If you start addressing your Lava Lamp as Rover, what (besides talking to inanimate objects) might your obsession be?
Congratz to reader Clayton Ruff (see comments).
Many on “the right” seem to be considering former Harvard President Larry Summers as some sort of conservative martyr. This is a bit amazing, as he is hardly a “conservative” – more of a left-of-center sort of guy, really. They are lamenting that he is some sort of victim of a Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) “political machine.” The fact of the matter is, if there is a “machine” there, he enabled it.
Some think that Summers simply didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand-up to the FAS. I tend to subscribe to the opinion of Ruth R. Wisse1 (herself a Harvard professor):
In my opinion, the truly ghastly aspect of this whole affair is that the accused man actually believed he had committed an offense. Summers apologized not because, like Nikolai Bukharin, he was forced to, but because he was convinced he had done something wrong.
And what was that? “I deeply regret the impact of my comments and apologize for not having weighed them more carefully,” the president wrote in a letter to his faculty:
I have learned a great deal from all that I have heard in the last few days. The many compelling e-mails and calls that I have received have made vivid the very real barriers faced by women in pursuing scientific and other academic careers. They have also powerfully underscored the imperative of providing strong and unequivocal encouragement to girls and young women interested in science. . . . I was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women.
I see no reason to doubt Summers’ sincerity; he usually says what he means and means what he says. Taking him at his word, then, I conclude that he was not sorry for having offended liberal orthodoxy; he was sorry, genuinely so, for having given some sort of offense to women, for sending them “an unintended signal of discouragement.” Having first done our sex the courtesy of treating us as peers, he was now determined to treat us as a victimized species. Henceforth, he would tailor his thoughts to the ability of women to bear the hearing of them.
If Prof. Wisse is to be believed, Larry Summers is hardly the champion of free inquiry that some might make him out to be. James D. Miller thinks Harvard should hire him as President2. I don’t know about Jim, but I think a good model would be John Bolton, who is kicking ass and taking names at the UN. (BTW, with Bush looking rather “soft” now on international affairs, it might be a good time to renominate Bolton as permanent UN ambassador.)
And, for more from Wisse on the Summers ousting, check Coup d’Ecole: Harvard professors oust Larry Summers. Now they must face their students, in Thursday’s Opinion Journal. She seems to think that the student body, who broadly support Summers, will have some sway over the FAS. I’m skeptical. After all, Harvard is so rich, it’s been called “a hedge fund with a medium-sized university attached.”
1. This excerpt from her article “Dear Ellen”; or, Sexual Correctness at Harvard in Commentary, April 2005 (subscribers only), via Steve Burton at Right Reason. If anyone can forward me a copy of the full article, it would be appreciated.)
2. Hat Tip: InstaPundit
I wish I could have been there to see this, but I was up the road at LB VAMC all day today.
(H/T Bob Chamberlin / LATimes)
Those are two of the most beautiful civilian ships on the ocean. They look to be similar in size in these photos. And, indeed, the Queen Mary 2 is only a bit over one hundred feet longer than her namesake (1,132′ vs. 1,019′). But she displaces almost twice as much (151,000 tons vs. 81,000). She is actually far less powerful; her four azipods producing “only” 86 megawatts total, verses the older ship’s mechanically coupled 119 megawatts (Cunard also boasts that her steam turbines’ boilers are far cleaner). However, superior hydrodynamics, and no mechanical transmission losses with the azipods on the newer ship, mean best cruise for both is the same: 28.5 knots.
QM2 is currently the largest passenger ship afloat. She will be supplanted shortly by Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas, which will be a tad shorter, at 1112′, but will displace 158,000 tons gross. “Purists” might say, “yes, but FotS is just a cruise ship, while QM2 is an ocean liner. Taken to task on the fine distinction between the two, one usually hears something about, “a cruise ship is not built to endure the rigors of transoceanic crossings.” That sounds like so much hooey to me; I mean, getting caught out to sea during a Caribbean hurricane has got to be pretty darn rigorous. I think the principal difference is more likely that cruise ship designers have less concern for range or speed. Best cruise on the Freedom of the Seas is only 21.6 knots. As well, the cruise ship designer will lean towards smaller, and more Spartan cabins (who wants to stay in their cabin on a three day, two nighter anyway?). FotS is designed to carry 3600 passengers, QM2 only 2620.
The more important difference to me is that Queen Mary 2, like her namesake, is all majesty, grace and elegance. Freedom of the Seas, on the other hand, is theme park kitsch. The water park, replete with FlowRiderTM surf pool, really takes the cake.
Oh, and BTW: Sir Winston’s, with its sweeping view of the sea, and the Long Beach coastline, is among SoCal’s most romantic restaurants. Provided that the city continues to stage it this year, the restaurant is also the perfect place to take-in the Fourth of July fireworks show.
Hail to the Queen.
