09. April 2005 · Comments Off on The Man Of The Year? · Categories: General

The past week’s outpouring of the grievers for the late Pope John Paul II might favor him to be honored posthumously as Time Magazine’s Man of the Year. But, the very makeup of that congregation prods me to put forth a dark-horse candidate for that pantheon.

Every commentator from Rome this week has remarked upon the multi-national, multi-denominational, multi-ethnic turn-out, including many heads-of-state from nations which allow no religious freedom – punctuating a doctrine he lived like no Pope before: that All are welcome to dine at His table.

But I draw your attention to another cleric whom John Paul II has no-doubt influenced – Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Indeed, his realization, that the marriage of church-to -tate weakens both, may be the grandest revelation of our time. The “iron triangle” of Reagan/Thacher/John Paul II may be matched in the annals of history by Bush/Blair/Ali Sistani.

Time will tell.

09. April 2005 · Comments Off on Nightline To Go With Koppel · Categories: Media Matters Not

The inside word is that ABC’s Nightline will be retired, along with Ted Koppel, at the end of the season, to be replaced by a mow “entertainment oriented” program, to compete with NBC and CBS. This is sad for us news junkies. Almost since it’s inception, Nightline has been the best news show on commercial network TV.

09. April 2005 · Comments Off on Stop Activist Evangelicals · Categories: General

I am currently watching a conference from last Thursday conducted by an organization called StopActivistJudges.org, led by Rick Scarborough, a preacher who would like to install a theocracy, based upon his interpretation of The Bible, in Washington D.C..

I watched an interview with this guy Thursday morning. And I must say, he is as big a nutcase as my nuisance emailer. The hypocrisy, and lack of intellectual integrity of his organization was evident in his position on the Terri Schiavo case, where he placed his “activist judge” label upon Judge Greer.

Now, I have my reservations about the Schiavo case; I would have liked to see some further, more contemporary, diagnostic techniques employed. But I am satisfied that the laws of The State of Florida were followed appropriately. What Scarborough would have liked to see is religious conservative federal activist judges – those that share HIS point of view – take extra-constitutional action to overturn the decision of the Florida courts.

08. April 2005 · Comments Off on Bravo’s Latest Hit · Categories: That's Entertainment!

If you are missing Forty Deuce, you just aren’t with it.

07. April 2005 · Comments Off on Racial Violence In France · Categories: General

This seems to be a distinctly European thing:

On March 8, tens of thousands of high school students marched through central Paris to protest education reforms announced by the government. Repeatedly, peaceful demonstrators were attacked by bands of black and Arab youths–about 1,000 in all, according to police estimates. The eyewitness accounts of victims, teachers, and most interestingly the attackers themselves gathered by the left-wing daily Le Monde confirm the motivation: racism.

Some of the attackers openly expressed their hatred of “little French people.” One 18-year-old named Heikel, a dual citizen of France and Tunisia, was proud of his actions. He explained that he had joined in just to “beat people up,” especially “little Frenchmen who look like victims.” He added with a satisfied smile that he had “a pleasant memory” of repeatedly kicking a student, already defenseless on the ground.

Another attacker explained the violence by saying that “little whites” don’t know how to fight and “are afraid because they are cowards.” Rachid, an Arab attacker, added that even an Arab can be considered a “little white” if he “has a French mindset.” The general sentiment was a desire to “take revenge on whites.”

Of course, here in America, we simply don’t tolerate this sort of thing.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

05. April 2005 · Comments Off on Retiree Needs Some Help · Categories: Veteran's Affairs

This appeared in the comments of an earlier post. I thought I’d move it up here, so people would see it:

Please,
Someone advise me how to contact DFAS-Cleveland, ref: retired pay.

I am behind on my taxes (don’t owe any) and need W-2 forms. Have not
received any from Cleveland in about three years.

Please contact me by Email or write to me at:

3-3-7 Wakasa
Naha City
Okinawa, Japan

Thanks,
E.F. Chamniss

05. April 2005 · Comments Off on When You’re Away, And Simply Must Blog… · Categories: Technology

…Who needs a laptop and WiFi hotspot? You can now blog from your cell phone with Rabble:

So in addition to creating original content, Rabble subscribers will be able to use their phones to find and read mobile blog posts from magazines like “Spin.” They can follow the exploits of budding celebrities like singer-songwriter Aslyn or the social commentary of Stowe Boyd. And, as with traditional blogs, mobile users can subscribe to the content to receive the latest posts automatically.

