Funmurphys: the Blog

Inconceivable, or Some People Write What I Think

It must be mind control or ESP or something, because I've come across some blog posts I could have written. If I had the time and talent, that is.

I know he's "the dean" of political pundits, but Geitner's title sums up my feelings: Broder, Slow On The Uptake.

The next post takes more than just the title, but it too sums up my take on a lot of NGOs, not just Amnesty International. Yep, according to AI, the US is the worst offender when it comes to undermining the rule of law and international relations.

I've said this before, I'll say it now and later -- I think the children, grown or not, of politicians should be off limits to attacks. Just because you don't like their parents doesn't mean you should go after the kids. Period. Left, Right, St. Looney-Up-The-Creek doesn't make any difference. Ted Barlow agrees with me. And as I would say about anybody else, if somebody says something stupid, mock the stupidity of the remark, not the person. Yeah, I know, I'm no fun.

Yes, we really do need a whole channel devoted to gays and lesbians, asJoe Carter points out. I mean, it's like gays and lesbians are currently invisible on TV, unlike honest businessmen.

Clayton Cramer solves a conundrum that bedevils some reporters: how does the crime rate fall while prison populations increase? For those of you who are puzzled as well, I'll let Mr. Cramer explain it to you.

American Oblivious Idol

Do I care who wins tonight -- Fantasia or Diana? Nope. Not anymore. We stopped watching American Idol the night Fantasia, La Toya, and Jennifer were in the bottom three. OK, I hope Fantasia wins, but I'm done watching the show. I could barely stand the cruelty (no, not Simon, but getting voted off live); by taping the show and fast forwarding I could cut out all the filler; but I couldn't take the bizzare results.

Instead, we watch Oblivious on Tuesday nights. It's the game show you don't even know you're on, and my wife wants to be a contestant. The host does wacky stuff to somebody while he slips in five questions - for every right answer, you get $20. The contestant from the first segment goes on to do wacky stuff and ask five questions of some other poor rube, and for every right answer, they get $100. Like many good cable shows, it's based on a British show. The fun isn't in the questions, but the wacky stuff. I'm amazed that often the contestant who is the most uptight while a contestant is the wackiest as the questioner. So if you're looking to watch something Tuesday nights now that Idol is (thankfully) over, tune in to Oblivious on Spike TV 8-10 PM CDT. You won't regret it.

Islamic Reformation

Islamic Reformation is one of those topics that has been floating around awhile. You can find academic treatments, left-of-centerdiscussions, right-of-center thoughts, pundit pieces, and of course blog musings. Despite the implicit or claimed parallel to the Protestant Reformation, what's really being proposed would be nothing like the that. What really being proposed is nothing to do with a return to Koranic principles and behavior, but typically the opposite - the use of interpretation to remake Islam in a way the author likes.

To get a better understanding, let's review a little. First came Judaism. Classical Judaism was a very legalistic religion - the path to rightness with God was through following the Mosaic laws which covered all aspects of life, and as time went on interpretation of these laws was often more severe than the original. This would change with the destruction of the Temple and the diaspora, and Judaism became less legalistic. When Christianity came along, there was a struggle at the very start about whether Christianity would be another sect of Judeism. This was resolved by the first church council, and one presided over by the Apostles, which decided that Christians did not have to follow the Mosaic law. It was over this struggle that Paul penned Galatians, in which it is made clear that in Christianity faith alone is the path to rightness with God. Over time, the Catholic church would develop it's canonical interpretation of the Bible, and this would change to faith plus works. In addition to the interpretations, there were clear abuses, where people within the church hierarchy were not following the teachings of the church. Along came reformers who not only objected to the abuses, but argued that interpretations that had built up over the centuries did not properly reflect God's will as revealed in the Bible. Martin Luther would be the most famous, and start the Protestant Reformation which was a rejection of centuries of interpretation and call to return to original, Biblical, Christianity (sparked by Luther's reading of Galations). The Protestant Reformation was about more than just curbing abuses within Catholicism, it was over fundamental doctrines.

