***Dave Does the Blog

Today's search engine hits on DaveHillBlog47

On Netscape: "hot slave princess Leia pic"

Where!? Where!?

7:51 PM  •  0 comments

Doyce is a Golden God

Doyce has finished his NaNoWriMo 50,000-plus word novel.

It is a Good Thing. I'd certainly buy it, were it listed at Amazon or on the shelves at Barnes & Noble. I've been lucky enough to be able to read it as he's written it.

Congratulate him.

(Me? Just two hundred words -- and two full chapters -- left to go. I'll hit the number. And I'll hit the end of the story, too. Just ... not ... quite ... yet.)

3:31 PM  •  0 comments

The Terror Koan

An interesting piece at BeliefNet on Buddhism and the morality of fighting against terrorism.

"You are entering the koan of 'Stop Harm'," observes Myotai Treace Sensei, abbot of the Zen Center of New York, referring to the insoluble meditation riddles Zen masters give their students. "'Don't do harm, but stop harm."

Zen Samurai. Dharma warriors of Tibet. Wrathful Buddhas. These represent powerful Buddhist traditions that acknowledge violence as a tool of the Dharma. Followers of these paths take a series of bodhisattva vows, voluntary oaths to relieve the suffering of all beings. "One of those vows is that, basically, you have to kill if it will be of benefit to others," explains Nicholas Ribush, a former monk who heads the Lama Yeshe Archive. "If you don't, you are breaking your vows."

But to be justified, the teachers agree, the violence must be highly targeted and taken to prevent further violence, not to exact revenge. "When necessary, kill, but only out of wisdom and compassion," counsels John Daido Loori Roshi, Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery. "We need to see each situation in terms of time, place and position of the individual. What's okay at one place may not be acceptable in another."

[...] Scholar Andrew Olendzki, Ph.D., of the Barre Center for Buddhist studies cites numerous stories to illustrate the point. In one past life, the Buddha is said to have killed a man who was about to murder 500 others. In another, the Buddha said that if, in order to save a choking boy, he had to cause injury he would do so. "My sense is the Buddha accepted that a certain amount of violence is built into the world situations," Olendzki says.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

11:37 AM  •  2 comments

Over the top

I love over-the-top rants. Really, I do. They're often a lot funnier, and a lot more easy to dismiss, than relatively well-reasoned opinion pieces.

For example, Andrew Sullivan quotes David Graham duBois's commentary this past Tuesday.

This "war against terrorism" is in fact an open declaration of war against the peoples of the developing world; initially the peoples of the Middle East and Africa, and ultimately the peoples of South and Central America and the Caribbean, all Asia, the South Pacific and the islands of the Seas - - some four-fifths of humanity.

It is a desperate attempt to meet and overcome this developing world's growing challenge to the continuation of four centuries of European and American hegemonic domination, exploitation, suppression, insult and injury by its executors in America and Europe.

In pursuit of this objective the events of September 11 are being used to justify the imposition of a wide range of military and socio-political measures gravely endangering democracy as we know it; measures that have as their objective the emergence of an authoritarian, military/corporate state in the U.S.A. This gives rise to serious question as to who really planned and executed the September
11 events.

10:51 AM  •  0 comments

And in entertainment news ...

Security has to make sense

Peter Coffee's eWeek column makes sense, too. It's almost too short to quote from, but it does a very nice job of noting why simply throwing security measures at a problem leads to greater problems of non-compliance and disrepect later on.

Perhaps the worst thing about the post-Sept. 11 environment is the abandonment of cost-benefit analysis, or any analysis at all, in the rush to prove that one has taken every possible precaution. The result reminds me of descriptions of the Prohibition era: The rules become the problem, and people begin to sneer at both the rules and at those who bother to obey them.

Read it.

8:12 AM  •  0 comments

Self-help

I sometimes think I am wishy-washy, indecisive, passive, and unwilling to assert myself.

Maybe I should try the advice at The Official Website of Wolf Hardeyk, Anger Management Coach and Rage-Power Spokesman.

Orrrrrrrr ... maybe not.

(Via Textism)

7:36 AM  •  0 comments

Popupus Maximus

If you're not reading Bloggus Caesari, which presents Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars (yes, Dad, I know you know the first line in Latin) as if he were blogging about it ... well, I won't say you should read it, since not all of you are history nuts, but it can be pretty darned amusing. Especially since, with consular elections coming up, it loads complete with an appropriate pop-up ad ...

7:29 AM  •  0 comments

This can only end badly

As I'm doing my annual Leafing Through Catalogs, I'm flipping through the Design Toscano one ("Historical European Reproductions for Home and Garden") when I come across this: a "Gods of Greek Mythology" chess set.

Zeus is the King, of course.

And Aphrodite is the Queen.

Now, never mind that she's his daughter (those sorts of things rarely mattered in Greek mythology), but don't you think that, say, Hera would have something to say about this? And given her history for "getting even" at slights, and taken in the context of all those myths where mortals torque off one or another god to their everlasting unhappiness ...

... well, I'm not sure that buying this particular chess set would be a real smart move.

8:17 PM  •  0 comments

Flag Days

The LA Times has an interesting commentary on the question, "When do we take the flags down?"

There was reason, clearly, to embrace the flag. No one was blindly declaring "my country right or wrong." This was "our country wronged," in the most vicious way. "This time it's not us trying to impose our values on them. It's them trying to impose our values on us," pronounced another friend who came of age in the Vietnam era and who traditionally has been leery of nationalism and patriotic fervor, aware of how quickly they can get out of hand.

