Posted 3/14/2003 11:05:09 PM by Edward Driscoll
"EVER WANT TO FISK A CARTOON?" This is one of the most morally repugnant cartoons I've ever seen. Talk about cheapening the memory of those who died on 9/11. Truly vile stuff.

Posted 3/14/2003 10:51:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
SADDAM'S UPHOLSTERED TOMB: Steven Den Beste examines a Hitler-like (and built by a German firm!) bunker that may end up as Saddam's final residence--prior to Hell, of course.

Posted 3/14/2003 01:02:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
HEY, THAT'S NOT MICHAEL DUKAKIS, it's Peter Jennings, doing his best Dukakis impersonation, as he interviews General Tommy Franks, commander of all U.S. troops in the region. For another photo of an anchorman playing dress-up in the Middle East, click here.

Posted 3/14/2003 12:44:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
TOO MUCH GREAT STUFF In the Journal's "Best of the Web Today" column to link to any one item, so go check out the whole thing!

Posted 3/14/2003 11:04:33 AM by Edward Driscoll
DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD: Steven Den Beste looks at the 1970s TV series Emergency and the benefits it brought, by introducing the concept of paramedics to a national audience. Simultaneously, Tim Cavanaugh of Reason looks at the opposite end of the spectrum and asks, "If violent entertainment makes violent teenagers, does that mean Dirty Harry is to blame for rogue cops?"

Posted 3/14/2003 10:05:19 AM by Edward Driscoll
NOW IT ALL MAKES SENSE: UN Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix says, "I'm more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict." Nice to see a man who has his priorities in order, isn't it?

Posted 3/14/2003 10:02:20 AM by Edward Driscoll
CHUTZPAH: Bill Clinton, in a speech from "a packed auditorium at the 92nd Street Y on the upper East Side", according to the New York Daily News, said, "We need to be creating a world that we would like to live in when we're not the biggest power on the block." That pretty much sums up his administration in a nutshell: selling sensitive technology to the Chinese, looking the other way while North Korea acquired nuclear weapons, and waffling during the first attack on the WTC in '93. Given the direct line from Clinton's lack of response to the first attempt at destroying the WTC, to 9/11, that's real chutzpah to make a statement like that--and an equally astonishing city to be saying in. The fact that Clinton received several "standing O's" helps to explain this, though.

Posted 3/14/2003 09:17:44 AM by Edward Driscoll
SLASH IN LEBANON: Graphic photo (via Drudge) of "Shiite Muslim men [cutting] their heads with swords during the annual ritual to mark Ashoura Day in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh". Hari-kari--it's not just for samurai any more!

Posted 3/14/2003 09:12:14 AM by Edward Driscoll
SLASH IN CHICAGO: The Bears landed Kordell Stewart.

Posted 3/13/2003 10:28:41 PM by Edward Driscoll
LE TERMINATOR: Amazing how Chirac just naturally morphs into Saddam Hussein, isn't it? The Sun of England is calling the French President a "blood bother" of Hussein, which certainly makes Steven Den Beste's theories about the French (as endorsed by Bill Safire!) make a helluva lot of sense.

Posted 3/13/2003 08:46:12 PM by Edward Driscoll
WORKING ON THOSE NIGHT MOVES: You know, it's not easy, when a young man--or woman--feels certain urges. Certain stirrings. Those primal emotions kick in, and you know there's no going back to the innocence of childhood. Often during these times, it's nice to be able to talk to somebody older, who survived the process intact--maybe even grown from it. In other words, Orrin Judd has some thoughtful words for folks "as they face their forbidden conservative urges and eventually come out of the closet to join the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy".

Posted 3/12/2003 11:46:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
"DOESN'T THIS DEFEAT THE POINT OF COMMUNISM?", asks Alex Knapp, who reports that "pro-capitalist groups in China's 'People's Congress' are pushing for a Constitutional amendment to protect property rights". Hey, next thing you know, somebody will call for the banning of China's mobile execution vans!

Posted 3/12/2003 11:36:07 PM by Edward Driscoll
INSPECTIONS OF KEY AEROSPACE HARDWARE STUBBORNLY REJECTED: in this case, by NASA, unfortunately:

Two or three days after the space shuttle Columbia's liftoff, a group of NASA engineers asked the shuttle program manager to request the aid of United States spy satellites in determining the extent of debris damage to the shuttle's left wing, but the manager declined to do so, a senior NASA official said yesterday.

Hubris? Short-sightedness? Fear of rocking the boat? It's hard to understand how someone could say no to such a request. The Times article quotes an unnamed NASA official who says, "When a group of engineers puts forward a request, they're not doing it for grins and giggles. Within their minds, they thought that was a path that would resolve some final concerns. I don't know if it was a cost issue, a timing issue. I don't know if assets could not be arranged."