My understanding of Islam is that it is much like classical Judaism -- very legalistic with rules set forth to cover all aspects of life. Oddly enough, most people calling for an Islamic Reformation are not looking for a return to its seventh century roots, but instead want a wholesale build up of non-Koranic interpretation to try to bring it to what is, in their opinion, up to date. The real parallel, unmentionable due to the Jew hatred indemic in the moslem world, is the change in Judeism from the time of the pharasees to its more modern versions like Reformed or Conservative -- or how it went from a legalistic faith with specific rules for every circumstance to a faith that is far less legalistic and adaptable to where and when the believer lives.

Hersh Thoughts

Some thoughts about Seymour Hersh's latest big story.

I have no way to to know if the claims are accurate either in part or in totality. And neither does Seymour, or anybody else except those who are allegedly on the inside of the program. Uncritical acceptance or flat denial by anybody else reveals their biases, not the accuracy of the claims.

The bulk of the press is treating the claims as valid. There's an old joke about the lawyer who can swim in shark infested waters because of "professional courtesy." There seems to be "professional courtesy" within the media - any story that once appears is treated as true - sometimes long after it's been debunked.

Either Hersh is making stuff up, or he's being lied to by sources, or his sources are telling the truth but breaking their word and the law by revelaing classified information. None of these possibilities is particularly appealing.

Hersh throws the code word "Copper Green" around like 007 threw "Grand Slam" in Goldfinger.

I don't find unnamed sources to be persuasive, and Hersh didn't have good sources in the Army a year ago, As this story from 2003 makes abundently clear. And all the meat of the current piece is contained in quotes from unnamed sources in the military.

Much is made of the military industrial complex, but little mention is made of the legal journalism complex. Journalists get information from three places - people who are regular sources for their own reasons; people who are one-time sources for their own reasons; and lawyers who do all the legwork and tiresome investigation in order to taint jury pools (think breast implants, side saddle fuel tanks, or rogue accelerating Audis). In all three cases, the journalist is in effect working for the source, and thus the sources motivations shape the coverage. And as pointed out in the Mudville Gazette, Hersh is working for the soldiers currently in the dock in the Abu Ghraib who's defense is, in a dreary recapitulation of past failed excuses, "we were just following orders." Gee, imagine, he just happened to have fall into his lap this program that would indicate that they really were just following orders. How convenient. And of course, Hersh feels no need to disclose his connection to the defense attorneys since he's not being paid money. Such connections are never mentioned for that reason, despite the fact that information is money to journalists. The MIC at least defends the country, while the LJC defrauds it.

Chuckle Of The Day

I got a chuckle today at Crooked Timber, a blog I don't usually associate with humor.

First I read this post by Ted Barlow taking Christopher Hitchens to task for misdirecting his readers about the substance of Seymour Hersh's allegations. Now my opinion of Hitchens is that he's a gifted jerk who's occasionally right -- but pretty much always a jerk Hmm, I think the same thing about Hersh, except for the gifted part.

Then I scrolled down to the prior post by Kieran Healy that misdirects his readers about the substance of Glenn Reynolds remarks about The Day After Tommorrow. Glenn doesn't lampoon movie accuracy, he lampoons people who think movie science is accurate. Think Ted will write a post about Kieran?

A Link Trilogy

I just started John Stossel's book Give Me A Break and noticed he figured out at the start of his career that TV news is essentially high frequency noise - and he wanted to present the low frequency signal. Those of course aren't his words, but mine as an engineer. And that brings up my attempt to bring you some posts that are all signal.

First up is a sensible look by Into The Sunset at how we are doing in Iraq that measures success and failure against 6 goals.

Wretchard continues his excellent analysis at Belmont Club by taking a sober look at "News Coverage As A Weapon."

And Cronaca covers the intersection between Art and Politics in two posts in response to a response to the Israeli Ambassador's response to a despicable work in a Stockholm gallery.

