perfidy

GuitarPicker (Loyal Reader #0011) has tipped us off to the existence of a new website which encourages sponsoring vegetarians. They even have a logo: 

What does it mean to sponsor a vegetarian? It means that you have to find someone in your life who's a really big pain in everyone's ass every time you want to go out to eat, and then you commit yourself to eating THREE times the amount of meat you'd normally consume to make up for all the meat that your vegetarian buddy isn't eating. It's that simple! That way, you can reverse the guilt trip that they've been laying on us for years by not only neutralizing their cause, but making it actually worse by eating more animals than would have ever been eaten had they not chosen to become vegetarians!

What if vegetarians say they don't care because we'll become fat by sponsoring them? I've thought about that already. All you have to do is exercise. I know it goes against the being lazy rule that I advocate so much, but this is so spiteful that it more than makes up for the exercise you'll have to do--which means that if you choose the 3 to 1 plan and sponsor a vegetarian, you're being so spiteful that you can't lose! If you have a choice, eat three separate types of animal to maximize your efficiency! Only offered beef? No problem: visit the zoo and eat a monkey!

I always thought that vegetarianism was extremely selective. Why is it okay to kill animals, and not plants? And why do animal rights activists only want to save the cute animals? And why do they all wear leather shoes? Besides, our ancestors fought and died for millennia to put us on top of the food chain, so how can we spit on their memory by not eating meat?

[wik] Best bumper sticker so far this year: Save a tree. Eat a beaver.

Ladies, gentlemen, and transgendered individuals (pre-op and post-op), I give to you the downfall of Western Civilization, the American family, and life as we know it in these United States.

That's Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, a lesbian couple who have been together more than fifty years. Today, they were married in a civil ceremony in San Francisco. The fiends!

Buckethead's worry that gay-marriage advocates may be rushing the issue being well taken, you nevertheless have to say "awwwwww."

[wik] NDR has more on gay wedding in San Francisco, and his analysis is particularly insightful. The nut of the matter:

Cities have few competencies that are completely their own--even utilities tend to be either semi-private or intergovernmental corporations. Even as the US Constitution grants broad and vague powers to the states (all those not reserved for the federal government), it never mentions urban corporations and constitutions or the rights granted to sub-state territorial actors. American federalism is a limited concept that has little application beyond the relationship between the federal government and the states. Furthermore, American political culture is wary of granting autonomy to communal corporations like cities.

The actions of the San Francisco municipal government are admirable. However, their actions will be too easily appealed without referencing the problem of unequal rights. The hotel de ville or the Rathaus, both institutions which have stood as alternative sources of values and authority in Europe, might have the legitimacy to take on the problem of equal rights on their own. But the problem will not be solved by the American city hall.

I just noticed that comments have, for the first time, exceeded the number of posts. This is an important milestone, significant because it indicates that people really, really like us. Only about half of the comments are from Johno or I; and in the early days, we didn't have the technology for comments at all. We have had some very productive and interesting conversations so far, especially considering that we are still only slithering reptiles in the TTLB's great blog food chain. I'd like to thank everyone who has commented, your thoughts were life changing and profound for us. And for all you lazy, shiftless lurkers, start commenting, or the dog gets it in the head: 

As an aside to the recent debate in this space over gay marriage, I had occasion to read the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Something occurred to me. From time to time, Christian advocates attempt to portray the United States as a fundamentally Christian nation, and offer text from the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as proof. For example, the Declaration reads

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . . .

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Note the appeal to "divine Providence." Some people take this, and constructions such as "In the year of our Lord..." as conclusive proof that the USA is at its root a nation established under the auspices of Christian doctrine.

Okay, but I beg to differ.
The Constitution contains far less of the God-talk than the Declaration. This suggests that by the time they got around to the second try at national government, a conscious decision had been made to protect religious pluralism by minimizing the particular Christian-ness of the Constitution. If they'd have done otherwise, we'd probably know:the Constitution is admirably clear about big-picture means, ends, and groundrules, and the Bill of Rights takes care of the rest. Religious pluralism is the first guarantee in the First Amendment.

Besides, a precedent existed if the framers had wanted to use it. If they had really wanted to clearly establish the country on Christian doctrines and grounds, they could have taken a cue from the Massachusetts Constitution, passed in 1780. The original of that document states

Article II. It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly, and at stated seasons to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; or for his religious profession or sentiments; provided he doth not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship. [See Amendments, Arts. XLVI and XLVIII.]

Article III. [As the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion and morality: Therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies politic, or religious societies, to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.

Instead, the US Constitution makes only one reference to God, "divine Providence," etc...

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names, [big buncha names]. . . .

Big difference. I'm not claiming that the Christian tradition in which the framers of the US Constitution were raised didn't inform their thinking, and I'm not claiming that the United States hasn't been predominantly peopled by Christians since the beginning. But it seems to me that if the United States were established on explicitly (and exclusively) Christian grounds, the US Constitution would read more like the Massachusetts one. It's just not in there.

Not that anyone asked me, or anything.

Looks like the Bush AWOL story can finally be put to bed as untrue. Fine with me: I'm more concerned with the present.

The Sun is reporting that Alex Polier, 24, is the center of the Kerry controversy. Still not much info, but the British Press is beginning to run with the story. The major American media (CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, NYTimes) completely ignored the story last night, and as of this morning, still have nothing on their front pages. Which is a little odd. When the Lewinsky story broke, they were at least reporting on the fact that there was a story.

A couple links to Marginal Revolution: first, an exceedingly brief post, which I will quote in full:

In 1960 Taiwan was poorer than the Congo, here is the source.

Second, some thoughts on the just released Economic Report of the President.

The second post gives us some useful information on the whole economy thingy. Read it and we'll talk. But what really snagged my attention was the first one. I remember from when I actually read books and went to school; that at one time, as decolonialization was getting into full swing, everyone thought that Africa was the next best thing, soon to take advantage of all that brilliant and useful socialism and make the Dark Continent into the worker's paradise. Asia, on the other hand, was believed destined for misery and poverty.

Well, that sure happened. And the key, really, is this:

The Index of Economic Freedom

TL Hines is back with his weekly Dark Horse Dialogues. Now that the Kerry train is in danger of derailment, maybe the Donald Sauter candidacy is about to take off. Well, probably not. If it weren't for the candidate web pages he gives, I would be convinced that he's making this stuff up. But no one is going to make up page after page of classical guitar tablature, just for the sake of a joke. Not even a wierdo like TL. And I really doubt that anyone who wasn't entirely too serious would ever think to add this to one of his tablature pages:

ETHICAL PLEA: I do ask one thing regarding the printing of this tablature: please try to refrain from using government or your company resources to do it. Or, if you feel you have no reasonable alternative, please reimburse your employer for use of his material and equipment. I'd hate to think that my - and other people's - taxes and expenses for goods and services are paying for your recreation on the job. I'm funny like that.