We put up our flag in front after 9-11, intending to keep it up for a week, then for a month. It's still up. Part of it is that we are still at war. Given the nebulous nature of this war, this might mean it's up there for a while.

But taking it down ... that seems to be a positive step. An assertion, a response or reaction to something. Once it's been up for a while, there has to be a reason one is taking it back down. The war being over, for example. Or something happens that ends my active support for the conflict, or for the administration does something particularly infuriating, or ... something.

Hmmm. It might be up there a while while I figure it out ...

(Via Follow Me Here)

7:35 PM  •  0 comments

Now you see it, now you don't

OMBWatch is keeping a list of government data being withdrawn from the Net, post-9-11.

(Via Follow Me Here)

6:29 PM  •  0 comments

Dadaism

Katherine is sitting on my lap as I go through my blog link list.

"Da-da!" she cries out, pointing at the top of the blog, where our picture shows up.

"Yeah! Da-da! And that's Katherine!" I point with the mouse at her image.

She smiles, and points.

Darned clever, that girl.

4:54 PM  •  0 comments

Weak Links

I watched the Star Trek Weakest Link episode on Monday night, and it was great fun. After the shock of Q -- er, John deLancie being voted off first, I generally enjoyed the spectacle. It's always interesting to see how actors perform in such circumstances -- who's smart, who's dumb, and who's in-between.

Wil Wheaton has an interesting blog or two on the whole shindig. It sounds like they cut most of the good stuff out.

UPDATE: Or three.

4:46 PM  •  0 comments

Fame! I'm gonna live forever!

My site counter rolled over 1000 today, with days to spare before the end of the month. That's also with my Averdorky problems earlier this month.

This will be my last month using Stats4You, since they're going to a pay model. TANSTAAFL and all that, but since there look to still be some decent free services out there (I'm currently looking at Stats4All), I'll probably go that route for the time being.

3:56 PM  •  0 comments

The story of a story

Conservative pundits and the Washington Times are continuing to keep their spin on Clinton's 7 November speech at Georgetown University, even though it has been widely criticized and debunked. Spinsanity offers a new report on their efforts. It, and the previous report, make fascinating reading.

Regardless of how you feel about Dubya's predecessor, and his well-publicized failings (and his successes as well), let's praise or critique him on what he's done and said, not on spin of rumors of stories of biased interpretations of out-of-context excerpts of what he's done and said.

12:49 PM  •  0 comments

Monty Python and the Holy Lego

Why would anyone want to recreate the "Knights of the Round Table" number from Monty Python and the Holy Grail into a stop-motion Lego movie? Maybe because it's damned funny.

(Via the Reg)

10:43 AM  •  0 comments

"We want ... Information"

If you're an anti-virus software vendor, your product's job is to detect viruses, worms, and, of course, Trojan Horses. These are bits of code, disguised as a legitimate program, that infect a machine and send information or commands or copies of themselves on to other machines.

But what if the Trojan Horse in question is called Magic Lantern, and it's been developed by the FBI to help monitor PCs of suspected criminals and terrorists (with the appropriate legal pre-approvals, of course)? Do you still detect it, thus interfering with law enforcement? Or do you intentionally leave that back door in place?

But if you leave that back door in place, what happens if Magic Lantern gets hacked and used by others for illegitimate purposes?

And if you have customers outside the US who might reasonably want protection against American law enforcement agencies, do you end up with separate versions for the US and abroad? Would the FBI be happy with that?

And what if Interpol, or MI.6, or the French police, or the Russian police, or the Chinese police come to you with plans to do the same thing, and wants you to let their Trojan Horse through, too?

Who'd've thunk being an anti-virus company could get so morally ambiguious?

9:48 AM  •  0 comments

Our Tribute to Western Civ

A letter from Cynthia Peters, Associate Director of Public Affairs at Pomona College:

Thank you for making us aware of the Wall Street Journal articles. I had not yet seen them.

The article is correct in stating the Pomona College does not have a specific American History or Western Civilization course requirement for graduation. Among Pomona's general education requirements however is one to "explore and understand an historical culture. Through immersion in a non-contemporary culture and its historical context, students develop an understanding of the historically embedded, evolving nature of human cultures and societies. The complexity of the task faced by historians in establishing historical causality is highlighted by involvement in the reconstruction of historical change." You will be happy to know that countless Pomona students do take courses in American and European history, government and related areas. We offer an American Studies major as well.

The 2001-02 catalog provides a very nice description of Pomona's focus on teaching intellectual skills versus specific required content. "The purpose of the General Education Program at Pomona is to nurture the intellectual skills in perception, analysis and communication that prepare a student for life-long learning. As change accelerates in knowledge, cultural values, and the professions, a liberal arts education must provide a broad base of content and skills that foster openness and rigor in on-going scrutiny of old and new ideas." To do this, one certainly needs a historical context but specific content is only one means to the end of creating intellectual resilience.

You may be interested to know that 40% of freshman who entered this fall (49 of 394 students) received graduation credit for an AP exam in history (U.S., European or both), with a score of 4 or 5 on one or both exams. So it seems, that most of Pomona's students have a good base in history.

While not wanting to disparage the achievements, nor the contributions, of non-European societies in making up modern American culture (and while also realizing that not everyone at Pomona was an American), modern American culture is primarily European in its basis, and understanding what that really means would seem to be of great importance.

I'm also pleased that so many Pomona Frosh are coming in with AP credits in history. I certainly hope that reflects a deeper understanding of American and/or European history than my AP English credit did in my understanding of literature. What I do know is that I took the full array of history courses in my high school, and any given semester of history in college blew the whole lot of them away in terms of what I learned. There was a quantum leap in sophistication -- and expectations -- between the experiences.

