EdDriscoll.com

Posted 12/6/2002 09:18:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
HEY, IT MAKES MORE SENSE THAN BLAMING BUSH FOR PAUL WELLSTONE'S DEATH: Colby Cosh has an interesting conspiracy theory regarding the New York Times and the Augusta National tempest in a thimble:

The real embarrassment, of course, is for those who claim there is No Such Thing As Liberal Media Bias. Could the Times campaign against Augusta National be a tacit conspiracy to derail Al Gore's renomination campaign? Just as Gore is trying to make headlines claiming that conservatives dominate the U.S. media, this story--in which Pulitzer-winning columnists at the Paper of Record are getting their work rammed onto the spike for arguing in favour of old-fashioned American freedom of association--rears its head. You've got to wonder if they're deliberately trying to make him look like a fool. In a weird way I can understand what Raines is trying to do. He presumably believes, as I do, that there is no sense in newspapers contorting themselves into a stance of serene evenhandedness. This is something they've only recently felt the necessity to do, and with alternative news sources sparking up on all sides, American newspapers are perhaps best advised to return to their older tradition of populist partisanship. (When they had a monopoly on the raw feed of news, and broadcast bandwidth was limited, they had to appear to function as a public trust; but now we all have modems and cable TV.) But, of course, you have to be a blinkered New York liberal to believe that this Augusta crusade is going to work on a "populist" level. As American newspapers reacquire the old instincts, they will perhaps see that they have to give their own columnists back some freedom of action if they expect to reclaim it for themselves.

For our round-up of Gore's grassy knoll claims, start here, then click here, and follow the links.

Posted 12/6/2002 04:51:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
THOSE FREE-SPEAKING BRITS: Andrew Sullivan writes:

Here's what happens when you don't have a First Amendment. You not only get hauled into jail for insulting someone's religion, you can't even run TV commercials making fun of George Bush! An ad which portrayed the allegedly dumb president trying to put a video-cassette into a toaster was ruled too cruel. You could broadcast it on a regular, approved show - but not in an ad. Go figure.

Scroll up for some thoughts on what comes next with regards to Iraq, as well.

Posted 12/6/2002 03:22:57 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT'S PROBABLY A GOOD THING THAT BERKELEY IS A NUCLEAR-FREE ZONE, if this is how their mayor acts when he gets "exhausted" and lets "his emotions take over." (Thanks to my wife for the headline suggestion.)

Posted 12/6/2002 03:16:20 PM by Edward Driscoll
SPEAKING OF JONAH: We probably won't be bombing Canada anytime soon. But we may be bombing a few Canadians in Baghdad. Speaking of which, these Canadians could also use some sense pounded into them (rhetorically speaking, of course).

Posted 12/6/2002 03:06:16 PM by Edward Driscoll
HYPOCROPHOBIA: Jonah Goldberg writes about "the crippling fear of being taken seriously":

Feminists demanded that "something" be done about the Taliban's treatment of women for years. Conservatives scoffed. But when the Bush administration saw fit to liberate the women of Afghanistan — for reasons larger than merely their freedom — feminists drew circles in the floor with their open-toed shoes and grumbled about how they didn't like war. But I guarantee you if Bill Clinton had unleashed the 10th Mountain Division on Kabul to ensure reproductive choice for Afghan women, Gloria Steinem would have done cartwheels. Amnesty International couldn't dispute the facts of the British dossier because the British dossier was, in fact, largely a reprint of information gathered by Amnesty International. So, it attacked the motives of the British government. "There's no question that the regime has an appalling human rights record," Kamal Samari, a spokesman for Amnesty International, told the Washington Post. He admitted, for example, that the group had collected the names of as many as 170,000 Iraqis who had "disappeared." "But what we don't want to see for Iraq or any other country is that the human rights record is used selectively in order to achieve political goals." What? . . . What!? I could have sworn the whole reason Amnesty International existed was to make fixing human-rights problems a "political goal." When Amnesty talks of using the record "selectively," it means that the U.S. and its allies are being hypocritical by not taking a uniform line around the world on human rights. Ms. Khan complains, "Let us not forget that these same governments turned a blind eye to reports of widespread violations in Iraq before the Gulf War."

