-year-old divorced Pakistani woman condemned by a tribal council to be gang-raped as a punishment for a relationship her younger brother may or may not have had with a woman from a tribe of higher status) and The Road to Perdition with an emphasis on honor, in a similar fashion to the way Tom Wolfe has long used status as an organizing force in his writing.

Posted 7/18/2002 12:49:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE GEORGE WALLACE/ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON CONNECTION, on readjacobs.com.

Posted 7/18/2002 12:43:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
AOL HELL: Reason looks at the abortion that it is AOLTimeWarnerCNNWTBSCompuserve. UPDATE: Bob Pittman is stepping down as the chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner Inc. FLASHBACK: Here's my take from March 25, during this blog's Jurassic period.

Posted 7/18/2002 11:51:57 AM by Edward Driscoll
TRANSPORTATION SECURITY CHIEF QUITS: AP says that John Magaw, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, resigned Thursday. No reason was given for his resignation, however Dave Kopel has some ideas, and some thoughts on the first steps for his successor, on National Review Online's The Corner. And Kathryn Jean Lopez asks, "could Mineta be next?!" We can only hope. UPDATE: MSNBC has more on Magaw's resignation.

Posted 7/18/2002 11:44:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE SEAM BETWEEN LAW AND WAR: Philip Carter says that by pleading guilty, John Walker Lindh has contributed to the American war on terrorism in two very important ways.

Posted 7/18/2002 11:33:02 AM by Edward Driscoll
MEIN KAMPF: A bestseller in the Middle East, according to David Pryce-Jones. Does this mean that the next Jordanian ad will show that little Johnny of Palestine wants to grow up to be Martin Bormann?

Posted 7/18/2002 11:23:59 AM by Edward Driscoll
ALSO ON HAPPY FUN PUNDIT...The Janet Reno/George S. Patton connection.

Posted 7/18/2002 11:21:56 AM by Edward Driscoll
NASA FAKES MOON LANDING: Conclusive photographic evidence that the moon landings were faked, probably by the same folks who shot the news footage in Wag the Dog. Link via the Happy Fun Pundit.

Posted 7/17/2002 11:46:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
LAMBAEU LEAP INVENTOR RETIRES: Veteran NFL safety LeRoy Butler calls it quits, after 12 seasons, two Super Bowls (and one ring), four Pro Bowls and five All-Pro seasons, all with the Green Bay Packers.

In a game in December 1993 against the Raiders, Butler forced a fumble by running back Randy Jordan that Reggie White recovered and lumbered with 10 yards before pitching it to Butler, who scored his first career touchdown and celebrated by jumping into the stands. The "Lambeau Leap'' became an entrenched tradition for wide receivers in the years that followed as the Packers went from also-rans to a perennial playoff team, reaching the Super Bowl twice and winning the championship following the 1996 season. Only five players in the club's 83-year history played longer than Butler -- Starr (16 seasons), Ray Nitschke (15), Forrest Gregg (14), and Charles Goldenberg and Dave Hanner (13).

Posted 7/17/2002 11:34:14 PM by Edward Driscoll
MEET THE NEW HOSS, SAME AS THE OLD HOSS: Don Banks of Sports Illustrated writes about new faces in new places in the NFL. Of course, he left off the most impressive new face in a new place: Pat Tillman left the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers.

Posted 7/17/2002 11:19:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
WE'RE NOT GOING TO PARTY LIKE IT'S 1934, SAYS REASON. Here's a sample:

"The last time we faced a hangover like this one, the president didn�t just talk, he acted," writes Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter. "In 1934 Franklin D. Roosevelt created something called the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate Wall Street." Alter went on to transcribe DNC�s talking points, dutifully copied by The Wall Street Journal�s house liberal, Al Hunt, and NBC�s Tim Russert, among others, noting that current SEC Commissioner Harvey Pitt was unfit for the job because he "came in talking about a �kinder, gentler SEC.�" That Alter would compare 2002 to 1934 indicates that he�s about as grounded in reality as a WorldCom financial statement. The stock market is not the economy. And the economy of 2002 is not the economy of 1934. In 1934, one in five Americans were unemployed -- and one in three for those who didn�t work on farms. The real economy had contracted by 37 percent from 1929 to 1934. Although it�s still disputed, many believe that it wasn�t the stock market crash of 1929 that caused the Depression, but the government�s response to it. A restrictive monetary policy caused banks to fail and businesses, starved for money, tanked in massive numbers. Today, unemployment stands at 5.9 percent. There�s talk of a double-dip recession, but even the first dip is now being disputed. We�ve only actually experienced one quarter of negative economic growth. The stock market hasn�t crashed, as it did in 1929 or even 1987, when it collapsed 22 percent in a single day.