That all having been said, my biggest quibble at this point, though, is ... who the hell wrote those passages from the GE requirements and catalog which Ms. Peters cites? They really sound like something Dilbert would be poking fun at. I'm all for complex sentences with lots of multisyllabic words (no kidding, Dave), but, really, when you start to sound like you're crafting a mission statement that reflects the consensus of everyone on the faculty, noise begins to drown out signal.

I learned that from my liberal arts education, too. Or at least, I should have.

9:48 PM  •  0 comments

Stop the Humanoid! Stop the Intruder!

D.A.V.E.: Device Assembled for Violence and Exploration

(Via Quiddity)

7:52 PM  •  0 comments

The World's Sexual Superpower!

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

The United States remains the sexual superpower of the world with Americans making love more often and with more partners than any other nationality, according to a survey by a leading condom manufacturer.

(Hmmmm ... perhaps an answer to the question, "Why do they hate us?")

(Via Quiddity)

7:46 PM  •  0 comments

Now in Funky Soy Sauce Flavor!

A fun mini-gallery of foreign products.

True Story: When I first went to the UK, I went by a little grocery store to pick up something to nosh on, my sense of What Time of Day It Was being completely whacked out.

What was weird was ... the colors were all wrong. On a grocery shelf, not even looking at the names or products themselves, I could tell I was someplace else, because the packaging colors were different. More greens. More oranges. More garish.

Weird.

(Via BoingBoing)

7:33 PM  •  0 comments

Sue his ass off

An airline is suing the guy who brought the Atlanta airport to a standstill earlier in the month.

Lasseter's lawyer, Richard Lipman, called the AirTran lawsuit "dastardly, exploitive, irresponsible and senseless."

Never mind whether shutting the airport down was a silly policy (it was on standing orders from the Dept. of Transportation). Never mind that the airport should have made it freakin' impossible for the guy to simply bypass security. The guy knew he was going the wrong way, he ran past security guards, and, unless he's been living under a rock for a few months, knew about heightened security concerns at airports (it was in all the papers -- you might have read about it). The guy is lucky he wasn't shot by the Georgia National Guard.

And then he has the gall to play the concerned-parent card. Never mind that the kid was there with his uncle, and so not liable to be spirited away by gypsies. The guy was inconsiderate, unthinking, and his actions need to have a bit more consequence than a simple disorderly conduct (!?) charge.

Actions. Consequences. An amazing concept, that.

(Via Sillycow)

7:05 PM  •  0 comments

Sweet dreams are made of these ...

... Who am I to disagree?

Good Housekeeping gives a history of cookies from 1900-1990, with recipes from each decade, and more at the end.

Yum.

(Via Sillycow)

6:56 PM  •  0 comments

Dumb Laws

A fun site (aside from the epilepsy-inducing banner ads and pop-ups) listing various "dumb" laws.

Colorado's aren't funny-dumb, just annoying-dumb:

• Car dealers may not show cars on a Sunday. [This makes Sunday a great time to look at cars -- at least car exteriors. The dealers are closed, so you can wander the lot without hearing the theme from Jaws.]
  
• It is illegal for liquor stores to sell food or grocery stores to sell any alcohol except beer that is at most 3.2% alcohol. [This particular law would have dropped off the books except for the powerful liquor store lobby. It's also worth noting that a particular company can only operate a single liquor store in the state -- no chains.]
  
• No liquor may be sold on Sundays or election days. (Repealed) [Actually, this is still on the books. You can't buy liquor on Christmas, either. I have a funny story to tell about this one, some day.]
  
• It is illegal to ride a horse while under the influence.
  
• Tags may be ripped off of pillows and mattresses. [Actually, those "Do Not Remove" tags specifically say they cannot be removed by the seller, not by the buyer.]

5:50 PM  •  0 comments

Speaking of bruised egos

Does the reading aloud of a student's grade in class constitute an invasion of privacy under Federal law? The Supreme Court will get to rule on the matter.

It happens thousands of times each day in classrooms across the United States. Students grade the papers of their fellow pupils and then announce aloud the results to the teacher.

To many instructors, this is a timesaving way of giving a pop quiz or checking homework. But to Kristja Falvo, a mother of three in Tulsa, Okla., such oral recitation of her kids' grades in front of other students was an embarrassing and degrading violation of her children's privacy.

[...] "There is a mentality in the schools over the last 10 years in which educators act more like a parent and make parental-type decisions with no consultation with parents," says John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute in Charlottesville, Va., which is underwriting Falvo's case. "What this case can do," he says, "is send a message that maybe the schools should be a little more responsive to parents."

As a former teacher, I can certainly understand being sensitive to avoiding embarrassing students. On the other hand, this whole thing strikes me as another example of trying so hard to protect people from unpleasantness that we end up with nothing getting done at all.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the National School Boards Association and the American Council on Education say peer-grading is a common practice in US classrooms. "The court of appeals' novel interpretation would profoundly affect how teachers across the country educate students," the brief says. "It would bar not only peer-grading but also many other commonly utilized, benign, and effective instructional methods that involve student review of others' work, teacher evaluation of work in a group setting, and the like."

The brief adds, "The effect of such a doctrine would be to proliferate lawsuits against school districts."

"The Owasso grading practice is harmful to children," says Dennis Owens, a Kansas City lawyer, in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs. "Educational practices that degrade and humiliate students undermine the efforts of counselors to build positive attitudes toward learning."

10:12 AM  •  0 comments

Ugh

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune does not refer to sports team names which is feels are denegrating to (i.e., derived from) Native Americans. Thus, for example, the Washington Redskins are never called the Redskins, only Washington.

