June 27, 2003
Supreme Court?
OK, the Supreme Court has issued a couple of rapid fire decisions in high profile cases. I haven't had a chance to read the decisions, but I've read the reporting, and so like any good pundit, I have my reactions already lined up. I hope to get around to the merits of the cases later (when I have time), but my initial reaction is that the Court has continued its tradition of making a muddle of things. This is what happens when you have old people who have all the time in the world on their hands. If you put people like me - too busy to even keep up a decent blog - on the Court, you'd get clear cut decisions that are designed to lower my work load, not keep up a never ending stream of landmark rulings that seem to only invite further litigation. We need to send Justice O'Connor some Ginko Biloba or something so that we can improve her memory and focus her thinking. I know it's a woman's perogative to change her mind, but not if they are serving on the Supreme Court. Oh well, since we live in a Democracy, I just won't vote for her again.
High King Of Geekdom
How's this for embarrassing geekiness. Doug and Hildi from Trading Spaces were on an episode of Pyramid (hosted by Donny Osmond) the other day. My wife taped it, and I watched it. In its entirety. And I enjoyed it. And it made me wonder - why Doug and Hildi - are they really secretly married???
Oh Yeah, Trading Spaces has added a new carpenter, Carter Oosterhouse- even better looking than Ty (although we haven't seen him without his shirt on), but he isn't as comfortable on camera, nor does he have his own website yet. And they're doing a new version: Trading Spaces Family. Just what I need - another way to waste time.
June 25, 2003
Iraq and Guerrilla Warfare
There's a lot of ominous talk in certain circles about Iraq being a new Vietnam quagmire because of the outbreak of Guerrilla Warfare. Well, I admit to being an optimist by nature. But I do think there are a few things to keep in mind.
First, it isn't clear that the attacks in Iraq are being carried out by new organizations or remnants of Hussein's regime. To me, the former is far more troubling than the latter, because it indicates a new opposition to America among the Iraqi people and not just the continuing resistance of a defunct and discredited regime.
Second, the guerrillas in Vietnam (the Viet Cong) were destroyed by 1968 as a meaningful force. It was the regular forces of North Vietnam that fought the US for the final five years of our involvement and eventually overcame the South. Guerrilla warfare shouldn't hold any special terror for the United States, although it does tend to frustrate our desire for quick solutions.
Third, Vietnam was a quagmire because of the quality and leadership of the US Armed Forces, most importantly in the earlier stages of the war when opinion turned against it and became set. General Westmoreland picked a strategy of attrition, and tried to fight large battles. The experience of Vietnam sparked a host of reforms that have become ingrained and have led to the current outstanding quality of our Armed Forces and current leadership. Consequently, the US hasn't fought battles of attrition since, and understands that small actions can be as important as large ones. There is always room for improvement, and that is something that is understood throughout the ranks.
Wars can always be lost. While I feel that the United States is a special place, that doesn't mean that we always do the right thing, or that we can't be beaten. Iraq still hangs in the balance, and will for some time. There are many troubling reports, and there are many reassuring reports, and the situation is confusing. Certainty comes more from people's prior views than anything that is happening in Iraq. But as I said, I'm an optimist by nature, and while failure in Iraq would be bad for us, it would be far worse for the Iraqi's.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Yes, we had fun getting the book at midnight, but I have to admit I'm getting old (forty has turned out to be a brick wall in many respects) so that when midnight rolled around I was far more excited with the idea of finally being able to go home to bed than the idea of getting the new book in my hands. Thankfully, our friends got there very early so we had a very low line ticket number. I have finished the book, even with my policy of letting the kids have first priority and giving it to them whenever they asked. So now my own mini-review, with no spoilers:
Just as Goblet of Fire was something of a departure from the prior books, so too Order of the Phoenix is something of a departure from all the others. My nine year old who is still toward the beginning doesn't seem to like it as much and calls it confusing. My twelve year old is much further along and seems pretty excited. I too wasn't as enchanted in the beginning, what with adolescent Harry, but I was very satisfied by the end.
I still found it a page turner throughout, and I like that not only do we get new, memorable characters, but all the old ones, and I mean all, have a role in the book. While it has a bit less whimsy, and had something clearly added just because it was needed later, it does have more rounded characters, more Harry and friends rather than just Harry saving the day, more backstory, and the book still shows that character matters. Children and adults who liked the earlier books will like this one too.
