July 23, 2004

When Is A Dry Run Not A Dry Run?

When one of the passengers turns out to be all wet.

Undercover federal air marshals on board a June 29 Northwest airlines flight from Detroit to LAX identified themselves after a passenger, 'overreacted,' to a group of middle-eastern men on board, federal officials and sources have told KFI NEWS.

The passenger, later identified as Annie Jacobsen, was in danger of panicking other passengers and creating a larger problem on the plane, according to a source close to the secretive federal protective service.

Jacobsen, a self-described freelance writer, has published two stories about her experience at womenswallstreet.com, a business advice web site designed for women.
Dawn has more.

You know i'm a hawk when it comes to the war on terror. i'm not saying we should let our guard down, especially nowadays. But still, this lady's story, when i first read it, sure sounded like an urban legend to me.

It turned out not to be an urban legend, but neither did it turn out to be what Jacobsen thought it was. i bet that's how half of the urban legends out there start, by somebody over-reacting.

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Etiquette Question

When people sneeze multiple times in succession, are you supposed to say "God bless you" after every sneeze or can you just say it after the first sneeze?

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July 22, 2004

Crazy Question

Watching the Tour de France with my housemates yesterday, the following question came up:

What kind of being would you create if you could somehow cross Lance Armstrong's DNA with the DNA of his chief rival, Ivan Basso?

The answer is not all that good. It's quite frightening, actually.

Update: i guess nobody gets this joke. It's a bit obscure, but we all thought it was hilarious over at my house.

Clue: Crossing the DNA of Lance Armstrong and Ivan Basso might create a bike rider who's derailleur is perfectly in sync!

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July 21, 2004

Give 'Em Hell, Lance

i watched Lance power his way to the top of l'Alpe d'Huez tonight. He's not just winning, he's dominating and embarrassing the competition. He passed Ivan Basso, like he was standing still. And this was a time trial! They're racing against the clock. i didn't expect to see Lance lapping guys.

lance.jpg

Lance in yellow, Tiger in green, pinstripes in October. It's like something you expect to see every year.

One disturbing thing about the Tour, though. It gets pretty crazy along the route, with fans jumping in front of the riders, waving flags, running alongside and trying to touch them. i saw a streaker during stage 13 last weekend. But on TV today, Lance said that people were spitting and throwing shit at the American riders. That's bad news.

There were lots of fans, and it was a little scary. To me, sincerely, it was not a good idea to have a time trial at l'Alpe d'Huez. It's over now but a lot of German fans were just disgusting. C'est la vie.
i wonder what Lance's left-wing girlfriend Cheryl Crow had to say about that display of America-hating. Stupid Germans. The race organizers really should try to control them, i'd hate to see someone get hurt.

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Wednesday Is Poetry Day, Every Wednesday

i must confess, e.e. cummings is not my favorite poet. i don't like visual gimmick poetry, and i don't like indecipherable poetry. In that respect i am not alone. When my favorite poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, was in charge of vetting poets for the Guggenhiem Fellowship, she turned down cummings because she couldn't figure him out. (i wish i had her exact quote; you can find it in the wonderful biography of Millay, called Savage Beauty.)

Thankfully, not all of e.e. cummings' work is hard to read. Take out the weird shit, and what remains is remarkably brilliant. Not surprisingly, i'm especially drawn to his erotic stuff. Sometimes i'm not sure whether he's talking about what i think he's talking about, or whether it's just my own dirty mind. I like that in a poem. Plausible deniability.

An example:


because i love you)last night

clothed in sealace
appeared to me
your mind drifting
with chuckling rubbish
of pearl weed coral and stones;

lifted,and(before my
eyes sinking)inward,fled;softly
your face smile breasts gargled
by death:drowned only

again carefully through deepness to rise
these your wrists
thighs feet hands

poising
          to again utterly disappear;
rushing gently swiftly creeping
through my dreams last
night,all of your
body with its spirit floated
(clothed only in

the tide's acute weaving murmur


Nice, isn't it? Less subtle is this racy example:

my girl's tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge--my girl's tall
and taut, with thin legs just like a vine
that's spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me, and to kiss my face and head.

