Posted 8/24/2002 10:59:12 PM by Edward Driscoll
A SPORT THAT THE BRITISH HAVE TRULY MASTERED. I think that Group Captain Mandrake participates in this sport as well, but strictly as an amateur, to the best of my knowledge.

Posted 8/24/2002 02:20:20 PM by Edward Driscoll
BRING BACK DDT, says Joseph Farah. I agree. If it's a case of "us or the mosquitos" (as the West Nile Virus stories are starting to sound like), then it's tough for me to be sympathetic to anyone who sides with the mosquitos. To see where the anti-DDT hysteria first began in the early 1960s, (not to mention the general stasism of the modern environmental movement), here's a flashback to a couple of our posts from early June on Rachel Carson.

Posted 8/24/2002 12:24:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
INSTAPUNDIT NAILS THE "McAFRIKA" CONTROVERSY: I had thought of essentially the same thing last night, but couldn't figure out the best way to say it. As usual, Glenn did.

Posted 8/24/2002 12:11:58 AM by Edward Driscoll
PARTYING LIKE IT'S 1943: The US and Russia team up in raid to snatch 100lb of highly enriched uranium from a nuclear research facility in Yugoslavia in a secret operation to prevent it being seized by terrorists. The UK Times has the details. UPDATE: Apparently Ted Turner (?!) financed this raid!

Posted 8/23/2002 11:32:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
A GREAT IDEA FOR A NEW AIRLINE, courtesy of Dennis Miller (courtesy of Glenn Frazier).

Posted 8/23/2002 12:27:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
RELAXING LOGGING RULES is the subject of this Washington Times article, which says:

President Bush yesterday said a relaxation of logging rules that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle recently secured for South Dakota should be extended to the rest of America, a move opposed by the Democratic leader. "My attitude is: If it's good enough for that part of South Dakota, it's good enough for Oregon," Mr. Bush told a cheering crowd of loggers, ranchers and farmers here.

Bush added, "We've got to understand that it makes sense to clear brush. It makes sense to encourage people to make sure that the forests not only are healthy from disease, but are healthy from fire." Considering the amount of forest fires this summer, it's about time. And surely Tom Daschle would agree, right?

Posted 8/23/2002 11:19:05 AM by Edward Driscoll
I.T. BUST CAME EARLIER, RECOVERY COULD ARRIVE SOONER: That's the gist of this InformationWeek article, which says "The technology bubble surrounding the dot-com boom may not have been as immense as first professed. Revised government figures show that the sale of computer hardware in 2000 and 2001--the final years of the dot-com buying frenzy--was sharply lower than initially reported. This could be good news for the IT industry."

Posted 8/23/2002 10:59:22 AM by Edward Driscoll
RFK ON FX IS DOA: Michael Knox Beran on National Review Online, reviews FX's coming made-for-cable movie about Bobby Kennedy, and finds it shallow, to say the least:

Oliver Stone, say what you will about him, took pains, in his movies, to lay out what he believed to be the historical basis for his beliefs, the evils of big business, the growth of the military-industrial complex, the rise of America as an imperial war state, the ongoing corruption of the country's political life. Dismiss his history, if you like, as shallow and contemptible, the unappetizing daubery of a Sixties' recusant; but it is impossible to deny that he aimed, in such a movie as JFK, at an historical treatment of the events with which he dealt. RFK, by contrast, exists in a kind of parallel made-for-television universe, one from which history has, through some sweet oblivious antidote, been banished.

Which is too bad--as the transformation of RFK from a tough cold warrior assisting first Joe McCarthy and then his brother to a typically warm and fuzzy liberal is worth studying, if only to understand what it was about the 1960s that caused so many to lose their focus--and their history. Just like this TV movie.

Posted 8/23/2002 10:38:18 AM by Edward Driscoll
ADDITIONAL REVIEWS ON BLOGCRITICS--besides the Les Paul article, I have a couple of new book reviews posted there: Gil Evans-Out of the Cool: His Life and Music by Stephanie Stein Crease. Inside Classic Rock Tracks by Rikky Rooksby. And don't forget to check out my earlier reviews, if you haven't done so already: The soundtrack to Superfly by Curtis Mayfield. The soundtrack to Rollerball by Andre Previn. Wow, Gil Evans, Les Paul, Curtis Mayfield and Andre Previn--Eclectic 'R' Us!

Posted 8/23/2002 10:29:16 AM by Edward Driscoll
U.N. CONSIDERS FACE-LIFT of its iconic Manhattan building, according to this The Washington Times article. Considering how many of the nations in the U.N. genuinely appear not to like the U.S., why are they staying? This seems like the perfect opportunity to start fresh somewhere else--like France, North Korea, or Libya.

Posted 8/23/2002 12:41:56 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE TWO DUMBEST QUESTIONS MAY BE DROPPED: According to an article linked to by GC Lionel Mandrake in his letter from the Olde Countrie blog, the two questions that everyone gets asked when they check their bags (you do have them memorized right?) may be dropped. The article quotes Air Transport Association spokesman Michael Wascom, who proves that he's smarter than Norman Mineta, when he says, "All passengers do not pose equal security threats. Why should we continue to ask these simple questions of everyone? We should be focusing on people who are higher security risks." Now there's a thought!

Posted 8/22/2002 05:37:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MANY LIVES OF THE MANY LIVES OF LES PAUL: My Les Paul profile is up at Blogcritics.org, complete with photographs of Les and his namesake guitar. As Jonah Goldberg would say, you should click on the above link like a monkey in a cocaine-addiction study trying to get one last pellet. You should handcuff your children to the computer and tell them they won't eat unless they click on it at least 1,000 times. Or hey, at least click on it once and stop by--and then click over to some of the excellent other reviews and articles at Blogcritics.

