Posted
11/2/2002 12:23:33 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MONDALE UPDATE: OK, let's see: he skipped the debate last night, (which is par for the course for Democrats this year), and you can't click on his Web site to discover where he stands on the issues.
"Where's the beef?", indeed.
Posted
11/2/2002 12:23:27 PM
by Edward Driscoll
BACKHANDED NEWSPAPER ENDORSEMENTS FOR GRAY DAVIS, rounded up by Joanne Jacobs.
Most of those of course, were before "the other shoe dropped",and a federal judge released a pair of letters from attorneys representing a convicted state coastal commissioner alleging that, a decade ago, he and Gray Davis schemed to pull campaign donations from developers in exchange for political favors.
Incidentally, in the event of a terrorist threat, Californians should feel better knowing the state government is prepared--at a moment's notice--to move the gubernatorial pompadour to a secure, undisclosed location.
Finally, here's a recent interview with Davis' challenger, Republican Bill Simon.
Posted
11/2/2002 11:26:26 AM
by Edward Driscoll
IN THE 1970s, THE NFL CHANGED ITS RULES TO OPEN UP OFFENSES--it was thought that increased scoring possibilities would make pro football more wide open and exciting.
It looks like soccer has followed suit.
Posted
11/2/2002 02:19:13 AM
by Edward Driscoll
NORTH DALLAS FORTY: ESPN.com's "Page2" section looks at how reel and real life compare in their analysis of the best football movie ever made, North Dallas Forty.
Posted
11/2/2002 02:15:59 AM
by Edward Driscoll
GATES CALLS MICROSOFT DECISION "A MILESTONE", according to The Washington Times.
I think that means he's pretty happy with it--as well he should be.
Posted
11/2/2002 12:41:56 AM
by Edward Driscoll
I DON'T KNOW HOW THEY FOUND ME--BUT THEY'RE PRETTY COOL: In my refer stats was a URL called "http://f16houston.com/". It's the 147th Fighter Wing of the Texas Air National Guard, and they've got a nifty multimedia introduction to their homepage. Stop by and check it out.
When I showed it to my wife, she said, "Maybe they want you to join."
Hey, if I get to fly the F-16 shown in the intro, they could talk me into it!
(And whoever you are from the Texas ANG--drop me an email if you're reading this.)
Posted
11/1/2002 05:22:37 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MY MOM WILL HATE THIS ONE. Reason's Daily Brickbat column has this fast breaking story:
Pennsylvanians Saved From Depraved Bingo Nights (11/1) Pennsylvanians can play the lotto and bet on ponies. They may soon be able to play slots or gamble on river boats. But they can't play bingo at Wal-Mart. For years, the discount chain has permitted weekly bingo games. There was no admission fee, no charge to play, and no betting. The district attorney in Lebanon County has nonetheless decided the games violate the state's "small games of chance" law, which allows only state-licensed, not-for-profit community organizations to run bingo games. Wal-Mart asked the state to change the law. But Republican lawmakers voted down the idea, concerned that it would promote gambling.Bingo at Wal-Mart! The next thing you know, certain words will be creeping into your conversation: words like...swell. And "so's your old man!" Well if so my friends, you got trouble. Right here in Monongahela City. With a capital T! And that rhymes with B! And that stands for Bingo! (With my sincerest apologies to Robert Preston and The Music Man.)
Posted
11/1/2002 05:13:57 PM
by Edward Driscoll
SHARON OFFERS NETANYAHU the job of foreign minister in Israel's fragile minority government.
Posted
11/1/2002 04:36:16 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"BLOG TO COURT: CHECK YOUR FACTS": Wired News reports that "When attorney Howard Bashman noticed a small error in the footnote of a 5th Circuit appellate court opinion, he quickly noted it on his weblog".
The next day, Judge Jerry Smith, who wrote the opinion and also happens to be a reader of Bashman's blog, fixed the error in an amended version (PDF). The judge e-mailed Bashman, personally thanking him for bringing the mistake to his attention. "It's the first time that I've noticed a weblog credited for pointing out an error and causing a correction (in a court decision)," Bashman said. "This example is noteworthy because it's the first time that something like this has come to light."