Troy

I saw Troy for my Anniversary (16 years, thank you very much), and the rest of the celebration was better than the movie. It's an open debate whether O Brother Where Art Thou or Troy is most faithful to Homer, although Troy should get the nod because it is set in the same time and location with the same costumes as the original.

Actually, I'm being unfair to Troy which does a reasonable job of being faithful to Homer even though the screen credit notes it as only being "inspired" by The Iliad. I have to admit I didn't think it was as faithful until I got down my Bulfinch and read his synopsis -- I'd forgotten a lot. You cannot convert a novel to a movie and keep every character and plotline. And not everything works as well on the page as on the screen, and vice versa. So it was with sadness but understanding that Penthesilia and her Amazons, nor any of Troy's allies, did not make an appearance. And I appreciate that Troy begins before the war and lasts about 16 days while The Illiad begins in year 9 of a ten year war. The original Greek audience knew about the run up and initial part of the war; for us, most people know a few names and nothing more.

Continue at your own peril -- there be spoilers!

An odder decision was to eliminate the greek gods altogether except to mock them and their followers. In The Illiad, as in all classical Greek literature, the gods don't just take an interest, they take an active role. It was a welcome surprise to have Aeneas pop up at the end with an unidentified old man at his side whom I guessing is Anchises, but he was too young. It was almost like they were setting up The Aeneid as a sequel. Helen was appropriately gorgeous, and Hector was, if anything, even more sympathetic and heroic than in the original. Yes, I was annoyed with the way Achilles lived too long, Menelaus didn't live long enough, and Agamemnon got his the Hollywood way, not in the bath by his wife and her lover -- although to be fair that wasn't in Illiad.

But the movie is hard to enjoy because the people you most want to root for are the Trojans, and they lose. The way the movie is structured, it is a Greek Trajedy with Hector as the tragic hero, and his fault is his love for his brother Paris. It’s a modern twist on the form to not have a vice as the downfall, but a virtue. Twice Hector does what he knows to be wrong -- continue from Sparta with Helen and kill Menelaus -- and both times it is to save his brother. The other problem is that while structurally Hector is the hero, the movie is a star vehicle for Brad Pitt, and so he soaks up screen time. It wouldn’t have been too bad, but the truth is he can’t act. Women tell me he's attractive -- he's too girly for my tastes -- and he's buff enough, but he's a blank slate. His expression randomly varies from blank to a grimace of mild I don’t know what. Eric Bana as Hector - he can act. Achilles may kill Hector in the movie, but Eric kills Brad in acting. Peter O’Toole has his great scene as Priam where he begs Achilles for Hector’s body wasted because he’s playing against an inscrutable Pitt.

The score was wretched as well - I noticed it, and everyone in the theatre did too.

Lunch May not be Free, but some Science Fiction is

The BAEN Free Library has the full text of a number of classic science fiction novels from authors like James Schmitz, Keith Laumer, Andre Norton and Christopher Anvil. This was mentioned on Research Buzz in March but it's apropos today's TANSTAAFL headline.

The BAEN Free Library has the full text of a number of classic science fiction novels from authors like James Schmitz, Keith Laumer, Andre Norton and Christopher Anvil. This was mentioned on Research Buzz in March but it's apropos today's TANSTAAFL headline.

We're Only Thinking Of You

Speaking of photos, what happened to showing pictures of flag draped coffins at Dover? Oh yeah, that was so last week. The press got much better pictures from Abu Ghraib to show that the war is a failure in Iraq. Getting the Dover photos was sooo important the press showed them to us once. Can you imagine how important that makes the stuff they never show us, and how insignificant the stuff they show us all the time?

UPDATE: I have joined my first Beltway Traffic Jam

What Memory Hole?

I haven’t seen the video of Nick Berg’s cold blooded murder, and I don’t want to. But you know what, the press is always telling and showing me stuff I have no desire to know about or see “for my own good”. It used to be video of teenagers whizzing in the pickle jar at a fast food restaurant – thanks for ruining eating out (here’s a tip: don’t upset your server until after the food arrives). Or it was how grocery stores sell you rotted food soaked in bleach – thanks for ruining eating in.