I'll never forget the last presidential election, watching Alter's tirade on NBC at about 1:30 in the morning Pacific Time when Alter demanded that Gore be handed the election, despite the outcome in Florida. (When Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert lecture you on the Constitution, as they did to Alter afterwards on the air, you know you're really out there. The Reason article is a very good look at what's right and wrong with the economy today, and as usual, remarkably free of typical journalistic spin.

Posted 7/17/2002 02:59:05 PM by Edward Driscoll

SELLING MARTYRDOM: Little Green Footballs links to a very, very strange ad campaign filled with Palestinian kids emulating famous celebrities and western European icons they'd like to be when they grow up. In an astonishing bit of irony, the campaign includes such images as John Lennon, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, and other pacifists and proponents of peace who (we'd like to think), would be appalled by suicide bombers and all other forms of terrorism. Err, didn't Lennon sing "Give peace a chance"? "War is over, if you want it"? "You'd better recognize your brothers, join the human race"? "Imagine all the people living life in peace"? Hey, it all sounds incredible trite, simplistic and silly in retrospect (it sounded the same back then as well, to anybody over 16 years old), but at least his emphasis wasn't on murder. And if the Palestinians had had the sense to try Ghandi's non-violent tactics 20 years ago, instead of suicide bombers, it's a pretty safe bet they'd have their state by now. Mideast Truth, the bloggers whom LGF links to, write "Noticeably absent from the aspirations of the young children.....to be Muslim. In fact if you look at the list of people they model themselves after, you'll see a few Jews and a bunch of Christians. No Mohammed's in this list!" (Check out the comments as well on the LGF site, to get some idea of just how strange/sick/ill-conceived/bizarre, etc. this campaign is.) UPDATE: Meanwhile, Dawson Jackson has much more graphic photos that probably won't be part of a Palestinian ad campaign anytime soon.

Posted 7/17/2002 01:49:23 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADVANTAGE: ED! Nick Denton links to a Wired article that says hydrogen powered cars will be ready in a decade. "Apply the Wired discount", Denton adds cheekily, "that means they'll be on the roads by 2022 or so". He adds, "And then we can dump the Saudis." I wrote about hydrogen powered cars a year ago, when I interviewed Syd Mead, automobile designer extraordinaire, who designed the Spinner flying police cars for Blade Runner.

Posted 7/17/2002 11:30:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE MOBILE WEB: I have an article in today's Tech Central Station on 802.11b Wireless Internet. Stop on by there a few hundred times today! UPDATE: When I wrote the piece on 802.11 for Tech Central Station, I said:

There needs to be either the equivalent of the roaming services that allow a cell phone to be used across the country, or one 802.11 provider needs to step up to be the next AOL or AT&T to provide national, universal coverage. Currently, the typical business user of 802.11 who travels has to have separate accounts and pay for three to five different wireless providers to get anywhere near reasonable coverage while traveling.

As I posted yesterday, the New York Times says that a nationwide 802.11 service may be coming, thanks to a coalition including Intel, IBM, AT&T Wireless and several other wireless and Internet service providers including Verizon Communications and Cingular. Smart move!

Posted 7/17/2002 11:27:39 AM by Edward Driscoll
REDUCTION IN UK CIVIL LIBERTIES: Group Captain Mandrake continues his regular series, with further proof that they're official.

Posted 7/17/2002 02:17:29 AM by Edward Driscoll
SPIDER-MAN: COMING IN NOVEMBER ON DVD. The Digital Bits has details and cover photos. (Start with the photos, then scroll down for the details.) And here's my review of the film, from early May.