While following the Kerry bimbo eruption trail, I ran across this link to a Kausfiles from back in the double M. The Feiler Faster Thesis is simply that:

The news cycle is much faster these days, thanks to 24-hour cable, the Web, a metastasized pundit caste constantly searching for new angles, etc. As a result, politics is able to move much faster, too, as our democracy learns to process more information in a shorter period and to process it comfortably at this faster pace. Charges and countercharges fly faster, candidates' fortunes rise and fall faster, etc. [Italics in original.]

Kaus mentioned this today in the context of the public's seeming unawareness of such basic Kerry facts as the fact that he threw someone else's medals over the White House fence. This is likely going to be overshadowed by the new bombshell - though hints are now coming out that this particular weakness has been known, at least in theory and in some quarters, for a while now. We shall have to see how this all plays out.

This primary season has had more twists and turns than a sidewinder with MS. We had the magnificent entry of Gen. Clark, then the Dean implosion, now this Kerry thing - along with the usual run of campaign bizarreness. Clark might be endorsing Kerry - even though he apparently knew of the coming bimbo eruption - to angle for a VP slot if Kerry survives the battle. Dean has stayed in, possibly because of his knowledge of it. Edwards must be dancing a jig, because there was little hope that the media or Dean would cut into Kerry enough that he could take the driver's seat. Only Al Sharpton has nothing to gain from this.

If this story has legs, it seems unlikely that Kerry will be able to reposition himself before the next round of primaries, because this story won't be leaving the front pages. Momentum is a thing of the past, as Dean has already discovered.

Click the more link for some fun stuff back from the 2000 election.

It also follows, if you buy the FFT, that Wilentz is wrong: Bush has plenty of time to reposition himself for the general election. His strategists will deploy the cliché that from March to November is "an eternity in politics." (Look at how Bush Sr. went from Gulf War hero to general-election loser! Look at how Clinton came back from the brink of disgrace! Look at how Gore went from being a stiff to unstoppable!) But if the Feiler Faster Thesis is correct, from now to November isn't an eternity anymore. It's more like five eternities. Bush probably has time to move to the center, move back to the right, feint at protectionism, convert to Catholicism, divorce his wife, admit he dropped acid, denounce vivisection, embrace Lenora Fulani, enroll in Bob Jones University, then tearfully apologize for all of the above on Meet the Press and still move back to the vital center again before November. OK, I'm exaggerating. But you get the point. We have no more idea what the public image of Bush will be in November than we have of what Chicago will look like in the year 2100.

I've just been discussing the recent passage of the law banning muslim headscarves in France with my office mate. To be sure, the law is even handed, in that it also forbids Jews from wearing yarmulkes and Christians from wearing large crosses. But participants in a protest in Egypt believe that the law is anti-Islam. And of course they're right.

The prohibitions for Jews and Christians is just a figleaf for a spectacularly lame attempt to do something about the Muslim minority in France that now is over 14% of the population. Theodore Dalrymple wrote in the City Journal a frightening description of the cités surrounding most French cities, and inhabited by millions of poorly assimilated North African Muslims. Until now, there has been little if any attempt on the part of the French or their government to construct any sort of policy for assimilating the growing Muslim minority. This despite the fact that riots, crime and support for radical Islam is rampant in the Muslim neighborhoods.

This effort is far too little, and perhaps too late as well. It has the simultaneous disadvantages of infuriating the Muslims while doing absolutely nothing about the underlying problems. It is a symbolic bandaid on a metaphorical sucking chest wound.

While I on one level I am feeling a delicious sort of anticipatory schadenfreude contemplating the disaster that could be facing France in the not too distant future, the fact is that despite recent French obsteperousness, it would be a very bad thing for the west if la France became the battleground in the fight between civilization and radical Islam.

A word to the wise: if you've gone almost five years without your regularly scheduled cleaning at the friendly neighborhood dentist, you may as well just never get one. I feel like my teeth have been peeled, and it hurts to breath through my mouth. The hygienist was gentle with the five megawatt, ultrasonic pain causing device, but I kept thinking of the line from Fight Club, "You can swallow a quart of blood a day and not get sick."

And because I had been so lax in attending to keeping my oral cavity in tip-top condition, I have to go back in a month do do it all over again.

Armed Liberal nicely articulates a position very close to mine in the election horse-race.

I was almost in a brutally tough position on this one, but Kerry's impending coronation makes it somewhat easier. While Bush's domestic policies aren't criminal, exactly, they are amazingly stupid in almost every dimension in which I can think to measure them. But he is doing the war thing sort of right. Unless he's planning to pull out too soon in the face of domestic political pressure. Now my head really hurts.

And if the Democrats had a candidate who had a strong track record on foreign policy and had some kind of remotely consistent plan for what to do now that we're here (see some of my ideas, as examples of what I'd like to see), I'd have to weigh the cost of switching teams mid-game against the net advantages of domestic policies I liked better against the likely effect of the proposed foreign policies against the fact that I've always supported Democrats, and that a strong Democratic Presidential showing would have coattails in local races that I value a lot.

This is arguably the most serious election in my adult life. I believe that the Communists would have collapsed sooner or later even if Reagan hadn't spent them into the ground (although he certainly made a difference). I think that Clinton did some good stuff in refocusing our domestic social-welfare programs.

But there's a big-ass hole in lower Manhattan, and our people are being beheaded on home video. It's not going to get better by itself, and we need to have a coherent set of policies and the resources and will to carry them out. Kerry's actions and statements to date don't give me an ounce of confidence that he's the guy to do this.

Bush is challengeable on that front, and I'd like to see him challenged in order, if nothing else, to get him to better articulate and defend what he's doing.

I'm not going to stay up late seeing if Kerry can make that challenge.

I wish I had something apropos, insightful, and pithy to add but I don't. I can only say... yeah.

Drudge is flipping out over news that John Kerry is trying to fight off a media probe into a recent infidelity. Here's what Drudge has to say:

CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN

A frantic behind-the-scenes drama is unfolding around Sen. John Kerry and his quest to lockup the Democratic nomination for president, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

Intrigue surrounds a woman who recently fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

A serious investigation of the woman and the nature of her relationship with Sen. John Kerry has been underway at TIME magazine, ABC NEWS, the WASHINGTON POST, THE HILL and the ASSOCIATED PRESS, where the woman in question once worked.

MORE

A close friend of the woman first approached a reporter late last year claiming fantastic stories -- stories that now threaten to turn the race for the presidency on its head!

In an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, General Wesley Clark plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue." [Three reporters in attendance confirm Clark made the startling comments.]