But now its showing me pictures that only the Marquis de Sade could love, all the while telling me it’s the fault of the Bushies (anyway could we retire that phrase along with Clintonistas? Just asking). Apparently though, my sensibilities are too delicate to see somebody get their head chopped off and held aloft for the camera. So instead they just show a picture of Berg trussed up in front of his killers, or they have video up to the point his killers take out the knife and saw his head off. Here's an idea for a compromise - provide the soundtrack. Let's listen to what his murderers have to say while the guy screams, gurgles, and dies, and we will get a pretty good idea what they want to do to all of us Americans.

TANSTAAFL!

Movable Type 3.0 will cost money if you want to have more than a single author or two blogs. This is causing some consternation, but Tanya explains it all, and by the way make sure you read the comments because she has something nice to say about yours truly (and there are some other good comments).

I recently switched to Moveable Type from Greymatter, and have no regrets. Except I never got comment spam with Greymatter, and I got a ton of it with MT until I used Jay Allen's Blacklist.

The Best and The Worst

Phil Carter has a superb roundup of Marines decorated for valor in Iraq. These are the best of the best.

Phil also has a couple of good posts about the failure of leadership at Abu Ghraib. And while I share the concern that the leadership be held accountable as well, I figure you should always unravel and prosecute from the bottom up. That way, you can go as high as the rot goes, while if you start where you think the top is and go down, you can't go back higher than where you started. And I'd rather have the lower ranked people implicate and testify against higher ranked people; it just wouldn't sit right for a general to get leniency for giving up her captains.

That reminds me - so far I've heard of privates, corporals, and sergeants performing the abuse, and then we jump to General Karpinski -- what about all the officers in between? General Taguba faults the officers from the brigade commander on down -- what happened to the "on down"? Just asking.

Extremely. But Still Dangerous

I'm going to take Andrew Sullivan to task, and not because he can fill his blog with letters that are better than what I write, but because he seems to forget something. Andrew asks "How Dumb Is Al Qaeda" regarding how they released their miserable snuff video without waiting for the furor over Abu Ghraib to die down. And then he goes on to point out that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union as another example of the stupidity of evil.

Well. Let's remember that killing infidels and thus demonstrating the superiosrity of Islam is what Al Qaeda is all about. It's a stupid, vicious, reprehensable program beginning to end. How much strategic sense (or realism) can a movement have that longs for a return of the glories of Andalusia?

And to follow up, Hitler's goal for WWII was to gain living space in the east, especially the Soviet Union. He wrote about it in Mein Kampf, which he wrote in the days when German authorities had the good sense to put him in jail and long before he came to powerl. The real example of stupidity was Hitler's decision to declare war on the US while he was still fighting the USSR and Britain when he had nothing to gain from it.

Both are examples of a person or group staying true to their core values. Al Qaeda will never be anything but an instrument of death and terror. Their only response to any situation is to kill - the only question is one of scale.

All Hail The UN

When I look at the UN, I see a completey corrupt embodiment of an important ideal. Others apparently see something different, they see a universal savior that is able to handle every need. They constantly sign the UN's praises. I'm surprised I haven't seen any green yard signs emblazoned with "UN Saves" in certain neighborhoods, although I have heard many a person claim that if a nation would just let the UN in, it would be saved. Religion comes in many flavors, some more tasty than others.

Knee-jerk Is Just That

I respect Phil Carter; when he says check out this book", I hit the St. Louis County Library website and reserve it. But he didn't think something through the other day:

McCain grills Rumsfeld: Sen. John McCain's audition for a job in the U.S. Attorney's office went quite well, in my opinion. He asked simple, direct questions like "What is the chain of command from the guards to you, Sec. Rumsfeld?" and "What were the guards' orders?" These questions are critical. Anyone who's been through basic training can tell you that one of the first things you learn is your chain of command, from you to the President. Moreover, every recruit learns the general orders of a sentry, and learns that knowing one's orders is critical to mission success. Yet, Secretary Rumsfeld could not answer either simple question. He tapdanced around the question, but ultimately, never gave Sen. McCain an answer as to the line of command from PV2 Joe Snuffy up to the Secretary of Defense. PV2 Snuffy has to know that; shouldn't the SecDef? That's bad."