For those interested, I’ve cached this list of 1244 items of trivia. Not all are that great, but there are some real jems. Here’s a few:
13. Abdul Kassem Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persian the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went. The 117,000 volumes were carried by 400 camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.
24. All English men over 14 are meant to carry out 2 hours (or so) of longbow practice a week supervised by the local clergy. [I wonder if readers Al and Robin are aware of this? đ ]
28. An average pair of feet will sweat a pint of perspiration a day.
54. Cats have a normal body temperature of 101.5. A dogâs is 101.
97. Everyone is familiar with the RCA logo with Nipper the dog listening to the RCA gramophone. But the original picture had both the dog and the gramophone sitting on his dead masterâs casket. The idea being that the closest thing to his dead masterâs voice was the RCA gramophone. The ad was eventually considered too morbid and they removed the casket.
And here’s one for Timmer:
1052. Studies indicate that listening to music is good for digestion.
Have fun. đ
… $1226.00 for an old frickin’ Valiant we would have considered a $100 “beater” back when we were stationed together at Castle.
I, I, I’m just flumixxed – I can’t wrap my head around it.
I was in the process of dreaming up my next Entertainment Trivia puzzle, when I realized what day it was, and thought it might be fun to have a Presidential Trivia Fest. If you have a good tidbit about one of or Presidents, or his administration, feel free to post one yourself. So, let me kick this off:
Prior to his election, this President’s many exploits included smuggling this/these.
Oops, forgot that my power is going off for a few hours shortly. carry on without me. đ
Update: Back online. No guesses yet? Wow!
The Answer! It’s commonly taught in most lower division US history classes that, in April of 1787, while Jefferson was Minister to France. he traveled across the Alps by foot and mule to investigate Piedmontese rice – the finest rice in Europe. The details, however, are less well known.
He thought the quality of Piedmontese rice was do to a superior hulling machine. On his arrival, he found their machines to be the same as used in France. But the actual strain of rice grown there was superior. When he inquired about seed rice, he found that its export from Savoy-Piedmont (if you’ll recall, this was before the unification of Italy) was illegal, and punishable by death. So, upon leaving Piedmont, he stuffed all he could in his pockets and smuggled it out.
Also, in his travels, he negotiated direct shipment of rice, tobacco, whale oil and other American products. As our newly independent nation was still quite dependent upon the British mercantile system. For a really good write-up on the demise of the rice trade at Cowes (from a British perspective) check this out.
Here’s an interesting article of the jargon associated with blogging from William Safire at the NYTimes Magazine:
Some of our special vocabulary is being stolen from us by the denizens of the world of Web logs. Above the fold â the top half of a standard-size newspaper page, where the major stories begin â now, in “blargon,” is what we see on a blog’s screen before we begin to scroll down. The jump â the continuation of an article on an inside page â is now a place to which the blog’s readership is referred inside the Web site. A sidebar â which we fondly remember as a boxed, related article alongside the main newspaper article â is, to a blogger, a column down one side of the screen displaying advertisements, archived links or a list of other blogs called a blogroll. Even the reporter’s byline, that coveted assertion of journalistic authorship, has been snatched by the writers derogated as “guys in pajamas” and changed to bye-line, an adios or similar farewell at the end of the blogger’s politely expressed opinion or angry screed. (The prevailing put-down of right-wing bloggers is wingnuts; this has recently been countered by the vilification of left-wing partisans who use the Web as moonbats, the origin of which I currently seek.)
As I just emailed Bill, the term “moonbats” – short for “barking moonbats“, was coined a few years ago by Perry deHavilland of Samizdata.net
Hat Tip: Todd Zywicki at Volokh..
It was just over a week ago, at the opening of the Torino Winter Olympics, that HBO’s Bryant Gumbel, another sportscaster with more mouth than brains, denounced them, for their lack of black participants, and the fact that “the ancient Greeks never heard of skating of skiing.”
Well, as for the latter, the ancient Greeks also never heard of basketball, but…
And as for the former…
AP Photo: Shani Davis of the United States competes against Jeremy Wotherspoon of Canada (not seen)…
TURIN, Italy – Say what you want about Shani Davis. Call him a trailblazer. Accuse him of selfishness. Snicker at him for being a momma’s boy.
Just don’t forget this: He’s also an Olympic champion.
Davis became the first black athlete to claim an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history Saturday, winning the 1,000-meter speedskating race and justifying his decision to focus on himself first, his team second.
There’s always got to be a beginning. Every sport has to have its Jackie Robinson. Instead of promoting black participation in winter sports, it seems Gumbel would prefer to just write them of. I don’t see how that serves people of color at all.
More UN antics from Claudia Rosett at The Weekly Standard:
DESPITE FREQUENT DECLARATIONS OF REFORM, it seems that United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has learned nothing from the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food scandal, in which Saddam Hussein’s billions corrupted the U.N.’s entire Iraq embargo bureaucracy. Earlier this month, Annan accepted from the ruler of Dubai an environmental prize of $500,000–a fat sum that represents the latest in a long series of glaring conflicts of interest. Call this one Cash-for-Kofi.