The Kerry commotion is why Howard Dean has turned increasingly aggressive against Kerry in recent days, and is the key reason why Dean reversed his decision not to drop out of the race after Wisconsin, top campaign sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Well, just when we all thought it was settled...

If this is true, then Kerry is a complete moron. If you can't keep it in your pants when you know a bazillion reporters (not to mention Republican oppo research teams) are going to be scrutinizing what you had for dinner twenty years ago, you don't deserve to be president.

NDR points to an interview with Senator Joe Biden on the Democrats and foreign policy during the election cycle.

He's right; the Democrats used to be the party of vigorous foreign involvement and bold solutions. That momentum is entirely on the other side of the aisle now. When's the last time you heard a Democrat utter something as bold and controversial as "evil empire," "axis of evil" or, "Tear down this wall"? You may not agree with them, but the Republicans are the ones proposing solutions, whereas the Democrats are currently merely decrying Republican proposals. That's no way to run a party, that's no way to run a nation, and that's no way to win an election.

I've been having an interesting argument with Spoons over his quixotic effort to get conservatives to oppose Bush. (This has nothing to do with Gay Marriage day here at Perfidy, but I'm going to run with it anyway. Spoons is getting married, but to a girl. So he isn't qualified to speak on that issue.) He is of the position that it will not advance the conservative agenda to have Bush reelected and confirm in the collective mind of the GOP elite that pandering to the left (little opposition to gun control, prescription drug benefits, huge spending on liberal programs with no reform, etc.) is a successful election strategy. He says:

As conservatives, we can't do much about what kind of Democrats we'll get, because we're not going to vote for one. We can, however, do something about what kind of Republicans we get, by voting for good ones, and refusing to vote for bad ones. If we take the tack advocated by Kim (and, in fairness, the overwhelming majority of conservatives), and insist upon voting for any Republican, no regardless of whether he's conservative or not, then we give up any control over what kind of Republicans we get. Republican positions on domestic issues will then be decided by swing voters and soccer moms.

This is a valid point. And if I thought that there was any chance that voting against (or at least not for) Bush would result in the second coming of Reagan, I might sign up for his program. But as I said in the comments to his post,

I can see where you're coming from. And in all honesty, I would support your ideas more strongly except for the fact that no matter what kind of drubbing the GOP gets, it will always attempt to pander to the middle. Pandering only goes left in this country. Our only hope of getting the candidate you are dreaming of is for him to arrive as Reagan did - by fighting for a strong conservative policy based on a moral conception of politics. That candidate could rally support from the true-blue conservatives, the moderates and even people in the other party. But the GOP will never try, and never could, impose a strong conservative agenda on a mediocre candidate, president or congress. And they won't go looking either.

Politics is compromise, and the perfect is the enemy of the good. If we shoot every candidate who is half good, we will not be in a position to elect one that is good. The Republican party spent decades in the political wilderness until Reagan saved them. We can't count on having another Reagan everytime we need one. The Goldwater style political idealism that holds absolute positions on conservative issues is a ticket to irrelevancy and being locked out of high office. We need to win where we can, and as often as we can - even if the victories are partial, or not what we wanted.

The grassroots movement in the Republican party that resulted in the congressional victories back in 94 is an example of how the rank and file party members can pull the party to a more conservative viewpoint. This is the kind of thing that conservatives can do to influence the direction of the party. While we do not know yet whether Bush is serious, the outcry among conservatives over excessive spending seems to have had an effect on his policy. We can be sure that conservative outcry would have no effect whatsoever on a Kerry administration.

So while I share with Spoons the concerns with Bush's policies in many areas, I cannot abandon my support for the best deal we're going to get, conservativeness-wise. The proper course is to get the man who is closest to you in viewpoint into office, and then try to move him in the right direction.

In response to Buckethead's unforgiveable ignorance of the inner workings of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I submit here the key point on which the Massachusetts SJC's decision depends:

Article CVI. Article I of Part the First of the Constitution is hereby annulled and the following is adopted:

All people are born free and equal and have certain natural, essential and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin.

In truth, the MA Constitution is fascinating, not least because it's the oldest written Constitution in existence (1780), but also because of the wording. Check this out:

Article XVII. The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.

Although different than the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment, I think this one is worded better: it's far more clear.

There's lots more in there if you have the time. Check this out!

Article XVIII. A frequent recurrence to the fundamental principles of the constitution, and a constant adherence to those of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, 12 industry, and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government. The people ought, consequently, to have a particular attention to all those principles, in the choice of their officers and representatives: and they have a right to require of their lawgivers and magistrates, an exact and constant observance of them, in the formation and execution of the laws necessary for the good administration of the commonwealth.

I can't remember where I saw it, but not too long ago I read that the center of most people's objections to gay marriage can be summed up by the "ick factor." Most people in the reasonable middle of American life have come to the conclusion that gay people should not be hassled, and we'll make use of their talents in interior decorating and fashion, but that otherwise we'd really rather not be confronted by the icky reality of guys... kissing. And other things. While most people would never go out of their way to oppress the lavender minority, they still feel in their hearts what Sam Kinnison said:

How can a man look at another man's hairy ass, and feel love?

And this is where gay marriage comes in. This is the gay populace intruding the ickiness into respectable, normative straight institutions. And most people just don't like the idea. They're not likely to crusade on the issue unless it's crammed down their throats. (Which is what the amendment campaign would do. It would force people to choose sides. And by and large, we'd really be better off avoiding that.)

Left alone, consensus would probably drift towards greater acceptance of gays, and their inclusion in institutions like marriage. Americans don't, as a matter of course, like excluding anyone from anything - at least theoretically. And that bedrock presumption is what MLK played on in the sixties, shaming respectable white americans into believing, and acting on what was right.

I am personally affected by the ick factor when it comes to gay marriage. I don't feel that it's a good thing, and that the institution of marriage as currently defined supports many good things in our soceity. I fear that changing the definition will have some deleterious effects. Of course, this does not mean that I think that gays should be discriminated against in hiring, housing, or through outdated laws like Texas' sodomy statute. (Which also, IIRC, applied to heteros as well in some regards.) Those who argue that the sad state of hetero marriage is an argument in favor of gay marriage are getting it wrong. If it's in bad shape, it needs to be strengthened, not diluted.

My considered opinion is that I would like this issue to go away. We're not to the point (on either side) where we're ready to be discussing it reasonably, and now we are perilously close to permanently polarizing the debate, as happened to the much more serious issue of abortion when Roe v. Wade was handed down.

Since it's Gay Marriage Day here at the Ministry (parade at 3:00: bring your Speedo), I have decided to link to this editorial from the Boston Globe by Derrick Z. Jackson, who does the old fun trick of finding the craziest Bible passages out there ("Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ. . . . Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord." from Ephesians, stuff like that) and puts it next to the passages about man-on-man action. The point, of course, is to demonstrate that the Bible contains a lot of material that has been superseded by the rule of human law in most of Western society, certain tiny areas of Utah and Wyoming excepted.