Is It Worth It?

So Amber won Survivor All-Stars last night. The biggest surprise is that she was even an All-Star since she was just Jerry's shadow on Survivor Australia and had no detectable personality. I have to say that the last seven weeks or so the Murphy Family tuned into the show, and then sat in stunned un-silence as once again neither Rob nor Amber were voted off. These were All-Stars? They were more like the zombies in the first season who didn't seem to realize they were playing a game.

Usually I enjoy the interview show after the winner was announced, but this year it wasn't as good. First, the audience was a pain in the neck - this is live TV people and we only have an hour, so shut-up! Second, the whole "my feelings were hurt" story line - gosh, somebody lied to my face, can you believe it? And that makes me agree with Shi Ann, something I don't want to do. What I disliked about Rob is (1) that he was a lousy player and should have been bounced a long time ago and (2) he was such a smug, arrogant SOB on TV. Third, Richard Hatch loves the limelight too much, and generally the less of Richard the better.

I hate to say it, but Susan didn't seem that much different, if only because everybody (the women especially) looks so much different than when starving on a beach in the middle of nowhere (heck, Jenna the single mom was unrecognizable with make up on). What is it with Ethan not wanting anyone to know he's dating Jenna the swimsuit/Playboy model?

I hope they don't do another Survivor All-Stars again. I'd rather see a show of those voted out at the first few tribal councils - Survivor Second Chance or Survivor We Hardly Knew You.

Just A Spring Clean For The May Queen

I've done a little spring cleaning around here. I've had to remove some dead links, update some that moved, and add some new ones. I hate dead link removal - it means that someone I once enjoyed reading doesn't write for me anymore. That's the only reason I de-link: the blog is inactive. Some give you warning - Jurjen wrote so infrequently it was hard to say exactly when he stopped. Others just blink out of existance - the sophorist just stopped being resolvable by the DNS servers one day, but whois says the domain isn't available. If there was a warning, I sure missed it.

But I did add a new St. Louis blog - Life in St. Louis plus four other blogs: Craig Henry's Lead and Gold, Brian Tiemann's Peeve Farm, a fine group of writers at Crooked Timber, and Brad Rolf's Into the Sunset.

I also tried to fix the problem with the left border being a bottom border on Explorer. I remember years ago when the whole Navigator/Explorer fight was going on, and people were telling me they didn't see a problem with getting Explorer for free. I hope you people see the problem now - complete stagnation. Hey, but it's free stagnation. Let me just say that this site looks better in Firefox and Safari.

Yes, We Have Links

Which party has the real smear machine asks Real Clear Politics. In one corner you have Move On's smear campaign and in the other you have ... more Democratic smears. Speaking of which, I'm still waiting for Hillary's explanation of how the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy managed to get Bill Clinton's pants off and his --okay, you get the idea. The story about Move On raises one of those clashes of virtues:

"The issue is complex. Some Republican attorneys who fought McCain/Feingold on free-speech grounds, such as James Bopp and Jan Baran, have criticized the RNC's challenge. Meanwhile, Lawrence Noble, executive director of the liberal-leaning Center for Responsive Politics, generally is supportive of the RNC position"

Jon Henke at QandO found a funny one -- an unapologetic feminist who on the one hand believes in "the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes" yet on the other thinks that the prisoner abuse in Iraq was caused by a lack of feminization in the military. As I point out in the comments, she (along with many of her sister feminists) apparently believes that women are morally superior to men. And speaking of superiority, is it fair that Dale Franks has joined QandO? I don't think so.

Speaking of blogs that get far more traffic than me (not that anyone should measure their worth by how much traffic they get -- OK, who am I trying to kid with that one?), Glenn Reynolds has a rarity for him - original content beyond "heh". It's a succinct riff on why we are in Iraq, and a good one too.

