Shots Across the Bow

If you don't read the Daily Bleat, this is what you are missing

Yesterday, for example, I redid the fridge. Tossed out the elderly vegetables, cast out the suspicious chicken, wiped down the shelves, replenished the stocks of ale from the garage. The disorder of the fridge is inevitable, and there’s nothing you can do about except clean it out before the stuff in the back attains consciousness and unionizes the lunchmeats. But before I go on the weekly shopping expedition I like to edit the fridge down to active duty personnel. I also performed minor realignment of the cupboard, which is something over which I can exercise a small amount of control. Two months ago I arranged everything by frequency of use and genre, and the fragile peace remains in effect to this day. (This aspect of my personality both thrills and frightens my wife, since I was a domestic slob when she met me, and I’ve now vaulted over her in terms of household order.)

Welcome to the Machine Part II According to this story in the Chicago Trib, which I found on The Daily Pundit simply standing around may become a crime.

The city has designated about 90 so-called "hot spots," areas deemed troubled by gangs, drugs and violence. The list, which is complied by police and community leaders, is kept secret by the city. It is reviewed quarterly.

"The only time under this ordinance that anyone can be arrested is if they disobey the officer's order to move on," Rosenthal said.

Folks, this isn't a game show; this is the real world. Now, if it were a crime scene, or private property, or you were commiting a crime, ie disturbing the peace, obstructing access, etc, I can accept that the police have the right to tell you to move along. But here we have a city designating secret spots, which may change quarterly, subject to no public review, where the cops can tell you to get lost, and you must comply, or face arrest. If you don't know whether the spot you are on is one of the secret spots, how will you know whether or not the officer is within his rights? Obviously, you can't. This has the effect of giving the police the right to disperse any crowd, anywhere for any reason.

A new permanent link I just discovered that through an oversite, I failed to provide a permanent link to Quasipundit. I have corrected that oversight. They provide a lively discussion of topical events, as well as a comprehensive overview of both traditional pundits, and the everchanging blogosphere.

Little Jimmy left alone.... The American prowler notes this about Jim Jeffords:

INDEPENDENCE MISERY
Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords has identified his party affiliation as "Independent" since jumping from the Republican Party last year. But since he's the only one of his kind in the Senate, who to hang out with during campaign season? "He offered to campaign for Democrats," says a staffer for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "And while we appreciate the offer, there haven't been many takers."

Apparently Democrats have discovered what should have been obvious when Jeffords was a Republican. "He's got a reputation for being high maintenance," says the DSCC source. "Whenever [Majority Leader] Tom Daschle or [Whip] Harry Reid hear we could send Jeffords out on the road for Democrats, they just roll their eyes and shake their heads."

Poor Jimmy is learning what happens to all prostitutes after their looks go south on them. I hope he's not counting on the Vermont governor's job either.

Welcome to the Machine The AP has a story out about a new computer chip that can be implanted under your skin. The chip would be your identity card, a personal tracking device, carry your medical records, or any other functions the maker designs.

For airports, nuclear power plants and other high security facilities, the immediate benefits could be a closer-to-foolproof security system. But privacy advocates warn the chip could lead to encroachments on civil liberties.

The implant technology is another case of science fiction evolving into fact. Those who have long advanced the idea of implant chips say it could someday mean no more easy-to-counterfeit ID cards nor dozing security guards.

Just a computer chip - about the size of a grain of rice - that would be difficult to remove and tough to mimic.

Without further ado, Pink Floyd:

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
Where have you been? It's alright, we know where you've been.
You've been in the pipeline, filling in time,
provided with toys and 'Scouting for Boys'.
You bought a guitar to punish your ma,
And you didn't like school, and you know you're nobody's fool,
So welcome to the machine.

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
What did you dream? It's alright we told you what to dream.
You dreamed of a big star.
He played a mean guitar.
And he always ate in the Steak Bar.
He loved to drive in his Jaguar.
So welcome to the machine.

They're here now. According to this story in Monday's Washington Post, Islamic schools teaching intolerance are locateed right here in America.

Eleventh-graders at the elite Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia study energy and matter in physics, write out differential equations in precalculus and read stories about slavery and the Puritans in English.

Then they file into their Islamic studies class, where the textbooks tell them the Day of Judgment can't come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews.

One again, our 'friends', the Saudis.

"We want it to be a place where they don't have to assimilate, where they can practice their religion. It's like any other religious school," Zeiter said. "We teach them the history and good values and what it takes to be a good Muslim."