[…]
So entwined were Annan’s own U.N. colleagues in the process that selected him for this award that it’s tempting to relabel the entire affair as one of the U.N.’s biggest back-scratching contests. Chairing the jury panel, which voted unanimously for Annan, was the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, Klaus Toepfer, and among the jurors was the U.N. undersecretary-general for Economic and Social Affairs, JosĂ© Antonio Ocampo. Both men owe their current jobs to Annan. Serving as an “observer” of the jury panel was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.N., Munir Akram, who just finished a term as president of the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council, which works closely with Annan. On the
website for the Zayed prize, the public relations contacts include a U.N. staffer, Nick Nuttall, listed complete with his U.N. email account and phone number at the Nairobi headquarters of the U.N. Environment Program.[…]
Not unaware of appearances, Annan announced at the Dubai award ceremony that he would be using his prize as seed money for a foundation he plans to set up in Africa, devoted to agriculture and girls’ education. To date, he has provided no information about what this promised foundation might be or who will run it, or what perquisites might go to its founder, or to anyone else associated with it. Asked recently for details, Annan’s spokesman replied, “When we have more information, we’ll pass it on to you.”
Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds, who quips, “Note to Condi: Why don’t we give this sort of outright bribery a try? It seems to be all the rage.”
This from J. Peter Pham and Michael I. Krauss at TCS Daily:
One of the largest humanitarian programs is the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). One-third of UNRWA’s $350 million annual budget is furnished by American taxpayers, and a little more than half comes from their European counterparts. UNRWA is unlike any other international agency. It was established in 1949 by the General Assembly to carry out relief programs benefiting Arabs displaced (some quite voluntarily) during the fighting that erupted after the new state of Israel was simultaneously invaded by its five Arab neighbors. (Remarkably, the UN offered no such succor to the numerous Jewish communities, some dating from biblical times, which were forcibly evicted from Arab countries.) Not only is UNRWA unique in its exclusive concern for original Palestinian “refugees” and their descendants (now numbering over 4 million according to the agency’s rather loose criteria), it is the only refugee services organization whose raison d’ĂȘtre is not to resettle its charges, but rather to keep them and their dependents in squalid temporary dwellings while they await their “right of return.”
The needless festering of grievance in the undeniably miserable 59 camps (27 of which are located in the West Bank and Gaza) is not UNRWA’s only flaw, however. Indeed, far from being an impartial dispenser of humanitarian relief, UNRWA has become an enabler of terrorists, complicit through sins of commission and omission, in the cycle of violence wracking the Middle East.
Until the Bush administration blocked his reappointment last year, long-term UNRWA commissioner-general Peter Hansen made a career out of “see no evil, hear no evil” with respect to Hamas while imputing all manner of malfeasance on Israel. The final straw for Washington may have been Hansen’s candid admission during a television interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in late 2004: “I am sure there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll, and I don’t see that as a crime.” Hansen’s placid acquiescence to paying Hamas is usefully contrasted with his hysterical comments — since proven false by the UN’s own investigation — that Hansen had seen “with my own eyes” Israeli “helicopters strafing civilian residential areas,” “wholesale obliteration,” and “mass graves” during Israel’s Defensive Shield operation following the massacre of Passover celebrants by Palestinian terrorists in 2002. These “big lies” are on a par with Hamas’s citing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in its founding Covenant.
UNRWA’s anti-Semitism is not merely doled out to the press, however. The agency runs one of the region’s largest networks of schools, in which similar “ideas” are inculcated into a new generation of potential militants.