Jonah adds, "A reasonable and mature human-rights advocate would shout "Finally! You people are going to do something about Iraq! I hope you don't stop there!" She would say, "At long last, you are going to fix the problem you helped create!" She would ask, "What can we do to help?"" But instead, we get whining, because the "wrong people" (i.e. conservatives) are finally doing what liberals long thought was the right thing to do. Or, to paraphrase Blaine Nye, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, but who gets the credit. It's very much along the lines of this, this, and this.

Posted 12/6/2002 01:52:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
IS KERRY IN FAVOR OF SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION? The last paragraph in this AP story on Lindsey and O'Neill says:

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said in a speech this week the effect of Bush's tax policies will "not be borne by any of us here today — it will be paid for by our children. We're borrowing from Social Security and Medicare to put money in our pockets today — and sticking our children with the bill."

Wouldn't privatization of Social Security eliminate that concern? By the way, where is Bluto when you need him, anyhow?

Posted 12/6/2002 01:36:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
OUR LONG NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER: Winona Ryder sentenced to 3 years probation. Click here for our previous look at the Winona Incident.

Posted 12/6/2002 12:41:38 PM by Edward Driscoll
LARRY LINDSEY ALSO RESIGNED. According to Larry Kudlow, Bush was planning to eliminate the double taxation of corporate dividends:

Under current tax law, for every dollar of profits earned by a company, Uncle Sam keeps 60 cents and the private sector gets only 40 cents. Yet if the White House reduces the dividend tax rate for individuals to 20% from today's 39%, leaving the corporate tax rate on dividends untouched, the private sector will keep 52 cents for each corporate dollar of profit. Rather than the bulk of the money going to Uncle Sam, the risk-taking investor class will be rewarded with the larger share. The Bush economic team has been largely divided since its formation almost two years back. Last September, the team's supply-siders — Larry Lindsey and Glenn Hubbard — lost out to deficit-mongers Paul O'Neill and Mitch Daniels in the debate over the double taxation of dividends. But as the saying goes, what a difference a year makes. Today, Lindsey and Hubbard — Bush's pro-growth economic advisors — are poised to win out with the strong support of Vice President Dick Cheney. Their victory represents the beginning of the battle to completely end the double taxation of dividends. And that battle will appropriately start with the investor class.

How will Lindsey and O'Neill's resignations impact that plan? UPDATE: Kudlow has some thoughts.

Posted 12/6/2002 11:23:54 AM by Edward Driscoll
BIZZARO WORLD: What would America be like if it was more like other nations? Victor Davis Hanson has news from the Bizarro World, and it's not pretty.

Posted 12/6/2002 11:05:40 AM by Edward Driscoll
TREASURY SECRETARY PAUL O'NEILL RESIGNS: Orrin Judd lights some of his highpoints. Here's a flashback to one of his low points. Of course, this does give O'Neill more time to jam with Bono in their Ghanaian PJs.

UPDATE: Ben Domenech puts Bono on the short list to replace O'Neill. Does that mean The Edge will replace Lindsey?

Posted 12/6/2002 12:14:20 AM by Edward Driscoll
JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: The Osama bin Laden action figure. Too bad they're not available in the States--bet they'd be fun for kids (and their dads) to tape an M-80 too, or use for target practice. (Link found via Charles Johnson.)

Posted 12/5/2002 11:56:29 PM by Edward Driscoll
FAB GEAR: my review of Andy Babiuk's revised edition of Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments, from Stage to Studio is now online at Blogcritics .