The Rabble software works with other popular blogging applications, such as Blogger and Live Journal. That means a photo taken with a camera phone can be published to an Internet blog. Or text written on the computer can be published for the phone reader.

So, would a phone-based blog be called a PHLOG? 🙂

05. April 2005 · Comments Off on FEC May Be Forced To Reach The Right Answer · Categories: Media Matters Not, Politics

Richard L. Hasen has a good article in FindLaw on the possibility that the FEC’s efforts to come up with some equitible regulation of internet campaign speech may lead them to disclosure rules as the only viable option:

Online Magazines Will Be Exempt, Just as Magazines Are, But What About Bloggers?

The FEC, in its new rulemaking, appears ready to treat Slate and similar on-line only magazines as “other periodical publications” benefiting from the media exemption. But it is having a harder time with bloggers.

The draft regulations would create some safe harbors for bloggers engaged in election-related speech, but it would not necessarily grant the media exemption to a blogger who uses corporate-owned computers (even by a corporate employee who blogs on her lunch hour) to maintain a blog.

The FEC will likely be inundated with anti-regulation comments from the blogging world, and one commissioner has already indicated that “it’s pretty clear that the result is not going to be bad for bloggers.” To reach that result, the final regulations are likely to expand the media exemption to virtually all bloggers, or to exempt blogging from regulation altogether even when accomplished with the significant help of corporate or union resources.

If Bloggers are Broadly Exempt, Related Corporations and Unions Will Be, Too

This is the decision that will be hard to cabin to the Internet. A few months before the 2004 election, the incorporated National Rifle Association began NRANews, a daily news and commentary program broadcast on satellite radio. The NRA is claiming the press exemption. And so it goes.

In short, as everyone gets to own the equivalent of a printing press, and everyone can become a journalist, the corporate and labor limit on campaign activity stands to be swallowed up by the media exemption

And what happens a few years from now when we receive both our Internet computer access and television signals through the same cable or signal? Is a political program broadcast or beamed from your favorite (incorporated) environmental group or evangelical organization going to get the benefit of the media exemption?

Thus, it is not clear how the FEC can give a broad exemption to bloggers now without exempting all electronic media later. For some anti-regulatory commissioners, this may be precisely the point.

Hat Tip: Eugene Volokh, who also has a good analysis on a confusing campaign speech law being considered in San Francisco here. While Orange County is well south of San Francisco, I sometimes comment on their politics and politicians. I wonder if they’d try to claim The Daily Brief has more than 500 readers there, and come after me? 🙂

04. April 2005 · Comments Off on 10,000 Channels, And Nothing To Watch · Categories: General

I’m currently watching a episode of Mcleod’s Daughters I’ve already seen twice before. But I just tuned away from an episode of King of the Hill I’d seen six times before.

Besides showing that my life is really fucked, this shows that, when the news networks are “all X all the time,” even satellite is a vast wasteland.

04. April 2005 · Comments Off on “Helo: I’m Pregnant.” · Categories: That's Entertainment!

Have we been over-blogging on BSG? I’m surprised that Timmer, or any of my other co-bloggers haven’t commented on the season finale.

If it weren’t for FX, this would be the best drama on non-premium TV.

Update: In an attempt to avoid any more spoilers than I’ve presently delved into – she drew a gut-shot, lowered her weapon, and then took another gut-shot. What’s with that? It seems like rather irrational behavior from a presumably totally rational being?

03. April 2005 · Comments Off on Pope John Paul II Has Died · Categories: Media Matters Not

Oh yeah, that’s nothing new; I heard it shortly after my lunch yesterday. And I listened to a couple of retrospectives on his life, which was all review for me, as I have been following it for the past two-and-a-half decades.