It took a note to the paper's ombusdman to let them know it was okay to refer to the Cincinnati "Reds" (since that's actually is short for "Red Stockings," which was their name when founded in 1869).

Frankly, I've never really understood the problem here. While there may have been some cases (and probably still are) where team mascots are more a target of lampooning than inspiration, it seems clear that most sports teams who use such names (such as the Indians and the Redskins) do so as a reference to the strength and bravery of Native Americans. Similarly, the Vikings (the Star-Tribune's home team) and the Cowboys and the Celtics and the Fighting Irish and the (Trolley) Dodgers and the Trojans and the Yankees and the Angels draw on similiar symbolism (and even where there was once an ethnic tie present to these names, it's largely long gone). Nobody from the Scandinavian, Western, Irish, Brooklyn or Turkish/Greek or Northeastern or Celestial communities seems to mind the nomenclature. Nor has even PETA been offended (as far as I know) by teams naming themselves after Lions, Bears, Rams, Broncos, etc.

I tend to be rather thick-skinned about these things, I suppose, but the Star-Trib's stand just seems silly.

Now, refusing to call the new Mile High Stadium "Invesco Field" -- there's something I can stand behind.

(Via OpinionJournal)

9:18 AM  •  0 comments

Flight 93

The Telegraph reports on the contents of the cockpit voice recorder on American Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania on 9-11.

At 9.57am, the cockpit voice recorder picked up sounds of a struggle with one passenger shouting: "Let's get them." The struggle appeared to prompt the terrorists to squabble among themselves, with one calling on his henchmen to keep the passengers out, while another suggests cutting off oxygen to the cabin. "Take it easy," says another, while the fourth suggests using a fire axe kept in the cockpit to scare the passengers into submission. The sound of dishes and trays being thrown can be heard in the background as the terrorists yell at each other and appear to fight over the controls, with one saying: "Give it to me."

The man at the controls then apparently decided to try to knock the passengers off their feet as a last line of defence by putting the plane into a dive.

In the last seconds of the flight, one hijacker yells to another to let "the guys in", which investigators think is a reference to two of the four hijackers who were standing outside the cockpit door. Then they can be heard talking about "finishing off" the plane, before crying "Allah akbar" - "God is great" - just before the plane crashed.

Cockpit voice recorder transcripts always give me an eerie feeling, usually because we only read them when something tragic has happened. In this case, it's also a spine-tingling tale of, yes, heroism, that should serve as an object lesson to the next folks who try to hijack a plane.

(Via OpinionJournal)

8:57 AM  •  0 comments

Giving Away a Piece of the Rock

The UK and Spain are negotiating over the future of Gibralter, which the Britain won from Spain in the early 18th Century, and Spain has wanted back ever since.

Trouble is, nobody's consulting the residents there. Spain's foreign minister, for one, thinks they have no say in the matter. "Negotiations between two sovereign states cannot be subsumed to the will of 30,000 Gibraltarians. The opinion of 30,000 people will not dictate the will of two sovereign states," says Spain's Foreign Minister. Which is explained by (and explains) the fact that almost none of those 30,000 want to see sovereignty change.

(It's also worth noting that, while it insists on sovereignty over Gibralter, Spain has made it clear it has no intention of letting loose of the two enclaves it still holds on the coast of North Africa, which are claimed by Morocco.)

1:11 PM  •  0 comments

"Yoga ... the Gateway Religion"

An Anglican vicar in the UK has banned yoga classes at the parish hall.

"I fully appreciate that for some people yoga is just exercise, but I am also aware that yoga is often a gateway to others things, such as Eastern mysticism," the Rev. Dick Farr told Reuters Wednesday. "We are here to promote Jesus and don't want to offer a platform to anybody who is going to undermine that."

Of course, given the dwindling numbers in the Anglican church, one has to wonder the point. Heck, even if the yoga instructors were busy "recruiting," one would think anything that got folks down the local church would offer an opportunity for the Rev. Farr to do the same. At least it seems to me that's sort of how Jesus worked ....

11:15 AM  •  0 comments

Sure, it's all good fun until somebody gets hurt!

Tragedy strikes annual pig-slaughter revelries in Hungary. Spirit of Vengeful Swine does little victory dance.

(Via Little Green Footballs)

11:01 AM  •  0 comments

On the other hand

If you'd like a legitimate grievance about civil liberties, consider those foreigners swept up in post-9-11 furor. American immigration law has always been schizophrenic, and recent (over the past two decades or so) steps to remove it further and further from judicial review has allowed hundreds of folks to be simply dumped in cells awaiting further investigation.

Government officials say that the aggressive response is warranted by the extraordinary situation, and that they are simply enforcing longstanding laws. "Sept. 11 has forced the entire government to change the way we do business," said Mindy Tucker, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department. "Our No. 1 priority right now is to prevent any further terrorist attacks. Part of that entails identifying those who may have connections to terrorism who are here in America and making sure they're not in a position to carry out any further terrorism."

Over all, more than 1,200 people have been detained as part of the sweeping investigation, including men traveling the country with large amounts of cash and box cutters, and those who sought information on crop-dusters and flying lessons on large jets.

But a senior law enforcement official said for the first time last week that just 10 to 15 of the detainees are suspected as Al Qaeda sympathizers, and that the government has yet to find evidence indicating that any of them had knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks or acted as accomplices.

The Constitution is mildly schizophrenic in these matters as well. Some protections apply to "people," others to just "citizen." These are the loopholes that have let this occur.