Virtual Sexual Inequality?
A computer game researcher, Jason Rutter, claims that women characters are worth less on eBay than male characters from Everquest, the massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMOPRG). I love the statement about a growing body of literature about women adopting male characters to keep from being hassled. Clearly, I'm in the wrong line of work - I should be trying to persuade Washington University to hire me as the computer gaming chair. Sadly, I missed the boat on this opportunity as I have so many others. As to the sex difference, it could be that because there are more males playing ("vast majority") than male characters (80 percent), it could be that old fashioned supply and demand thing instead of that old fashioned male chauvinism, although I wouldn't rule it out based on the age and geekiness of the average EQ player.
June 20, 2003
Harry Potter Mania
Yes, tonight you'll find me in line at the Barnes and Noble in Des Peres waiting to buy a copy of the latest Harry Potter. At least we won't be alone in our nuttiness -- not only will there be a huge crowd, but we will be with our friends the O'Briens (they're getting the line tickets -- we'll be at the swim team's pool party). My son paid in advance at school (the publisher is named Scholastic for a reason) so he has his certificate, wand, and ball cap. Now all we need is the book.
June 18, 2003
Good News From Iraq
U.S forces in Iraq just captured the fourth most wanted Iraqi criminal. When you consider that the three above him are all named Hussein, as in Saddam and his two sons, you realize he's a big catch. And they didn't just find him - they found millions in various currencies, and millions in gems and jewels. The 4th ID bagged him as part of their raids around Tikrit. Maybe the ambushes against U.S forces aren't spontaineous guerrilla warfare, but the last gasp of a dead regime.
When Is A Choice Not A Choice?
One of my gripes about old time feminists is that they talk a lot about choice, but they don't really mean it. Abortion should be a choice they say, but when it comes right down to it, they pretty much think that abortion is the only right choice for any "unplanned" pregnancy. What a women does with her life should be up to her they say (and I wholeheartedly agree), but they can't stop criticising women who choose family over career. I've noted before that a lot of my female college classmates made that exact choice - leaving very successful careers to stay at home with the kids. Maureen Dowd has gotten around to noticing the same trend and instead of being surprised like moi, she's pissed. For her its like a multiple choice test - when given a choice, there's only one right answer.
How Did You Get Here?
Since I get so few hits, I'm able to track how each and every visitor got here. My favorites are the seach engine queries. I can answer Kojak's question, "Who loves ya, baby?" with Google loves me - it's made over forty percent of the referrals here.
Somebody asked Google "are frogs nearsighted or farsighted" and came here not just once, but twice. Google obviously confused me with J Bowen who's the sort to answer that question out of the clear blue. But to answer your question, since I've never seen a frog wearing glasses, I'm going to guess neither.
I get a lot of people coming here looking for JLo's (JayLo, J. Lo) booty - not a day goes by without a hit based on that query. People, she's got a dancer's butt - larger and more muscular than the average, but it isn't near as big as the jokes about it. And why is it always referred to as her booty - not her butt, not her derriere, not her heine, or even bottom (I think I've heard backside a couple of times)? And why such fascination with a just a body part, when the real interesting thing is how someone with modest dancing, singing, and acting ability made it so big in all three fields? It's amazing how far oozing sex appeal and shameless self promotion will take you.
Doug Wilson's (from Trading Spaces) orientation is another perennial favorite. I have no idea what he finds attractive beyond the color blue and venetian plaster. And I don't care. I'm of the we're all sinners school of theology, and as long as he sticks to interior design, I'll stick with him. A few things have bumped him up in my estimation - I think he designs some pretty neat rooms, even if some are over the top; in a local radio interview I blogged about he made it pretty clear he plays a character on the show (e.g. he isn't really lazy like he pretends to be); and on the episode at Scott AFB where he did the little boys room by adding half of two real cars, we met some of his good ole boy truck firm family and found out that he comes from a small Illinois town near Champaigne (which isn't too big itself). Of course, after the kiss with Hildi on the Las Vegas live reveal show, I'd be surprised if he married any time soon.