But mostly, I avoided the news yesterday. Because it was “all Pope all the time” – just one episode after another of one talking head after another babbling the same pap, with the Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, or the windows of the Papal apartment, in the background, and closing with “we are anxiously awaiting the atican’s next announcement on the Pope’s condition.

What do you want to bet that today will just be another variation on the same theme. unless another senational story pops it’s head up

C’mon, people there are always LOTS of other things happening in the world.

03. April 2005 · Comments Off on Should Gingrich Surrender His Citizenship? · Categories: General

I am currently watching a History Channel: Hardcover History interview with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. His stature is immediately called into question by the inclusion in his accreditation statement the fact that he was swept into power on the heels of the shredded on contact with reality 1994 Contract With America – widely regarded today as political sham.

Well on into the interview, but highlighted by the History Channel’s editors, was a statement by Prof. Gingrich that “no person should be allowed citizenship unless they know who George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were.” Later, he said they should know that Lincoln “launched this nation into civil war to end slavery.”

WTF ! If not his citizenship, at least his standing as a professor of history, should be revoked for a statement like that. ANY serious student of history (like, beyond the high school level), knows that emancipation was well down on Lincoln’s list of priorities when he made his infamous 7/4/61 plea to Congress to send troops to the South.

Update: As my first commenter has taken issue with my stand on the 1994 Republican Contract With America, I am posting it here:

REPUBLICAN CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as
citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to
change its policies, but even more important, to restore the
bonds of trust between the people and their elected
representatives.

That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing,
we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a
written commitment with no fine print.

This year’s election offers the chance, after four decades
of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority
that will transform the way Congress works. That historic
change would be the end of government that is too big, too
intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money. It can be
the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and
shares the faith of the American family.

Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to
act “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the
right.” To restore accountability to Congress. To end its
cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of
the way free people govern themselves.

On the first day of the 104th Congress, the new Republican
majority will immediately pass the following major reforms,
aimed at restoring the faith and trust of the American
people in their government:

  • FIRST, require all laws that apply to the rest of the
    country also apply equally to the Congress;

  • SECOND, select a major, independent auditing firm to
    conduct a comprehensive audit of Congress for waste,
    fraud or abuse;

  • THIRD, cut the number of House committees, and cut
    committee staff by one-third;

  • FOURTH, limit the terms of all committee chairs;
  • FIFTH, ban the casting of proxy votes in committee;
  • SIXTH, require committee meetings to be open to the
    public;

  • SEVENTH, require a three-fifths majority vote to pass a
    tax increase;

  • EIGHTH, guarantee an honest accounting of our Federal
    Budget by implementing zero base-line budgeting.

Thereafter, within the first 100 days of the 104th Congress,
we shall bring to the House Floor the following bills, each
to be given full and open debate, each to be given a clear
and fair vote and each to be immediately available this day
for public inspection and scrutiny.

1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT:
A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative
line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out-
of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same
budget constraints as families and businesses.
(Bill Text) (Description)

2. THE TAKING BACK OUR STREETS ACT:
An anti-crime package including stronger truth-in-
sentencing, “good faith” exclusionary rule exemptions,
effective death penalty provisions, and cuts in social
spending from this summer’s “crime” bill to fund prison
construction and additional law enforcement to keep people
secure in their neighborhoods and kids safe in their
schools.
(Bill Text) (Description)

3. THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT:
Discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting
welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for
additional children while on welfare, cut spending for
welfare programs, and enact a tough two-years-and-out
provision with work requirements to promote individual
responsibility.
(Bill Text) (Description)

4. THE FAMILY REINFORCEMENT ACT:
Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption,
strengthening rights of parents in their children’s
education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly
dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of
families in American society.
(Bill Text) (Description)

5. THE AMERICAN DREAM RESTORATION ACT:
A S500 per child tax credit, begin repeal of the marriage
tax penalty, and creation of American Dream Savings Accounts
to provide middle class tax relief.
(Bill Text) (Description)

6. THE NATIONAL SECURITY RESTORATION ACT:
No U.S. troops under U.N. command and restoration of the
essential parts of our national security funding to
strengthen our national defense and maintain our credibility
around the world.
(Bill Text) (Description)