The swiftboat vets made good on their promise and clobbered John Kerry. Now the question is how much coverage this will get. Tom Maguire delivers the goods and gets the link because I really like his title.

Tanya has me going one way talking about "Realm of Redheads" but finishes another way with a heartfelt post.

Corporate Taxes. Multinational Taxes. Still with me? Good. Head over to Regions of Mind to learn more. Personally, I think taxing companies on their profits odd because it destorts their economic incentives, and taxes on comanies are really just consumption taxes anyway - they pass them along to consumers. My solution - get rid of them or switch to just a small flat rate on revenue.

OK, back to heartfelt. Joe Carter has one about President Bush and about an honest emotional reaction. I have to agree with Joe - don't always agree with his policies, but respect him as a man.

Latin is a language Dead as dead can be First it killed the Romans Now its killing me

And don't miss the second Carnival of the Liberated - a round up of Iraq blogs.

The State of Diplomacy

If insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results, a lot of the world goes crazy over Israel. A bunch of diplomats who were unsuccessful in the past in getting the Palestinians to stop killing Israelis in return for their own country are upset that President Bush wants to do something different - namely recognizing reality. So the old boundaries, which do not take into account "facts on the ground" are out; negotiations over the right of palestinian return are out since Israel could never agree; and bargaining with the current power structure of the palestinians which has only the legitimicy of force, is composed of terrorists, and has never bargained in good faith, and which has never renounced the destruction of Israel as the ultimate goal is also out. What does this mean?

Well, it means that the illusion of progress is over, and illusions die hard for those who believe them. It means that the palestinians won't get a state until they get serious about being a nation and not just an odd cross between victims and terrorists.

As for our state department, well, I'm not impressed. Someone I know worked at the state department. I noticed that they were reading Howard Zinn's history of the US and was told that it was very popular there. I asked if they had heard of Walter Mead's Special Providence. Nope. Never heard of it. On the one hand, you have a truly miserable book that's all about how bad America is; on the other you have a book that offers a great deal of insight about America and diplomacy. Which is the popular book in the State Department? You got it, the miserable one.

One Article, Hold The Snark

I'm not a fan of political reporting these days. It's by and large stupid, and it seems that the writers try to make up for a lack of any real content with snark. When I hit Google News today to see what was happening, the lede of the New York Times article on the President's Bus Tour caught my eye with one of the all time great combinations of stupidity and snark:

"The dirty little secret of President Bush's bus tour is that he didn't spend much time on the bus."

Great Minds part deux

Does James Taranto read Sine Qua Non Pundit? Well, Charles has been running contests where he provides a snippet of the lyrics from a 70's song and you have to name the song and artist. So yesterday, Taranto had an item about John Kerry he titled "Sad Preacher Nailed Upon the Colored Door of Time" which comes from that quintessential 70s progressive rock group Yes from their song And You And I. Coincidence? You make the call.

Great Minds and All

From the Great Minds think alike department:

"If you ask most people about the cost of medical care, they may tell you how much they have to pay per visit to their doctor's office or the monthly bill for their prescription drugs. But these are not the costs of medical care. These are the prices paid. The difference between prices and costs is not just a fine distinction made by economists. Prices are what pay for costs -- and if they do not pay enough to cover the costs, then centuries of history in countries around the world show that the supply is going to decline in quantity or quality, or both."

"I've noticed that a lot of Democrats and some Republicans have difficulty with the difference between price and cost. Cost is what it takes to make or provide something. Price is what you are charged for the thing or service. Politicians are constantly telling me how they are going to lower the cost of something -- typically healthcare, ocasionally housing -- when all they are going to do is lower the obvious price and do nothing for cost. Are they going to do anything about the government regulation and oversight that adds to the cost? Heck no. They're going to have a single pay system dictate price. It's enough to make you vote Libertarian."

I'd like to claim "advantage blogosphere" but I can't since Thomas Sowell has been pointing this difference out for a long time and he's the guy who first clued me into the difference.