Then there are the "what were they thinking" inquiries. Needless to say, they didn't find what they were looking for here. Nobody does. "Picture of sweaty female armpits": sorry, this isn't a fetish site. "Nuns in a catfight": again, this isn't a fetish site, but the way things are going, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding "bishops in a catfight." I could see why google picked me for the ones above as I have something close in my eclectic oeuvre, but "Topless women on holiday" shouldn't have found me. What's really intriguing is the "on holiday" part, but sorry fellas, this isn't a travel site.
Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee
Bill O'Reilly wrote a wrongheaded "Talking Points Memo" that claims the internet has become "a sewer of slander and libel, an unpatrolled waterway, where just about anything goes." and concludes with "So which is the bigger threat to America? The big companies or the criminals at the computer?" That criminal would be me (and you if you are a fellow blogger, or chatter, or forum poster). I supplied my answer to my local paper's similar compaint five years ago -- that Solomon guy was on to something when he wrote there isn't anything new under the sun -- in a letter they actually published. Rand Simberg has fashioned his own satirical reply to Mr. O'Reilly and it's a doozy. This was my comment at his site:
The best defense of the internet is a clear demonstration of its worth, and you have done so. You have achieved a rarity - three birds with one stone: people who want to curtail second amendment rights, people who want ot curtail first amendment rights, and Bill O'Reilly. Okay, Bill's a soft target, but it's still an impressive achievement.
You've also raised a knotty question for the EU's enforcement of internet equal time (though I doubt they've thought of it): Who gets equal time after satire? Here, the form would say first amendment supporters, yet the meaning would say Bill O'Reilly and second amendment suppressors. Only the lawyers will profit from such a requirement.
June 17, 2003
Father's Day
For Father's day the Fruit of the Murphy Loins gave me this wonderful glass 3-D picture/sculpture thingy. It's just the neatest thing, and yesterday I was close to obnoxious showing it off. The two of them are side by side and not arguing (the pictures were taken separately to achieve that effect) forever caught at this age. When you look through the back, as you move they follow you - not the creepy way with just their eyes, but the cool way with their whole faces turning. The day itself was busy, with church, visiting both Fearless Leaders' fathers, and a cub scout graduation ceremony in the evening (scheduling snafu two year in a row - next year will be different!).
June 13, 2003
A Clash Of Titans
The whole blogosphere has quaked to the battle of a couple of titans arguing over who's the real moxie. The odd thing to me is that neither is actually named moxie - they just use that moniker online. Just think if all the "Kevins" decided to get in a flame war -- the internet itself would slow to a crawl as the legion of Kevins and their supporters sucked up bandwidth. Hey, that would be a real traffic booster!
I'm hereby laying down the gauntlent to all those other bloggers who use Kevin in their name - it's mine, all mine. I'm older than most Kevins out there - 41. I've been on the net since 1997. And I have an Irish family name to go with it. Ha! Take that, you other Kevins! I think that entitles me to be King of the Kevins, the one true Kevin, the Keviniest Kevin of them all. So all of my regulars, both of you, go out and tell all the other Kevin bloggers that they are ripping me off. That goes for:
Kevin whe definately isn't Irish,
and any other blogging Kevins.
Okay, the taunting was pretty lame -- my heart wasn't in it. I'd rather form the League of Kevins than get in some stupid fight about who was here first. Still, I can't deny I would like the traffic.
Oh yeah, Kevin Drum did link to a bunch of Kevins, and Kevin Aylward liked the idea enough to do it again and send a nice email, but the League of Kevins is my idea!
June 6, 2003
Some Questions Answered, Some Questions Remain
The DOD had a press conference yesterday about the return of the IAEA to inspect the Iraqi Tuwaitha nuclear facility. One of the interesting nuggets is that the storage facility there has been under continuous American control since April 7.