Is it understandable that the government might want to have a bit more latitude in rounding up folks they think might be a legitimate security threat? Even without a formal declaration of war, I'm willing to allow that. But the government then had damn well better pursue those cases vigorously, or else lose any moral (if not legal) legitimacy in such actions.

(Via 24-Hour Drive-Thru)

10:33 AM  •  0 comments

Keeping a grip

I've seen this story flashed around a number of places today. Briefly, a student activist with a poster portraying Bush as a hangman (from his support for the death penalty in Texas) drew someone's attention enough to mention it as a threat to the Secret Service. The Secret Service came by. The student did not let them in. They talked for a while, eventually saw the poster, and left.

The consensus opinion seems to be that this is yet another example of a chipping away of our civil liberties and our rights, another example of political suppression, another example of how John Ashcroft is turning the US into a police state, etc.

My thoughts:

First of all, the Secret Service reports to the Treasury Department, under Paul O'Neill. That doesn't mean anything one way or another, but let's not get our cabinet secretaries mixed up.

Secondly, let's look at what actually happened. The police (maybe -- maybe someone else) saw the poster. Either to make trouble, or because its image was misunderstood as a threat, someone passed word on to the Secret Service. The Secret Service responded to a reported threat against the president. They were polite. They remained out in the hallway when not given permission to enter. When things were explained, they left.

There was no kicking down of the door. No confiscation of the poster. No threats against the student.

If this gal had been a whacko who next week took a shot at Bush, or who later was found out to be sending out anthrax letters, the earlier report of something funny going on there would, if not at least checked up on, have been seized upon as how law enforcement and the secret service were incompetent dolts.

Is it unsettling to think that the things one says or displays (as, yes, protected political speech) might attract attention? Well, that's kind of the idea, right?

Is it unsettling to think that attention might come from law enforcement? Maybe. Depending on how law enforcement reacted. There was a reported threat. An investigation. A polite conclusion. End of story.

Finally, Brown relented a bit, agreeing to open the door and show them her poster wall. "They looked in, and the lady was like, 'Ohhhh, that's not that bad.'" The male agent added, "We've seen worse."

Still, Brown's brush with the authorities wasn't over. "Since they were just gawking at my wall, I decided to explain it." The wall features Brown's favorite art and mementos: a high-school photo project showing the perils of smoking cigarettes; a Pink Floyd poster ("It has that phrase, 'Mother should I trust the government,' so I had to get it"); posters for two Japanese cartoon shows; several pictures she took at protests and rallies; and a headband with "Democracy" on it. And, of course, the Bush-as-hangman poster.

Having seen the poster, Brown says, the agents questioned her further, asking: "Do you have any Afghanistan stuff in your apartment, or anything pertaining to that? Any pro-Taliban stuff?"

"I kept saying no," Brown says, "and I was like, personally, I think the Taliban are a bunch of assholes." With that, the investigator and the agents bid her adieu.

Ms. Brown was not (at least not by the Secret Service, based on what is reported of their comments by Ms. Brown) targeted for being a dissenter. They weren't there to "take her away" or "put her in jail." She does claim that one of the agents started out by talking about a report of "anti-American material." She says they later discussed what they had heard about the poster in question -- that it was "a target of Bush" or a "picture of Bush hanging himself," both of which were untrue -- but both of which would have been a bit more disturbing.

Of course, "disturbing" speech doesn't mean that it's not protected by the First Amendment. But it does mean that somebody might consider it worth further investigation. The local Secret Service rep says there was a report of "a threat against the president." While Ms. Brown speculates the tip came from the police (who came to her house a couple of times on noise complaints), there's nothing to support it (and the Secret Service denies it).

Ulmer rejects the notion that Brown was targeted because of her politics, and he insists that the Secret Service would have checked this tip out even if it had come in before the events of Sept. 11. "We were doing our job in this particular case," he says, "and I don't think we could have done it any better."

"The Secret Service takes all threats against the president seriously, and we go out to check on every one. A citizen thought that there was a threat, and we went and talked to Ms. Brown and we found that there was not a threat." The poster, he says, was "misconstrued" by the tipster. "So it's not a big issue. The issue is that someone misinterpreted some writing."

Let's save the hyperbole for some real impositions on civil liberties, folks.

(Via Xkot, among others)

8:51 AM  •  0 comments

Not like we needed more convincing, but ...

The Taliban demolition of the huge Buddhas in central Afghanistan earlier this year was only one of the cultural destructions they engaged in.

They walked through the National Museum here last year, inspecting each object to determine which ones depicted living beings. And then they raised their axes and brought them down hard, smashing piece after piece of Afghan history into oblivion. It was such a high priority that the Taliban minister of information and culture, Mullah Qudratullah Jamal, and the minister of finance, Aghajan Motasem, led the wrecking crew, witnesses said.

Over three days, as the Taliban ministers walked from one artifact to another, an Afghan archeologist and a historian followed at a respectful distance, pleading for mercy as if begging for the lives of their own children.

Chalk it up to my being a history junkie. This just really chaps my hide.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

8:13 PM  •  0 comments

Collateral damage

Bad enough that folks are falling sick or dying from anthrax. Now the whole thing is interfering with the powder cocaine business.

"People are just too scared now," a young woman with a kind of truckstop Lolita beauty who has appeared on many international runways said the other day.

"I mean," she continued, after insisting, understandably, that her name not appear in print, "it's a white powder, made by who, and cut with who knows what? Who is going to put that up their nose now?"

(Via InstaPundit)

7:38 PM  •  0 comments

Thanksgiving After the Fact

Many, many, many, deep and heart-felt thanks to Margie.

Thanks to her, I am caught up (and marginally beyond), at 41,758 words thus far.