Posted 3/12/2003 11:29:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
FOLLOW THE MONEY: "Actors Protest War's Threat to Their Incomes". That may be why Janeane Garofalo has said that she might quit protesting--a relatively new profession for her, as she's admitted that "It wasn't very hip" to protest war when Bill Clinton was president.

Posted 3/12/2003 11:25:39 PM by Edward Driscoll
AMERICAN FLAG VANDALS BREAK WINDOWS TO PROTEST WAR: Scott Ott has the details.

Posted 3/12/2003 09:46:22 PM by Edward Driscoll
"UGLY TIMES, and they just got uglier", Andrew Sullivan writes, describing an astonishing piece of anti-semitism by Pat Buchanan. I'm truly glad that Buchanan is no longer associated with the Republican party when I read bile like this. If Buchanan makes another Reform Party run for the Presidency, maybe he could tap this fellow to be his running mate.

Posted 3/12/2003 09:37:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHO'S YOUR DADDY? Saddam Hussein was “looking remarkably relaxed, almost paternal,” according to CBS reporter Lara Logan on the Tuesday Evening News, as this Media Research Center post describes, with a bit of ironic counterpoint in the next paragraph:

Saddam Hussein was “looking remarkably relaxed, almost paternal,” reporter Lara Logan asserted from Baghdad on Tuesday's CBS Evening News as she described his “daily appearance on Iraqi TV” to lecture “his top military commanders to prepare their men for war.” Logan added that men are coming to Iraq “from across the Middle East to defend the capital and carry out suicide bombings against U.S. forces.” Meanwhile, over on the NBC Nightly News, Jim Miklaszewski saw a far less intimidating Hussein as he reported that “entire units” of the Iraqi army “already possess white flags to prepare for a quick surrender.”

Miklaszewski's report certainly sounds believable in light of these recent articles. I'm sure that prior to the outbreak of WWII, it's possible that there may have been one or two US or British reporters who sucked up to Hitler. But I'm having a hard time picturing Edward R. Murrow or William L. Shirer on the radio describing Hitler as being "almost paternal" to listeners back home. So why did Laura Logan's report pass muster yesterday? Of course, she probably made her Iraqi handler quite cheery.

Posted 3/11/2003 07:24:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE MAN WHO LED ZEPPELIN: My review of Chris Welch's new biography of Zep manager Peter Grant is now online at Blogcritics.

Posted 3/10/2003 12:34:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
STAN BRAKHAGE DIED: I remember seeing one of his films, Dog Star Man, in college. I've always had a thing for experimental films and their makers, and am sorry to learn that this pioneer passed on. Curiously, the producers of the South Park TV series and movie were students of Brakhage's course at the University of Colorado!

Posted 3/10/2003 12:15:40 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOW ON EARTH did this guy get to be nominated as the Bush administration's assistant secretary of transportation for transportation policy??

Posted 3/10/2003 08:42:16 AM by Edward Driscoll
DOES THE TIMES HAVE A PROOF-READER, PART XXXVVVVIII: This is a classic, as discovered by Glenn Reynolds.

Posted 3/10/2003 01:50:08 AM by Edward Driscoll
"SPOT THE DIFFERENCE", says Andrew Sullivan, discussing Bush versus Clinton when it comes to Iraq:

Here's a simple pop-quiz. Who said the following: "What if [Saddam] fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction? ... Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal." Full marks if you guessed Bill Clinton. It was 1998. But I wonder how many of you did. The political amnesia of so many in Europe with regard to the Iraq crisis is one of the most striking aspects of the whole current trans-Atlantic divide. To read the papers, to watch the "anti-war" protestors, to listen to the BBC, you'd easily imagine that out of the blue a belligerent and brand new American administration had just torn up the old rule book and started a new foreign policy utterly unconnected to the old one. * * * [T]he point is: the foreign policy of Bush is not so drastically different from Clinton. On Iraq, in particular, there isn't a smidgen of principled difference between this administration and the last one. In fact, Bush came into office far less interventionist than Clinton and far more modest than Gore. His campaign platform budgeted less for defense than Al Gore's did. And his instincts were more firmly multilateral. That, of course, changed a year and a half ago. 9/11 made him realize that American withdrawal from the world was no longer an option. But even then, the notion of Bush's unilateralism is greatly exaggerated. To be sure, last spring, the Bush White House argued that taking out Saddam's weapons was non-negotiable, implying that it would be done with or without U.N. support (a position, by the way, that Bush had announced in the 2000 primaries). But by last September, as the world knows, Bush decided to pursue the policy of disarmament through the United Nations, despite the risk of falling into the inspections trap that has proved so intractable. And now, even after a unanimous resolution supporting serious consequences if Saddam refused to disarm immediately and completely, he's still going back to the U.N. for further permission to enforce the resolution by military means. His reward for this multilateralism? Contempt and derision. Now compare that policy to Clinton's similar dilemma with how to deal with the Balkan crisis throughout the 1990s, culminating in the Kosovo intervention. Did Clinton go through the United Nations to justify his eventual NATO bombardment of Serbia? No he didn't. He didn't go through the U.N. because the Russians pledged to veto such a military engagement. So where were the peace protestors back then? In terms of international law, those American bombs in Belgrade - even hitting the Chinese embassy - were far less defensible than any that will rain down on Baghdad. Serbia had never attacked the U.S. No U.N. mandate provided cover. But Clinton ordered bombing anyway. And the same people who now viciously attack Bush as the president of a rogue state - Susan Sontag anyone? - actually cheered Clinton on.