Read the whole thing (Hat Tip: Eugene Volokh, who’s post has a follow-up with Michael Krauss). But this is nothing new; this from Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S):
1. Reuters has a [video (WMV file)] taken during the Israeli army operation in the Zeitun quarter of Gaza City on May 11, 2004. It shows armed Palestinians using UNRWA ambulances to transport terrorists and possibly also remains of fallen Israeli soldiers. 2. Partial confirmation came from the statement made on May 13 by a UN spokesman, that during the incident (which occurred in Gaza on May 11), armed Palestinians threatened an UNRWA ambulance team and forced them to transport an armed and wounded Palestinian and his two armed escorts to a Gaza hospital. The spokesman noted that UNRWA censured the action âin the strongest terms possible.â He also noted that armed personnel are not permitted to enter UNRWA vehicles on any pretext whatsoever, and called upon Israel and the Palestinians to respect the agency’s neutrality. 3. In addition, since the beginning of the current ongoing hostilities, several incidents have been recorded in which terrorist organizations have used UNRWA facilities and vehicles (including ambulances) to facilitate their terrorist operations. Two prominent examples are: a. Nidal âAbd al-Fataah âAbdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist from Qalqiliya who worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver (arrested in August 2002), admitted he had used one such vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists and had also exploited the freedom of movement he enjoyed to transmit messages to and from Hamas activists in various places. b. Nahd Rashid Ahmad Atallah, a senior UNRWA employee working in the Gaza Strip who was in charge of distributing aid to refugees (arrested in August 2002), admitted that during June and July 2002 he had given rides in his car â an UNRWA vehicle â to armed terrorists belonging to the Popular Resistance Committees. The terrorists were on their way to attack Israeli soldiers at the Karni Checkpoint and to fire rockets at Israeli settlement in the northern Gaza Strip. He also used his UNRWA car to transport a bomb weighing 12 kg (about 25 lbs) to his brother-in-law, a Popular Resistance Committees operative (Note: the Popluar Resistance Committees are a militant faction of Fatah and are active primarilyin the Gaza Strip). 4. Nahd Atallah explained that he had used his car to transport terrorists to their targets because it belonged to the United Nations, and since the Israeli army did not search such vehicles, he could travel freely. His admission is a striking example of the way terrorist organizations exploit the privileges of relaxed security restrictions accorded UNRWA vehicles by Israeli forces. Such privileges are the result of humanitarian considerations and the Israeli desire to maintain correct relations with UN representatives active in the Palestinian Authority-administered territories.
And then there’s this four year old piece from Dr. John Hagee at World Net Daily:
The benefits are as follows: Suicide bombers come from the refugee camps to produce carnage on the streets of Jerusalem; killers take asylum in the refugee camps; mortars are fired from the refugee camps into Israeli settlements; food warehouses in refugee camps have been transformed into storage facilities for artillery shells, ammunition and mortar rounds; al-Qaida terrorist squads are based in the refugee camps; refugee camps organize official celebrations in honor of suicide bombers who kill Jews in Jerusalem.
This is really a terrific “benefit package,” funded entirely by the United Nations who is asking the United States to double its contribution. What’s wrong with this picture?
And then there’s this (also from 2002) from Ian Williams at The Nation:
That led to a joint call by Tom Lantos, ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, and Tom DeLay, the GOP whip, for Congressional hearings on UNRWA, with a suggestion of ending US funding, which pays for a third of UNRWA operations. Jumping on the bandwagon, Republican Eric Cantor of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism repeated the allegations.
We talk of cutting off aid to the PA under Hamas. But why are we continuing to fund terrorism through the UN?
Noah Shachtman at DefenseTech has this post on new extended range less lethal weapons. I particularly like the idea of this electro-stun shell, which Noah says works in a standard 12 gauge shotgun (which you will find in almost any cop’s patrol car): But I haven’t heard anything about it since Taser received this half million dollar development contract from the USMC and the Office of Naval Research. Even a search of Taser’s website comes up blank.
But there’s a lot more, read the whole post.
If you could have your choice of a 100 pt. vintage Austin Healey 100-6 (or 3000 mk. 1), or a new Caterham 7 CSR, what would it be?
I’ve just watched PBS’s Frontline: The Meth Epidemic. And, while I have to admit, I know far less about methamphetamine, its history, and the culture – both open and illicit, which surrounds it, than most of the other legally proscribed drugs I have studied, I likely know far more than the producers of this show.
And I intend to learn much more. As I have said many times before, I rely upon regular doses of pseudoephedrine (which I get on prescription) just to be functional. With a hat tip to Pastor Martin Niemöller: First they came for the meth-heads… then they came for me.
And in that is my first criticism of this program: They seem to think ALL methamphetamine requires ephedrine or pseudoephedrine as a precursor. And that is hardly true. By my current understanding, there are at least three different varieties of methamphetamine: d-meth, i-meth, and n-meth. Because of earlier crackdowns on the precursor agents, the variety most prevalent now is d-meth, which is “cooked” from ephedrine or pseudoephedrine. Other varieties, popular two decades or more ago, were formulated from other precursors, which illicit labs currently find difficult to obtain.
But, as might be expected, the pharmacological effects of each is not the same. While the deleterious effects of abuse of any drug can’t be denied, and those of any sort of methamphetamine are particularly severe, the effects of d-meth are far worse than even its chemical cousins.
But why is d-meth the most prevalent form on the street? Because of drug prohibition, and its crackdown on the precursors of earlier, less harmful, types. On prohibition, not the drug itself, you can also blame the environmental effects of clandestine drug labs, which is currently being berated on the tele. In a (reasonably regulated) free market, the drugs would be manufactured in environmentally safe professional labs.
And, of course, should they manage to eliminate all the ephedrine and pseudoephedrine – much to the suffering of myself, and others like me, the clandestine producers will just switch to a new formula.
Further, I would posit that, were it not for prohibition, “meth” would hardly be a concern, as most users would sooner use cocaine. In fact, it’s the evil war on cocaine that has made meth “a problem” in the first place.
More to come.