Whew, there's a little bit of excitement for your blog reading day!

But sometimes, e.e. could throw all subtlety out the window, as in this bawdy piece:


the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night

one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined

they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite

the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss

they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance

Dang, that's some kick-ass poetry. i'm not crazy about a lot of his stuff, but if he were around today, i'd bet e.e. could take the prize at any poetry slam contest.

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Zzzzzzzzz

Here's a letter that Martha Stewart wrote to the judge in her recent criminal trial. i defy anyone to make it to the end of the four page letter, it's so boring. As i commented at Dawn's (from whom i stole this link), didn't they teach Martha anything about run-on sentences at Barnard?

I have spent most of my professional life creating, writing, researching, and thinking on the highest possible level about quality of life, about giving, about providing, so that millions of people, from all economic strata, can enjoy beauty, good quality, well made products, and impeccably researched information about many hundreds of subjects which can lead to a better life and more rewarding family lifestyle.
Just on and on and on. Shit woman, just get to the point! No wonder they wouldn't let her testify. Gawd, wouldn't she be the worst lunch partner ever?

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Lynda Rondstat

Shelly asked me if i was going to comment on the Lynda Ronsdstat controversy. i don't have much to to say on that, except for the following:

At least she had the guts to say what she said in front of a hostile audience in this country. That's more than i can say for the Dixie Chiks.

Also, what she said wasn't so bad. She just recommended the movie. It's not like she said she was ashamed to be an American.

i think what she said about Christians and Republicans is more offensive.

Anyway, whatever. Who cares about her anyway? She made one good record, a long time ago with Nelson Riddle, and her career's been AWOL ever since.

Link thanks to Jen.

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The Tour de France

Have you been watching Lance Armstrong? i watched replays of the end of stage thirteen on Sunday and the end of stage fifteen last night. The dude is awesome. He doesn't even look like he's breaking a sweat. Look at the other guy's faces at the end, they're in agony. But Lance is a machine. i sure hope he's not dopin, 'cause he's great. It's funny that Greg LeMond seems to think Lance is dirty. Does he know something or is he just jealous?

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July 20, 2004

Congratulations

Congratulations to my 100,000th visitor! You came here to look at my post about the Spitfire video. i don't know anything about you except that you are from the Pacific Time Zone, possibly the Bay Area, and you didn't bother to look around my blog. Oh well, no prize for you then.

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July 20, 1969

On July 20, 1969, an event which i argue is the greatest accomplishment in human history occurred.

apollo11

It was "one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind," as Neil Armstrong said. But, it must also be said that no one but an American has ever been to the moon. And we have every right to be proud of that fact.

We did it with vacuum tube computers and slide rules. We did it in the days before fax machines and e-mail and pocket calculators. We did it before copy machines and PDAs and DVD drives and laptops. We did it with computers that filled a whole room but were slower than the computer i'm typing on right now.

And when the computer miscalculated on the descent to the lunar surface, one American took the controls and landed the damn thing himself.

Awesome.

On that historic day Associated Press reported:

Two Americans landed on the moon and explored its surface for some two hours Sunday, planting the first human footprints in its dusty soil. They raised their nation's flag and talked to their President on earth 240,000 miles away.
And the whole world watched.

Be proud.

Update: Has Ted forgotten about this anniversary?

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July 19, 2004

Roses Are Red

And now roses are blue.

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An Ugly Old French Problem

i totally agree with Ariel Sharon's belief that French Jews should emigrate to Israel to escape "the wildest anti-semitism." That comment has caused that old slug, Chirac to revoke his invitation for Sharon to visit Paris.

Don't worry about it, Ariel. i've been to Paris, you ain't missing much.

Other Frenchies are up in arms* over Sharon's statement too.