2. THE TAKING BACK OUR STREETS ACT:
An anti-crime package including stronger truth-in-
sentencing, “good faith” exclusionary rule exemptions,
effective death penalty provisions, and cuts in social
spending from this summer’s “crime” bill to fund prison
construction and additional law enforcement to keep people
secure in their neighborhoods and kids safe in their
schools.
(Bill Text) (Description)

3. THE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT:
Discourage illegitimacy and teen pregnancy by prohibiting
welfare to minor mothers and denying increased AFDC for
additional children while on welfare, cut spending for
welfare programs, and enact a tough two-years-and-out
provision with work requirements to promote individual
responsibility.
(Bill Text) (Description)

4. THE FAMILY REINFORCEMENT ACT:
Child support enforcement, tax incentives for adoption,
strengthening rights of parents in their children’s
education, stronger child pornography laws, and an elderly
dependent care tax credit to reinforce the central role of
families in American society.
(Bill Text) (Description)

5. THE AMERICAN DREAM RESTORATION ACT:
A S500 per child tax credit, begin repeal of the marriage
tax penalty, and creation of American Dream Savings Accounts
to provide middle class tax relief.
(Bill Text) (Description)

6. THE NATIONAL SECURITY RESTORATION ACT:
No U.S. troops under U.N. command and restoration of the
essential parts of our national security funding to
strengthen our national defense and maintain our credibility
around the world.
(Bill Text) (Description)

7. THE SENIOR CITIZENS FAIRNESS ACT:
Raise the Social Security earnings limit which currently
forces seniors out of the work force, repeal the 1993 tax
hikes on Social Security benefits and provide tax incentives
for private long-term care insurance to let Older Americans
keep more of what they have earned over the years.
(Bill Text) (Description)

8. THE JOB CREATION AND WAGE ENHANCEMENT ACT:
Small business incentives, capital gains cut and indexation,
neutral cost recovery, risk assessment/cost-benefit
analysis, strengthening the Regulatory Flexibility Act and
unfunded mandate reform to create jobs and raise worker
wages.
(Bill Text) (Description)

9. THE COMMON SENSE LEGAL REFORM ACT:
“Loser pays” laws, reasonable limits on punitive damages and
reform of product liability laws to stem the endless tide of
litigation.
(Bill Text) (Description)

10. THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT:
A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career
politicians with citizen legislators.
(Description)

Further, we will instruct the House Budget Committee to
report to the floor and we will work to enact additional
budget savings, beyond the budget cuts specifically included
in the legislation described above, to ensure that the
Federal budget deficit will be less than it would have been
without the enactment of these bills.

Respecting the judgment of our fellow citizens as we seek
their mandate for reform, we hereby pledge our names to this
Contract with America.

03. April 2005 · Comments Off on Humility And The Definition Of Marriage · Categories: Ain't That America?, General

Megan McArdle posts a good essay on the definition of marriage:

My only request is that people try to be a leeetle more humble about their ability to imagine the subtle results of big policy changes. The argument that gay marriage will not change the institution of marriage because you can’t imagine it changing your personal reaction is pretty arrogant. It imagines, first of all, that your behavior is a guide for the behavior of everyone else in society, when in fact, as you may have noticed, all sorts of different people react to all sorts of different things in all sorts of different ways, which is why we have to have elections and stuff. And second, the unwavering belief that the only reason that marriage, always and everywhere, is a male-female institution (I exclude rare ritual behaviors), is just some sort of bizarre historical coincidence, and that you know better, needs examining. If you think you know why marriage is male-female, and why that’s either outdated because of all the ways in which reproduction has lately changed, or was a bad reason to start with, then you are in a good place to advocate reform. If you think that marriage is just that way because our ancestors were all a bunch of repressed bastards with dark Freudian complexes that made them homophobic bigots, I’m a little leery of letting you muck around with it.

Is this post going to convince anyone? I doubt it; everyone but me seems to already know all the answers, so why listen to such a hedging, doubting bore? I myself am trying to draw a very fine line between being humble about making big changes to big social institutions, and telling people (which I am not trying to do) that they can’t make those changes because other people have been wrong in the past. In the end, our judgement is all we have; everyone will have to rely on their judgement of whether gay marriage is, on net, a good or a bad idea. All I’m asking for is for people to think more deeply than a quick consultation of their imaginations to make that decision. I realise that this probably falls on the side of supporting the anti-gay-marriage forces, and I’m sorry, but I can’t help that. This humility is what I want from liberals when approaching market changes; now I’m asking it from my side too, in approaching social ones. I think the approach is consistent, if not exactly popular.