Posted 7/16/2002 04:15:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
MEN IN HOSPITAL: Group Captain Mandrake says that just about every time director of Men in Black I and II, Barry Sonnenfeld makes a movie, he ends up in hospital. During Men In Black II he suffered a heart attack. Mandrake includes this quote from the UK Telegraph:

"I was rushed to Bellevue and had all the tests. My dad's cardiologist came and saw me the next day, and they did echo-cardiograms and all that stuff, and then she went, 'His heart's in great shape. There's no blockage. It's strong. It's a great heart. However, this is the most stressed-out, uptight human being I have ever met in my life. You must immediately get him into meditation.' And my producer said, 'No, no, no, no. He was meditating when he had the heart attack."

Posted 7/16/2002 04:09:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
NATIONAL WIRELESS INTERNET LINK IN PLANNING STAGES, according to this New York Times article.

Posted 7/16/2002 03:27:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE BETAMAX OF WORLD HISTORY. Jonah Goldberg does one of the things he does best--bashing the French, and having lots of fun doing it:

While most of the West, if not the world, is Americanizing for good and for ill, France remains determined to stay French. The beautiful jabbering they call the French language is disappearing like an ornate sandcastle washed over by the global English tide. French officials debate for years over whether words like CD-rom are acceptable cultural imports (It's not. "Cederom" is the accepted form), while the rest of the world increasingly treats France as the Betamax of world history � an interesting alternative, but no less irrelevant for it. This would be touching, save for the fact that France increasingly defines being "French" as disagreeing with the United States. We support Israel, so the French hate Israel (and they really do hate it). McDonald's is American, so noodle-armed French intellectuals flex their wine muscles by tearing apart a few Mickey D's (even as France remains among the biggest consumers of Big Macs in the world). We say the war on terrorism is important, so they say it isn't. We say Osama bin Laden launched the attack on 9/11, and so the number-one bestseller in France says the Pentagon attacked itself. You can see the problem here. If you want a culture which is defined by thinking and doing the opposite of another culture, that's fine. The British played this game with the French and became the pedestal upon which liberty, the rule of law, and the free market rest while France, in the words of Thomas Carlyle, remained simply a long despotism tempered by epigrams.

Posted 7/16/2002 02:11:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
GEFFEN SHRUGS: Brian Doherty of Reason asks "What does it take to get liberals sounding like Ayn Rand in defense of property rights?" Having their own property threatened.

Posted 7/16/2002 02:07:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
WATCH MCCAIN, says Rod Dreher, on National Review Online's The Corner:

the corporate scandals might give John McCain an opening here to challenge Bush for the GOP nomination in 2004. Whatever else it did, his campaign finance reform crusade (which I didn't support, on First Amendment grounds) gives him a history of being against "corporate fatcats." If anything, he's more hawkish than Bush on the war, which is the president's strong suit. And the media love him. If the bear market continues over the next year, the country goes into a double-dip recession, and things go awry with Saddam ... whaddaya think? Might Bush have to slay that dragon before taking on the Democrat in the fall?

Posted 7/16/2002 11:14:20 AM by Edward Driscoll
JOHN LINDH=NELSON MANDELA?? Check out this quote from John Walker Lindh's father:

Frank Lindh said he told his son after he was brought back to the United States that South African leader "Nelson Mandela served 26 years and I told him to be prepared for something like that."

Posted 7/16/2002 11:10:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE TELLTALE QUOTATION MARKS: Spotted on the Little Green Footballs site.

Posted 7/16/2002 02:37:27 AM by Edward Driscoll
FIGHTING FOR THE POUND IN THE UK: No, not the kind that you spend, the kind that you weigh. Group Captain Mandrake reports on how one man who tried to carry on selling fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces has finally lost his battle. It went all the way to the House of Lords in the UK. He has not been given leave to appeal. As Mandrake says, "The legislation he was defying came, unsurprisingly, from the Eurocrats".

Posted 7/16/2002 02:33:18 AM by Edward Driscoll
SOME CHOOSE COUNTRY OVER FOOTBALL: ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli (who's responsible for about 75 percent of the NFL content on their site these days), lists the other athletes besides Pat Tilman who've chosen to serve their country over playing in the NFL.

Posted 7/16/2002 02:30:21 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE THIRD WAY ENDETH in England, according to Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan says:

In perhaps the most important decision of its six years in office, the Blair government in Britain has reverted to the old socialist past. It has raised taxes and now it's going to pour billions into public services. No real reforms needed. In a way, it's clarifying. Labour cannot reform public services, cannot privatize them but cannot afford the political cost of their deterioration. So they're back to tax and spend - big time. The danger, of course, is that the services don't improve even then. Then the backlash will be intense and the Tories given another chance. My prediction: the British welfare state will barely exist in its current form in a decade's time.