'France is not Germany of the 1930s,' said Julien Dray, spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party . . .
Maybe, but France is beginning to resemble France of the 1940s (Vichy collaborationists). Or France of the 1890s (The Dreyfus affair). The French have a long history of anti-semitism, to which their latest group of immigrants would love to add.
'The French have actually gone further than any other country in Europe in recognizing that they have a mountain of a problem on their hands,' says David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, who consults with the French government. Indeed, from their point of view, anti-Semitism may turn out to be the least of it. The huge number of Muslim young people born in France who actively resist acculturation, he says, leaves French officials 'baffled and challenged'
But the government itself appears far from blameless.
At least behind closed doors, French officials are even starting to entertain the proposition that the virulence and relentlessness of their criticism of Israel and its supporters feeds the insalubrious climate in which crimes against Jews multiply. Despite French newspapers' vigorous coverage of the latest apparent anti-Semitic attack, a further evolution may be needed before French intellectual and media elites will go that far.

* Figuratively speaking, of course. To the French, the phrase "up in arms" means to put "up" your hands whenever you see "arms."


Update: Dawn's opinion is the opposite of mine.

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Recommended Reading

i'm trying to be a responsible employee and stay off MT this morning. So, i'll just recommend two very interesting takes by two very interesting liberal bloggers who can sometimes throw a curveball.

Hugo Schwyzer on the Amy Richards abortions.

Matthew Yglesias on the assault weapons ban.

Enjoy.

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July 18, 2004

My Life, Preliminary Impressions

i've been slogging my way through My Life, by Bill Clinton for the last week or so. i'm about 90 pages into it. The book is written in casual prose, almost like a blog, and it's easily accessible to the least common denominator. Anyone expecting multi-syllable words and complex sentences from this "Rhodes Scholar" will be disappointed. Clinton is a competent writer, but he's no Thomas Jefferson. He's not even a Theodore Roosevelt. Further proof to my mind that those fawning ignorami who insist that he was "our smartest president" are way off base.

Clinton delights in naming people he knew as a young man, probably for their own benefit, so they can point to the book and say "hey, I'm in it," or "hey, my dad/brother/sister is in it." The first few chapters are full of anecdotes that are only marginally interesting: Bill's boyhood encounter with an angry ram, the famous confrontations with his abusive stepfather, the famous handshake with President Kennedy, the time Bill's car got stuck in the mud at a bauxite quarry.

i'm no fan of Clinton as a president. He had some successes in office, but lord knows he hurt this country in many ways, which we are only now beginning to fully realize. But as a man, as a historical character, he fascinates me. Like Henry VIII, he's a tragic leader who cannot be ignored if you have any real interest in history. And like King Henry, Bill Clinton was a sincere idealist, who left his country in a mess because he let his cock do more thinking than his head.

At this early stage in my reading, i thought it might be fun to see what Clinton had to say about the man who aspires to carry on his progressive Democratic legacy. i'm talking about the presumptive Democratic nominee for president at the time of the book's celebrated release: Massachussets senator John Kerry. As you may have heard, Clinton's book damns Kerry with faint praise. Actually there's almost no praise at all.

According to the index, John Kerry is mentioned only seven times, despite his being a "prominent" United States senator since 1985, throughout the entirety of Clinton's two terms. By contrast, Senator John McCain is mentioned eleven times. The other Kerry, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, earned seventeen mentions in Clinton's index despite having been senator for only eleven years compared to John Kerry's twenty years. In fact, all but one of John Kerry's seven apearances in President Clinton's book are in passages where he's only one name in a list of names.

Here are the seven passages that mention the "prominent" senator from Massachussets, John Kerry:

. . . America's efforts to reconcile and normalize relations with Vietnam were led by distinguished Vietnam veterans in Congress, like Chuck Robb, John McCain, John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, Chuck Hegel, and Pete Peterson, men who had more than paid their dues and had nothing to hide or prove. [p. 161]

. . .

There was support in Congress from her brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, Senators Chris Dodd, Pat Moynihan, and John Kerry; and New York congressmen Peter King and Tom Manton. [pp. 578-579]

. . .