I strongly suggest you read the whole, rather lengthy, thing – as well as the numerous comments. It’s a very good lesson in intellectual discipline. That is, with one glaring exception: Megan establishes the existence of a time-honored “institution” of marriage by observing the innumerable domestic relationships throughout history which fit her predetermined definition of marriage, and discounting, out of hand, all the myriad other domestic relationships which have existed, without any deeper analysis to determine if, in certain key elements, they are all of a kind.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

02. April 2005 · Comments Off on Diversity In Blogging · Categories: General

Heather Mac Donald at NRO takes apart the call for diversity among bloggers by Newsweek‘s Steven Levy:

Bad move, guys. The “diversity” mongers have just brought up the one thing that they should have stayed far far away from: the web. Newsweek‘s technology columnist Steven Levy has declared that the lack of “diversity” among the web’s most popular blogs requires corrective action. The goal? A blogosphere whose elite tier “reflects the actual population” — i.e., where female- and minority-written blogs are found among the top 100 blogs in the same proportion as females and minorities are found in the general population.

Levy’s complaint comes on the heels of Susan Estrich’s campaign against the Los Angeles Times for allegedly refusing to publish female op-ed writers, a campaign that has caused widespread wringing of editorial hands about male-dominated op-ed pages. For Levy to have mentioned the web at this moment is about as smart as inviting Stephen Hawking to an astrologers’ convention: The web demolishes the assumptions behind any possible quota crusade.

A Harvard conference on bloggers and the media triggered Levy’s concerns. Keith Jenkins, a Washington Post photo editor, had warned during the conference, via e-mail, that the growth of blogging threatened minority gains in journalism. Whereas the mainstream media have gotten to “the point of inclusion,” Jenkins wrote, the “overwhelmingly white and male American blogosphere [might] return us to a day where the dialogue about issues was a predominantly white-only one.”

[…]

No one has succeeded in closing the skills gap yet, but over the years we’ve developed numerous bureaucratic devices to paper it over. These devices will undoubtedly prove highly useful in addressing what Levy calls the web’s “diversity problem.” Levy proposes, as an initial matter, that the power-bloggers voluntarily link to some as yet unspecified number of non-male, non-white writers. The history of ‘voluntary’ affirmative action efforts need not be rehearsed here; suffice it to say, once ‘voluntary’ race- and gender-conscious policies are proposed, mandates are not far behind.

But even Levy’s “voluntary” regime calls out for regulation. How will the diversity-minded linker know the “identity” of a potential linkee? To be workable, a diversity-linkage program needs some sort of gatekeeper — precisely what the web has heretofore lacked. One can imagine something like a federal Digital Diversity Agency that would assign a diversity tattoo to each blog: a lavender pig, for example, signifying a white male blogger with an alternative sexual orientation. A mismatch between the diversity tattoo on a site and its content could trigger a federal audit to track down identity fraud. Let’s say an allegedly black female site (tattooed with a black halo) canvassed technologies for sending humans to Mars. Regulators might find such content highly suspicious, since everyone knows that black females are supposed to write about black females.

As absurd as such a regulatory regime would have to be, it still would not be enough to make a properly “diverse” blogosphere, for the web’s real diversity flaw is the role of readers. It is readers who determine which blogs zoom up to Alpha orbit, and until now they have been frustratingly outside any sort of regulatory reach. Only when Internet users are required to open up a representative sample of sites can we be confident that the web’s “diversity problem” will be solved.

Hat Tip: Eugene Volokh

30. March 2005 · Comments Off on Iraqi Insurgents Knocking Out M1s · Categories: General

This from USA Today:

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s Abrams tank, designed during the Cold War to withstand the fiercest blows from the best Soviet tanks, is getting knocked out at surprising rates by the low-tech bombs and rocket-propelled grenades of Iraqi insurgents.

In the all-out battles of the 1991 Gulf War, only 18 Abrams tanks were lost and no soldiers in them killed. But since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, with tanks in daily combat against the unexpectedly fierce insurgency, the Army says 80 of the 69-ton behemoths have been damaged so badly they had to be shipped back to the United States. (Related graphic: Upgrading the Abrams tank)

[…]

Commanders say the damage is not surprising because the Abrams is used so heavily, and insurgents are determined to destroy it.

“It’s a thinking enemy, and they know weak points on the tank, where to hit us,” says Col. Russ Gold, who commanded an armored brigade in Iraq and now is chief of staff at the Armor Center.

Because it was designed to fight other tanks, the Abrams’ heavy armor is up front. In Iraq’s cities, however, insurgents sneak up from behind, fire from rooftops above and set off mines below.

A favorite tactic: detonating a roadside bomb in hopes of blowing the tread off the tank. The insurgents follow with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and gunfire aimed at the less-armored areas, especially the vulnerable rear engine compartment.

Perhaps we should buy some Merkavas. 🙂

29. March 2005 · Comments Off on Is This Really TV? · Categories: That's Entertainment!

The Shield on FX has always been one of the best dramas on television. This season, it is so far above-and-beyond as to set a new high-water mark.

29. March 2005 · Comments Off on Chris Pierce Opening For Seal · Categories: That's Entertainment!

My regular readers know that I think Southern California’s own Chris Pierce may just be the hottest unsigned act in America. Our European readers may be interested in the fact that he will be touring there with Seal this summer.

27. March 2005 · Comments Off on Let’s Say You Are Addicted To Fox News Channel… · Categories: General Nonsense

…And you are too stupid to call you cable company and have them block FNC…

…Then you need to pay this idiot $8.95 for the Fox Blocker.

Kimery’s motives go deeper than preventing people from watching the channel, which he acknowledges can be done without the Blocker. But he likens his device to burning a draft card, a tangible example of disagreement.

And he’s taking this message to the network’s advertisers. After buying the $8.95 device online, would-be blockers are shown a letter that they can send to advertisers via the Fox Blocker site.

“The point is not to block the channel or block free speech but to raise awareness,” said Kimery, who works in the tech industry.

27. March 2005 · Comments Off on Doctors Targeted By The Evil Drug Warriors · Categories: Drug Prohibition

This from NYTimes’ Tina Rosenberg:

Federal prosecutors in Virginia want Dr. William Hurwitz, recently convicted on 50 counts of distributing narcotics, to go to prison for life without parole when he is sentenced in mid-April.

For the 50 million or so Americans who suffer from chronic pain, the fate of Dr. Hurwitz should be of some interest. He is a prominent doctor committed to aggressive treatment of pain. His behavior in some cases was inexcusable. Patients for whom he freely provided large prescriptions should, at the very minimum, have been given more close supervision. But malpractice should be cause for loss of license.

Instead, Dr. Hurwitz has been prosecuted as a drug kingpin because some patients sold their pills, although prosecutors never claimed he made a penny from it. That sends a chilling message to doctors who treat people with extreme pain.

[…]

Dozens of doctors have been charged with drug trafficking because the D.E.A. felt they were prescribing too many pills. The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons warns doctors to think twice before treating pain. “Discuss the risks with your family,” it says.

One California doctor who prescribed opioids, Frank Fisher, was charged with five counts of murder – including that of a patient who died as a passenger in a car accident. All charges were dropped. A doctor in Florida, James Graves, is serving 63 years for four counts of manslaughter involving overdoses by people who either abused their prescriptions or mixed their prescribed medicines with other drugs.

Your doctor could be next.

Hat Tip: The Agitator, where you’ll also find this.

27. March 2005 · Comments Off on My Favorite Babe With Power Tools · Categories: That's Entertainment!

Some of you might recall that I was quite impressed by Paige Hemmis, after her guest apperance on Discovery’s Monster House. Well, it seems she worked that into a regular position on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.


Paige Hemmis

BTW: Tracy and Constance are pretty hot too. 🙂

27. March 2005 · Comments Off on Who Would Win A Fight Between Starbuck And Number Six? · Categories: That's Entertainment!