Posted
11/1/2002 01:45:40 PM
by Edward Driscoll
JUDGE OKS MOST MICROSOFT PROVISIONS: Here's the AP report.
Fox's Neal Cavuto is playing this as a major victory for Microsoft--"a slap on the wrist", he says. More as the dust settles.
UPDATE: Computer World reports:
Legal experts were still reviewing the judge's multi-part decision tonight, but pundits such as Robert Lande, an antitrust professor at the University of Baltimore, said he was having trouble finding any concessions made by the judge to the nonsettling states. "This looks like an incredible victory for Microsoft," said Lande. "I see some little tweaks here and there but basically it's a near and complete Microsoft victory." "There were questions about could this be appealed," said Tom Bittman, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "It certainly can be appealed to the Supreme Court. But our opinion is the Supreme Court has basically already said they’re not interested, so anything that did go to them would be rejected, we believe. And we think the case is essentially closed."
Posted
11/1/2002 10:56:42 AM
by Edward Driscoll
TUESDAY'S GOING TO BE A LONG MONTH: Absentee voter forms found burned in South Dakota.
Expect the Florida fiasco to become nationalized starting Wednesday morning.
Posted
10/31/2002 11:46:22 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IT'S STILL HALLOWEEN (At least for the next 15 minutes on the West Coast), so how 'bout a nice seance? Peggy Noonan has a memo "from the other side" (the real other side): Paul Wellstone says he's not too happy about how his funeral went...
Posted
10/31/2002 11:28:14 PM
by Edward Driscoll
LONG AWAITED MICROSOFT DECISION DUE OUT TOMORROW AFTERNOON: U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge overseeing a remedy in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust case will issue her opinion late tomorrow afternoon, the court said on Thursday. Judge Kollar-Kotelly gave no hint during the remedy hearing this spring how she might rule, according to this Computer World article, which adds:
Although tomorrow's decision probably won't be the end of the Microsoft case, it will be one of its more dramatic turning points in a landmark antitrust case that began in the fall of 1998. Over a period of four months, Judge Kollar-Kotelly heard from a long list of witnesses over what should be done to satisfy the U.S. Court of Appeals decision that Microsoft illegally maintained its operating system monopoly. Depending on how Kollar-Kotelly rules, either the nonsettling states that refused to go along with a deal between the Department of Justice and Microsoft reached last year, the U.S., or the company itself may appeal tomorrow's ruling. This remedy phase follows an appeals court decision one year ago this month that rejected a lower court ruling to break up the company but upheld a finding that Microsoft had illegally maintained its monopoly in the operating systems market.Given that it's a Friday afternoon announcement, which are traditionally designed to reduce media coverage (much like the timing of Emory's recent issuance of its report on Michael Bellesiles), I wonder in which direction this will break. I'm not holding my breath for a quick resolution however: I wrote an article almost exactly one year ago titled "Microsoft Endgame?" for National Review. Glad there's a question mark in the title! UPDATE: Reuters has more, including a quote from antitrust attorney Steve Axinn, who says:
"She's got to decide if this settlement meets the (public interest) standard, and if not what it would take to meet the standard." Whichever way it goes, Friday's ruling could be the end of the line in the long-running case. "If she approves the settlement, that's it," said Axinn. On the other hand, any modifications the judge makes to the settlement are unlikely to be overturned on appeal, he said. "She has broad discretion here," Axinn said.
Posted
10/31/2002 11:27:06 PM
by Edward Driscoll
READ LILEKS: The whole thing. It's a particularly awesome piece of writing from the best writer in the Blogosphere.
Posted
10/31/2002 05:50:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
LOOKING FOR POLITICALLY CORRECT HALLOWEEN COSTUMES at the last minute? Susan & Dave Konig have a parents' guide to making the proper choices.
UPDATE: Here's one to avoid. Err, actually, five to avoid...
Posted
10/31/2002 05:49:33 PM
by Edward Driscoll
JAMES TRAFICANT IS OUT TRICK OR TREATING....Be careful--his toupee is haunted!
Posted
10/31/2002 05:48:34 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THE TOP TEN SCARIEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME, as selected by Dawn Olsen of Blogcritics.