Once upon a time, I did a lot of writing. Part of it was being single. And part of it, during my previous version of not-single days, was at a time when my staying up really late was rather therapeutic for me, in a variety of ways we need not dwell upon at the moment.

These days, with a full complement of household duties, plus an 18-month-old, plus a wife whose company I value greatly, putting aside the time to write some thousands of words on a given day is not easy, not in the least.

Margie helped make it possible today. I love her more than I can say. Though, hopefully, I've just given her a clue.

7:00 PM  •  0 comments

So whatcha gonna do today?

Margie has agree to look after Katherine today, so I'm going to disconnect the notebook from the Net, and head upstairs to the guest room, and write, dammit, until I've at least caught up with my NaNoWriMo targets, my head explodes, or I'm satisfied with how it's going.

So expect sparse blogginess today.

9:01 AM  •  0 comments

Glad to see we're taking this all in stride

From Wednesday's Washington Post

Rep. C. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security and a candidate for the Senate, yesterday sought to play down remarks to Georgia law enforcement personnel suggesting they "just turn [the sheriff] loose and have him arrest every Muslim that crosses the state line."

In a letter to the Valdosta Daily Times, Chambliss contended that his comments were taken "out of context" and "should in no way be interpreted as my view of what should happen. . . . If my remarks were offensive in any way, I apologize."

While it's disheartening to hear such repulsive blather from elected officials (though what else one would expect from, ahem, a Georgia Republican), it's good to know that such things are going down very poorly with the electorate -- as demonstrated both by Chambliss' attempts to get the story quashed, and by the crashed-and-burned career of John Cooksey (R-La.), who uttered the famous remark about questioning anyone with "a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper."

(Via 24-Hour Drive-Thru)

8:58 AM  •  0 comments

Thinking

Margie avers that my insistance on history/western civ requirements for a meaningful liberal arts education neglects other useful areas of study, and would end up making so many requirements potentially that nobody would ever be able to meaningfully major in anything. I'm not sure I agree, but in her defense of, say, survey science courses, she notes that folks should be trained to accurately assess risks and reality. And to that end, this article on our arguably irrational obsession with perfect health might be part of her argument:

In the Western world we live in an age that is, by all objective criteria, the safest that our species has ever experienced in its evolution and its history. We are healthier than any of our predecessors have been. We live on average considerably longer than even our immediate progenitors. Today, the infant death rate is less than 6 per 1000 live births. Just 100 years ago the figure was 150. Even in the late 1950s four times as many children died in their first year of life than they do today.

Our diet, contrary to all the 'anti-junk food propaganda', is not only the most nutritious but also the most free from potentially dangerous contaminants and bacteria that we have ever consumed. Despite the class divisions which remain within our society, and which reflect themselves in the health gap between the rich and the poor, we have, as Harold Macmillan once famously said, 'never had it so good' when it comes to a lack of objective risks to our lives and to our wellbeing.

At the same time we have, ironically, come to fear the world around us as never before. In the absence of real risks, we invent new and often quite fanciful ones. The better off in our society, who have the least to really worry about, are most prone to this novel neurosis of our age - fearing instant death from the contents of their dinner plates, unless chosen with obsessive care, and 'unacceptable' physical decline from failure to follow every faddist trend recommended by their personal fitness trainers. We fear that our children are constantly in danger from strangers - despite the fact that the vast majority of child abuse occurs within the family - and feel compelled to ensure their safe arrival at school by transporting them in people carriers - while at the same time decrying the depletion of fossil fuels and 'unacceptable' levels of environmental pollution - and we wonder why our children are getting fat.

(Via Follow Me Here)

7:57 AM  •  0 comments

Natural selection at work

The idjit who caused the shutdown of the Atlanta airport a while back -- by running down an up escalator when he didn't want to wait through the security checkpoint -- is living with the social and legal repercussions of his actions.

What I find confusing is the commentary by various otherwise clear-headed commentators (like InstaPundit) that the reaction of shutting down the airport when someone has breached security was unjustified. There was no way to know -- since they didn't catch him -- who the guy was, why he had broken through security, or what he might have done. 20/20 hindsight aside, if you're going to have a security checkpoint, then you treat its breach seriously. If not, then why bother?

3:56 PM  •  0 comments

So maybe we are the good guys after all

The joy in Kabul indicates that even the Muslim world may like US values of freedom and choice -- or at least show that the apparent popularity of bin Laden and Islamic fundamentalism is not as universal as its proponents would claim.

There is, in fact, reason to believe that the aspirations of the Muslim world deeply resemble our own. One reason Americans don't believe it is that we often use protest marches as our barometers of Muslim public opinion. And there have been quite a few marches on bin Laden's behalf since September 11. But protest marches don't measure popular support as much as they measure commitment and organizational skill. If you were to use mass demonstrations as your guide to what Americans believe, you might assume that the two most popular forces in American politics are the anti-abortion movement and the anti-globalization movement. In fact, both are unpopular; what they share is a dedicated core of supporters and a network able to get them to a given place at a given time.

Much the same is true in a country like Pakistan. Militant Islamic groups can send thousands into the streets of Quetta and Peshawar because their supporters are politically fervent, and because their mosques and madrassas give them a formidable organizational infrastructure. But at the polls, they do abysmally every time.

The second problem with using protests as a guide to public opinion is that even those people who do chant bin Laden's name might not want him running their country. To take another American analogy, few of the anti-Vietnam protesters who chanted Ho Chi Minh's name wanted him as their president. Praising him was simply another way of saying, "I hate Lyndon Johnson." Similarly, chanting bin Laden's name in Cairo is a way of saying, "I hate Hosni Mubarak." After all, many of the same people who cheered bin Laden cheered Saddam Hussein a decade ago--even though the former is a theocrat and the latter a militant secularist. Neither man's appeal was his vision of how to govern a country, but rather his challenge to a deeply unpopular status quo.