Still, Zeiter said she takes pains to present balanced lessons to students, piecing together a curriculum from books published both in the United States and overseas.

When she feels she must use material in a popular Pakistani textbook, she said, she makes photocopies of pages she needs and never uses those calling Christian beliefs "nonsense" or portraying Jews as treacherous people who financially "oppress" others. Yahiya Emerick, the author of "What Islam Is All About," said he will soon release a new edition for U.S. audiences that eliminates the tendentious parts.

If you have to censor a text book, why continue to use it?

I'm not going to pull any more quotes from the article, read it for yourself. I'll just say this. If fundamentalist Christian school was teaching the type of hatred and intolerance that these Arab schools are teaching, at best, it would be closed down within a week. At worst, they might get a visit from Reno's Rangers along about 2 am one night.

Hello Pot? This is Mr Kettle. Fox reports that Aaron Sorkin is apologizing to Tom Brokaw for remarks he made in New Yorker magazine.

Sorkin blasted Brokaw in this week's New Yorker magazine, saying that "The White House pumped up the President's schedule to show him being much busier and more engaged then he is, and Tom Brokaw let it happen - the show was a valentine to Bush."

Of course, had Aaron actually watched the show, he would remember Brokaw making that exact observation as the show began. Or maybe he did watch it, but just can't remember.

I know that if Sorkin had a chance to film a show about the inner workings of the White House, he wouldn't take any dramatic licences at all, and would tell it like it is. No romanticising of the president, no idealized picture of the people on the inside, just the simple unvarnished truth.

Yeah, right.

So that's what happened! Here is debka's real strength, as far as I can tell. While their predictions quite often fall flat, their investigation and analysis are usually on the mark. In this story, Debka notes the reason for Arafat's decision to participate in tri-lateral peace talks with Israel and the US.

The Palestinian leader complained bitterly about the Israeli justice minister, the usually mild Meir Sheetreet, who told an early morning Hebrew radio broadcast that if things carried on this way, he could not rule out Israel’s military reoccupation of Palestinian cities. Solana [head of the EU] agreed gloomily that this prospect was on the cards.
Arafat at that point asked the European official to inform the Americans that he would be sending Palestinian officers to attend the trilateral US-Israel-Palestinian security commission, so that it could be convened Tuesday night, February 26. This was a reversal of the boycott of the forum he ordered, two days earlier, on Sunday, February 24, after the Israeli security cabinet declined to release him from virtual house arrest in Ramallah.

More interesting is the reason for Solana's presence in the first place. According to Debka, Arafat spent the payroll for the PA on the escalation of terror attacks in Israel. When payday arrived, he begged funds from the EU, who sent him 30 million to cover the payroll. Only when he arrived in Israel did Solana discover the origins of the shortfall.

Allied rivals Elizabeth Dole is getting some fund raising help from her former rival, President Bush. Nothing surprising there, but buried in this story is an interesting paragraph.

Dole is trying to combat accusations of carpetbagging. Although born and reared in North Carolina, she has spent most of her adult life in Washington, and was registered to vote in Kansas — the state husband represented in the Senate — until October.

Hmmm. First the republicans accuse Hillary Clinton of carbetbagging, then use the same tactic with Elizabeth Dole, while the democrats cry "carpetbagger!"

Hypocrisy in our politicians? Say it ain't so!

Slow day for a blog, but a very busy one for me. I just have time for one little bit before bedtime. Glenn Reynolds referred to his imitator as "the bearded Spock." This started me to wondering, "Which Star Trek characters best represent politicians of today?"

I think it would have to be something like this.....

Al Gore............................Spock. Logical, unemotional, wooden as puppet with no strings, shows passion only when forced.
James Carville...................Kahn. Highly intelligent and overly dramatic enemy of George Bush.
Alan Greenspan................Scotty. Keeps the engines running, ignoring the antics of the idiot at the controls.
Hilary Clinton....................the shape-shifting, salt-sucking, life stealing critter responsible for several deaths.
Dan Quayle......................a Tribble. Enough said.
James Traficant................an Andoran. He already has the hairpiece. All he needs is blue skin.
George Stephanopholis.....Yeoman Rand. In love with the boss, but unable to do anything about it.
Jimmy Carter....................Sarek. Highly intelligent and a great ambassador.
Bill Clinton........................Who but the greatest intergalactic con man himself, Harry Mudd.
Sen. Fred Thompson.........McCoy. A plain spoken country boy with iron clad integrity and a heart a mile wide.
George Bush the elder.......Captain Christopher Pike. Almost but not quite up to the job of commanding the nation.
George W. Bush...............Sulu. Just getting started but may eventually eclipse the man himself.
Ronald Reagan.................Captain James T Kirk. To hell with the Prime Directive! We have to do what is right!