I'm particularly fond of choices #10 and #4, myself.
Posted
10/31/2002 05:48:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
NIGHT OF THE LIVING OSAMA: James Robbins compares Osama bin Laden’s status to the creature in the horror films whom you know is dead...you're sure he is. He's gotta be. But he's back....Or is he? (Be sure to check out the Halloween cartoon Robbins links to at the end of his essay.)
Posted
10/31/2002 12:36:17 PM
by Edward Driscoll
CBS AND MATH: Glenn Reynolds links to two different AP wire reports on protestors at an NRA rally in Tucson featuring Charlton Heston. The AP feed says "three people protested", but the version on the CBS website, which is otherwise the same, raises that number to "a few dozen."
I have no idea which report is accurate, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see that CBS has problems with numbers, since, after all, these were the folks who thought that George W. Bush was President in 1998.
Posted
10/31/2002 09:23:15 AM
by Edward Driscoll
LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN: Nifty little comment, sung to the tune of the Rocky Horror Picture Show song, buried in this LGF post titled Israel Moves Right.
Posted
10/31/2002 09:19:19 AM
by Edward Driscoll
GOTTA LOVE THE RUSSIANS (I know, I never thought I'd say that, either). Check this post on Little Green Footballs out:
Russian security forces are going to bury the terrorists from the Moscow theater siege wrapped in pigskin. Reader J Lichty, who forwarded the story, comments: “Imagine if Israel did this.” The Russians understand the mindset of the Islamic terrorist. Far from being a spiteful symbolic gesture, to the Islamozoids this is a deadly serious form of psychological warfare that strikes at the heart of their delusionary belief system.
Posted
10/31/2002 09:15:47 AM
by Edward Driscoll
ANGRY DEM WALKS OUT OF DEBATE: 3-term incumbent "U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., stormed out of a debate Wednesday after refusing to stay on the same stage with her Republican challenger, Brose McVey."
But hey, at least Carson showed up. Senate candidate Douglas Forrester recently debated an empty chair as his Democratic opponent, Frank Lautenberg, declined to appear against him on New Jersey radio.
Posted
10/31/2002 08:48:45 AM
by Edward Driscoll
BEDS OF THE WORLD: Silflay Hraka explains the latest in global Posturepedics. Complete with weltanschauung and weltanschlauung!
Posted
10/31/2002 12:03:27 AM
by Edward Driscoll
Posted
10/30/2002 11:01:43 PM
by Edward Driscoll
YOU DON'T SAY: AP headline: "UN Members Oppose Speedy Iraq Action".
Since the U.N. is the global equivalent of watching paint dry (actually it's worse: when the paint dries, usually something good has been accomplished), at what point does Bush say, "see ya in Baghdad, fellas!" and turn his back on them?
Posted
10/30/2002 09:39:38 PM
by Edward Driscoll
RAPPER "JAM MASTER JAY", MEMBER OF RUN DMC, KILLED IN SHOOTING: AP reports "Publicist Tracy Miller confirmed the death of the 37-year-old rapper, whose real name was Jason Mizell.
"A legal source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the rapper was shot in the head at a recording studio in the New York City borough of Queens. A second person was shot in the ankle and the shooter was at large, the source said."
Posted
10/30/2002 07:19:17 PM
by Edward Driscoll
HERE'S A SHOCKER: AP reports "Minn. Dems OK Mondale for Senate Run".
Posted
10/30/2002 07:15:31 PM
by Edward Driscoll
INTERNET2 UPDATE: Forget HDTV--Internet2 just streamed Super High Definition (SHD) full motion digital imagery in real time from a server in Chicago to a projector in Los Angeles. Canada's Canarie System (the Great White North equivalent of Internet2), has more details.
What's SHD? The Canarie press release describes Super High Definition has having "four times the resolution of HDTV, and 24 times the resolution of standard definition video. Transmission of SHD via network requires sustainable high-speed connectivity of 1 gigabit per second over multiple hops without significant packet loss, delay or jitter.
What's Internet2? Read all about it in my Tech Central Station article from earlier this month.