My decision was strongly supported by Vietnam veterans in Congress, especially Senators John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, and John McCain, and Congressman Pete Peterson of Florida, who had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than six years. [p. 581]

. . .

After the meeting I went to Boston for a fund-raiser for Senator John Kerry, who was up for reelection and would likely face a tough opponent in Governor Bill Weld. I had a good relationship with Weld, perhaps the most progressive of all the Republican governors, but I didn't want to lose Kerry in the Senate. He was one of the Senate's leading authorities on the environment and high technology. He had also devoted an extraordinary amount of time to the problem of youth violence, an issue he had cared about since his days as a prosecutor. Caring about an issue in which there are no votes today but which will have a big impact on the future is a very good quality in a politician. [p. 659]

. . .

. . . [I]n July[,] I normalized relations with Vietnam, with the strong support of most Vietnam veterans in Congress, including John McCain, Bob Kerrey, John Kerry, Chuck Robb, and Pete Peterson . . . [p. 665]

. . .

At the end of the month, I announced that the Veteran's Administration would provide compensation to Vietnam veterans for a series of severe illnesses . . . that were associated with exposure to Agent Orange, a cause long championed by Vietnam veterans, Senators John Kerry and John McCain, and by the late Admiral Bud Zumwalt. [pp. 713-714]

. . .

. . . [F]our of the seven Senate candidates I had campaigned for won: Tom Harkin, Tim Johnson, John Kerry, and, in Louisiana, Mary Landrieu. [p. 734]

Besides repeating the "little-known fact" that John Kerry served in Vietnam, the best Clinton can muster is to say that Kerry knows a lot about technology and the environment. Actually, i thought that was Al Gore's bailiwick.

Sure, one might attribute the lack of extended praise to the mighty Clinton ego, but if you look elsewhere in the book you will find paragraph after paragraph where Clinton ladles extravagant compliments over the most minor characters in his life. i would think he'd have spent a little more time on the "next Democratic president of the United States" if he had really wanted to.

Then again, it's very likely that Clinton has someone else in mind to be the next Democratic president. Who could that be? Hmmmm . . . i don't know . . . Let me see . . . could it be . . . Satan?

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July 17, 2004

Blog Future Feature Teaser 3.0

Only n more days until Rip On Matt Iglesias Week!

No, not the dude that's engaged to Anna Kournikova. i'm talking about the liberal blogger who spells his last name incorrectly.

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July 16, 2004

He Said What i Been Saying, Only Better

If i might be allowed to boast a little, in a blog post yesterday, Steven Den Beste articulates what i've been trying to tell people about the Iraq War for two years now. Summed up in my most pithy way: "It's the regime change, stupid!"

At the risk of sounding like a "me-tooer" (i really have been making this point all along, but never as clearly, alas, than Mr. Den Beste) here is the relevant stuff, quoted at length:

WMDs were never the real purpose of the invasion. WMDs were the focus of the spotlight, however, because of serious diplomatic efforts to gain [United Nations Security Council] approval for an invasion. Within the context of the UNSC, the only way to justify an invasion was to claim that Iraq had not fully cooperated with UN inspectors. Which, . . . Saddam's government had not, even as late as March 2003.

But the public justification made in the UN had nothing to do with the real purpose, the real strategic goal which required the invasion. [Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum] makes casual reference to that, when he says, Facts on the ground have never been allowed to interfere with George Bush's worldview, and he wasn't about to take the chance that they might interfere with his war.

Except that 'facts on the ground' did not interfere or contradict the real purpose, which was to depose a corrupt dictator and to 'nation build' so as to make one core Arab nation a better place for the people living there. By so doing, the goal was to infect the imaginations and aspirations of the citizens in other nations in the region, to 'destabilize' the corrupt dictatorships in charge and to try to bring about long term change to the whole region. And that could not be publicly proclaimed at the time without deeply imperiling the strategy for the overall war.

So why were we at the UN? Mainly because Tony Blair needed to fulfill a promise made to the more leftist MPs in his party that he would not take the UK to war without a UNSC resolution or an 'unreasonable veto'. There were other reasons as well, but that was the most important one.