(Via InstaPundit)

3:10 PM  •  0 comments

What we do/don't know can hurt us

Articles a-plenty.

Should the location of hazardous waste facilities be on the web? How about dams? Reservoirs for public drinking water? How about photos of these facilities? Or floorplans?

Should the public know what controls are in place to make sure the local nuclear power plant doesn't melt down?

Should research on antibiotic-resistant anthrax be easily available?

Can you trust that terrorists won't be able to find that data and make use of it?

Can you trust that the government won't use the excuse hiding of such data to avoid needed oversight? Will private industries who want to avoid environmentalist scrutiny be able to use such security concerns as cover?

Is the excuse of keeping secrets away from terrorists taking the place of the excuse of keeping secrets away from the Reds?

Is total disclosure of information better or worse than total lockdown of data? How can a democracy function without an informed public? How can a democracy function without a secure public?

Who decides where to draw the line? Who watches the watchmen?

"In an open society such as ours, you always run the risk that someone is going to use information in a bad way," Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, said. "You have to take every step to minimize those risks without undermining our democratic principles. You can't just shut down the flow of information."

"Do you pull all the Rand McNally atlases from the libraries? I mean, how far do you go?" asked Julia Wallace, head of the government publications library at the University of Minnesota.

"We . . . decided not to remove [on-line anthrax research]," said Dr. Ronald Atlas, president-elect of the [American Society for Microbiology] . "The principle right now is one of openness in science. . . . If someone wants to publish [a legitimate research paper], we're not going to be the censor."

"We have to get away from the ethos that knowledge is good, knowledge should be publicly available, that information will liberate us," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan. "Information will kill us in the techno-terrorist age, and I think it's nuts to put that stuff on Web sites."

Hell, no.

(Via Capt. Rooba)

1:23 PM  •  0 comments

Food Fight

People are starving in Iraq. But the evidence is good, according to this New Republic article, that it's actually Saddam's fault. Why should we be surprised?

(Via LGF)

2:02 PM  •  0 comments

More reasons why I love what Margie cooks for me

The History Channel talks about some of the items on the menu at the first Thanksgiving ...

"Could you pass over some of that Seal with Tangy Liverwort Crust?"

"Sure, but only if you return the 'Nips 'n' Eagle Casserole."

"Oooooh! That's Aunt Mildred's favorite!"

(Via Matt Welch)

11:32 AM  •  0 comments

There go my alumni checks

I am ... appalled. OpinionJournal has a list of colleges that do not require any history or western civ courses in order to graduate.

One of the ones listed is "Pamona College." Given the other names on the list, it seems highly likely that this is actually Pomona College, my alma mater (BA, History, Class of 1983). (A quick web check of this misspelling makes it look highly likely.)

I intend to inquire. If so, then ... not one more thin dime will be going from me to them. None.

Why is this a bad thing? Read here (requires free registration).

All this goes a long way toward explaining why the college seniors queried by Roper in an earlier Council survey had so much trouble with even the most basic history questions. No more than 22% had any idea that "government of the people, by the people, for the people" came from the Gettysburg Address. More than half could not identify the Constitution as the source of the separation of powers. This being the day after Thanksgiving, we're too embarrassed to print the percentage who thought the Magna Carta was what the Pilgrims signed on the Mayflower. Remember, these are students from the nation's top 55 colleges.

Facts about America's wars were also in short supply. Just four out of 10 seniors could identify the Battle of the Bulge as having taken place in World War II. Only 34% knew George Washington was the general commanding the Americans at Yorktown, the ultimate battle of the Revolutionary War. A higher percentage--37%--thought it might be Ulysses S. Grant.

Not. One. Thin. Dime. The ghost of Vincent Learnihan would never let me rest again.

And, hell, if alumni can use their financial clout to influence the selection of coaches, certainly I can do the same as to curriculum.

(Via InstaPundit)

10:08 AM  •  0 comments

Get in touch with yourself ... not

The thought of doing something as icky and gross as, ah, wiping yourself after you, er, do your Number 2 kind of business, is, like, totally gross and icky and everything? Then try the Bottom Buddy.

(I see a huge marketing error here. They really ought to be marketing this to Dads who have to change their Little Darlings' diapers. Not that I would use one, mind you, but that would help get past one of the real Dad-gets-the-willies things that I think most new fathers deal with.)

UPDATE: On the other hand, I'm sure I'd wax this lyrical about the whole diaper-changing thing.

(Via Boing Boing)

9:40 AM  •  0 comments

How about Plan B?

Thanksgiving was great. Not all according to plan, but great.

The high-BTU burner for the turkey frying kit is very simple. Hose -- with nozzle and pressure regulator and spigot to control the amount of gas flowing -- connects from the propane tank into long venturi tube at base of burner. Gas should get shot up the venturi, sucking in air (from the open ends of the venturi behind it) into the burners. Bright blue flame ensues, once a spark is administered.

Instead, we get wavery yellow flame which occasinally -- because the pressure is not high enough -- goes out at the venturi, too, right by the rubber hose from the propane tank. Not good.

We tried it with both tanks. Randy and Doyce and I hummed and hawed over the instructions, looking for the parts that each of us had missed that would answer the question of why the heck this was happening. All we needed were beers in our hands and a half-disassembled engine to complete the tableaux.