"And Site Charlie, where radiological materials, principally yellow cake were stored, consists of three buildings, and they're surrounded by a fence and a wall of concrete barriers about 12 feet tall on three sides. According to reports from civilians in the area, on or about the 10th of March, Iraqi army forces who were guarding the site reportedly left their weapons -- some of their weapons with the local civilians -- and abandoned the site. We also believe, from talking to the local civilians, that on or about 20 March, the 20th of March, the civilians guarding the site abandoned it also. And, of course, we were conducting our attack across the Kuwaiti border on the 21st. On the 7th of April, U.S. Marines from our land component first arrived at Tuwaitha Site Charlie and assumed the security, and remained there until the 20th of April, when they turned over control of the facility to U.S. Army soldiers from another unit. And Tuwaitha Site Charlie has been secured and under the positive control of U.S. forces since the 7th of April. When the U.S. forces first arrived, they found the Tuwaitha site facility, Tuwaitha Charlie facility, in disarray. The front gate was open and unsecured, and the fence line and barrier wall on the back side of the facility had been breached. And the troops reported that there were no seals on the exterior doors of the buildings. But since taking control of Tuwaitha Site Charlie, no thieves or looters have been allowed inside the facility."
There have been some reports in the press suggesting that the Marines showed up, bumbled around, and then left. According to the DOD, not true. However, the entire facility covers 23,000 acres, and security has been continously provided only at the storage site. What's odd about the time line is that the Iraqi soldiers abandoned the site 11 days before the coalition attack on Iraq. Another odd thing: apparently we found more material there than we thought should be there, which is the point of having the IAEA, who actually have the records, inspect. Hopefully the IAEA inspection will help us figure out if any nuclear material was stolen (or moved there from elsewhere) before the Marines arrived.
[Via Phil Carter]
Another Feel Good Story
Okay, I can't help myself. Here's another story about getting things right in Iraq [via Virginia Postrel]:
"Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of V Corps, in charge of Army operations in Iraq, wanted to make an immediate difference in the lives of the people in Baghdad’s poorest neighborhoods. Long neglected or actively repressed by Saddam’s regime, they now were despairing because their trash was gathering uncollected in the streets, their police force had vanished, or was powerless to protect them from crime, drains were backing up, pure water was impossible to find and many other things were just going wrong while the governing occupation authorities promised much, but delivered little improvement. Wallace’s assignment was for Martin, as the corp's engineer, to apply the Army’s engineering capabilities to help solve some of the people's problems."...
"Spec. Jessica Schmitz, a mechanic with 561st Medical Co., 30th Medical Brigade, says she came to provide security for her unit’s dental clinic at the soccer stadium project. "I just wanted to come down and see this," she says. "I think it gives purpose to what we’re doing."
The story is so well written and flows so well, it's hard to excerpt it in a meaningful way, so go read it.
The Plural of Anecdote Isn't Data
The Volokh Conspiracy seems to add another blogger every time I read them (I'd link to them if I knew how to pronounce the name (yeah, like they care)), but that only makes them better. But that's not the point; the point is that they have an email from a Naval Reservist in Iraq that's well worth reading.
" The tension is high all around here [in Baghdad], but not necessarily because of the protests or potshots being taken at the Army patrols. Everyone wants to succeed and is working 24/7 to do it, but it doesn't always seem as the world understands the issue because of the limited view the press provides. There is a very talented team assembled, with not the greatest access to the usual resources (phones, computers, air conditioning, etc). They’re also going to need some good people to fill their shoes in a couple of months; i.e., the President of Michigan State needs to head back to school at summer’s end."
I'm happy to hear of his positive experience, but as he notes, it's hard to tell what's going on because of the limited view I have. You read negative stuff, you read positive stuff, and you try to get an idea of how things are going, of what's happening over there. And frankly, you just can't tell. Nor is it clear that you can sum it up with a single adjective like well or poorly. It's a big country, and it isn't going to be homogenous. If you asked people in this country how things are going here, you'd get a wide diversity of opinion. Yet when it comes to foreign countries, we want a single response. How's safety over there? We'll, I'm sure there are locations over there I'd be much safer in than certain locations right here in river city, but there does seem to be a security problem. And at the height of the negative reports on looting (including the Baghdad museum) in Iraq, there was an incident in St. Louis where a school was cleaned to the bare walls -- apparently the theives started loading up a truck Friday night, worked through the weekend, and didn't stop until there was nothing left to take. It was ignored local news; the press was too obsessed with looting in Iraq to worry about looting in some poor neighborhood of St. Louis.
But I think there is one clear fact -- that as of right now, whatever the reality is, whatever may come, the bulk of the Iraqi people are better off without Saddam as their leader.