Posted 12/5/2002 08:36:43 PM by Edward Driscoll
FILTER TIPS: Jacob Sullum of Reason has some suggestions for France's censors. As he says, with tongue firmly in cheek, "Perhaps one day wayward Web users not only won't know what they're missing; they won't even know that they're missing it. "With guidance from pioneers such as China and Saudi Arabia, France and other enlightened countries can dare to dream of that day."

Posted 12/5/2002 07:19:48 PM by Edward Driscoll
MORE FLORIDA AIRCRAFT MAYHEM: "Aircraft Crashes Into Miami Bank Building" Small plane, single pilot, Florida. Didn't we go through this before?

Posted 12/5/2002 04:37:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE BAD OLD DAYS REVISITED, REVISITED: InstaPundit says it's the 1970s in Europe, all over again. For a quick flashback to that period in the US, check out my recent book review in Blogcritics, titled "The Bad Old Days Revisited". Be sure to follow the links as well.

Posted 12/5/2002 03:28:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
FLY THE INTERNET FRIENDLY SKIES: In addition to their bitchin' new Bird of Prey, the BBC reports that "Boeing is staging trials of technology that will give passengers high-speed Internet access during their flight." Sounds good to me--I'd love to be able to surf the 'Net (for both business and pleasure) doing a five hour flight from California to New York. (Link found via Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, who's done his share of ten hour flights from London to San Francisco.)

Posted 12/5/2002 03:03:39 PM by Edward Driscoll

BIRD OF PREY UPDATE: Back on October 23rd, we mentioned, in a short post, Boeing's latest aircraft, which it dubbed "The Bird of Prey" after the rakish Romulan (and later Klingon) spacecrafts in Star Trek. It apparently has daylight stealth technology. Way to go, Boeing! (Link found via NRO's The Corner.)

Posted 12/5/2002 02:33:20 PM by Edward Driscoll
ROONE ARLEDGE DEAD AT 71, of complications from cancer. As ABCNews.com reports:

Prior to his appointment as president of the news division, Arledge was president of ABC Sports from 1968 until 1986. During his tenure, he introduced virtually all state-of-the-art technologies to sports programming, including instant replays, slow motion, advanced graphics, as well as the introduction of journalistic values and personalization of athletes to sports broadcasting. "Before Roone Arledge there were no replays. There were no slow-mo machines," said Dick Ebersol, Arledge's protégé who later became the president of NBC Sports. "There was absolutely no prime time sports on any network." Arledge created Monday Night Football. Without him, there would be no Howard Cosell or Wide World of Sports with its "thrill of victory."

Arledge also produced what ABC calls "the first live coverage of a terror attack":

At the Munich Olympics in 1972, he produced for a world audience the first live coverage of a terror attack, when the Palestinian Black September Movement murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Games.

ESPN has more on Arledge, who has a memoir scheduled to be published in January.

Posted 12/5/2002 01:21:56 PM by Edward Driscoll
MSNBC ABOUT TO BE EUTHANIZED? That's what Matt Drudge suggests. Not a bad idea, either. I really enjoyed MSNBC in their early days (around '96) when they actually had shows about computers and technology (thus making the "MS" in the name relevant). It used to be like what TechTV has become since Paul Allen bought it. MSNBC tried to fashion itself as a liberal alternative to Fox, but CNN has long had a lock on that--and CNN of course is a granddaddy of cable TV news broadcasting. (I don't agree with most--if not all--of Ted Turner's views, but I give him an enormous amount of credit for having the guts to launch a 24-hour cable TV news channel (and its spinoffs) in the first place.) So liberals have CNN, conservatives have Fox, stock jockeys have CNBC, geeks have TechTV. That leaves very little territory for MSNBC to harvest--there's no niche left. And cable TV is all about niche broadcasting. Hopefully Phil Donahue's viewer will turn the lights off before she leaves the room.

Posted 12/5/2002 12:40:49 PM by Edward Driscoll
OUT OF TOUCH: I love this line in Glenn Reynolds' post about the Times:

If Raines wanted to launch a big crusade, worthy of the Times -- and one that would even hurt Republicans -- he could devote the New York Times' vast reportorial resources to unravelling the web of Saudi financial influence in Washington. Instead, he's worried about golf.