Nice try. I'm not even a Christian, but I can crush it like one, and I know that the New Testament supesedes the Old. Ephesians, Ecclesiastes, and all those weirdo names are Old Testament, and no longer supposed to be relevant to Christian teachings (but just try telling that to the Nazarenes...ooo boy.) It's the New Testament where you find the most clear language on gay sex (though it's Paul, not Jesus), and this means for Christians that the Bible does really suggest that gay sex is a no-no. Trouble the New Testament also says a lot of nutty stuff about how good it feels to be nice to people, loving your neighbor, the value of tolerance and humility, etc., and I don't see that getting much play these days, so what the heck do I know? Maybe the Bible really is like a Chinese menu. "I'll take Matthew with a side of Mark, please."

Oops. That sounded pretty gay.

[wik] Buckethead, a more pious man than I, points out that Ephesians is in the New Testament, which means Jackson has made his point far more wisely than I assumed. My mistake. I shoulda paid attention in Perfidious Sunday School.

With that information in mind, it becomes a hard question: as a Christian, how do you accept a passage condemning man-on-man intercourse, and reject a passage legitimizing the total subordination of women, for example? I was never very good at this, and it's one reason why I can't call myself a Christian today.

This guy surely impressed his parents:

Chemistry Mid Term

Thanks to Mapgirl for the link. I'm sure she could do much better.

[wik] Rangitoto College? Sounds like a school for mangy dogs from Oz to me. I bet they have Gay Marriage there.

Pandagon's Jesse Taylor fisks the daylights out of Dennis Prager's fumbling attempts at cutting satire.

And since this is Gay Marriage Day at the Ministry of Minor Perfidy (there'll be a parade later, on the Ministry's dime), it's about gay marriage.

The President's Commission on the Moon, Mars and Beyond is soliciting comments. Go here and you can submit your thoughts on space exploration, or just complain about the boring design of the website.

And speaking of governments seeking comments, this bit from Wired talks about how the government has been talking to game developers - specifically the designers of large multiplayer online games. At a conference arranged by Beth Noveck of the New York Law School, game developers and government officials sat down to talk about democracy, feedback and public participation in the legislative process. Interesting stuff, which puts me in mind (as do many things) of this essay by David Brin.

I have thought for quite a while now that pure democracy is overrated. Rule of law and a republican system are more important. But, that does not mean that I place more importance on the government that I do on the individual. As Brin talks about in his essay, the largely untapped capacity of individual citizens to operate in self organizing and directed groups is consistently ignored by the "experts." While we have (with the exception of central planning Marxists and Senators from New York) based our entire economic and social lives on this principle, we are reluctant to embrace it for security or government purposes.

I think that we lost something when we gave up on the idea of the general militia. But, the growth of the internet, and yes even the blogosphere has perhaps led to the rebirth of this ideal. Websites like the Northeast Intelligence Network, and others like it; Winds of Change and the Command Post; and hundreds of fevered bloggers collecting, analyzing and annotating countless bits of information are like a general militia devoted to military and strategic intelligence.

Obviously, much of the heavy lifting militarily will still be done by the Army, Navy and Marines. But that does not mean that we don't have a role, and one that the government should begin to take seriously, and not hinder us from performing.

Yesterday Buckethead wrote:

One of the signal failures of the Bush administration has not been its judgment in the conduct of the war on terror; but rather its perverse inability to make a case for its actions. While I have been doing so on a ( very ) small scale along with numerous other bloggers and journalists, the unconvinced need to hear it from the man at the top. Bush should be screaming this news from the rooftops.

He is dead on target. In fact, it could do a lot of harm to Bush's reelection chances, and I can't say it's undeserved.

Matthew Yglesias notes that even Bill O'Reilly has even publicly expressed regret for supporting the President's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" thesis: "I was wrong. I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this." Seriously, George. When Bill Fricking O'Reilly is off the bandwagon, you've got a problem.

The FDA is enforcing a decades-old ban on the import of Chinese Peppercorns, causing the supply to dry up. A crucial ingredient in Sichuan cooking (yum!), the peppercorns come from a bush which belongs to a family of shrubbery who carry a disease that kill citrus plants (got that?).

Although the ban was put in place in 1968, the FDA did not start enforcing the ban until 2002, which is why the supply is drying up, and why there's now a fricking black market for fricking Sichuan pepper.

A note: nobody actually knows whether the peppercorns carry the citrus-killing disease, because nobody at the gubmint has bothered to test for it. As a fat, pampered decadent Western aesthete, I declare this an outrage!

Bush will support a constitutional amendment, designed to permanently enshrine discrimination against gay people into the constitution. Why? It's classic "look over there, not over here" politics. It's disgusting.

If there's ever been a time where state's rights are important, this is it.

Polling consistently shows that younger people have much more tolerance for gay people. In fact, even among young and relatively religious people, there's a who-cares attitude towards gay marriage. Why is this? It's simple.

News for you old people who are screwing up our country: There aren't that many gay people. We'd prefer to just live them alone.

Who gets to live with your stupid constitutional amendment? We do. And our children. You don't have relevance for much longer. Why the hell are you pushing your prejudices on the next generation?

The list of bullshit the greediest generation is forcing on everyone else just gets longer and longer.

Daniel Drezner points us to a fascinating feature in the Chicago Tribune on Baghdad's book bazaars and how the events of the last year have affected their business.

What are Iraqis selling and reading? Works by Shiite clerics, religious text, formerly banned books, volumes looted from libraries and private collections, and American paperbacks. The upshot for the merchants is: freedom's good; competition's a pain in the keister; and it's really nice not to get beaten or taken away for having the wrong book in sight of the authorities.

My favorite part is this:

A lifetime devotee of popular American novels, Toma's guru is Sidney Sheldon, and he has an ambitious dream for the new Iraq. He wants to open a Sidney Sheldon Institute for Modern English, where he will teach English to Iraqis and reveal to them the literary magic of the blockbuster American novelist.

Where do I send funding?

I've been mum on this topic because I live in Massachusetts and talk about it elsewhere so much. But here's the thing. As Jacob Levy observes, the FMA would make marriage one of the very few topics expressly taken off the table for states to legislate on, and aside from everything else that fact sits poorly with me. Most of the other "no-no's" for states are things like slavery. That is, the US Constitution bans states from passing legislation that would enslave people, and thereby restrict their human and civil rights.

The FMA is something different: in its most extreme wordings, it arbitrarily denies some people the rights granted to others. I'm not saying it's an easy question, and I understand that some people are dead-set against it. But many gay marriage opponents are conflating religious and moral issues with civil issues, and they need to be separated out here. Nobody will force the Church of What's Happening Now! to marry gay couples, just like nobody is forcing them to perform midnite ceremonies for a drunk-ass ho like Britney Spears.