Posted 8/22/2002 01:47:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
McKINNEY EXCUSE ROUND-UP: What's old saying? "Failure has a thousand excuses, success needs none"? We'll, let's look at the round-up of excuses as to why Cynthia McKinney lost on Tuesday:

It's the Republicans' fault. It's the Indians' fault. It's the Jews' fault. It's the Blogosphere's fault. It's Jonah Goldberg's fault.

Because, let's face it: it couldn't have been her own fault, right?

Posted 8/22/2002 12:41:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
NOW THERE'S NO EXCUSE: Davis Will Sign Bill to Enshrine Roe v. Wade is the headline of this CNSnews.com article, which says, "Legislation specifically designed to protect the 'reproductive rights' of California women, regardless of changes in federal law, is just one signature away from becoming law in the Golden State." Which means that he'll eliminate the one reason people had not to vote for Bill Simon this fall.

Posted 8/22/2002 11:31:58 AM by Edward Driscoll
JUST IN TIME TO SERVE AGAINST IRAQ: The Brothers Judd say that GI Joe is getting his Kung Fu Grip back!

Posted 8/22/2002 10:49:13 AM by Edward Driscoll
MEATHEAD: Reason catches up with Rob Reiner and does not like his latest role. UPDATE: Meanwhile, over on the East Coast, New Yorkers are about to lose many of their smoking rights as well. UPDATE: And things aren't looking good for tobacco advertising in England, either.

Posted 8/21/2002 09:46:32 AM by Edward Driscoll
PROUD OF SAN JOSE: Joanne Jacobs, at readjacobs.com is proud of how apartment-dwellers led their neighbors to safety during a horrific fire this past Monday.

Posted 8/21/2002 09:32:16 AM by Edward Driscoll
TROUBLE AT MIAMI AIRPORT: It's been partially evacuated; and 36 report respiratory distress, according to this Tampa Bay Online article.

Posted 8/21/2002 08:28:24 AM by Edward Driscoll
GEORGIA TWOFER: Ed Kilgore, in National Review Online, weighs in on Republican Bob Barr and Democrat Cynthia McKinney, who both were handed their walking papers in yesterday's Georgia primaries. McKinney of course, has been the subject of numerous anti-idiotarian posts in the blogosphere (search on her name at InstaPundit to see links to a bunch of them), and the subject of this prophetically named Web site. UPDATE: Why did McKinney lose? Stephen Green (back from his honeymoon, and posting up a storm) finds the real reason why McKinney lost (couldn't have been the combination of her big mouth and vacuous brain--of course not!) and unwittingly beats CNN to the punch. Advantage: VodkaPundit!

Posted 8/20/2002 10:11:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
SOMETHING FISHY IN THE HATFILL CASE, says Mona Charen, who says that Steven Hatfill (the media's anthrax suspect) has joined Richard Jewell, Ray Donovan and other suspects whose reputations were ruined by the media long before they were actually proven innocent.

Posted 8/20/2002 03:46:49 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MOST RIGHTEOUS OF THE RIGHT STUFF: Orrin Judd posts that Chuck Yeager is planning to retire from flying military aircraft after one last sonic boom in an F-15 during the Edwards AFB Air Show on October 26. Fortunately, he'll still be flying "P-51 Mustangs and various light aircraft".

Posted 8/20/2002 03:28:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
THINGS I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE DEPT: Richard Dreyfuss pens a moving tribute to Charlton Heston in National Review Online.

Posted 8/20/2002 03:14:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
"THE KERNEL OF EVIL": Saudis withdraw billions of dollars from US. Too bad. We should have frozen their assets after 9/11.

Posted 8/20/2002 03:09:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
WE'RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT'S 1990: Sgt. Stryker looks at media recycling of old headlines. Does this mean that 'Til Tuesday and Roxy Music are due for comebacks?

Posted 8/20/2002 02:55:38 PM by Edward Driscoll
NAKED LAUNCH: disorderly nude passenger causes emergency landing of Air France flight.

Posted 8/19/2002 10:38:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
CAPTAIN SPAULDING posts that today is the 25th anniversary of Groucho Marx's death. From all of Freedonia, We salute you, President Firefly.

Posted 8/19/2002 08:22:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT:

You are 43% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

(Found via Sgt. Stryker, who's only seven percent geek, and thus gets a cool photo of Ahhhnaaald, instead of this goateed dork with a magnifying glass.)

Posted 8/19/2002 01:20:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
38 SPECIAL: What happens to a quarterback at that age? Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated says very often it's not pretty.

Posted 8/19/2002 10:35:49 AM by Edward Driscoll
74 DEAD IN RUSSIAN HELICOPTER CRASH IN CHECHNYA, according to this AP article. The Russians don't know yet if it was terrorism or mechanical failure.

Posted 8/19/2002 10:28:13 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE KILLER BREES: Drew Brees gets the nod at QB in San Diego. Sorry Doug.

Posted 8/19/2002 10:25:06 AM by Edward Driscoll
NOT ME DID IT: InstaPundit has some suggestions for the NEA and their jaw-dropping recommendation that teachers be sure not to "suggest any group is responsible" for September 11th, 2001.

Posted 8/19/2002 10:21:42 AM by Edward Driscoll
HAVE A SAM ADAMS: The Raiders did, for somewhere in the vicinity of two million dollars this year.

Posted 8/18/2002 10:17:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
STEVE McGARRETT'S NEXT BOSS? Patrick Ruffini links to a George Will article, which says that Hawaii is on the verge of electing its first Republican governor in over forty years.