Hey, this would be a great opportunity for Al Gore to do a "Sistah Souljah" on the Times--he could attack them for dropping the ball on terrorism, and score bonus points among centrist voters. Won't happen, though.

Posted 12/5/2002 12:00:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
JUST ASK JIMMY HOFFA: Headline on one of today's pieces of spam reads, "Wet Cement Causes Serious Skin Damage". It's for some kind of creme or additive for construction workers to use to rinse their hands, not tips from Vito Corleone. But it does advise, "Don't let Erin Brockovich make your company her next victim!

Posted 12/4/2002 11:16:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
THINK MICROSOFT IS THE ORIGINAL EVIL EMPIRE OF COMPUTING? Steven Den Beste says think again.

Posted 12/4/2002 11:00:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Didya hear...?! Al Roker is coming to James Lileks' house for dinner! (Somehow, I don't think that's what Lileks has been referring to with his week's worth of bitchin' When Worlds Collide screenshots, though.)

Posted 12/4/2002 09:47:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
ROOT CAUSES: What caused the riots in Nigeria? What creates Palestinian suicide bombers? Radical Muslims, or "chaos" and "tit-for-tat cycles of violence"? Reuters (especially), BBC, AP, CNN, and most newspapers would rather have you believe the latter two. Dennis Prager has the details.

Posted 12/4/2002 09:15:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
SUNK OR SCUTTLED: CPO Sparkey of "Team Stryker" analyzes how the Bismark ended up as a permanent submarine, and questions James Cameron's conclusions on what happened to her.

Posted 12/4/2002 08:59:35 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE AL GORE/SPIRO AGNEW CONNECTION: I hadn't read James Pinkerton's essay in Tech Central Station when I posted below about Gore and Spiro Agnew. Pinkerton writes:

So perhaps the best parallel, in a looking-glass way, is between Gore at his goring-est and one of his rhetorically overkilling-est predecessors in the vice presidency, Spiro "nattering nabobs of negativism" Agnew. Agnew, who was Richard Nixon's #2 from 1969 to 1973, made himself polarizingly famous with his snappy-nasty references to "effete snobs" who "have a masochistic compulsion to destroy their country's strength." Not surprisingly, the left half of the country mostly hated him, but the right half mostly loved him—"Spiro our Hero." That intense support from the faithful was a change for Agnew, since he had been a liberal Republican from Maryland in the '60s. But his polemical pummeling, however opportunistic, annealed him to the right-wing fire-eaters, and so he was the strong favorite for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination until he was felled by a corruption scandal in the fall of '73. To be sure, Agnew's exuberant exhalations might have come to haunt him in the '76 general election, but the general rule for White House hopefuls is this: you have to get nominated before you can get elected. Accomplish the first mission, by any means necessary, and then worry about the second.

I wonder if Saturday Night Live will be doing a "Gore After Dark" sketch in 2004?

Posted 12/4/2002 07:43:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
"HEY, THAT'S MY SEEING EYE BRICK!" Eric Olsen reports that "Some passengers still haven't gotten the word about what they can and can't take on planes. Some passengers still haven't gotten the word about what they can and can't take on planes. Seized at airports during the Thanksgiving crush: 15,982 pocket knives, 98 boxcutters, six guns and a brick." A brick?? UPDATE: Brock Yates has some thoughts as well.

Posted 12/4/2002 07:15:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
FUN FLASHBACK: Saturday Night Live's Dukakis After Dark, complete with "the nuclear aircraft carrier Nimitz after its conversion into a floating shelter for the homeless".