Say It Ain't So: Some People Don't Like Blogs
As this Register article makes clear, some people don't like blogs, and really don't like the fact that blogs rank high in Google searches. They feel that we only clutter up the information stream with a bunch of narcissitic rambling. I didn't realize that so many people read my blog; I figured they all read the informative ones I link to over there on the left.
June 5, 2003
Brit Hume On The American Media In Wartime
Hillsdale College has an adaptation of a speech Brit Hume gave there online [After June]. It's not too long and well worth a read as he examines the media post 9/11 and how it's been not just out of synch with America, but with reality.
"Cynical? We journalists pride ourselves, and properly so, on being skeptical. That’s our job. But I have always thought a cynic is a bad thing to be. A cynic, as I understand the term, means someone who interprets others’ actions as coming from the worst motives. It’s a knee-jerk way of thinking. A cynic, it is said, understands the price of everything and the value of nothing. So I don’t understand why Ted Koppel would say with such pride and ferocity – he said it more than once – that he is a cynic. But I think he speaks for many in the media, and I think it’s a very deep problem."
Via Winds of Change
We Are, Like, FBI Agents
Ben Domenech links to a delightful article about a trio of eigth graders who teach FBI agents how to act like 12 year old girls online to catch pedophiles. I'm sorry to hear that Led Zeppelin isn't cool anymore, despite they have the number one album in the US again, after only 24 years.
Pinch Lied!
Somehow, I don't think that will be the headline in the NYT over this bombshell: Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd have resigned. Despite Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr.'s earlier claim that he wouldn't accept Mr. Raines resignation, he did. One can only hope that the NYT worries more about accuracy than advocacy in the future.
June 4, 2003
Was It About Oil? Not According To Wolfowitz
Yes, I know that the Guardian is claiming that Paul Wolfowitz let the cat out of the bag, and in response to a question about the difference in handling of North Korea and Iraq, said it was all about oil:
"Asked why a nuclear power such as North Korea was being treated differently from Iraq, where hardly any weapons of mass destruction had been found, the deputy defence minister said: "Let's look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil."
The problem is, he didn't say that. Sad to say, you can't believe everything you read in the paper. Here's the actual question and answer, from the DOD transcript:
"Q: What I meant is that essentially North Korea is being taken more seriously because it has become a nuclear power by its own admission, whether or not that’s true, and that the lesson that people will have is that in the case of Iraq it became imperative to confront Iraq militarily because it had banned weapons systems and posed a danger to the region. In the case of North Korea, which has nuclear weapons as well as other banned weapons of mass destruction, apparently it is imperative not to confront, to persuade and to essentially maintain a regime that is just as appalling as the Iraqi regime in place, for the sake of the stability of the region. To other countries of the world this is a very mixed message to be sending out.Wolfowitz: The concern about implosion is not primarily at all a matter of the weapons that North Korea has, but a fear particularly by South Korea and also to some extent China of what the larger implications are for them of having 20 million people on their borders in a state of potential collapse and anarchy. It’s is also a question of whether, if one wants to persuade the regime to change, whether you have to find -- and I think you do -- some kind of outcome that is acceptable to them. But that outcome has to be acceptable to us, and it has to include meeting our non-proliferation goals.
Look, the primarily difference -- to put it a little too simply -- between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq. The problems in both cases have some similarities but the solutions have got to be tailored to the circumstances which are very different."
I suppose something can be lost in translating from english into german and then back again, since the Guardian was relying on the reporting of a couple of German newspapers. Since I don't read german, I have no idea if the fault lies with the german papers (Der Tagesspiegel and Die Welt), the Guardian, or somewhere in between.
So what Wolfowitz said was, to put it in soviet terms, in Iraq the correlation of military forces was heavily in our favor while the correlation of ecomonic forces wasn't too good; thus, the military option was used. In North Korea, the opposite balance obtains, so we are pursuing the economic option over the military. Why this is so hard for some people to grasp is beyond me - it isn't exactly rocket science.
UPDATE: The Guardian admits it was wrong:
"A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the department of defence website, "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed."
Next question is, will all those sites that ran with this story come out and tell you that it has been retracted? I'm not holding my breath.