So we went to the UNSC to seek permission for something we actually had the capability of doing. (The only permission Bush actually required was granted to him by Congress in October of 2002.) And when it finally became clear that permission would not be forthcoming, we went ahead and did it anyway.

. . .

For some, that made it an 'illegal war'. It was a 'war of choice', not a 'war of necessity'. It was a 'violation of international law'.

None of those distinctions actually matter. . . . They're also all matters of opinion, subject to considerable dispute. . . .

. . . I happen to think that the invasion was necessary. But it wasn't necessary in order to gain revenge for direct Iraqi involvement in the 9/11 attack (there's no significant evidence that Saddam's government was directly implicated in that) or to prevent 'imminent danger'. It was necessary in order to prevent significant non-imminent danger.

Aha! There you go.

In my view, anti-war people have been too focused on the past. The war was illegal, they insist. There were no WMDs. Saddam and Al Qaeda didn't cooperate.

Neocons, of which i count myself one, always focused on the future. They said: After 9/11, we can no longer afford to trust that Saddam will not create and provide WMDs to the terrorists. WMDs which they intend to use against American civilians.

The existence or non-existence of WMDs in Iraq at the time of the war does not change the fact that Saddam . . . had . . . to . . . go.

Link props to David Boxenhorn, who has a slightly different take on justification and priorities.

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My Blogroll Demographics

i just did a quick calculation of my blogroll's demographics to see if it's really as diverse as i'd like to think it is. Actually, it took a hell of a long time to go through the whole thing and the result is still an approximation. For my survey i looked at all my non-mu.nu blogs and included the mu.nu blogs i read regularly.

Here are my ethnic diversity numbers:

White bloggers: 81%
African-American bloggers: 2%
Hispanic bloggers: 1%
Asian or Pacific Islander bloggers: 5%
Native American bloggers: 0%
Other bloggers or ethnicity unknown: 11%
Pretty sad, i know. Here's my results for diversity of opinion:
Left-of-center bloggers: 10%
Right-of-center bloggers: 76%
Non-political bloggers: 14%
And finally, here's my results for gender:
Male bloggers: 63%
Female bloggers: 29%
Gay or bisexual bloggers: 1%
Mixed or unknown: 8%
Alright, that's it. Good way to kill time on a Friday morning when the boss is away. Please don't report me to the Equal Opportunity Blogroll Commission or anything.

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Some Advice For The Two Johns Regarding The Upcoming Debates

My advice for the two Johns (which will help them in the upcoming debates with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney) is to stick to format. They should not change their message now, it's obviously very popular among their supporters. But i would suggest that they simplify the message so that it's easier to understand. You see there's quite a few dim-bulbs out there who would vote Democrat if only the Democratic platform were shorter and easier to commit to memory.

Here's my advice:

To John Edwards: You're the attack dog. So every time Dick Cheney says something, your retort should include the word "Halliburton." It might be difficult to work that into all your debate answers, so if you get stuck simply begin yelling "HALLIBURTON! HALLIBURTON! HALLIBURTOOOOON!" You will surely get a loud cheer out of the hand picked audience of CNN approved lefty Bush-haters. And the beauty of this debate tactic, besides its simplicity, is that every wacked out lefty understands it, because they revert back to the same tactic themselves whenever confronted by that pesky foe known as "logical reasoning."

To John Kerry: Try not to speak. But if you must, follow the same strategy outlined above, except say "Vietnam" instead of "Halliburton."

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July 15, 2004

Don't Let Anybody Fool You

Downtown Sac-town has just as many weirdos as any other self respecting city. Take for instance Homo Sapiens Fountainus-walkus. He's out there now, tramping around with his backpack, walking in the fountain and fouling the water with his disgusting feet.

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Blog Future Feature Teaser 2.0

Maybe i should change the name from "Rip Matt Yglesias Week" to something else. "Rip" looks to much like "R.I.P.," which is not exactly the message i want to convey.

Update: i got it! i'll call it "Rip On Matt Iglesias Week."

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