Posted 12/4/2002 04:34:38 PM by Edward Driscoll
MAYBE THEY SHOULD CHECK FOR WMDS UNDER LAKE PAHOE: Charles Johnson writes that "Iraq officially says their declaration to the UN will claim they possess no banned weapons...[but] an anonymous Iraqi official threatens to use these non-existent weapons". I think the Iraqis just unwittingly parodied a Monty Python sketch: "There is no cannibalism in the British Navy. Absolutely none, and when I say none, I mean there is a certain amount."

Posted 12/4/2002 01:19:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
I HOPE SADDAM HUSSEIN DOESN'T TRACK EBAY: Up for bidding is the perfect gift for the despotic tyrant who has everything. Too bad Albert Shanker isn't around to bid on it... UPDATE: But I guess Glenn Reynolds is!

Posted 12/4/2002 12:50:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
CRYING WOLF: Given all of the tut-tuts that liberals have done over the years concerning charges of media bias (dating at least as far back as Spiro Agnew in 1969), why do they think anyone is going to get concerned about, or buy into the DNC's recent charges of right wing media bias? As Brent Bozell writes:

Imagine what would have been the media’s reaction were Richard Nixon to talk about the conspiracy of media forces slanted against him? At the very least, it would have been seen as bad manners (the rantings of a sore loser who never accepts blame for his own flaws) and bad politics (antagonizing major media outlets is never seen as smart, and is often portrayed in menacing undertones as thinly disguised hatred of a free press). More likely, the press would declare him a paranoid nutcase.

Sadly (or perhaps fortunately), Al does a pretty good job of that on his own.

Posted 12/4/2002 12:13:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE TOP TEN LIST: Stephen Schwartz has 10 questions for Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi spin king.

Posted 12/4/2002 11:41:47 AM by Edward Driscoll
EWWWW!!!! Marvin Olasky looks at some of the more egregious examples of media bias, and concludes, quite accurately, "that some reporters are really weird":

Time magazine's Joel Stein reported on July 29 his experience at a fund-raising dance party for former Attorney General Janet Reno, who was trying to become governor of Florida. He wrote, "I leave my friends behind and rush the stage to try to dance with Reno, only to find myself in a small group of men living the same fantasy." Sorry, guys, I've never had that fantasy.

Me neither!! I don't know about Martin Sheen, though. (Link found via the Brothers Judd, of whom it's an extremely safe bet that they've never...God, I can't even type it.)

Posted 12/4/2002 10:58:51 AM by Edward Driscoll
BROKEN WATCH RIGHT TWICE A DAY DEPARTMENT: Glenn Reynolds says that Al Gore, who has ben pilloried over adding fuel to the recent "vast right wing media conspiracy" argument is half-right. And Glenn gets bonus points for his disclaimer:

Full disclosure: I write a biweekly column for FoxNews.Com. I also worked for Gore's 1988 Presidential campaign. I disclose - you decide.

Posted 12/4/2002 10:23:38 AM by Edward Driscoll
DID HILLARY CLINTON JUST SAY that we need a bigger tax cut? Well, sort of.

Posted 12/4/2002 10:02:09 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE AXIS OF BANALITY: Is John Kerry the triangulation of Bill Clinton, Al Gore...and Michael Dukakis? Jonah Goldberg says he is.

Posted 12/3/2002 11:51:19 PM by Edward Driscoll
GOD'S GUITAR: A Gibson ES-335 electric guitar that was once owned by Eric Clapton is currently up for bidding on Ebay. ...Or you can hit the "buy it now" button and own it--right now--for $90 grand. Somebody's going to get one helluva Christmas gift this year!

Posted 12/3/2002 09:26:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
DO NOT TAUNT Happy Fun Ball!

Posted 12/3/2002 06:15:23 PM by Edward Driscoll
ANATOMY OF A SLUR: How The New York Times smeared potential Alan Greenspan replacement Robert McTeer. As Rod Dreher writes on The Corner on National Review Online, "now that Howell Raines' New York Times has joined in the smear campaign, poor McTeer may be considered too politically tainted to be considered for the job. I hope not. This is a good fight for conservatives to have. Stein said nothing wrong. We have got to end this damnable situation, aided and abetted by the media, whereby a man may be adjudged guilty of racism simply because someone, somewhere, decided to be offended by his words, regardless of their actual content." Bush could go far to break the backbone of political correctness by nominating McTeer and fighting for him, as Greenspan's successor, when Greenspan's inevitable retirement occurs in the next few years.