The problem with healthcare is that we've got a half-baked system that is socialism on the cheap, substituting employers for the government where possible. This leads to a lot of well meaning people to advocate full socialism for medicine - the single payer system. They are convinced that in this case, full socialism will work. The problem is, full socialism never works, and shouldn't be tolerated for something as important as healthcare. The real answer is to end the partial half-baked socialism by getting employers out of the picture and get a market (yes, a well regulated one) in healthcare going.

Upon Further Reflection

As I said in my previous post, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is sickening, and it only reinforces the notion in the middle east and elsewhere that Americans are a bunch of moral degenerate sex perverts -- i.e. the Great Satan. It's not very helpful in the war. But there are a couple of things I'd like to note.

When my wife was reading the paper yesterday morning, first she got mad at our soldiers who abused the prisoners, and then got mad again when she read the following:

"We are men. It's OK if they beat me. Beating don't hurt us, it's just a blow. But no one would want their manhood to be shattered. They wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel, and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman."

After seeing some of the pictures of the abuse, what struck me (right after "what were they thinking?") is that the content isn't really that much different than what the NEA used to celebrate as "art" by Robert Mapplethorpe (amongst others) -- if RM had added grinning idiots to his pictures that is.

Linkage Galore

Scientists are using (adult) stem cells to regrow your own teeth. Hopefully they'll have a workable human version by the time I need them.

The UN Oil-For-Food scandal keeps boiling along just below the threshold for the press to take much interest. I'm a fan of the ideal of the United Nations, but clearly the current implementation sucks. The question should be whether reform can work, or would it be better to start over with not just a fresh organization, but a better organized one. And by that I mean one that doesn't treat all governments as equals, because they're not; and one that draws its bureaucracy by and large from a stratum other than the current government kleptocracy. An organization that is supposed to represent the moral high ground needs to actually be moral; the failings of the UN are clearly moral failures.

The abuse of Iraqi prisoners is sickening, and needs to be punished fully and severly. And I'm kind of mystified at the claims it was due to MPs not given adequate guidelines. If you can't figure out that you shouldn't be sexually humilliating (and worse) prisoners, adequate guidelines aren't going to help. (yea, more moral failures).

Charles Austin continues his 70's music contest. It needs more Cowbell!

John Kerry is set to get an "unfit" evaluation from his fellow swift boat veterans tomorrow.

Ranger Rick retires and attends the same White House Correspondant's Dinner as Bryan Preston, although it seems that Bryan only attended a pre-dinner cocktail party thrown by National Review (did that hide my jealosy?). Rick (AKA Rich Galen) has returned from Iraq -- giving hope to all us Walter Mittys -- a lean mean fighting machine.

How long have you people known that Tony Woodlief is back writing his wonderful Sand In The Gears and didn't tell me?

My local newspaper ran an article over the weekend about Joe Wilson's new book. The odd thing is that it was exclusively about who he claims leaked his wife's name to the press. Consequently, it was a waste of space as it provided no information since Joe Wilson hasn't a clue as to who leaked his wife name - he just throws out names. Somehow, they forgot to mention that the book confirms that Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, Iraq's then foreign minister, went to Niger sniffing after uranium. I guess that confirmation of British intellegence's assertion that Iraq tried to obtain uranium in Africa isn't newsworthy, since Joe told us before that they didn't get any from Niger. Oh yeah, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf is better known as 'Baghdad Bob', and according to Eason Jordan's revelations of how CNN sat on news to keep access is not a clown, and not a nice guy at all.

Tim at Random Observations how capitalism can be moral through the life and philosophy of a moral capitalist, Charles A. Todd.

It's too bad that Dave Letterman didn't jump to ABC and bump off the air that vain, arrogant, big-headed SOB Ted Koppel.

Cori Dauber points out an example of why people hate the media -- the ghouls went to interview a family because their son was shot in Florida. Seems they got the wrong family, but they didn't realise that and told them their son was dead -- just so they could get their reaction on the air.

Oh yeah, something big was stopped in Jordan (like 80,000 deaths and the destruction of it's current government), but since the press isn't worried, I'm not either. Just because it features