Alright fellow bloggers, it's your turn.

Well, that's it for today folks, unless something earth-shattering occurs, in which case there won't be anything left to talk about.....

So I guess that is it.

Why I rarely go to the movies anymore James Lileks Hits the nail right on the head, even through an influenza ridden household.

There’s another element to those crappy movies, as well - the notion that good people are really bad people. Goodness is a mask. Somehow this got expanded and given wider currency - if goodness is a mask for some, then goodness might be a mask for all. Goodness itself is suspicious. If you saw Buddy Ebsen smiling in a 1957 movie, you’d think: nice guy. If you see Buddy Ebsen grinning in a 1971 film called “Salem’s Bride” you vote him most likely to be wearing a black robe and chanting Latin backwards by the picture’s end.

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it has to do with the replacement of goodness with coolness. In the best old movies people were Good, or they were Bad, or an interesting combination of the two that resolved one way or the other by the movie’s end. (That’s one of the reasons Casablanca was so good - the Good-Good character, Victor Lazlo, was boring, and the Bad-Bad character, Herr General Fritz Uberbraten, or whatever he was called, was just there for hisses. Everyone else was mixed. Good-Bad Cap’t Renauld became good; we all know that Bad-Good Ugarte would have stayed bad. Ilsa had done a bad thing - she left Rick - but for a good reason! Etc.) But that’s been replaced by Coolness - a corrosive element that values smirky skepticism above certainty and belief.

It's the difference between John McClain and Mickey and Mallory Knox.

What we're all about Andrew Sullivan gets it right.

Then I discovered Blogger. No, it's not a new expletive. It's a simple web technology, based on a single website called - yes - Blogger.com. The word comes from the expression "web-log," which simply means a live, real-time, online personal diary. Blogger - pioneered and still run by one man, Evan Williams - makes that completely easy. Within minutes, you can have a website and post to the universe any stray, brilliant or sublimely stupid thought that comes into your mind. Blogger even provides a handy, idiot-proof rubric for a simple site. And all this is provided for free. It was, I realized two years ago, the nascent Napster of the journalism industry. Just as Napster by-passed the record companies and brought music to people with barely any mediation, so Blogger by-passed established magazines, newspapers, editors and proprietors, and allowed direct peer-to-peer journalism to flourish.

You can read the resthere, and you should.

No, I'm not making a profit; but I am having a ball!

Immanual Kant was a real pissant... Courtesy of Andrew Dodge comes a selector to define the philosopher you may be most in line with. My list is below.

1. Kant (100%)
2. Sartre (81%)
3. Rand (77%)
4. Bentham (76%)
5. Mill (69%)
6. Aquinas (65%)
7. Plato (62%)
8. Stoics (62%)
9. Spinoza (61%)
10. Hume (57%)
11. Aristotle (50%)
12. Augustine (49%)
13. Nietzsche (48%)
14. Prescriptivism (45%)
15. Epicureans (41%)
16. Cynics (29%)
17. Hobbes (24%)
18. Noddings (22%)
19. Ockham (18%)

The Prowler strikes again! This little gem in from The American Prowler

BOXER SHORTS
California Sen. Barbara Boxer was promising reporters a hot scoop last Friday about Enron's relationship with the Bush administration, only to end up look like the girl who cried wolf.

For several days Boxer and her staff had promising Hill reporters documents from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that would have documented meetings and contacts between FERC members and Enron from August 2000 through June 2001.

"They said the documents would show that those contacts spiked after the Clinton administration left office," says one financial reporter covering Capitol Hill. "They thought it was going to be a smoking gun, and really oversold it."

In fact, the meeting logs indicated almost the exact opposite of what Boxer had been selling. While Enron meetings did continue with the Bush administration, Clinton-appointed staff and commissioners were wined and dined much more heavily before the Bush people came in. And even then, it appears the FERC actions were above board. "When they went out with lobbyists, the FERC folks picked up their part of the bill," says the reporter.

How did Dan, Peter, and Tom miss this one?