This Hollywood Legend declined to play opposite Judy Garland in this screen epic because she was a drug addict. However, eight years later, he became a very vocal advocate of LSD.
Congratz to our own dear Timmer, who got it right with Cary Grant and A Star Is Born.
His objection was not some moral judgement on Judy’s drug use itself. But Grant was known for having one of the strongest work ethics in Hollywood. And, like most upper/downer addicts, Judy was quite unreliable.
While Grant used LSD, in a clinical setting, over 100 times, I have no indication that he ever “dropped acid” recreationally. But LSD was being widely used by psychiatrists in the ’50s and early ’60s. LSD didn’t become illegal in the US until 1968
This from Archie Leach, Cary Grant’s autobiography (chapter 14):
Now, I believe in caring for my health; and I trust you do too. Physical health is a product of, and dependent upon, mental health â one nurtures and nourishes the other. And so, together with a group of other interested Californians â doctors, writers, scientists and artists â and the encouragement of Betsy, who was interested herself, I underwent a series of controlled experiments with Lysergic Acid, a hallucinogenic chemical or drug known as LSD 25. Experiment is perhaps a misleading word; to most people it signifies patronization and objectivity. For my part I anxiously awaited their personal benefits that could be derived from the experiences, and was quite willing to be less than objective. Any man who experiments with something that cannot benefit himself, or add to his happiness, and that of his fellow man in turn, is a fool and a menace to society. Iâve heard that a man here and there died during LSD25 sessions; but then Iâve heard that men died during poker games and while watching horse racing; but that didnât seem to stop such occupations. Those men might have died anywhere while doing anything. Men have also died testing airplanes and parachutes, vaccines and common cold cures. In attempting to traverse the next step into progress and knowledge, men have always died. But there is a difference between the man who knows what heâs about with a high-powered airplane, and an idiot who puts wings on a bicycle and takes off from the edge of Niagra (sic) Falls.
LSD 25 is a psychic energizer and the exact opposite in reaction to the addictive drugs and opiates. Indeed, Seconal, or similar sedative, is usually given as an antidote, to quell and offset the effects of LSD 25, if necessary. The action of the chemical releases the subconscious so that it becomes apparent to yourself. So that you can see what transpires in the depth of you mind â and what goes on there you wouldnât believe, ladies and gentlemen â and learn which misconceptions, guilts and fears, with their resultant repressions, inhibitions and insecurities, have formed the pattern for your past behavior. A successively recurring pattern since childhood.
The feeling is that of an unmarshaling of the thoughts as youâve customarily associated them. The lessening of conscious control, similar to the mental process which takes place when we dream. For example, when youâre asleep and your mind no longer concerned with matters and activities of the day, your subconscious often brings itself to your attention by dreaming. With conscious controls relaxed, those thoughts buried deep inside begin to come to the surface in the form of dreams. These dreams, since they appear to us in symbolic guise, are fantasies and, if you will accept the reasoning, could be classified as hallucinations. Such fantasies, or hallucinations, are inside every one of us, waiting to be released, aired and understood. Dreams are really the emotions that we find ourselves reluctant to examine, think about, or meditate upon, while conscious.
This from AFP, via 2LA Lebanese Association:
Nizar Nayuf (Nayyouf-Nayyuf), a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper âDe Telegraaf,â that he knows the three sites where Iraq‘s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are kept. The storage places are:
- Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.
- The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a big Syrian air force camp. Vital parts of Iraq’s WMD are stored there.
- . The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of Homs city.
Nayouf writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the commanders of Saddam Hussein‘s Special Republican Guard, including General Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assad‘s cousin. Shoakat is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.
In February 2003, a month before America’s invasion in Iraq, very few are aware about the efforts to bring the Weapons of Mass Destruction from Iraq to Syria, and the personal involvement of Bashar Assad and his family in the operation.
Nayouf, who has won prizes for journalistic integrity, says he wrote his letter because he has terminal cancer.
They have lots of accompanying documentation, check their site.
Well, folks: It’s been a long run: About two years or so, since I last put this system up.
And that’s surely a long run: Previously – before I installed this new hardware, I was lucky to get three months on a system.
But now, what has come to pass, has passed. I have been limping along for months here. And now, among all the other bugs, I can’t even read PDF files. And I don’t know how to fix it.
No – it’s time to wipe the disk, and start from scratch. And of course, I will preserve precious data – and cache everything important elsewhere. But I really don’t know WTF I’m doing. So important stuff is likely to be lost.
So. before I go do strange and exotic things to my hard disk, any words of wisdom would be appreciated..
Update: As I predicted, Kara is out. But the money shot of this episode is Michael Kors’ critique of Santino’s design (to paraphrase): “It’s like you are saying: ‘Hey, I’m smarter than you. And I know you won’t like all the crap I’m tacking on this dress. But fuck you anyway.'” Oh Yeah!