Sullivan concludes:

What the world, after all, is afraid of is not the deposing of the monster, Saddam. What the world is afraid of is American hyper-power wielded by a man of very American faith and conviction and honesty. Bush's manner grates. His style - like Reagan's - offends. But, like Reagan, he is not an anomaly in American foreign policy - merely a vivid and determined representative of a deep and idealistic strain within it. And history shows that the world has far more to gain from the deployment of that power than by its withdrawal. If the poor people of Iraq know that lesson, what's stopping the Europeans?

Good (if entirely rhetoric) question.

Posted 3/9/2003 11:08:06 PM by Edward Driscoll
LILEKS ON WE WERE SOLDIERS: Read the whole thing. (Then send a copy to Chrissie Hynde.)

Posted 3/9/2003 09:12:13 PM by Edward Driscoll
THANKYOU. THANKYOUVERYMUCH: Blogcritics has won the Best Weblog About Music Award from the 2003 Bloggies! The prize includes a cash remuneration of $20.03. My lawyer will be in touch with Mr. Olsen first thing tomorrow morning for my percentage. Seriously though, Eric has done a wonderful job assembling the site, one that for myself, and all of the other contributors there, is a tremendous amount of fun to write for.

Posted 3/9/2003 05:12:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
POST-BOOM LIFE IN SILICON VALLEY: Good Reuters piece on life after the Dot.Coms went bust. (Here's one reason why they did.) For additional perspective, check out this recent Virginia Postrel post. And Thomas Sowell has some thoughts (which unfortunately, will probably go unheeded) on how to reduce the cost of Bay Area housing, which remains astronomical, despite the recent bust.

Posted 3/9/2003 04:07:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
DON'T SAY HE'S HYPOCRITICAL, SAY RATHER THAT HE'S APOLITICAL: If a Republican said that he wanted to see Bill Clinton and his advisors dead, he'd be called mean-spirited, or worse (probably worse--far worse). But check out this quote from Tom Lehrer, a big hit on college campuses in the early 1960s:

"I'm not tempted to write a song about George W.Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them."

The writer of the above quoted article on Lehrer from the Sydney Morning Herald says, "It would be wrong to assume, however, that Lehrer, 74, is bitter and twisted. He proves quick-witted, lively and extremely friendly." If that's friendly, I'd hate to see him when he's miffed. Lehrer's quote perfectly illustrates what Dale Amon of Samizdata wrote in November, that "Political Correctness is not a matter of what is said; it is a matter of who says it. The annointed are 'allowed' freedoms of speech unavailable to the hoi polloi. Had it been myself...making the same remark, I would be pilloried for it." Exactly.

Posted 3/9/2003 01:03:01 PM by Edward Driscoll
AFGHANISTAN TO LAUNCH INTERNET COUNTRY CODE:

Equivalent to a country code for telephone numbers, the .af suffix has now been reserved for private and official e-mail and web users in Afghanistan, the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), which gave legal and technical support to the program, said in a statement on Sunday. "For Afghanistan, this is like reclaiming part of our sovereignty," the UNDP quoted Communications Minister Mohammad Masoom Stanakzai as saying. "It is the country's flag on the Internet," the minister, who will formally activate on Monday the new top level domain as Internet country codes are known, said.

Somewhat surprisingly, Reuters states that "All non-governmental use of e-mail services and Web Sites was punishable by death during the rule of the fundamentalist Taliban," who they also described as merely "purist" in the lead paragraph.

Posted 3/9/2003 01:02:01 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHEN IT COMES TO GOVERNMENT WARNING LABELS, why can't wineries get a fair shake?

Posted 3/9/2003 01:01:01 PM by Edward Driscoll
FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET, MORE POWERFUL THAN A LOCOMOTIVE...it's super-majority, one of the best ways to impose tax limits, and therefore, some semblance of fiscal responsibility on state governments.