Posted 7/16/2002 01:34:08 AM by Edward Driscoll
HE SHOULD HAVE USED POLYGRIP: Skydiving cameraman filmed his false teeth falling out of his mouth at 9,000 feet during his first jump.

Posted 7/16/2002 01:30:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
PASSWORDS AND PINS CAUSE STRESS, according to Ananova. You know, in an era of worldwide terrorism, a shaky economy, a rocky stock market, an overactive government, an out of control European Union, and other serious issues, having to remember a few passwords and pins is not my idea of stress. Let me put it another way: if your pins and passwords are causing you major stress...count your blessings--your life is in great shape.

Posted 7/16/2002 01:22:26 AM by Edward Driscoll
JACKSON'S PEOPLE TO BLAME. MuchMusic has this item about Jackson's ongoing feud with Sony:

We all know by now that Michael Jackson is mad at Sony Music for apparently not promoting his album, �Invincible� and for reportedly refusing to release his charity single, �What More Can I Give.� But now, according to The Los Angeles Times it was actually Jackson�s advisors and not Sony who put a halt to the release. Jackson�s people apparently wanted the single shelved after learning that the song�s executive producer, F. Marc Schaffel, had ties to the gay pornography industry, specifically directing and producing a number of films. Obviously this new information contradicts what Jackson has been saying all along and can only hurt the ongoing feud he has with Sony. Jackson�s representatives would not comment on the latest developments but did tell The Times that when they, and Jackson, discovered Schaffel�s background, they immediately ended their association with him.

Posted 7/15/2002 11:26:04 PM by Edward Driscoll
HAPPY 25th ANNIVERSARY, KEMP-ROTH! Here's an excerpt from the Washington Times' tribute:

The Congressional Budget Office, for example, believed the money supply had nothing whatsoever to do with inflation, and that cutting tax rates would add fuel to it. CBO Director Alice Rivlin said output would fall if tax rates were cut, because workers could work less and still get the same after-tax income. A commonly held view at the time was that it would either take decades to bring inflation down to tolerable levels or another Great Depression. Arthur Okun of the Brookings Institution reflected the views of most economists when he said in 1977 that the economy would shrink by 10 percent for every 1 percent fall in the inflation rate. To his credit, Ronald Reagan rejected the conventional view and supported Kemp-Roth, making it his principal campaign issue in 1980. Jimmy Carter, who endorsed the establishment's thinking, rejected tax cuts as inflationary. He said inflation was just due to a lot of bad luck � oil price increases by Arab countries, bad harvests and the like. Mr. Carter never once took responsibility for inflation's rise from 4.9 percent in Gerald Ford's last year to 13.3 percent in 1979 and 12.5 percent in 1980. Kemp-Roth was considered reckless even by Republicans � George H.W. Bush called it "voodoo economics" and Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, Tennessee Republican, called it a "riverboat gamble." But Mr. Reagan pressed ahead with a tight money policy at the Fed and a sharp reduction in tax rates in 1981. And as he, Mr. Kemp and Mr. Roth knew would happen, the economy not only recovered, but inflation collapsed to about 4 percent throughout the 1980s. To this day, none of the economists who predicted hyperinflation from the Reagan-Kemp-Roth tax cut have ever acknowledged the gross error of their predictions. They just pretend the whole thing never happened. Yet the 180-degree turnaround in the American economy from the 1970s to the 1980s took place and cannot be denied. Without Jack Kemp and Bill Roth, it might not have happened.

For more on Kemp-Roth, and the supply-siders of the 1970s, check out Jude Wanniski's The Way The World Works, or the out-of-print, but worth searching for The Seven Fat Years by former Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley.

Posted 7/15/2002 10:06:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEW LOOK, SAME STYLE: Libertarian Samizdata has a new look, having moved off Blogger into swank Sekimori-designed digs. Check them out at, and redirect your bookmarks to: www.samizdata.net/blog

Posted 7/15/2002 06:56:48 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE TRUEST SPORT: JOUSTING WITH STEVE DEN BESTE. The good captain of the USS Clueless discusses WWII, modern era, and aerial dogfights with dragons with his usual eloquence. (Bonus points if you can guess what the inspiration for the above headline was!)

Posted 7/15/2002 11:41:10 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE SKY IS FALLING! THE DOW JONES IS PLUMMETING! Larry Kudlow has some reasons to keep the faith:

For those who still hold to the longer-term view of personal finance, which is the key to successful investing, today's market averages look to be nearly 40% undervalued. For those policy makers among you, a 4% economy could be turned into a 6% economy over the next few years if the government would reliquify the gold price to $350 (or even $400), eliminate the double taxation of dividends, lower the capital gains tax, and accelerate planned income-tax cuts. Add to that the elimination of the steel tariff and a once-and-for-all dead Osama bin Laden, and we'll be sitting pretty. For those of you who have faith, now's the time to rely on it. Faith defeats the forces of darkness. Faith brings on the forces of good. The stock market has survived tough runs before, and it will do so again.

Posted 7/15/2002 11:28:12 AM by Edward Driscoll
WANTED: EJUCATER. Reason's Daily Brickbat column has this item today:

A national advertising campaign designed to attract a team of leading education advisers to Manchester, England, to improve the city's schools contained no less than 21 mistakes. One paragraph included the phrase: "If you think you have what it takes to make a significant and lasting impression to Education attainment in one of the Country's most dynamic and forwarding looking authorities...."

Posted 7/15/2002 10:51:01 AM by Edward Driscoll
AMERICAN TALIBAN LINDH CUTS PLEA BARGAIN, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

Posted 7/15/2002 10:35:32 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE ULTIMATE JET-SKI: Cost of water skis: $250.00 Cost of tow cable: $35.00 Rental of F-14 Tomcat and trained Navy pilot: $120,000/hr Experience of water skiing at mach 2.0? Priceless. There are some things that money can't buy. For everything else, there's Photoshop. Err, Visa.

Posted 7/14/2002 11:49:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
BUT WILL KRIS KRISTOFFERSON CO-STAR? MuchMusic says that "still riding the success of �Men In Black II�, word has come out that [Will] Smith is in talks to star in the remake of �A Star Is Born.� Smith is considering the project that will be directed by Joel Schumacher." The first version of A Star Is Born came out in 1937. The remake with Judy Garland and James Mason came out in 1954. The Streisand/Kristofferson rock and roll version was released in 1976. Considering that Hollywood is in California, isn't there an environmental or health law on the books there that says you can only recycle something so many times before it goes stale, or biodegrades, or loses it flavor on the bedpost overnight or something?

Posted 7/14/2002 11:33:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
ANOTHER ONE GOES FISHIN': James Lileks takes a couple of weeks off from his popular, and stylishly retro-styled style Bleat to finish a book project. But we're still on the job. And if news breaks out, fear not! We'll put lots of Mercurochrome, Vaseline and hydrogen peroxide on it, not to mention a few Band-Aids with Batman and Star Trek logos on them, just to be on the safe side.

Posted 7/14/2002 10:53:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE HIV MUPPET AND MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE: Paul Palubicki (aka Sgt. Stryker) mentions the HIV positive muppet that's going to join the cast of the South African version of Sesame Street this coming television season, and no doubt, eventually, the American version of the show. I can't help but think he's yet another example of Muggeridge's Law in action. On the other hand, James Taranto describes it as a case of life imitating The Onion (scroll about two thirds down the page for Taranto's comments and links).

Posted 7/14/2002 10:27:51 PM by Edward Driscoll
SGT STRYKER JOINS THE RUSSIAN NAVY! Err, actually, he reviews the upcoming film K-19: The Widowmaker, starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson (who are both probably glad that George Lucas isn't directing them).

Posted 7/14/2002 06:27:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
BLOGGER ARCHIVES: I seem to have gotten hit by the dreaded Blogger Archive Bug today. Everything posted after 1:00 p.m. today seemed to be showing up in the archives, so I tried republishing my archives after setting everything posted today to after that time. We'll see it that works. In the meantime, here's another fix courtesy of InstaPundit, who recently left Blogger. I'm tempted to do so myself, if these problems continue.

Posted 7/14/2002 06:16:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
TINY FLICKERS OF SANITY IN ENGLAND: Libertarian Samizdata links to a Daily Telegraph article that reports that a farmer who was accused of shooting intruders at his home has been acquitted. Frederick Hemstock, who had claimed he intended to fire the gun in the air to frighten two intruders, has been cleared of deliberately shooting one of them.