Posted 12/3/2002 01:47:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
FIVE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES BAN KOSHER FOOD: Charles Johnson has the details. Once again, the skies continue to darken in Europe.

Posted 12/3/2002 11:46:45 AM by Edward Driscoll
ED ON HDTV: Man, I look sharp with all these increased lines of resolution! And the better color resolution really shows off my moontan, developed, George Hamilton style, after years of eschewing sunlight and bathing under powerful florescent lights. Oh, and I have an article on HDTV in today's Tech Central Station. Stop on by!

Posted 12/2/2002 04:08:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
GOOD NEWS--IN THE TIMES, NO LESS! Virginia Postrel links to an article in the New York Times that reminds us (as Postrel paraphrases) that "even in the current slump the economy looks more like an earlier era's dream than the nightmare too often portrayed in media account. By historical standards, things are looking awfully good: "low interest rates, affordable energy, full employment without inflation and broad access to home ownership." We've even learned to compete with the Japanese.

Posted 12/2/2002 03:29:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
SAUDI MUFTI OKs CYBER TERRORISM: Rich Lowry has the details on The Corner on National Review Online.

Posted 12/2/2002 03:24:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
BELATED THANKS DEPARTMENT: Back on November 13th, I checked the stats of this Web site, and noticed a bunch of traffic coming from Right Wing News. Now I know why (thanks to Google's archives): I was the site of the day there. Thanks!

Posted 12/2/2002 02:40:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
GLOOMBERG: Rudolph Guliani did an impressive job of restoring the long-tarnished luster of New York. Too bad Michael Bloomberg is so eager to tear it back down.

Posted 12/2/2002 02:10:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
LET'S ROLL: Amnesty International, upon reading the Iraq torture dossier released by the British, is firmly behind America's efforts to oust the murderous, brutal butcher of Baghdad. Nahh--just kidding: of course they're not. But you knew that, right?

Posted 12/2/2002 01:09:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
CD LABELING: It's not just for offensive language anymore.

Posted 12/2/2002 11:02:14 AM by Edward Driscoll
"EUROPE IS A HIGH-TECH DISASTER AREA", Steven Den Beste writes, and has the examples to prove it. Which may be one reason why James Lileks wonders how long it will be "until America is hit by European terrorists?" Which, given the technological background and deep-seated hatred of the current crop of terrorists, makes sense.

Posted 12/2/2002 10:35:59 AM by Edward Driscoll
PEGGY NOONAN SAYS that Tom Daschle should " Stand Up and Take It Like an American".

Posted 12/2/2002 12:02:24 AM by Edward Driscoll
WELL THE POSTER CERTAINLY LOOKS GOOD. Hope the actual production lives up to it. (Found on Group Captain Mandrake's site.)

Posted 12/1/2002 11:59:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE DASCHLE GAMBIT, according to Jonah Goldberg:

Daschle's real aim was to win the support and admiration of the people who already agree with him. The Democratic Party has made the collective decision to become an aggressively liberal party. This is in part because the moderates got their heads handed to them in the last election. But it's also because the Democratic Party is dominated, and will remain dominated, by presidential hopefuls. As is always the case, Democrats run far to the left up to and through the presidential primaries in order to win the party's base. Well, the base of the Democratic Party loathes Rush Limbaugh and believes that he's the devil's harbinger of religious intolerance. For Daschle to be seen as the chief victim and critic of Rush Limbaugh is a political boon. And if uttering such idiotic prattle is the price for winning the Dems' allegiance, it's a tiny price to pay. What this says about the people who nodded when Daschle made his comments is a subject for another day.

In the meantime, read the whole thing.