As for my own opinions, I'm for gay marriage just like I'm for classic marriage-- and I take the matter pretty seriously, and expect that couples intending to marry do so as well. I'm even empowered to perform marriages, and have done so for couples who are appropriately serious about the affair. My state's legislature is meeting today to decide whether to put a state constitutional amendment on the ballot banning gay marriage. Two thoughts: at least it's happening in the right arena-- the state level; and a gay marriage ban will pass into the Massachusetts Constitution over my dead (or at least severely mauled and wounded) body.

[wik] The Onion comments. Excerpt: "What's the big deal? It's legal now. My sister's married to a gay guy and everyone knows it."

Although I'm risking dismemberment for saying so (Brdgt), George Lucas stubbornly refuses to let his past successes get in the way of his current failures.

The yummy sandwich: The original Star Wars trilogy is finally coming out on DVD.

The poo on the sandwich:

"The versions on DVD will only feature the special editions, LucasFilm spokeswoman Lynn Hale said. Many fans of the original movies had hoped the rougher, unaltered films would also be provided.

[Lucasfilm marketing hack] Ward said there wasn't much debate about whether to release the unaltered originals.

The official definitive versions are the 1997 special editions. That's the version the artist, in this case George Lucas, intended to be seen," he said.

I saw the revisions Lucas made, and they really hamstrung the originals. While I respect the fact that it's his perogative to give to the public the films he wants the public to see, I constantly marvel at Lucas' tin ear as to what makes a good film good.

Thanks to vodkapundit for the tip.

NASA has decided to end support for the Hubble Telescope, arguing that further repairs to the aging satellite would be to dangerous to attempt.

While the NASA brass seem to be in accord that this is a sound, though sad, decision, I'm not so sure: I just think it's sad. Of all the projects NASA has attempted in recent years, Hubble is the most emblematic. They spent a bundle. They threw it up there. It didn't work. Some dudes went and fixed it in orbit. We see the ends of space, and glory ensues.

Its value to cosmology aside, NASA should keep Hubble operating as a constant reminder of the perils of bureaucratic planning and the intrepidness of engineers and astronauts.

The OpinionJournal has an interesting piece up on the possible fate of Cuba once the murderous ratfink dictator Castro finally claims gets his ticket punched. The article is based on the conclusions of Mark Falcoff of the American Enterprise Institute, in his book Cuba, the Morning After.

Falcoff concludes that post-Castro Cuba will have a hard time recovering from more than four decades of communist dictatorship. "Failed states typically become--like Haiti--platforms for the export of illicit substances, centers of international criminality, and vessels leaking illegal immigrants," he says. "Perhaps, indeed, the island will somehow avoid this fate, but present indicators do not offer much encouragement."

The article continues, "Other obstacles abound, Mr. Falcoff argues, even if the dictatorship topples like the Berlin Wall. Cuba, once prosperous, is now desperately poor, and one of Castro's legacies is the destruction of the whole framework of civil society. Gone are the entrepreneurs of Spanish-immigrant culture. Gone are the vibrant business groups, labor federations and professional societies. Gone are the engines of wealth, like a profitable sugar industry. The regime has trashed the island's environment and badly damaged its human capital. Cuba now ranks among the world's top five nations in suicides per capita. Even psychologically healthy Cubans are burdened by years of indoctrination, with its bias against individual responsibility and risk-taking.

About the only thing that might avert this rather grim scenario is the return of Cuban-Americans who have combined Cuban culture with American entrepreneurial skills and respect for civil soceity. Cuba was once the richest country in Latin America in per capita income. Now it is by far the poorest. Hopefully, this can change back.

The White House released payroll records today, supposedly proving that the President was never AWOL or otherwise derelict of duty from the National Guard back in the days before disco.

Why payroll records? Anybody can be on "payroll," just ask the mafia. Payroll records prove jack squat, and surprise! White House Press Wrangler Scott McClellan agrees with me!

[U]nder questioning from reporters, McClellan said the records do not specifically show that Bush reported for Guard duty in Alabama, where he spent much of 1972 working on a Senate campaign. And he said the White House has been unable to locate anyone who remembers serving with Bush during that period.

However, McClellan said, "he was paid for the days he served in the Air National Guard. That's why I said that these records clearly document that the president fulfilled his duties."

In truth, the only proof to come out of today is that Scott McClellan is no Ari Fleischer.

Michael Ledeen has some thoughts on the letter that Johno mentioned in the previous post. This is the best part:

According to the Times — whose correspondent, Dexter Filkins, saw both the Arabic original and a military translation, and "wrote down large parts of the translation" — the letter is a sort of jihadist primal scream. It says that the jihad against the Americans in Iraq is going badly. The Iraqis are not signing up for martyrdom or jihad, they do not even permit the jihadis to organize their terrorist attacks from local houses, and, worst of all, the Americans are not afraid of the terrorists. With that charming neglect of logic that seems to define much of the radical terrorist "mind," Zarkawi says both that the Americans "are the biggest cowards that God has created," and that "America...has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes."

And he adds, "we can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases."

If we had a government capable of advancing its case to the world at large, those phrases would be broadcast around the world, because they constitute an admission of defeat by a man in the forefront of the campaign against us in Iraq.

This is it, right there. One of the signal failures of the Bush administration has not been its judgment in the conduct of the war on terror; but rather its perverse inability to make a case for its actions. While I have been doing so on a ( very ) small scale along with numerous other bloggers and journalists, the unconvinced need to hear it from the man at the top. Bush should be screaming this news from the rooftops.

And Ledeen also gives us some news from Iran:

Nonetheless, demonstrations continue all over the country. Demonstrations in Kerman a couple of weeks ago were so large that the regime was forced to bring in helicopter gunships to mow down the protesters, and the usual thugs were unleashed on student demonstrators in Tehran and Shiraz in the last few days. Despite the calls for appeasement from the State Department and a handful of our elected representatives, the Iranian people can see what is going on in Iraq, and they must take a measure of comfort from it. And the regime was so upset by President Bush's passing reference to Middle Eastern tyrants who feel threatened by the liberation of Iraq (this weekend), that on Monday the official news service reported that Bush had threatened Iran with the same treatment he had delivered to Iraq. I can hear the Iranians sighing, "oh, if only it is true."

It would be wonderful if the Iranians were able to free themselves. But it is foolish for us to stand by and not help what is clearly a growing movement, and one that hates everything that we hate - religious fundamentalism, thuggery and terrorism. Surely we can spare a couple billion dollars, some special forces troops and some loud support from the oval office to help the Iranian democracy movement.

