Posted 7/17/2004 07:46:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
The weblog part of this site is now at http://eddriscoll.com/weblog.php. Kindly change your bookmarks. You will be redirected there automatically in five seconds. If you are not, please click here.

Posted 7/16/2004 09:41:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
BIG NEWS! Major site redesign on the way. We'll be taking a brief timeout while we get things transferred over. See you soon!

Posted 7/16/2004 09:07:22 AM by Edward Driscoll

Heh.

Posted 7/16/2004 01:00:49 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, according to James Glassman:

Extra! Extra! The big news of the past decade in America has been largely overlooked, and you'll find it shocking. Young people have become aggressively normal. Violence, drug use and teen sex have declined. Kids are becoming more conservative politically and socially. They want to get married and have large families. And, get this, they adore their parents. The Mood of American Youth Survey found that more than 80 percent of teenagers report no family problems -- up from about 40 percent a quarter-century ago. In another poll, two-thirds of daughters said they would "give Mom an 'A.' "In the history of polling, we've never seen tweens and teens get along with their parents this well," says William Strauss, referring to kids born since 1982. Strauss is author, with Neil Howe, of "Millenials Rising: The Next Great Generation." In an article in the latest issue of City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, Kay S. Hymowitz writes: "Wave away the smoke of the Jackson family circus, Paris Hilton and the antics of San Francisco, and you can see how Americans have been self-correcting from a decades-long experiment with 'alternative values.' Slowly, almost imperceptibly during the 1990s, the culture began a lumbering, Titanic turn away from the iceberg." Adults are changing, but kids seem to have changed most -- and they may comprise the new "greatest generation," as Tom Brokaw called the World War II cohort. "What is emerging," writes Hymowitz, "is a vital, optimistic, family-centered, entrepreneurial, and, yes, morally thoughtful, citizenry."

Glassman goes on to write that the return to normalcy by America's youth is trouble for the Democratic party.

Posted 7/16/2004 12:38:27 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE FRIEND OF MY ENEMY IS MY ENEMY: David Horowitz writes:

Those who want the enemy to win should indeed have their patriotism questioned. How can you love your country if you want its enemies to win? This is a question that should be put to all those "liberals" who want to be seen as patriotic but who have embraced America's enemies, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly by embracing anti-American supporters of the terrorists like Michael Moore, and through him the Zarqawi "resisters" in Iraq.

"Unfortunately we're not getting this message across as a nation", Horowitz writes--illustrating his case with painful results.

Posted 7/15/2004 11:50:58 PM by Edward Driscoll
AOL IM ROBOT IS A BUSH BASHER: This is both silly and sad, simultaneously:

Computer-savvy and interested in presidential politics, 13-year-old Erin was upset to learn that America Online's Instant Message (AIM) robot, "Smarter Child," favored Democrat John Kerry in this year's election. Erin, whose last name is being omitted in this article, is a fan of President Bush. Internet instant messaging is one of the most popular methods for teens and even adults to stay in touch with friends and family. One of the better-known messenger programs, AIM, offers the feature called Smarter Child, a robot programmed to provide automated responses to those with whom it chats. Built and programmed by Conversagent, Inc., a privately held firm that develops technology for creating and operating interactive agents, Smarter Child is able to dispense facts and figures, movie times, or just plain conversation with AIM users. But when Erin told the robot that "George Bush is awesome," she was shocked by the response. "No way. George W. Bush is way uncool," the reply stated. She asked, "Do you like George W. Bush?" and the program replied, "I'm a Kerry supporter myself." Testing the waters, she typed in "John Kerry rocks." The robot's response: "Absolutely. John Kerry rocks." * * * Robot Likes a Robot But not everyone was disappointed by the robot's partisanship. When asked about Smarter Child's support of Kerry, Jano Cabrera, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: "Clearly this is a smart robot. This shows that we've made great advances in artificial intelligence. The "smarter" in Smarter Child speaks for itself." Stephen Klein, CEO of Conversagent, said his firm received many complaints from users about Smarter Child's political bias. Although the robot was originally programmed to oppose Bush, Klein said, it was being changed to adhere to the views of the users with whom it interacted. He conceded that Smarter Child had become "too anti-Bush." They Admit Their 'Ridiculous' Bias "It got ridiculous. We realized criticizing political figures was out of bounds," Klein said. Now, instead of disagreeing with users who state "I like George Bush" or agreeing with those who say "I like John Kerry," the robot mostly stays on the political sidelines. "Robots don't get involved in politics," the Smarter Child program replies, before asking users to make their choice for president. It is still possible to get the robot to reveal its true feelings, however. When told that "John Kerry rocks," Smarter Child still responds "Right on!" with a wink. When told that "John Kerry is awesome," it responds: "Absolutely. John Kerry rocks." And when users tell Smarter Child that "George Bush is awesome," it replies, "I'll remember that. It's interesting especially since other people I've talked to say they don't like George W. Bush."

Nothing like getting them while they're young, huh AOL?

Posted 7/15/2004 10:07:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
KERRY/DOLE '04! Jonah Goldberg writes:

Bob Dole got the nomination because it was "his turn." Kerry got the nomination because at the last minute Howard Dean imploded, and Democrats settled on Kerry because they thought he was the most electable. Neither were smart ways to pick a candidate. The jubilation over Edwards is, I believe, a sign that the Democrats are in denial about how bad a candidate Kerry is. Time will tell if I'm right.

RTWT.

Posted 7/15/2004 08:49:05 PM by Edward Driscoll
NOTES ON BLOGGING: Terry Teachout has some interesting (and very McLuhan-esque sounding) notes on blogging. For the most part, I think he's right on the money, but there are a few items I disagree with. On the other hand, I'm sure Teachout wrote his post to start a conversation, not lay down Rules In Stone. In his first item, Teachout writes:

1. It’s almost impossible to explain what a blog is to someone who’s never seen one. That's the mark of a true innovation.

I don't think it's too difficult to explain what a blog is without seeing it. But, as I've written before, for me, it took seeing InstaPundit back when he was on Blogger, and had that Blogger logo on his site, to put the pieces together, and "get" that blogging could be something entirely unrelated to a personal "day in the life" diary. And I'm not entirely sure I agree with this one:

12. Art blogging will never be as popular as war blogging. More people care about politics than the arts.

I think it depends on what your definition of the arts is. If it's expanded to include music and film, sites like Blogcritics get a ton of traffic for their reviews. Ultimately, blogging is really a content neutral-platform, especially when sites like InstaPundit has lots of posts of 50 words or less, and sites such as Steve Den Beste's and Blogcritics have posts of 500 words or more (sometimes a lot more in the case of Den Beste). Then there's this item:

8. For now, blogs presuppose the existence of the print media. That will probably always be the case—but over time, the print media will become increasingly less important to the blogosphere.

A big part of Insta-style blogs (like this one) is that they link to, and analyze articles written by others. Often these articles are original pieces of reporting. The big advantage that AP, Reuters, UPI and others have over bloggers is that they've built up a huge amount of reporters and stringers to cover stories. Of course, they could very well lose their effective monopoly on reporting over time: I once did a piece where I spoke to the US rep of IFRA, a European news agency, and he had some very interesting ideas for organizing competitors to the old-line wire services. (While it's publication date is November of 2001, it was originally written a couple of years prior--before 9/11 and the blog explosion.) I've long thought that the real power in blogging is going to be in group blogs--and it's possible that they could make a real impact in the AP/Reuters/UPI style of reporting--but as Teachout implies, it's going to be a while before that starts to happen. But it probably will--because as Roger Ailes once said, "you don't need a license to report. You need a license to do hair". (Via Betsy Newmark.)

Posted 7/15/2004 08:10:17 PM by Edward Driscoll
CONGRATULATIONS TO STEVE GREEN on his new site design!

Posted 7/15/2004 02:52:26 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT'S THE JIHAD, STUPID: Stanley Crouch tells the media to take the election seriously. (Via Betsy Newmark.)

Posted 7/15/2004 02:33:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
GLOOMSBURY: Tim Blair notes that Garry Trudeau has a very different take on President Bush than the usual inarticulate smirking chimp boilerplate used by most of the left.

Posted 7/15/2004 02:17:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
BITING THE HAND THAT INVITES YOU: In April of 2002, President Bush invited Ozzy Ozbourne to the White House (and had this humorous exchange with the aging and heavily medicated rocker). This is how Ozzy has repaid the honor.

Posted 7/15/2004 12:55:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
AP NOTES that the economy is set for its best growth in 20 years.

Posted 7/15/2004 12:48:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
HERE'S AN ENDORSEMENT THAT JOHN KERRY probably didn't want. Although, considering his choice of "official poet", and his Winter Soldier salad days, isn't all that surprising.

Posted 7/15/2004 12:40:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
HUGH HEWITT HAS SOME THOUGHTS ON "The Don't Even Think About It Doctrine", Moore's Disease, and the Torricelli Option.

Posted 7/15/2004 11:24:47 AM by Edward Driscoll
APB FOR JOE WILSON: Tim Graham notes that "When you pound Bush, you’re hot. When you’re exposed as a liar, you’re not". Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds explores the Kerry connection to Wilson's Website--the now ironically labeled RestoreHonesty.com.

Posted 7/15/2004 11:19:00 AM by Edward Driscoll
THE HILLARY CONVENTION CON: Jonah Goldberg and Kathryn Jean Lopez speculate that of course Hillary's going to speak at the Democratic National Convention later this month, and her absence from the rostrum--for the moment--is merely a way to build some pre-convention buzz. UPDATE: AP reports, "Kerry Asks Sen. Clinton to Speak at DNC".   Jim Geraghty of NRO's "Kerry Spot" writes:

What's really surprising about this is that this suggests this wasn't part of an orchestrated effort to have Hillary make a "surprise" appearance, that it really was a glaring oversight by Kerry, his campaign, and convention organizers. How do you schedule a convention lineup and leave out the party's most popular woman?

Posted 7/15/2004 11:00:38 AM by Edward Driscoll
TERROR IN THE SKIES AGAIN? Annie Jacobsen, an investment writer, was onboard Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on June 29th when she and her husband noticed what was extremely likely to be an averted terrorist attack.   UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has some thoughts and additional links.

Posted 7/15/2004 01:42:34 AM by Edward Driscoll
MUCH ADO ABOUT A LOT: Suzanne Fields bemoans how postmodernism has greatly reduced American students' love of literature. UPDATE: Roger Kimball of The New Criterion also has some thoughts.

Posted 7/15/2004 12:47:11 AM by Edward Driscoll
BAKE SALES FOR BODY ARMOR: National Review Online debunks the urban leftwing myth.

Posted 7/14/2004 11:10:14 PM by Edward Driscoll
OVER THE YEARS, I'VE WRITTEN music, lyrics, newsletters, a couple of (mercifully long out of print) books on sales and marketing, this Weblog, and enough magazine articles to fell a forest's worth of trees. But other than some odds and ends in college, I've never really written fiction--especially material designed to be filmed. Which may be why I found this interview with Ron Moore so interesting. Moore is a veteran writer of the various Star Trek series and films, beginning with The Next Generation, and he explains why that series was so difficult to write for.

Posted 7/14/2004 08:53:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADOPT-A-LEFTWING-JOURNALIST: Hugh Hewitt has a modest proposal to bring them up-to-speed with today's events and conservative opinions.

Posted 7/14/2004 08:18:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES: Randy Barnett debunks a mindless cliche by looking back over the past hundred years and asking when times weren't troubled. (Via Betsy Newmark.)

Posted 7/14/2004 08:02:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
MAN VERSUS FISH: I've eaten way more sushi than any single man should have in the last eight years. James Lileks says that nature is turning the tables.

Posted 7/14/2004 06:35:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
SCORE ONE FOR REUTERS: We frequently bash the "news" agency that never met a terrorist it didn't like, but check out the opening to this article:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic candidate John Kerry, whose campaign demanded to know on Wednesday whether President Bush read a key Iraq intelligence assessment, did not read the document himself before voting to give Bush the authority to go to war, aides acknowledged.

Nice to see just a smidgen of the bloom come off of the "collective glow" of the media's lovefest with Kerry.

Posted 7/14/2004 06:30:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
MOORE LIED, QUOTES DIED: Michael Moore airbrushes articles that appear on his Web site to make it appear as if his critics don’t exist.

Posted 7/14/2004 05:04:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
SCOTT OTT HAS A SCOOP: A draft of the speech that President Bush had planned to make to the NAACP. Karl Rove, call Ott--he'd make a helluva speechwriter.

Posted 7/14/2004 04:36:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
POWER LINE HAS A PROPOSED SLOGAN for the Bush campaign: "It's the Jihad, stupid!" UPDATE: Roger L. Simon also has some thoughts.

Posted 7/14/2004 03:51:55 PM by Edward Driscoll
DONALD LUSKIN ASKS A SIMPLE QUESTION: Mrs. Kerry is filthy rich. Why is her taxable income so small? UPDATE: Meanwhile Andrew Stuttaford is sure that any moment from now, Arianna Huffington will be commenting on this. Any...moment...now.

Posted 7/14/2004 03:46:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
HOW DO YOU BLOW THIS ONE? Hugh Hewitt notes that Kerry muffs naming his favorite Red Sox player.

Posted 7/14/2004 03:04:34 PM by Edward Driscoll
SLIM-FAST SHEDS WHOOPI GOLDBERG as their spokeswoman, after her outrageous comments aimed at President Bush at last week's star-studded fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York. Meanwhile, Linda Chavez is understandably angered by comedian John Leguizamo calling Hispanic conservatives cockroaches. But hey, as John Kerry said, Whoopi and Leguizamo and the other performers at his fund-raiser are the "heart and soul of our country".

Posted 7/14/2004 02:30:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
HULK WRITE ARTICLE FOR ONION! Hulk wonder where his sequel is. Hulk smash puny Hollywood studio execs! (Via "The Corner".)

Posted 7/14/2004 01:11:24 PM by Edward Driscoll
COMPARE AND CONTRAST how Time magazine covers the naming of Republican and Democrat vice-presidential candidates.

Posted 7/14/2004 12:52:11 PM by Edward Driscoll
JOANNE JACOBS SAYS THAT BILL COSBY is tired "of fighting battles his generation thought would be won by now". Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Jonah Goldberg also have some thoughts on Cos and the reaction his recent speeches have been receiving.

Posted 7/14/2004 12:02:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
A SOUTHERN MAN DON'T NEED HIM AROUND, ANYHOW: As Rich Lowry notes, John Edwards seems like a pretty odd fellow for someone recruited because he supposedly would appeal to Southerners and rural voters.

Posted 7/13/2004 11:02:48 AM by Edward Driscoll
DRINK MORE BICARDI! The Guardian (or "The Grauniad" as its known to the English for its many typos) writes its being protested because the rum manufacturer "shares the responsibility for the suffering imposed on Cuba over the last 40 years by those who refuse to accept the socialist path chosen by the Cuban people." Any company that's anti-Castro and makes a mean Cuba Libre is OK in my book.

Posted 7/13/2004 10:45:40 AM by Edward Driscoll
LIFE IMITATES THE SOPRANOS: Will Collier has the details. UPDATE: Not surprisingly, the press buries the Kerry connection.

Posted 7/13/2004 10:43:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
BIN LADEN AIDE SURRENDERS: "A close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was flown from Iran to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after surrendering to security officials at the Saudi Embassy in Tehran, a Saudi Interior Ministry official said", CNN reports, adding, "In late 2001, he was identified on a videotape conversing with bin Laden about the September 11 terrorist attacks". Somebody tell Reuters!

Posted 7/13/2004 02:36:50 AM by Edward Driscoll
CONTENDER, CHAMP, BUM: Nicholas Stix looks at the various stages of Marlon Brando's career.

Posted 7/12/2004 09:41:27 PM by Edward Driscoll
BY THE WAY, sorry for the lack of posting this afternoon. Nina and I took a trip down to the Gilroy Outlet Mall, where we bought all sorts of odds ends from Mr. Lauren, the Brothers Brooks, and a few other stores. And incidentally--is there a law that says that all music in these stores must either be bad '70s retro pop or repetitive interstellar techno noise? Do the people who run these stores think America's "Horse With No Name" or Loggins and Messina's "Your Momma Don't Dance" actually moves the merchandise?? Oh, and this probably a good time to post another link to my recent piece in The New Partisan, on the strange duality of American aesthetics.

Posted 7/12/2004 09:40:47 PM by Edward Driscoll
NEWS THAT EXPLAINS OUR WORLD: Dennis Prager observes a jaw-dropping quote from the New York Times:

In an interview with The New York Times Magazine, William F. Buckley Jr., on the occasion of his taking leave from National Review, the magazine he founded 50 years ago, was asked a series of questions. Needless to say, given the politics of The New York Times and its interviewer, the questions were nearly all challenging. But nothing quite prepared a reader for this one: "You seem indifferent to suffering. Have you ever suffered yourself?" In one sentence, a New York Times interviewer summed up the liberal view of conservatives -- "indifferent to suffering." As I have long believed, in general, conservatives think liberals are fools and liberals think conservatives are evil.

Ronald Reagan frequently called himself a National Review conservative. He ended the Cold War and freed hundreds of millions from the literal and figurative Gulag that was the Soviet Union. With National Review, Bill Buckley virtually created the modern conservative movement. If it were up to the Times, the Soviet Union, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would all still be in power. Tell me again who seems indifferent to suffering.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:54:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
CULTURAL SEMANTICS: Jeff Goldstein takes offense at the phrase "disco died". And he's got the quotes from disco to prove it.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:44:23 PM by Edward Driscoll
EXPLOSION CUTS POWER AT O'HARE AIRPORT: Chicago police say a transformer between terminals two and three at O'Hare Airport exploded at shortly after 12:00 PM on a hot Chicago Monday. Doesn't sound like it's terrorist-related--just the opposite, as CBS reports, "ComEd spokewoman Meg Amato says that it appears an O'Hare contractor may have dug into electrical equipment underground that belongs to O'Hare. ComEd is standing by to assist in powering up the terminals." But still, seeing the words "explosion" and "O'Hare" in the same headline is more than a little troubling sounding.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:38:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
THE KINGS OF QUOTATION MARKS: National Review looks at Reuters--the "news agency" that will not call a terrorist a terrorist.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:34:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
"INTELLIGENCE STAFF 'PRESSURED TO LIE OVER IRAQ ATTACK'": In 1998!

Posted 7/12/2004 12:15:20 PM by Edward Driscoll
AFTER THE WAR, our eyes were opened. We discovered our intelligence was pretty shaky. We found out that the mustachioed totalitarian madman didn't have the capacity to produce WMDs that we believed him to have had. We found out that his army was weakened by fierce battles against his sworn enemy to the north long before we arrived to the fight. We found reconstructing his decimated country to be much more difficult than we first imagined. And yet, despite all that, only a lunatic believed that Hitler should have been left in power. Why is today any different?

Posted 7/12/2004 12:06:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
SPEAKING OF MEDIA BIAS, the assistant managing editor of Newsweek admits the bloody obvious:

The media “wants Kerry to win” and so “they’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic” and “there’s going to be this glow about” them, Evan Thomas, the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, admitted on Inside Washington over the weekend. He should know. His magazine this week sports a smiling Kerry and Edwards on its cover with the yearning headline, “The Sunshine Boys?” Inside, an article carrying Thomas’ byline contrasted how “Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine.” The cover story touted how Kerry and Edwards “became a buddy-buddy act, hugging and whispering like Starsky and Hutch after consuming the evidence.” Newsweek’s competitor, Time, also gushed about the Democratic ticket, dubbing them, in the headline over their story, “The Gleam Team.” Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz also realized the media’s championing of the Democratic ticket and made it a focus of his Sunday Reliable Sources show on CNN. The on screen topic cues: “Edwards Lovefest?” and “Media’s Dream Team.” Kurtz’s Washington Post on Sunday well illustrated the media’s infatuation with Kerry and Edwards. “Kerry Vows to Restore 'Truth' to Presidency,” announced a July 11 front page headline. Inside, on page A-8, a headline declared: “Kerry, Edwards Revel in Brotherhood of Campaign.” The subhead: “Energy, Enthusiasm Infectious as Democrats Take Message to Battleground States.”

Gee, no wonder polls keep producing results like this. UPDATE: And Kerry himself sites two New York Times reporters as being favorable to him. James Taranto writes:

A few months back, when Kerry claimed to have been endorsed by various "foreign leaders," he insisted he was not at liberty to say who they were. But when he asserts he has the backing of New York Times reporters, not only does he name names, but the Times views the claim as neither newsworthy enough to report prominently nor embarrassing enough to rebut. It's as if Times reporters taking sides in a political race were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Posted 7/12/2004 12:00:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
ORSON SCOTT CARD ON MEDIA BIAS:

What makes the liberal bias in the mainstream media so pernicious is that they deny that they're biased and insist that their twisted version of events is "reality," and anyone who disagrees with them is either mentally or morally suspect. In other words, they're fanatics. And, like all good fanatics, they're utterly convinced that they're in sole possession of virtue and truth.

RTWT.

Posted 7/11/2004 09:43:08 PM by Edward Driscoll
SEE FAHRENHEIT 9/11 on the State Department's dime.

Posted 7/11/2004 05:17:02 PM by Edward Driscoll
LAUGHING AT THE SEVENTIES: John Podhoretz gives a surprisingly positive review to Will Ferrell's new movie, Anchorman, and its knowing japes at the earnest '70s.

Posted 7/11/2004 04:28:15 PM by Edward Driscoll
I VOTED FOR THE BAN ON IMMIGRANTS WITH AIDS before I voted against it.

Posted 7/11/2004 03:02:00 PM by Edward Driscoll
UNCORK BARREL. INSERT FISH. BEGIN SHOOTING: Mark Steyn profiles John Edwards.

Posted 7/11/2004 02:24:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
POLL: KERRY LOSES GROUND AFTER RELEASE OF FAHRENHEIT 9/11! Of course, it's well within the margin of error, but don't you think if the results were reversed, you'd see headlines with a similar tone? Especially after much of the press, already high with Charles Krauthammer dubbed "Bush Derangement Syndrome", caught Michael Moore fever?