Posted
10/30/2002 07:03:30 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MATT DRUDGE: On top of the breaking issues that effect society and life as we know it!
Posted
10/30/2002 05:39:03 PM
by Edward Driscoll
PA MUST BE ON LSD TO BLAME CIA: Little Green Footballs reports that "The Palestinian Authority’s official daily says the CIA was behind the Moscow terrorists, as part of a complicated and highly illogical plot to enlist Russia’s support for an attack against Iraq."
Posted
10/30/2002 04:56:24 PM
by Edward Driscoll
I LOVE THIS OPENING PARAGRAPH by Zev Chafets in the NY Daily News:
Here's all you need to know about Saturday's "peace" demonstration near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Al Sharpton was the most moderate, pro-American speaker there. "We are the real patriots," he told the much-smaller-than-expected crowd. "We are the true face of America."Geez, I don't think so, Al! Incidentally, Chafets makes another good point regarding how toxic the "peace movement" has become near the end of his essay:
As a hawk, this should make me happy, but it doesn't. Wartime democracies need a loyal opposition. A large, pro-American peace movement would be a good tool for keeping the government honest as it pursues its (very justified) war against the Islamic Axis.Nice idea, but I'm afraid the idea of "pro-American" largely departed the peace movement around 1967.
Posted
10/30/2002 03:38:16 PM
by Edward Driscoll
FANS OF THE CULT TV SERIES UFO (and we count ourselves as one of them--it was a favorite childhood series), should check out the hip gear available fron The SHADO Store, powered by Cafe Press.
Posted
10/30/2002 03:23:55 PM
by Edward Driscoll
"YOU THINK YOU'RE MICKEY SPILLANE? DO YOU THINK YOU'RE SOME KIND OF F***ING WRITER??" The Guardian reports that "The Pentagon is offering to train journalists in the basics of military combat as part of its contingency planning for media coverage of a possible war with Iraq."
No word yet if Lee Ermey will return to active duty as a D.I. to train the reporters.
Posted
10/30/2002 02:21:27 PM
by Edward Driscoll
T-MOBILE EXPANDING 802.11 HOTSPOTS, according to an email I received from FierceWireless.com:
T-Mobile USA today said it would set up wireless hot spots in airport lounges across the United States. T-Mobile agreed to establish hot spots for American Airlines, Delta, and United in around 100 airport clubs and lounges throughout the U.S. No financial details from the deals were released. T-Mobile has already inked hot spots deals with Borders Group and Starbucks, and plans to offer hot spots in about 2,000 locations in the U.S. by the end of the year.As to what an "802.11 hotspot" is, see our July article in Tech Central Station.
Posted
10/30/2002 02:03:52 PM
by Edward Driscoll
THERE'S AN AIDS CRISIS BREWING IN INDIA, fueled "by an increasingly casual attitude toward sex coupled with a tradition of public silence and reluctance to grasp the issues", according to CNSNews.com.
Posted
10/30/2002 12:54:42 PM
by Edward Driscoll
WELLSTONE WAKE ROUND-UP: As probably everybody reading this has already seen, the funeral services for Paul Wellstone ended up as a partisan pep rally yesterday. If you haven't, here's a round up of the coverage.
InstaPundit notes that "The event was too tacky for former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura." (And that's saying something!)
Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg writes:
That is what was so offensive about that rally: It shamelessly used Wellstone's death for partisan advantage while its organizers cynically accused their opponents of doing precisely that. Blaming others for something awful you've done is perhaps the defining attribute of Bill Clinton and his legacy on the Democratic party. Wellstone did many good things out of principle — including work with Jesse Helms, a man he grew to befriend, on human rights in China. But he will now be invoked by Democrats everywhere simply to get out the vote, beat up Republicans, and raise millions of dollars in campaign contributions. In short, so long as they hold onto the Senate, the Clinton Democrats — who often found Wellstone's principles inconvenient — will find him more useful dead than alive. They will rewrite the story of his life to fit any cause they choose — much as they have done with other Democratic martyrs like John and Robert Kennedy (a Cold War anti-Communist and the attorney general who personally authorized the bugging of Martin Luther King, respectively). Wellstone's distinctiveness and honesty will melt in a warm pool of mass-marketed nostalgia. And, if Republicans complain, Democrats will simply charge insensitivity and laugh all the way to the bank.Meanwhile, Andrew Stuttaford reports that "Rick Kahn, the friend of Paul Wellstone who made what has been seen as an excessively partisan speech at the late senator's memorial service was, apparently, unrepentant afterwards". Kahn was quoted as saying:
"Can they not one time, just one time, step forward for Paul and honor that friendship? Why can't they do that? One time, for one week. That's what we're asking. That they go out there and say Paul Wellstone did this wonderful work and we need to keep his legacy alive by sending his successor to his seat. "Here's the photo that started it all. In retrospect, it was probably wise of the Wellstone family to tell Dick Cheney that he wasn't welcome at the funeral. Wellstone's death released a remarkable outpouring of sympathy from both parties. Peggy Noonan's warm, admiring essay is representative of the tone from a wide range of columnists and bloggers. But Wellstone's awesomely tacky funeral has destroyed much of that bipartisan goodwill. Its ill-will has already caused Orrin Judd to write:
Out of respect for the wishes of the Wellstone family and the Democrat Party we too will abjure decency and treat the Senator's death as a purely partisan matter. In that regard, while we regret the manner of his departure, we would note that on the day he died the prospects for human freedom were improved in America and the world.Expect to see more such writing as the anger from this ill-conceived event festers. Next time, bury Caesar, praise him--and then have the pep rally, the day after. UPDATE: CNSNews.com is reporting:
The chair of the Minnesota Republican Party is calling on the state's television and radio stations to give the GOP equal time to campaign, given the partisan tone of Tuesday night's memorial for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, who along with his wife and daughter, perished in a plane crash last week.UPDATE: Wellstone's campaign manager now says, "It would probably have been best not to have the election mentioned." Gee, you think?
Posted
10/29/2002 04:17:45 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IN THE CHURCH OF THE POISONED MIND: Speaking to the New York Daily News, Curtis Hanson, the director of Eminem's first movie, 8 Mile, describes how much trouble he went to build an authentic recreation of the hip-hop club where Marshall Mathers (Eminem's real name) got his start as a rapper:
[Hanson] went to the trouble to make sure it signaled the same "religious" atmosphere as the places where Eminem and his rivals originally performed. "This was their church," he said during a recent visit to New York. "They got from it what people get from church — a sense of community, spirituality, hope. It became the cornerstone of the direction I gave in finding other locations.Move along, no moral equivalence to see here. You can go about your business. These aren't the droids you're looking for. I realize I'm about to sound like a boring old fart, but...rap clubs as churches?? I don't claim to any sort of religious scholar. But gee, I don't recall hearing 12 letter words words built around the letters "M" and "F" in my church--or in weekly school chapel services--growing up. UPDATE: James Bowman also has some thoughts on the man whom the New York Times recently called "the world’s best rapper".
Posted
10/29/2002 12:06:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
A FEDEX TRUCK HAS EXPLODED ON A ST LOUIS HIGHWAY: This Fox News article has preliminary details, and not much of those.
UPDATE: Since posting this, more details have emerged. The story now is that "the fire was the result of a traffic accident caused when the truck driver apparently fell asleep.
[Missouri Director of Homeland Security Tim Daniel] says the truck's fuel tank struck a light pole, causing the fire."
Posted
10/29/2002 01:59:25 AM
by Edward Driscoll
ARE DEMOCRATS AGAINST MEDICAL SAVINGS ACCOUNTS? Shiloh Bucher says yes, and explains why.
Posted
10/29/2002 01:52:10 AM
by Edward Driscoll
PARIS HONORS JIMI HENDRIX, on what would have been his 60th birthday. Group Captain Lionel Mandrake has the details.
Posted
10/29/2002 01:26:50 AM
by Edward Driscoll
A FEDERAL ALTERNATIVE INTERNET? Information Week says that "The Bush administration is exploring the possibility of creating an “interstate communications expressway,” patterned after the interstate highway system, to quicken the exchange of homeland-security information among federal, state, and local governments.
While its details are sketchy, the article does note that the networks could eventually be opened to the public (much like Darpanet eventually became the Internet):
Kentucky CIO Aldona Valicenti said accepting federally endorsed standards wouldn't bother most state CIOs. Though the idea of the network would be to ease the exchange of homeland security information, there's no reason why other types of information couldn't transverse it, even commercial data, he said. Indeed, employing one type of technology to address a wide range of processes is a leitmotif of Bush administration technology managers. Planners of the original interstate highway system during the Cold War years a half-century ago weren't concerned about the movement of goods and civilians--today's primary users--but to facilitate the transport of military equipment and personnel. Today, Cooper notes, drivers may occasionally see a convoy of National Guard trucks carrying weekend warriors crawl along.
Posted
10/28/2002 09:34:27 PM
by Edward Driscoll
IT'S THAT 80'S SHOW, where James Lileks takes you back to the future to the past to future to the past (sorry for the Mobius loop, but it's tough to get used to elections for the Senate where the players include a fossilized Walter Mondale and an ossified Frank Lautenberg):
In doing some research for today’s Mondale column, I reread his speech at the 1984 Democratic convention. Here’s a real time-capsule moment for you:“When we speak of change, the words are Gary Hart's. When we speak of hope, the fire is Jesse Jackson's. When we speak of caring, the spirit is Ted Kennedy's. When we speak of the future, the message is Geraldine Ferraro”Well, at least one out of four didn’t cheat on his wife. What a snapshot of 1984: a time when Gary Hart was the 845th blurry photocopy of JFK to be handed around, when Jesse Jackson was regarded as a bulwark of righteous enlightenment instead of a self-aggrandizing shakedown artist; when Ted Kennedy was a big pickled Care Bear, and Geraldine Ferraro was the future, not a footnote-to-be. I was a hardcore Democrat at the time, and I remember watching the speech and thinking: we are going to lose. We are going to lose 51 states. Puerto Rico will demand statehood just for the chance not to vote for this guy.
Posted
10/28/2002 09:00:39 PM
by Edward Driscoll
Yeager, with Edwards test pilot Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine in the back seat, opened the event by climbing to just over 30,000 feet and impressed the crowd with his infamous sonic boom. Yeager first broke the sound barrier at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in October 1947 when he accelerated his rocket-powered Bell X-1 to the speed of Mach 1.06 and shattered the myth of the sound barrier forever. The crowd hushed as Yeager landed and taxied under an archway of water gushing from two Edwards fire trucks per Air Force tradition. For his final military flight, Yeager was accompanied in the air with longtime friend and colleague retired Maj. Gen. Joe Engle flying his own F-15. The two legendary test pilots have been flying together for decades. "This is a fun day for us because we get to fly good airplanes and do something we've loved to do for some time," Yeager said. The general announced earlier this year that 60 years of military flying is long enough. "Now is a good time," said Yeager. "I've had a heck of good time and very few people get exposed to the things I've been exposed to. I'll keep on flying P-51s and light stuff, but I just feel it's time to quit."The actual article contains larger versions of the above photo. See if the name painted on the nose of Yeager's F-15 rings a bell. (Thanks to Orrin Judd for sending us the link to the above article.)
Posted
10/28/2002 05:33:34 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MELISA SECKORA, who was one of the first to break the story on Michael Bellesiles, has an excellent summary of his resignation from Emory University, and the events that lead up to it, complete with numerous links.
Posted
10/28/2002 05:04:47 PM
by Edward Driscoll
GODWIN'S LAW UPDATE: Is it just me, or is Walter Cronkite not-so-subtely comparing Bush to Hitler when he complains about the military not allowing reporters in to battle?