Posted 7/14/2002 02:00:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE BACKFENCE: James Lileks researches temporal anomalies at Target, and canine OS rebooting subroutines, in his column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Posted 7/14/2002 01:13:46 PM by Edward Driscoll
"BOYCOTTING THE JUDEN": David Tell of The Weekly Standard looks at Professor Mona Baker, Egyptian native "and professional Jew hater", as she commits to racially cleansing her academic journal, a magazine perfectly titled "Studies in Intercultural Communication". (Tom Wolfe couldn't make this stuff up if he tried. But I wish he would.) Here's my post from when this item first broke.

Posted 7/14/2002 01:10:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE NUDITY RIDER: The sultry Linda Fiorentino wasn't in MIB II (her character is apparently back at the morgue). But The Smoking Gun Web site has her "nudity rider," a marvelous legal document that describes exactly what parts of her can and can't be shown. It's an astonishing example of art (ummm) and commerce intersecting in Tinsel Town in ever more strange and mysterious ways. How come none of my contracts are this interesting??

Posted 7/14/2002 01:04:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
MORE ON THE BIRKENSTOCKED BURKEANS, from the Brothers Judd. Here's our take, from Friday.

Posted 7/14/2002 01:03:45 PM by Edward Driscoll
REDUCTION IN UK CIVIL LIBERTIES: Group Captain Lionel Mandrake continues his multi-part series, on the latest insanities from the "more civilized" government across the pond. Hint: Mandrake says, "It's a quiet Sunday morning and I am already foaming at the mouth."

Posted 7/14/2002 01:03:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
MEN IN BLACK II: Nina and I saw MIBII on Friday night. If you're among the five people in America who haven't seen it yet, here's my take: the same formula that made the first MIB work helps this film overcome a certain lack of energy and dissipated plot. Lots of funny lines, genuine chemistry between Tommy Lee Jones and his gruff character and Will Smith and his young hot-shot hipster role, nice good girl/bad girl combination of Rosario Dawson (who's a serious cutie) and Lara Flynn Boyle, great gadgets, and SFX. At 88 minutes, the film is ten minutes shorter than the first MIB, perhaps because the ending was altered in light of 9/11 (the WTC was to play a role in MIB II. But like every Hollywood film released after 9/11, it's gone, as if Winston Smith of 1984's Ministry of Truth were the number one editor in Hollywood). To make up for the reduced length, there is a cute ten minute or so Pixar-style computer animated trailer at the beginning of the film. If the first film worked for you, the sequel will probably be just acceptable enough for a fun night at the movies. But you're not really not missing all that much if you hold out for it on DVD: even with some amazing special effects, it really does play like Men in Black: The TV Movie.

Posted 7/14/2002 01:01:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
DORSEY LEVENS SIGNS WITH EAGLES: Levens is the fourth-leading rusher in Green Bay Packers history, but at 32, he's on the tail-end of his career, and was cut for salary cap purposes by the Pack in February. He signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles on Friday, to replace Correll Buckhalter, who will miss the season with a knee injury, and possibly split time with Duce Staley. It doesn't hurt that Eagles coach Andy Reid was an offensive assistant at Green Bay during the first five of Levens' eight seasons with the Packers.

Posted 7/14/2002 01:00:58 PM by Edward Driscoll
LA VIDEOTAPER--TROUBLED, HOMELESS NADER FAN, according to the L.A. Times. The L.A. Examiner Web site (which is fast becoming a great way to get caught up on L.A. news fast), says the Times' coverage includes these highlights:

Mitchell Crooks moved to LA three years ago to make his fortune as a rave deejay, but ended up occasionally homeless and desperate...After taping the Donovan Jackson head-slam, Crooks sold copies of the video to TV stations for $150 a pop. He�s also a political nut: The Times describes him as a "a Green Party supporter who adores Ralph Nader and hates President Bush"; Hanna said Crooks wouldn�t give CBS a copy because the network "blew" the 2000 presidential election by calling it too early, and told ABC representatives they couldn�t have the tape unless they reinstated Bill Maher�s "Politically Incorrect." His mother Patricia Crooks, who raised Mitchell alone, said his terror of police came from when he had some of his hair yanked out by a guard in juvenile hall.