[alsø wik] Here is another article, by Amir Taheri, commemorating the 25th Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran which happens tomorrow.

Yesterday saw the news of a letter siezed from al Qaeda which seems to indicate that they've been having a hard time drumming up support in Iraq. Michael Totten (linked above) takes the letter as an encouraging sign, and I'm inclined to read it that way as well. I've only read excerpts, so it's hard to know what the whole thing says. Anyway: good news, neh?

It's hard to be too happy when every single day brings a new headline like this one: Truck bomb outside police station south of Baghdad kills dozens. (the AP updated headline adds, "Crowd Blames Americans.") There seems to have been a lot of high-casualty suicide bombings recently; how long until this stops being "a desperate ploy by the terrorists" and becomes "an ongoing campaign of successful mass murder by the terrorists"? I thought such events were supposed to subside in the wake of Hussein's capture.

I know that good comes with bad and war is inherently contemporaneously nonnarrative, but how are things GOING in Iraq?

Better than in Haiti, I hope. One of the United State's great experiments in imperial libervasion (that is, invade 'em, civilize 'em, trade with 'em) is now in full-blown civil war.

From the Associated Press: French lawmakers vote overwhelmingly to ban religious apparel in public school. I'm not one to wag fingers [liar!!!] but I'm afraid that France is sweeping a crucial issue under the rug. At a time when they should be taking every step to help integrate a new generation of French Muslim (and Jewish)schoolchildren into French society, they are attempting to eradicate the outward differences between groups, in the process making those difference more apparent and less bridgeable.

[wik] Yes, I know there's deeper and older issues involved. I stand by my point. Does that make me a touchy-feely hippie?

It's time once again for me to lay upon the benighted masses another over-long, wordy, and tedious book review of interest only to me and people like me. See, I've always wanted to write for the Atlantic, yet I lack drive, ambition, talent, or the requisite measure of snobbery it takes to write 5,500 words on the unsung childlike genius of Proust and the perils of English translation. Despite these handicaps, I in my own way want to be like the big boys.

I geek out about things: it's what I like to do. If I learn a little about something, I usually want to know a lot more. In some ways, this is a pain. For instance, I'm a baseball fan but suck the big one when it comes to quoting statistics about who was the best Texas-born left-handed shortstop of all time. I'm waaaaay out of my league on that count, and it's frustrating.

But in other ways, geekery is deeply rewarding. For example, I like to cook and over the years have gotten pretty good at it. I've got a sensitive palate and a notion of what an extra teaspoon of rosemary will do to the balance of a beef stew. Since I'm a decadent Western aesthete at heart, in individual pursuits like cooking, wine, or the building of Magic The Gathering decks, it's very very good to be a geek.

Currently I am geeking out about bread baking. My mom taught me the basics years ago, and since I moved into a place with a real gas oven, I have been baking bread in earnest. Over the years I have amassed a collection of half a dozen or so decent bread cookbooks, and on my own I managed to give myself an okay grounding in the principles of bread baking. But my inner geek was not yet satisfied. My holy grail of breadmaking is the quintessential artisan loaf: a chewy, slightly open crumb with plenty of body and a deep flavor encased in a crisp yet tender outer crust. I had come close on my own, and some of my efforts last winter with sourdough rye loaves were outstanding. Even so, I didn't have a clear idea of what to do to achieve consistently good results without guesswork and uncertainty.

Enter Rose Levy Beranbaum. Beranbaum is a noted cookbook author and total geek whose "Cake Bible" is one of the landmark cookbooks of the last decade. In that book, Beranbaum approached cake baking with rigor, enthusiasm, and creativity, resulting in recipes that very nearly come out perfect every time.

Beranbaum's new book, "The Bread Bible," does the same for bread.
Exhaustively researched, fully annotated, and crammed with detail, this is the best single book on the subject I have ever come across. I got The Bread Bible for Christmas, and the next day decided to whip out a couple breads to have with our New Years' dinner. I chose Beer Bread and something called Sicilian Pizza Roll. Both were fantastic, better than almost anything I had done before. Her recipes were perfect. The Beer Bread was crusty and chewy, with a subtle flavor you would never guess came from a bottle of Porter. The Sicilian Roll was like a rolled pizza stuffed with broccoli, garlic, and olive oil.

Ever since then, my weekends have revolved around baking. Friday night 11 PM: mix the levain starter. Saturday 11 AM: mix and knead the dough. Six hours and several steps later: remove from oven and enjoy with dinner, then start Sunday's bread. My wife has grounds to complain-- this hobby is time-consuming and not any cheaper than just buying a loaf at the store. But she has yet to stop me. Must be good bread.

Rose Levy Beranbaum's approach to baking has many advantages over conventional cookbooks. Where a pithy, catch-all book like The Joy of Cooking or The Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook favors economy over rigor, Beranbaum goes the opposite route. The recipe for her basic Hearth Bread (essentially the "quintessential" bread I was looking for above) runs to five pages and includes notes on pan selection, various rising strategies, and variations. Whereas another cookbook might specify "5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour, " Beranbaum's ingredient lists specify exactly how much flour ("2 2/3 cups plus a tablespoon") to use, and in some cases even exactly what brand of flour will work best.

Within the recipes, the instructions are impeccable. When Beranbaum writes that "the dough will be very sticky," you know that the dough will be a total mess, almost unkneadable by hand and sticking to the counter, your hands, the bowl, and your face (don't ask!). But when she writes that "after five minutes of kneading, the dough will be smooth and only slighty tacky (sticky)," you also know that five minutes from now, your sticky morass will have somehow transformed under your fingers into a perfect dough: shiny, smooth and elastic. And so it goes.

But all the detail in the world is useless without the "why," and here Berabaum also excels. She devotes several pages to the differences between all-purpose and bread flour, down to the differences in protein content between King Arthur All-Purpose and Pillsbury (it's something like 7.4% vs. 7.2%, if you were wondering). Yeast, salt, sweeteners, and additives all get similar treatment, as does equipment. Why does the Ciabatta dough need to be so wet? Why must you not overknead the baguette? Why use All-Purpose for pizza dough? Why must you not add the salt until the final mix? All is explained, and everything works perfectly.

Quick breads, scones, muffins, popovers, sweet rolls, sourdoughs, Indian paratha, Kugelhopf, rye, and French breads all get the Beranbaum treatment, and all of them are outstanding. She even includes a recipe for Wonder-style soft white bread. I tried it this weekend, and it's absolutely oustanding. Not gummy at all, and utterly delicious.