So back to Plan B -- there was sufficient clearance on our range to do this, if the burner would get hot enough. It did, barely, and produced a well-cooked but incredibly moist turkey. Wonderful.

Indeed, all of Margie's vittles were fabulous, including the pre-dinner onion rings and deep-fried battered mushrooms (I forgot to put those on the List of 4). We had a wonderful cabernet (those of us doing the wine thing), and then sat around and sipped port and played parlor games and Uno (which I won, neener-neener-neener). The evening ended far too soon (though at an appropriate time to get the kitchen cleaned up and the trash taken out and us old-folks-with-babies into bed in order to be relatively happy when Katherine decided to wake up this a.m. (at 7:30, miracle of miracles).

Goals for the day:

Those whacky pilgrims

Religious separatists like the Pilgrims — often called Puritans because they believed the Church of England needed to be "purified" of all Roman Catholic influences — were mocked and vilified in the literature of the day, says Kristin Poole, an associate professor of English at the University of Delaware.

"The way people were imagining the Puritans in England was almost 180 degrees opposite" to the way they are seen today, says Poole, author of Radical Religion from Shakespeare to Milton. "They were being portrayed as drunken gluttons and routinely accused of being sexually promiscuous."

(Via Quiddity)

7:37 AM  •  0 comments

And, not to forget ...

Thank you, my readers, who give me an excuse to ramble on here.

7:15 AM  •  0 comments

Thanksgiving plans

We're finally getting around to deep-frying a turkey. Though this seems almost passe these day, when I first got the idea, from my old boss Mickey, he told tales of life in Louisiana where everyone in the neighborhood would pitch in to buy the gallons of peanut oil, and then everyone would bring their turkeys over. We're not doing anything so elaborate, but ...

Twenty-four pound turkey. One hour to cook.

Margie's prepared a couple of solutions to inject under the skin of the bird, half of which will be something spicy and cajun, and half of which will be something that Doyce's stomach is more likely to tolerate.

Cornbread and sausage stuffing.

Mashed potatoes. Possibly garlicky. Gravy.

Something with sweet potatoes (there's no accounting for taste).

Jackie's bringing pumpkin roll for dessert. Also, in case that's not enough, some seven-layer bars.

Appetizers, Margie's going to use the hot oil to fry some mushrooms (yum!), and we're fixing mojitos (we received our annual shipment of limes from Margie's folks) as opposed to margaritas this year.

Doyce and Jackie are coming over. So is Randy. We've lot of other friends in the area, but we also like to limit T'giving to folks we know who wouldn't have other family commitments in the area. And that will keep it a relatively small group.

I'm looking forward to it.

We're eating early -- almost a late lunch. Then sit around, play some games, chit some chat -- and then left-overs for dinner.

Friends. Family. Food.

I have much to give thanks for, and I do.

7:00 AM  •  0 comments

Art in the name of science

Jane at Not My Dog tells the amusing tale of building a model of the Sydney Opera House.

6:42 AM  •  0 comments

I. R. Hufflepuff. Who's your friend when things get rough?

Try the Sorting Hat to see which Hogwarts house you'd end up in. It's actually an interesting (and long) quiz, similar to the Meyers-Briggs stuff (and just as full of false dichotomies). Margie actually guessed what house it would put me in.

Of course, I guessed she'd be a Hufflepuff, too. Which, I guess, means we can be in the same house ...

(Via Bears Cave)

5:41 PM  •  0 comments

"... 9, 8, 7, 6 ..."

Continuing the review of Marvel's self-title Greatest 25 (based on a readership poll). (Lucky for you, this week they skipped. I assume the finale will be out next week.)

"... 13, 12, 11, 10 ..."

Continuing the review of Marvel's self-titled Greatest 25 (based on a readership poll).

Aye, me hearties!

November 12 was the birthday (in 1864) of Admiral Edward Vernon. Vernon was known as "Old Grog" by his crew, due to his frequent use of grogram (coarse-textured wool fabric) cloak or breeches.

In 1740, he began watering down his sailors' rum in order to reduce drunkeness and the physical damage that ensued. The diluted rum, in turn, took on Vernon's nickname, grog.

And now you know.

(from the Forgotten English calendar by Jeffrey Kacirk)

4:24 PM  •  0 comments

Just in case you wanted to know

The helpful folks at Random Hall, MIT's premier nerd dorm, have placed sensors in each of the dorm (single-occupancy) bathrooms. This lets folks see which of the bathrooms are available. And, of course, it's available via the Internet ...

(Also via Quiddity)

1:19 PM  •  0 comments

"If I were an Autobot ...

... deedle-deedle-daydle-deedle-daydle-digguh-digguh-dum ..."

Of course, this is kind of silly, since I never followed Transformers (though I can sing the song).

(Via Quiddity)

1:03 PM  •  0 comments

"Talkin' about Freedom! (Freedom!) Freedom! ..."

Even the freedom to Sell Your Soul to the Corporate Entertainment Monster. At least Disney doesn't beat you with steel cables when you watch Hanna Barbera cartoons.

(And, for that matter, it's probably a pirated t-shirt, anyway.)

(Via Quiddity)

1:00 PM  •  0 comments

Am I ever!

I am 53% ADDICTED TO THE INTERNET.



I am pretty addicted, but there is hope. I think I'm just well connected to the internet and technology, but it's really a start of a drug-like addiction. I must act now! Unplug this computer!

(Via Trance Gemini)

11:19 AM  •  0 comments

Search fun

"military jets flying over disneyland"
"hydroelectric power in canada"
"VELCRO dart board"
"iPod windows fireware"

All of these and more will get you to this site. Who'd'a'thunk I was so eclectic?

11:13 AM  •  0 comments