Olympus Fashion Week has already happened. I don’t have any insider info as of yet. But, IMHO, the smart money is on Daniel Vosovic.
Uber-socialist Joseph Stalin is famous for saying: âThe death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions, merely a statistic.â Today, the Angry Left proves that any death is of meaning only in that it fulfills their political aspirations. This sad story from WSJ: Best of the Web Today:
Angry Left Death Wish
Posting on the Daily Kos, the Mos Eisley of the Angry Left, a reader called âredliefâ wonders how to feel about Harry Whittington, the victim in Vice President Dick Cheneyâs hunting accident (quoting verbatim):
am I suppose to be praying?
That Whittington dies and Cheney goes to jail for manslaughter or that Mr. Whittington recovers and lives a full and peaceful life?
Oh, thatâs right, were a progessive website.
âHang in there, Whitti, ol man, weâre a prayin for ya!â
A reader of this site, whose name we wonât mention in the interest of avoiding unrest in the readerâs office, writes:
I just had to vent regarding an overheard conversation at my office. The liberals across the cubicle from me were discussing the man Dick Cheney accidentally shot, and were joking about the fact that heâs apparently had a mild heart attack as a result of a pellet that entered his heart area. Laughing about it, one of them said he wished the gentleman would die so it would harm Mr. Cheney politically, to which everyone else laughed.
Normally I roll my eyes and go on with my work when I hear most of their discussions, but this one made my jaw drop. What kind of human beings are these people, that theyâd wish an elderly man would die so that it would somehow boost the Democrats politically (which is an extremely questionable presumption in the first place)?
Such morbid speculation has crept into the mainstream media as well. A writer for Time magazine offered this last night:
Heâs 78. He got hit in the face and body by a spray of tiny pellets. Heâs back in intensive care. Itâs not inconceivable that the vice-president may have accidentally killed someone. Letâs hope it doesnât come to that. I donât know Texas law; and Iâm not a lawyer. But wouldnât this be a case of something like negligent homicide?
This morningâs New York Times picks up the theme:
In Texas, Carlos Valdez, the district attorney in Kleberg County, said a fatality would immediately spur a new report from the local sheriff and, most likely, a grand jury investigation.
Reports of Whittingtonâs death are greatly exaggerated. A physician who reads this column writes:
Calling the pellet-induced arrhythmia a âheart attackâ is a little sensationalist. A âheart attackâ is not an official medical term, and is generally taken as meaning a blockage of a significant cardiac artery and resultant damage to the heart. Calling the pellet-induced heart damage a âheart attackâ is like calling a bruise a âtissue infarction.â The pellet presumably irritated a small area of heart tissue or obstructed a tiny blood vessel.
Caution is in order here: Our reader is not a cardiologist and has not examined Whittington. But the Corpus
Christi Caller-Times–the paper that scooped and humiliated the petulant layabouts of the Washington press corpsâquotes Whittingtonâs doctors and outside experts as saying the prognosis is good:
Barring further complications, the 78-year-old attorney shot by Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to recover after suffering a minor heart attack after a piece of birdshot migrated to his heart, medical specialists said Tuesday.
âItâll be left in there assuming everything goes well,â said Peter Banko, vice president and administrator of Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial. âHe could probably live the rest of his life with that in there.â . .
.Dr. Pat Whitlow, director of interventional cardiology at The Cleveland Clinic Heart Center, said Whittington shouldnât face any problems living with the small BB.
âIâve seen patients before that come in for other reasons, and we see birdshot that is still lodged in the vicinity of their heart, and theyâve never had a problem with it,â Whitlow said.
Whitlow said birdshot in the pericardium, or the lining sack around the heart, would cause an irregular heartbeat.
âThat has caused an inflammatory response that is associated with irregular heartbeats,â Whitlow said. â(Irregular heartbeats) are a nuisance but are not life-threatening.â
It sounds, then, as though Whittington has a good heartâwhich is more than one can say for many in the press and the Angry Left.
Update: Developments today lead me to believe that this might just be another Rovian Mousetrap.
By this time tomorrow, I suspect we might see public opinion taking what the chattering classes might consider an “ugly” turn. Time will tell.
This from Victoria Murphy Barret at Forbes:
BURLINGAME, CALIF. – Mårten Mickos may give away his software, but that doesn’t mean his competitors aren’t taking him seriously. His MySQL has raised $39 million in funding, claims to have more than 8 million installations of its database software, and counts Alacatel, Google, and Yahoo! among its customers; they get free software but pay the company for support and maintenance.
MySQL’s success has caught the eye of mighty Oracle (nasdaq: ORCL – news – people ), which is now buying its way into the same open source business: This week Oracle bought open source vendor Sleepycat, and observers expect it to close a deal on JBoss, another open source company, as early as today. The acquisitions are likely to let the database giant offer its own free, open source database for smaller customers.
We met with Mickos at an open source conference in San Francisco this week to discuss the evolution of the software industry, Oracle’s threat to the CEO’s company, and how discos are cool only so long as the kids think so.