“[In past conflicts], you wrote it to be the history,” he said. “We have no history now of the Persian Gulf War. We have only what the military reporters wrote and that’s what their bosses told them. That’s not good enough.” Cronkite admitted that in some cases, such as the recent congressional report that outlined the country’s homeland security weaknesses, he wonders whether or not reporting all the facts is in the country’s best interest. “It seems to me that as citizens, we should get this info so we can shout to Washington, ‘Let’s get this game going,’” he said. “But at the same time, there’s a terrorist cell sitting there saying, ‘That’s how we do it.’” But for a country’s citizens to be truly free and the government to be held accountable, he said people must have a free press that gathers all the facts. He said an example of the alternative would be a situation like what he witnessed after WWII, after the Nazi concentration camps were freed. The people who lived in nearby towns cried at the sights of the persecuted Jews and told reporters they had no idea of what was going on behind the walls of the camps. Many were probably telling the truth, he said, but that did not make them any less responsible. “They applauded as Hitler closed down the independent newspaper and television stations and only gave them his propaganda,” Cronkite said. “When they did not rise up and say, ‘Give us a free press,’ they became just as guilty.”OK, maybe it's just me. But he is comparing the military to the Nazis--an analogy that's got to be getting a little worn out these days. UPDATE: ScrappleFace has the inevitable denouement to this story. Of course, Cronkite should have seen it coming from a mile away. UPDATE: As James Taranto notes, "Ah yes, the Weimar Republic--the Golden Age of Television."
Posted
10/28/2002 02:44:13 PM
by Edward Driscoll
BROADWAY DICK LeBEAU GUARANTEES BENGALS WILL BEAT HOUSTON: No word yet on what Joe Namath thinks about his famous 1969 guarantee of victory being used by the lowly 0-7 Bengals to geek themselves up before playing the 2-5 Texans on Sunday
Posted
10/28/2002 02:35:00 PM
by Edward Driscoll
HEADLINES YOU DON'T SEE EVERYDAY: Rich Lowry asks, "Is milk racist?"
Posted
10/28/2002 02:33:20 PM
by Edward Driscoll
SPEAKING OF GODWIN'S LAW: U.S. News & World Report's John Leo writes that the left has lost its moral bearings:
Everywhere you turn these days, someone on the left is denouncing President Bush as Hitler, Satan, a terrorist or a tyrannical emperor. A Yale law professor said Bush is "the most dangerous man on Earth." A famous editor referred to Bush as "a lawn jockey" and "Pinocchio." Some of the angry rhetoric flirts with the fringe idea that the United States planned the terrorist attacks. A Purdue professor said "there is no ground to be certain" that America and Israel aren't behind the 9/11 attacks. A Columbia law professor compared 9/11 to the Reichstag fire in Nazi Germany -- Bush is not responsible for 9/11, he said, but he exploited a national disaster to suspend civil liberties, just like Hitler. A Berkeley professor helpfully pointed out that some Indonesian groups think the U.S. planned the Bali bombing. The rhetoric accurately reflects the current condition of much of the left -- bitter, stymied, alienated, politically impotent, full of loathing for America and the West, and totally unable to address the crisis wrought by 9/11, except to imply (or say) that the U.S. deserved to be attacked.
Posted
10/28/2002 02:20:42 PM
by Edward Driscoll
CAVANAUGH'S LAW? Nice essay by Tim Cavanaugh on Daniel Pipes' new organization, Campus Watch, in Reason. I particularly liked this idea:
We may in fact need an update of Mike Godwin's Hitler constant, with a corollary that the first person to use the word "McCarthy" in a debate automatically forfeits the point.Good plan.
Posted
10/28/2002 02:03:52 PM
by Edward Driscoll
FOUR KILLED IN GUNFIRE AT U. OF ARIZONA: This AP report identifies the suspect, who took his own life, as "Robert S. Flores, a Gulf War veteran who was apparently flunking out of the nursing program. He apparently committed suicide after the attack, Police Chief Richard Miranda said."
Reason recently had a short piece built around the notion that the psycho Gulf War vet is about to replace the psycho Vietnam vet as a stock Hollywood character. I'm beginning to think they're right.
UPDATE: InstaPundit, back online after a half-day's worth of server outages, makes some great points about why a campus such as U of AZ would be such a tempting target.
Posted
10/28/2002 01:57:27 PM
by Edward Driscoll
GLENN FRAZIER LIKES MONKEYS. He really, really likes them.
That is all.
Posted
10/28/2002 11:49:55 AM
by Edward Driscoll
WILL MONDALE GET THE NOD IN MINNESOTA? Ramesh Ponnuru has some thoughts in National Review Online.
Of course, should Mondale be unable to fulfill his duties, the DNC has a pinch hitter on deck, warming up...
Posted
10/28/2002 11:32:59 AM
by Edward Driscoll
US DIPLOMAT KILLED IN JORDAN. Laurence Foley received eight bullets in "the head, chest and abdomen", according to this AP report, which adds:
While Jordan is officially allied with the United States, anti-American sentiment has been rising with public opposition to a threatened U.S. attack on Iraq, Jordan's eastern neighbor and primary trading partner. The kingdom's 1994 peace treaty with Israel also has made it a target for Muslim militants and terrorist groups.
Posted
10/28/2002 11:26:24 AM
by Edward Driscoll
LEGENDARY PRODUCER/ENGINEER IS DEAD: Tom Dowd, who produced or engineered numerous albums by John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, The Allman Brothers, and Eric Clapton, died on Sunday morning at a nursing home in Aventura after fighting a respiratory disease for two years, his daughter, Dana Dowd, said. He was 77.
Eric Olsen of Blogcritics has more details.
Posted
10/27/2002 11:04:20 PM
by Edward Driscoll
CAN'T GET INTO BLOOMBERG.COM LATELY? It's probably because Microsoft's playing hardball...
Posted
10/27/2002 03:08:37 PM
by Edward Driscoll
MICHAEL KINSELY ONCE FAMOUSLY SAID that major gaffes only occur when a politician speaks the impolitic truth.
Michael Meacher, Britain's environment minister, surely spoke the truth about Britain's Labour Party today. Click on this post by Andrew Stuttaford to read it--it's a classic. (Make sure to click on Stuttaford's link to the Samizdata Weblog for their response to Meacher.)
Posted
10/27/2002 01:00:57 PM
by Edward Driscoll
NAQOYQATSI: Roger Ebert reviews the latest film in the "Qatsi" trilogy by director Godfrey Reggio. Koyaanisqatsi, Reggio's first film, was about man and technology and was largely filmed in the US. its sequel, Powaqqatsi was about technology's influence on the third world. Naqoyqatsi, the concluding film in the trilogy, is about man, technology and war.
Ebert writes:
The thinking behind these films is deep but not profound. They're ritualistic grief at what man has done to the planet. "The logical flaw," as I pointed out in my review of "Powaqqatsi," is that "Reggio's images of beauty are always found in a world entirely without man--without even the Hopi Indians. Reggio seems to think that man himself is some kind of virus infecting the planet--that we would enjoy the earth more, in other words, if we weren't here."Or as I recently wrote about Koyaanisqatsi for Blogcritics:
Running 87 minutes without a stitch of dialogue, Koyaanisqatsi nonetheless carries a powerful emotional message. Of course, what that message is depends on what the viewer wants to take away from the film. I think it's a safe bet that Godfrey Reggio, the director of Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi believes, more or less, in most of the standard shibboleths of the environmental left: man is bad, technology is bad, nature is best left pristine, etc. Kill 'em all: let Gaia sort it out.As far as this latest film, Ebert writes:
Although "Naqoyqatsi" has been some 10 years in the making, it takes on an especially somber coloration after 9/11. Images of marching troops, missiles, bomb explosions and human misery are intercut with trademarks (the Enron trademark flashes past), politicians and huddled masses, and we understand that war is now our way of life. But hasn't war always been a fact of life for mankind? We are led to the uncomfortable conclusion that to bring peace to the planet, we should leave it.Of course. The far fringes of the environmental left really would be much happier if the planet was vacated. Of course, so few of them are willing to put their money where their mouths are, and check out early in an effort to speed the process up. Reggio, with the dramatic music of Philip Glass underscoring them, creates awesome images, and I do plan to see Naqoyqatsi if it makes its way out to San Jose. But to take their underlying message seriously is dangerous--not to mention deadly.
Posted
10/27/2002 12:30:57 PM
by Edward Driscoll
EMMITT SMITH JUST BROKE WALTER PAYTON'S NFL RUSHING RECORD.
The Cowboys will probably have a fairly mediocre season, but it's great to see Smith pull this off.
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