As with any cookbook, "The Bread Bible" is not without its flaws. There are better resources than this one for absolute novices-- James Beard's Beard On Bread deserves its reputation as a classic, and you can't go wrong with the Joy of Cooking. Rose Levy Beranbaum's approach works better if you alrady know your way around a loafpan a little and are ready to find out the effects of relative hydration levels on gluten extensibility. A new baker is likely to get lost in the details where these other books are more careful about helping novices understand the very basics. (Beard's approach is particularly good for newbies, and includes an essential section on what could go awry and how to correct it. )

Sometimes Beranbaum's best asset-- her methodical nature-- is also a liability. Several times I've made a foolish mistake and had to throw out a half-mixed dough because I glanced and saw "3 1/2 cups flour," but missed the note, "hold back 1/4 cup if mixing by hand." Substitutions come at the end of recipes, and this also caused a problem when I had to swap in real milk for powdered milk, but forgot to change out the water for milk when adding the ingredients. These problems stem partly from my own cooking style and lack of organization, and a marginal note by me is all it takes to fix them. But I've rarely encountered these issues in the past, which makes me suspect that Beranbaum's style won't be a perfect fit for everyone.

Baking is as serious in its way as kung fu, doll-collecting, or pet breeding, and I for one am glad that Rose Levy Beranbaum has finally met the need for a serious, geeky, high-quality book on breads. If you have any interest in a technical-manual approach to bread construction, I cannot recommend "The Bread Bible" highly enough.

The anal-retentive types over here have taken the fine art and enjoyable pastime of criticizing movies for their departures from the known laws of physics to ridiculous lengths. I complain about movie physics sins during movies, after movies and sometimes even before movies if the trailer is bad enough. But I've got nothing on these guys, especially when they go after Armageddon and what they judge to be the worst physics movie ever, The Core.

Mike Hawash has indicated his regret for his actions in the past. He's received a seven year sentence, and I guess that seems about right. For those who don't remember, Hawash is the former Intel software engineer who was arrested a year or so ago for attempting to fight against US troops in Afghanistan. At the time, the tech community was somewhat up in arms because he'd been arrested without charge or explanation.

Some time passed, and then the FBI documents were made public. Reading them was pretty sobering. He hadn't just been arrested in a general sweep; there was very specific information about what he'd done wrong, how he'd gone about it, and so forth.

I think some of my incredulity at the time of his initial arrest was really due to the fact that he was a software guy. I just found it hard to believe that someone in my profession could do something so stupid. Clearly, though, he did.

Overlapping with that was the knowledge that various government agencies had engaged in a fair amount of abuse of process and flat out racism in detaining many other Arab citizens. I think this is one of the reasons that I feel so strongly about ensuring that individual rights are very carefully monitored and never abused...because when the government really needs to act in an extraordinary way, and be somewhat rough on a particular individual, we can't have any confusion about whether that person is being caught up in a general crackdown.

The FBI couldn't have done anything different in the Hawash case; they appear to have done everything by the book.

It's still strange to me, though. A guy who co-writes a book on DirectX programming, is a highly paid engineer, and is by all accounts a model suburban father, somehow morphs into a guy who's willing to fly to a strange country, pick up a gun, and shoot at US soldiers.

I take heart in the fact that there are tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of Muslim suburban fathers here who do not make the same choice, when torn between cultures. We stand with them; they are part of the American soul.

I feel sad for Mike Hawash and his family. He's paying a terrible and just price for his actions.

The New York Times has uncovered compelling evidence that NASA has been tampering with the color of photos beamed from Mars, and today published a shocking exposee of mechanical malfeasance , deliberate deception, and sloppy science.

[D]id NASA fiddle with the [color images from Mars] to make [them] look that red? As Mars buffs have pointed out in recent weeks on Web sites like Slashdot.org, a closer look reveals that parts of the rover itself, in the foreground, are oddly garish. Even the color chips placed on the rover to calibrate the color photographs had shifted. What should be bright blue is instead bright pink; what should be bright green is brown. . . .

What was going on? On Jan. 31, during a lull in the control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Jason Soderblom, a graduate student at Cornell who is a member of the science team, gave a talk explaining the odd Martian colors. . . .

[For the rover to] produce a color photograph, the rover's panoramic camera takes three black-and-white images of a scene, once with a red filter, once with a green filter and once with a blue filter. Each is then tinted with the color of the filter, and the three are combined into a color image.

In assembling the Spirit photographs, however, the scientists used an image taken with an infrared filter, not the red filter. Some blue pigments like the cobalt in the rover color chip also emit this longer-wavelength light, which is not visible to the human eye. . . .

For the scientists, there are good reasons to focus on infrared colors rather than the visible red. "Iron dominates mineral color in the visible, and it causes everything to have shades of red," Mr. Soderblom said.

With the infrared filter, the different iron minerals emit different colors, and the camera can better differentiate between them. "We're trying to identify the minerals in the scene, and the way we're doing this is with subtle differences," Mr. Soderblom said. . . .

Still, there was no reason for the Spirit to see pink on Mars. When producing the panorama, the camera also used the red filter.

"We just made a mistake," said Dr. James F. Bell III, the lead scientist for the camera. "It's really just a mess-up."

A mess-up? Or a cover-up? This administration will stop at nothing to obscure the truth, even blocking authenticity in the name of science. I tell you now, Magentagate will become the deciding factor in the 2004 Presidential elections.

What could they be hiding up there, New York Times? What, indeed? Better get on it.

Not the ass of the world, which is Steubenville, OH. (Nitro WV being a close runner-up.) But the bottom of the world, which is to say the South Pole.

Sophie got to take a day trip to the new base being constructed at the pole, and took time to get her picture took. For more information on the South Pole, you can start here. 

A recent comment has caused me to rethink my goals, values and position in life.

RegretsYou | 02/09/04 7:55 AM | Email:worthless@pos.org | IP 216.127.72.7

Please take your hateful, talentless, war-loving, trailer-trash family back to rural Ohio, where your kind belongs. Oh, that's right, they only have real jobs there, not shameful, government-waste, meaningless, busywork jobs like yours. And may God help your hapless son.

And you know, he's exactly right. It was, oddly enough, a kind of road to Damascus, scales falling from the eyes kind of experience. There I was, sitting in my flannel pajamas and checking the blog before getting ready for work, and bam! There it was! I don't belong here in this cosmopolitan DC milieu. My attempts to move beyond my heritage have failed utterly. I just can't get past my upbringing. So I called my dad, and told him. And we've decided to move the family back to Ohio. Advanced degrees and high paying jobs are just poor camouflage for our trailer trash roots.

Dad's thinking he's gonna buy a Ford F150, but then he always knew more about cars than I did. I'll just get something that'll look nice in front of a double wide. We'll fit in there, with our kind. We can get real jobs like pulling up concrete, or maybe even digging ditches. That would be the nes plus ultra of authentic, proletarian vocations, don't you think? And we could hang out in the local bars, and talk with the other xenophobic, jingoistic, back-country rubes. Although we'd have to be careful not to let it out that we went to college. Hicks don't take kindly to condescending, college educated folk telling them what's what.

It will be a relief to leave government contracting behind. It's been so frustrating trying to get government workers to adapt to commercial sector timetables. I can just relax and swing a 20lb sledge; and think about going home to my son, and how I'll teach him about the mendacity of the French, creationism, and how it's good for honest Americans to blow up the little brown people. Of course, I'll have to be careful not to overdo it. He might rebel and go to college! JC might pick all manner of noxious habits, and learn to hate everyone he knows. Of course, he's hapless – just like his talentless Dad and Granddad, so I won't have much to fear, I think.

I'll call the wife right now and tell her to start packing. And maybe God will help us along with a million dollar buyout.

RegretsYou, please leave your real email address in the comments, as I'd like to thank you personally for the insights you've given me and my family. I followed the ip address the blog software logged, but it only led here. You have nothing to fear! Talentless hacks can't afford lawyers.

It's time for my semi-regular, always belated and apologetic link to BTD's Sunday Comics feature. The crew over at Begging to Differ has had a recent lineup change - they've assimilated three new bloggers, but have also lost a regular, BTD Mike. I am happy and sad for them.

Scott Elliott, who maintains the Election Projection (which is interesting in its own right, and well worth a look) has come up with 21 reasons that Bush will be reelected in November.

Several of these are fairly compelling, and at the very least it's a good starting point for trying to put your own spin on how things will turn out.

I note with a little sadness that Uru Live is disappearing, before it was even born. The Myst series of games have always represented the high-water mark for graphics and visual adventure games. Uru Live was an interesting effort...an attempt to bring this kind of game into the online massive multiplayer online space.

The company spent a ton of money to build this thing. The results, visually, were pretty astonishing. Great conceptual art, excellent engine...a lot of good ingredients were there. The best moments in Uru were "vista moments", where you would come across some new area, and be simply blown away by the beauty or concept of the thing.

So what went wrong? More than anything, I think, the problem was the underlying thinking about the game that was being played. Why do we play games, or read books, or watch movies? To see things that are beautiful; to see "new" things. We can do it to learn, to interact...or to compete.

Uru never had any sense of competition. One could be built, but it did not yet exist. In fact, Uru didn't really seem to have much of a sense of gaming at all. Clever puzzles that required cooperation could have been designed, and weren't. That really left only exploration. Uru Live itself never delivered that, either...the official version never came to be.

It strikes me that the marketing of this thing was screwed up pretty badly...to get the "buzz" you need to get an MMORPG started, you need a good burst of players. The single player game was fine, but it followed the general sales pattern of every single player game: Big initial sales, then a steady decline. MMORPGs are all about maintaining the franchise. You have this initial burst of players, and you need to retain them.

Uru Live didn't exist, so there was nothing to keep player mind share.

What's more, it was painfully clear in the live "prologue" that whatever plans there were for the online component simply hadn't worked out. If Live was somewhere near a true release, vastly more of the game should have been working during the Christmas timeframe. It might not have been ready, but it should have been dramatically apparent where it was all going. It was not.

I'd conclude that management realized that the Live part just wasn't going to work, for many reasons. They decided to milk the cash they could out of the single player version, and so they have. This is a sensible thing to do. There seems to be a lot of content that's been prepared for Live; this will be released as expansion packs for the original game. Again, this makes financial sense. For purchasers of the game it makes sense too -- and is probably less expensive than a monthly fee in any case.

Bold experiments happen, and sometimes they don't work. I hope the team is proud of their successes. They've really raised the bar in some areas. Deeper planning in the actual social/online game component might have given the project legs.

Space.com reports that the memory surgery performed on the Mars Rover Spirit was a complete success. Spirit will now set about trundling through the Martian countryside, molesting rocks with its RAT and otherwise pestering the locals. (RAT: Rock Abrasion Tool)

You are all pretentious twats. Every last one of you. You're all latte-sipping, iMac-using, suburban-living tertiary-industry-working WASPs who offer absolutely no new insights on anything whatsoever apart from maybe one specialist field if we're lucky.

The Commissar drops a clue that perhaps James Joyce does not think highly of us.

Well, Mr. Joyce of Kuro5hin can kiss my ass. Even though this is a pMachine blog. I drink black coffee, and I no longer own a Mac. Well, I do, but I don't use it. It's a pre-PowerPC Quadra. Well, sometimes, I haul it out and play Escape Velocity. But I don't have an iMac. My Aunt does though! And she has an AOL account! I bet you hate her, too. But I digress. At least I'm not named after an opaque novelist no one reads.

Read.

Like Red States and Blue States, the books we read are separated by a unbridgeable cultural divide. Valdis Krebs, a man with entirely too much time on his hands, has taken some data from Amazon, and created a network map of books on current politics. Books are linked if they were purchased simultaneously. 

[ Bigger image here]

hat tip: Marginal Revolution, via The Volokh Conspiracy

[wik] While this phenomenon no doubt holds for explicitly political/current affairs books, it becomes a lot less true once you move away from that arena. I'm not sure about Ross, but I know that the difference between Johno's and my taste in, say history, lies solely in the areas of history we are interested in rather than the political labeling of the title. Where our interests overlap - we start running into the same titles.

TL Hines has begun what is sure to become legend in the annals of political reporting. In a selfless quest to increase our knowledge of the issues; and more importantly the people who will never have any impact upon them, TL is interviewing the Dark Horse presidential candidates. No not those candidates - the real Dark Horses. Like Kenneth Oliver Miller, Jedi candidate for the most powerful office in the free world.

TL, one question I have, and maybe you can forward it on to Mr. Miller - his stat sheet on Project Vote Smart lists his date of birth as 1/3/65. He will turn forty after the election. Is he even eligible to run for President?

The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, had this to say in a rally back in August of last year:

"The resistance movement [against the U.S. in Iraq] may not be able to remove the U.S. from Iraq within a year, but it will be able to remove Bush, [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and [National Security Adviser] Condoleezza Rice, together with their Zionist friends, from the White House," [editorial notes in the original Haaretz article]

The article has a lot of detail on the relationship between Hezbollah and Syria, and both groups activities in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. Read the whole thing, as they say. But this quote is interesting. At least one terror group is convinced that a new administration in Washington would lead to a more salubrious climate for their activities. That is a strong argument for voting against whoever ends up the Democratic nominee.

hat tip: Insults Unpunished

As a sort of follow-on to my earlier post, we have this interesting article by Thomas Lifson in the American Thinker. (hat tip: Chris Hall's Spacecraft)

Ronald Reagan is 93 today. 

I shamelessly stole this graphic from Max Jacobs at Commonsense and Wonder. But then, he shamelessly stole the graphic from someone else, likely these people.