[…]
How do Oracle’s recent open source acquisitions affect MySQL?
Mickos: They don’t. We did not see Sleepycat in customer negotiations. Oracle bought InnoDB last fall. December was our best month ever. Our customers voted with their wallets. Our revenues nearly doubled last year, of course off of a small base.
Oracle’s free database is crippleware. There is a glass ceiling, so once you get to a certain level of people using the technology, Oracle moves you up to their database. We don’t limit our customers that way.
These acquisitions give us credibility. People are wondering why Oracle has to buy all of this technology.
Is Oracle more of a threat now?
Mickos: No. They don’t really understand open source. It isn’t about price; it is about freedom of software. They think if you give people free beer you can take away their free speech. It doesn’t work that way in open source.
This from Eugene Volokh reader David Hardy:
My ex law partner was walking through the courthouse one day (this is a true story) and he saw an old client in the jury assembly area. They get to chatting, and he notices the guy has a copy of Mein Kampf under his arm. A version with the title in large letters on the cover. He asks what in the heck the guy is doing with it.
“Would you pick someone for a jury whom you saw reading Mein Kampf?”
“Hell, no!”
“Then why are you asking me why I’m reading it?”
It’s always been my impression that Japan’s conquest of Manchuria was a marginally positive move, more than negated by its further incursions into China. But reading this short, but dense, piece by James Graham over at HistoryOrb, I’m inclined to refine that view a bit:
Prior to the China Incident Japan had some success in achieving its economic aims in Manchuria. By 1931 Japan had spent 1.5 billion yen in Manchuria an amount rising to 3.7 billion yen by 1936. This was more than the total Japanese budget for any one year. Japan was able to invest in railroads, highways, hydro-electric plants and improve the area’s harbours and navigable rivers. Useful amounts of iron, aluminium and other minerals were also discovered. In contrast output of synthetic oil and coal production were modest at best. Both were vital industries where Japan was heavily reliant on foreign sources of supply. The failure of Manchuria to replace these sources was thus a huge disappointment. Five hundred thousand Japanese immigrated to Manchuria between 1931 and 1945 with half of these being the agricultural settlers Japan had aimed to resettle. The reality however was that few Japanese could compete with the locals who were prepared to work for much lower wages. Most lasted only six months before joining their countrymen as supervisors, police, bureaucrats, soldiers and foremen in Manchuria and later China itself. Despite these setbacks the occupation of Manchuria was initially seen by Japan as relatively inexpensive and successful.
One is left to wonder (and always well, as it is with such things) if Japan would have been so driven to further Chinese adventurism, were it not for the global tide of protectionism – policies brought about in response to depression which only made matters worse.
Here’s one for Valentine’s Day: This television series was the first to feature a married couple who actually shared the same bed.
Yea! Three cheers for reader Bill!
According to the usually reliable Snopes (and I’ve confirmed it a couple of other places), it was Mary Kay and Johnny , which aired from 1947 to 1950, first on Dumont, then NBC, then CBS. It is also credited with being TV’s first sitcom.
The problem is, very few of us have ever even seen the show, as it was live, and no Kinescopes are known to exist. For those that want to know a bit more, I’ve cached a pretty obscure old AP article here.
I got on the trail of this as a result of some other research I was doing into The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet. Reading this MBC article, I was reminded that Ozzie and Harriet (I haven’t seen the show in at least 35 years) shared a double bed. However, the same article claimed that it didn’t happen again until The Brady Bunch (1969).
But I knew that was incorrect. The Flintstones came out in 1960. And Bewitched and The Munsters in 1964. But those were all sold as exceptions to the censors, as they either weren’t live action or human characters. To my previous knowledge, the first flesh-and-blood human couple (and actually the first, if we include the qualification not married in real life) to share the same bed on TV were Oliver and Lisa Douglas in Green Acres (1965):
Yesterday, in my daily email of The New Republic’s headlines, this John B. Judis article caught my eye. But, like most TNR stuff, it was “subscriber only.” Later in the day, I happened upon this free link to the same article.
Today, I notice Divine Rights: The Civil War was bloody and destructive. But was it a tragedy? by Steven Hahn – also âsubscriber only.â But putting the author and title into Google yields this free link. for the same article.
In both cases, the free articles are on TNR’s website – not bootlegs, and they’re available the very same day they’re released to paid subscribers. So, TNR is obviously relying upon only those stupid enough to pay for a subscription they don’t need, or impressed enough with their overall content to pay gratuitously, for their non-advertising income. I am neither of those. But, so long as they allow me to read those few items which interest me for free, I will continue to do so.
By the way: there’s a way to jigger the URL for WSJ articles, as though a subscriber emailed you a referral, that allow free access as well. If anyone knows it, please pass it on. đ
Update: Yesterday’s article was a one pager, today’s four. And clicking on page two takes you to the “available to subscribers only” screen. However, by emailing the article to myself, I got this link, which allows access to the subsequent pages.