While the question is all over the internet, I never asked it myself. I mean, how can one match up an implanted figment of Baltar’s imagination – who, in physical form, could withstand an atomic blast – with a flesh-and-blood human?

But, no matter. According to TV Guide, the two mix it up in next Friday’s (the season finale) episode. And, of course, there will be a big cliffhanger, to keep everyone anxious for next season – the first ten episodes of which are supposed to air in the summer.

And, of course knowing Ron Moore, there will have to be some sex. Who knows – perhaps Starbuck and Six get turned-on by their catfight and… 🙂

26. March 2005 · Comments Off on Navy Gets With The Program · Categories: Military

I have long been critical of our Navy’s Cold War vintage deployment strategy; our warships spend entirely too much time in port. It seems that now the Navy has realized that as well:

In 2005, one-third of the U.S. Navy is forward-deployed. Its leadership’s fundamental mission remains to maintain, train and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of deterring aggression, winning wars and defending the freedom of the seas.

Developing upon the lessons learned during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the global war on terrorism, the Navy has enacted substantial revisions of its force structure. One of those revisions includes Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Vern Clark’s Fleet Response Plan (FRP), a new way of planning and organizing fleet assets for deployment.

The FRP provides the nation six aircraft carrier strike groups deployed or ready to deploy within 30 days and another two aircraft carrier strike groups ready to deploy within 90 days. Commander Fleet Forces Command, based at Norfolk, Va., is leading the implementation of FRP across the Navy.

U.S. Fleet Forces Command leads the implementation of the FRP, which has replaced the Cold War-era 18-month interdeployment training cycle and deployment schedule with a flexible training and deployment schedule lashed to “real world” events and requirements.

[…]

As the Navy evolves to adapt to the demands of the global war on terrorism, Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England has called upon the service to maintain its relevance by providing more immediate, persistent combat power, “to seize the initiative rapidly in joint operations as we will not have the luxury of time to prepare in advance.”

England is committed to leading the service in alignment with a National Defense Strategy that measures success based on the “10-30-30” metric. That measurement defines the goal for closing forces within 10 days, defeating an adversary within 30 days and resetting the force for additional action within another 30 days.

The Navy department includes two uniformed services: the Navy and the Marine Corps, and England told Seapower his goals, as well as those of the CNO and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee, are built on team efforts. A key objective for the years ahead is to take advantage of the current administration’s and Congress’ support for defense requirements, “to get everything done we can to leave a solid foundation for the Navy and Marine Corps team going into the future.”

26. March 2005 · Comments Off on It’s Even Worse Than It Seems. · Categories: Politics, Technology

This post on RedState.org shows that any alarm over possible FEC regulation of bloggers is far from overstated:

The FEC’s first draft, however, starts exactly backwards – with the presumption that the internet must be locked down tight, with only small outlets left open for some meager amount of private speech.

And we’re not forced to read very much into the 45-page rule till we find the principle guiding this bureaucratic effort to regulate the internet:

“Specifically, the definition of “public communication” in 11 CFR 100.26 would be amended to include certain Internet communications that are widely distributed or available to the general public. The proposed definition would specifically exclude Internet communications with a limited distribution, as well as communications on password-protected websites with restricted access, and internal communcations by corporations and labor organizations to their restricted classes and communications by membership organizations to their members.” (Pg 7, line 7)

So, the original attempt to regulate started with the premise that everything was to be regulated except that with limited distribution or on password-protected sites. Now that’s pretty bold – but unfortunately, it’s only the beginning.

I strongly urge you to read the whole thing, and then SIGN THE PETITION.

Hat Tip: InstaPundit

24. March 2005 · Comments Off on Lower BAC Limits Equals Less Highway Safety · Categories: General

As predicted, the tightening of enforcement of drinking drivers has resulted in more deaths on the highway, not less:

Alcohol industry advocates and civil libertarians made two predictions after .08 and roadblocks went national:

(1) Arrests would go up, triggering new outrages and calls for even more stringent laws aimed at curbing drinking and (as opposed to drunk) driving.

(2) Highways would get less safe, as cops, courts, and jail cells that could be used to pursue actual drunken drivers would instead be used to apprehend social drinkers.

We’ve certainly seen plenty of point one — state legislatures are falling all over themselves to pass extra-constitutional policies aimed at “cracking down” on impaired driving.

Unfortunately, point two is proving correct, too.

After two decades of decline, alcohol-related deaths are inching upward again. It’s important to point out that data from NHTSA on drunk driving fatalities and traffic deaths is significantly flawed. The “alcohol-related” figure includes all accidents where alcohol is in any way involved, including for example, an accident in which a sober driver strikes a drunk pedestrian. The Los Angeles Times concluded a few years ago that the number of cases in which a sober person was killed by a drunk driver is about one-fourth of the figure put out each year by NHTSA.

Nevertheless, since .08 and ubiquitous roadblocks, alcohol-related deaths are climbing again. Opponents of alcohol-control policies see this as vindication of their objections to roadblocks and .08. Oddly enough, a press release issued last week by the National Transportation Safety Board offers further proof that they may be right.

It’s title? “Hard Core Drinking Driving Fatalities on the Rise.”

“Americans are more aware than ever before of the dangers of drinking and driving,” the release begins. “Few realize, however, that drunk driving fatalities continue to rise — and that thousands of them are caused by extreme or repeat offenders known as “hard core drinking drivers.”

The study goes on to point out that these “hard core” offenders account for 40% of traffic accidents but account for just 33% of drunk driving arrests.

Read the whole thing.

24. March 2005 · Comments Off on The Next Big Thing In AI · Categories: Technology

This from Forbes:

Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky, creators of the Palm and Handspring personal digital assistants and the Treo smartphone, have formed a software company built around a powerful and unorthodox vision of how the human brain works. In its early stages, they hope to create predictive machines useful for things like weather forecasting and oil exploration. Further out–much further, says Hawkins–they plan to lay the basis for cosmologically attuned robots that conceive and reflect on the universe itself.

Okay, it is a big idea. And so far the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company, called Numenta, has built what the creators say is a set of tools for creating pattern-recognition software capable of “learning” shapes and events, with a goal of foreseeing what the pattern will next create. Yet these tools draw on decades of work that Hawkins has done on how the brain works. If it pans out–and there is an attractive logic to much of his thinking–Numenta may certainly oversee the creation of embedded software that adapts and improves its own performance.

[…]

Hawkins believes that the several levels of the neocortex are an organizational hierarchy of sensory inputs. This hierarchy has multiple interconnections among levels that enable us to sort things in space and time and associate them with previously encountered things, be they faces, phone numbers or typing skills–whatever our memory holds. Traveling down from the top of the hierarchy to the base sensations, he figures, the neocortex functions as a prediction machine, anticipating what we will see next, where the ball is headed or how an experiment might turn out. In effect, prediction is akin to “remembering” the future.

Pretty heady stuff, if you ask me. 🙂

24. March 2005 · Comments Off on Join, Or Die · Categories: Media Matters Not, Politics

As I know many of you are bloggers yourselves, you will be interested to learn that a coalition is forming to petition Federal Election Commission Chairman Scott E. Thomas, to make no regulation restricting the free speech rights of those of us in the internet media. I have signed. If you blog, or simply enjoy this new unrestricted media, I suggest you do too.

23. March 2005 · Comments Off on Winds Of War Stirring Again In The Middle East · Categories: Iran, Memoir, World

This from India Daily:

The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is on the move in Atlantic Ocean and is possibly headed towards the Mediterranean Sea. The convergence of three carrier groups in the corridor of the Middle East will send very strong message to the Syrians and Iranians. There are indications that soon US is moving two more aircraft carrier battle groups to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. This will spell a formidable strike force for Iran and Syria who are in defiance on issues of Lebanon and Nuclear weapons development.

[…]

In addition more than 100,000 battle hardened force in Iraq will be another major force in case US has to use force against Iran and Syria.

It seems American are preparing to deal with Syria and Iran in the next several months. The first priority right now is diplomacy in association with the Europeans and the rest of the world. But the leadership in Teheran and Damascus are taking notice of the power build up in the region.