Update 2: Good for those extra pages, as the first page and a half kind of drag. Anyway, Hahn mentiones the New York Historical Society’s Slavery in New York exhibition. I would take it in, if I could. But for all those others who can’t, I highly recommend their website.
The last half-hour of this morning’s C-SPAN Washington Journal (check their website later for a download) was a brief repeat of a retired Marine touting the Pinnacle Dragon Skin body Armor, and an interview/call-in session with Col. John Norwood, Project Mgr., Soldier Equipment, and Col Spoehr, Dir of Material, Army Hq.. After a bit about the Dragon Skin (they’ve ordered evaluation units – Pinnacle hasn’t delivered), They went on to display the latest version of the Interceptor body Armor.
They’ve upgraded the SAPI plates, as well as added side plates. It’s better protection; but, full-up, weights 37lbs. – EGAD!. They went on to note that configuration is up to individual unit commanders and, stripped of its plates, it’s like a really good flak vest.
But, checking DefenseTech’s armor blog, I noticed this proposed facial armor:
You wouldn’t have to worry about hand-to-hand with that thing on, as any enemy that saw you up close would likely double-over laughing.
I wonder how many tech-head Soldiers and Marines peel off their current-issue body armor at the end of a patrol, and pray for the latest nanotech?
If it weren’t for the BS this boy and his family is going to be put through, this would be hilarious:
A 12-year-old Aurora boy who said he brought powdered sugar to school for a science project this week has been charged with a felony for possessing a look-alike drug, Aurora police have confirmed.
The sixth-grade student at Waldo Middle School was also suspended for two weeks from school after showing the bag of powdered sugar to his friends.
The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, said he brought the bag to school to ask his science teacher if he could run an experiment using sugar.
Two other boys asked if the bag contained cocaine after he showed it to them in the bathroom Wednesday morning, the boy’s mother said.
He joked that it was cocaine, before telling them, “just kidding,” she said.
Aurora police arrested the boy after a custodian at the school reported the boy’s comments. The youngster was taken to the police station and detained, before being released to his parents that afternoon.
[…]
The school handbook states that students can be suspended or expelled for carrying a look-alike drug.
Penalties for juveniles are decided on a case-by-case basis, but if convicted, the sixth-grader could likely face up to five years’ probation, said Jeffery Jefko, deputy director of Kane County juvenile court services.
What he should get is an apology.
Hat Tip: WSJ Best of the Web Today
This is from Roger Pielke, Jr., Director of the University of Colorado’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research:
In the 20 February 2006 issue of The New Republic, John B. Judis has an article about how the issue of hurricanes and global warming has been handled by NOAA. Judis is engaging in scientific McCarthyism by arguing that certain perspectives on science are invalid because they are viewed as politically incorrect by some.
The transformation of this part of climate science into pure politics is fully embraced by those on the political left and the right, and most troubling is that this transformation is being encouraged by some leading scientists who have taken to criticizing the views of other scientists because they happen to work for the federal government. These scientists know full well how such accusations will be received. What ever happened to sticking to the science? Read on for background and analysis.
[…]
TNRâs Judis appears to acknowledge a âscientific debateâ but then writes as if the previous scientific paradigm has been overturned and anyone who says differently must be in cahoots with the Bush Administrationâs spin machine or conservative commentators. Bizarrely, Judis criticizes NOAA scientists for making statements fully supportable by peer-reviewed science, and in some cases work that those scientists have published.
Read the whole thing, as well as Judis’ article (free link), which assumes a linkage between global warming (implicitly caused by human activity) and hurricanes as incontrovertible scientific fact, and offers little evidence of this administration’s “conspiracy” to muzzle dissenting opinion, beyond the suspicions of dissenters.
This from Matthew Jones at Reuters:
LONDON – Advances in mobile phone tracking technology are turning British firms into cyber sleuths as they keep a virtual eye on their staff, vehicles and stock.
In the past few years, companies that offer tracking services have seen an explosion in interest from businesses keen to take advantage of technological developments in the name of operational efficiency.
The gains, say the converted, are many, ranging from knowing whether workers have been “held up” in the pub rather than in a traffic jam, to being able to quickly locate staff and reroute them if necessary.
[…]
Kevin Brown, operations director of tracking firm Followus, said there was nothing covert about tracking, thanks to strict regulations.
“An employee has to consent to having their mobile tracked. A company can’t request to track a phone without the user knowing,” he told Reuters.
Obviously, despite any regulation, workers without strong market value will be compelled to submit to tracking, at peril of losing their jobs, or not being hired in the first place. All this is one of the sorry residuals of the industrial age: payment for effort, rather than results.
As for myself, I have a different paradigm for cell-phone tracking: If you want to know where I am, call me… If I want you to know, I’ll tell you.
: