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--Erick Erickson
"Bush campaign should hire The American Mind for the oppo research team."
--Punchthebag
Sean Hackbarth's The American Mind is a good weblog." --Glenn Reynolds
"It’s good enough that I can forgive Sean’s Packers fandom. Almost."
--Steve Silver
E-Mail:
sean at theamericanmind dot com
URL: http://www.theamericanmind.com
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Movie Catagories
Sign Up for BloggerCon
More PAM Support
French Biffed It
Best Movies
Sociobiological Stories
WMD in Iraq
Webloggers Pick Movies
Webloggers League
Price Must Equal Costs, But What Costs?
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Name Wasn't PAM's Problem
Raimondo Sees No Distinctions
Weird Recall Ruling
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July 31, 2003
Snazzy Packers Tickets
Alright, I should be asleep, but the good-looking Packers tickets have to be mentioned.
"Packers Tickets Sport a Makeover"
Movie Catagories
Neppie inspired me to list a few "best" movies to supplement my list below.
Best Drama: Citizen Kane--Kane is so complex. You love, hate, pity, and want to be him all at the same time.
Best Comedy: Ghostbusters--It has my favorite line, "Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!"
Best Movie I Should Have Never Seen: Mr. Smith Goes To Washington--I was waiting months to rent this and had my hopes up. It was ok, but too hokey. Maybe I just don't appreciate Jimmy Stewart as much as I should.
Best Sci-Fi Movie: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back--This has all the action, laser blasts, flying, and explosions a kid (or kid at heart) could want.
Best Non-Sci-Fi Action Movie: Die Hard--John McClane didn't really stand a chance against a bunch of terrorists-turned-thiefs, but he killed them all off and looked good doing it. Just fast forward the scene where he's pulling the glass pieces out of his feet. Ick!
Best Western: Unforgiven--I don't like the genre, but this movie kind of stands out. I know it's not much of a defense.
Best Sports Movie: Bull Durham--Funny, sexy and passionate about baseball.
Best Really Long Movie (3+ hours): Giant--The canvas director George Stevens paints on is huge cinamatically and temporally. The story intertwines economics, racism, and love. James Dean also steals the show.
I have to call it a night, but I want more catagories. Offer one up (give me some strange ones), and I'll see if I can come up with a movie.
Sign Up for BloggerCon
To get an invitation to BloggerCon sign up here and get the bulletins. I plan on being there, will you?
On a technical note: I want w.bloggar to have a trackback feature. Right now, I'm pasting the trackback URL into my post and fixing it in MT, but sometimes (as in this case if you caught it) I forget.
More PAM Support
James Pethokoukis provides some real examples of event markets at work. He also takes a great shot at Sen. Clinton (D-NY) the Queen of Futures Markets in the Senate.
"Futures Shock"
French Biffed It
A French citizen was being held by Colombian rebels. Here's what the French did:
A Hercules C-130 transporter landed in Manaus, the closest large Brazilian city to the Colombian border, but Brazil ordered it out, saying France had given no warning over the mission's nature.
But here's the kicker:
Ms Betancourt was not freed and the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) group, which has been holding her for more than a year, denied it was intending to free her.
And now France had to apologize to Brazil. No wonder the French oppose unilateralism, they can't do it right themselves.
"France Apologises Over Rescue Bid" [via InstaPundit]
Best Movies
For full disclosure, here are my picks for the best movies of all time (in no particular order) as given to John Hawkins for his list:
- Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
- On the Waterfront
- Citizen Kane
- Ghostbusters
- North by Northwest
- The Wizard of Oz
- Memento
- Bull Durham
- The Natural
- Schindler's List
- Fantasia
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Die Hard
- 12 Angry Men
- Blazing Saddles
- Airplane!
- It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
- Caddyshack
- Dead Poets Society
- Jerry Maguire
I have to second Michele's comment that "Those of you who rank Star Wars: A New Hope above ESB are just plain old crazy."
I will now open it up to my audience of three: me, myself, and wandering flake looking for Ann Coulter porn. (My, was that a bit of Google-whoring?)
Sociobiological Stories
Kate also links to a story on a surgeon who has come up with some stories for why color-blindness, left-handedness, and homosexuality are characteristics still present in some members of the human race.
A problem with these sociobiological stories are simply that they are only stories. At least in the small article Dr. Leonard Shlain offers no evidence that his stories are the explanation for those traits. Give me a little time and I can come up with stories that are just a plausible and differ significantly from Dr. Shlain's. What's his plan to prove his stories are true? It might be found in his book Sex, Time, and Power.
"Being A Color-Blind, Bald, Left-Handed Homosexual Man Has Evolutionary Benefits"
WMD in Iraq
Kate is confident that WMD will be found in Iraq:
After the flak after Colin Powell's speech to the U.N. in February, and all of the false-positives on various items discovered since the start of the war, I have no doubt that any case presented to the world will be iron-clad. My guess is that we'll not only have located the actual weapons and tested them, but we'll have pulled in quite a few intelligence agencies from other countries to perform their own verifications; we'll have videotaped and written statements by Iraqi scientists and military leaders; we'll have photos, sat photos, maps, charts, graphs, and every other piece of documentary evidence that you can imagine.And the anti-war folks still won't believe a word of it.
She's absolutely right on her last post.
"Don't Be Surprised"
Webloggers Pick Movies
Right Wing News, the VH1 of the Blogosphere, has posted the Greatest Movies of All Time. Being the Internet, Star Wars got the top spot.
"Bloggers Select The 15 Greatest Movies Of All-Time"
July 30, 2003
Webloggers League
The fantasy football league is half-way filled. There are still 5 spots remaining. Go here for the vital info.
For those of you who have joined and noticed some weird line-ups, that was just me not thinking clearly when I set up the league. If you have any concerns leave a comment or e-mail me.
Price Must Equal Costs, But What Costs?
James DeLong writes on how the idea of marginal costs have been taken from their theoretical context and distorted as weapons in policy debates. Here's a key paragraph:
The axiom "prices must equal marginal cost" does not tell you whether the relevant time dimension is a decade, a year, or an hour, which makes it into a meaningless statement. So to set up an identity between marginal cost and price, without a tight specification of the assumptions about time, or to assume that short-term marginal cost is the ticket, produces nonsense.
"Marginalized" [via PrestoPundit]
Quote of the Day
Saddam Hussein is no longer bad news. He's a piece of trash waiting to be collected.--Colin Powell
"Powell: Saddam Is 'Piece of Trash' to Be Collected" [via PoliBlog]
Name Wasn't PAM's Problem
Let me respond to James Joyner's critique of PAM:
Indeed. But this is yet another case (TIPS being the most obvious previous example) of a potentially useful program being killed because the geniuses behind it decided to play cloak and dagger with it rather than being up front. Had they approached it differently--and come up with a better name--they might have headed off the objections at the pass.
What better name could they have come up with? It was a futures market for terrorist events. The name was the marketing problem--Policy Analysis Market is pretty innocuous. No, the government should have made an attempt to argue PAM's benefits. After a day of reading weblogs, officials could have put together a few good talking points.
Raimondo Sees No Distinctions
Justin Raimondo compares Israel's building of wall between itself and Palestine with the Soviet's building the Berlin Wall, then goes on to compare Israeli actions to defend itself against terrorists with Nazi efforts to wipe out Jews. Disgusting.
"Mr. Sharon, Tear Down that Wall!" [via Liberty & Power]
Weird Recall Ruling
This judge's ruling, like many from the Left Coast, makes no sense. U.S. District Judge Barry Moskowitz ruled that voters can choose the successor to Gov. Gray Davis even if they don't vote on whether he should be recalled. This judge is allowing people who can't make a simple yes/no decision to choose the next governor. If you don't know if Davis should be kicked out of office how would you know who would make the best successor? It also doesn't make sense for someone who doesn't want Davis recalled to pick his replacement. This is goofy and could only happen in California.
And how did this become a federal case? How was this unconstitutional?
"Federal Judge Strikes Down Portion of State's Recall Law"
Defending PAM
Noah Shachtman has a story on PAM defenders. There are plenty of examples in it where markets are pretty good predictors. Noah's weblog also has links to other PAM stories [here and here]. What really caught my eye are links to markets predicting future homeland security alerts and the extend and duration of SARS outbreaks. Does Sen. Wyden (D-OR) think this is "grotesque?"
For some academic thinking into events markets, Robin Hanson has a page with links to his own research as well as other documents.
"The Case for Terrorism Futures"
One Cool Mag
The NY Times Book Review reviewed Gary Wolf's Wired. David Carr writes that the book isn't so much a romance as the subtitle states as a "theological autopsy of a religion that flourished and went away in less than a decade."
"Wired: The Coolest Magazine on the Planet"
10 Worst Songs
Dylan Wilbanks, Mark Hasty, and James Joyner are yapping about really, really bad songs. Here's my list of the 10 worst:
- "Kokomo" by The Beach Boys--This song is a farce of themselves.
- "Faith" by Limp Bizkit--How could this song make this band stars? Fred Durst sounds like he's wetting the bed while singing. Then he starts screaming like his mother just found out.
- "Radioactive" by The Firm--Jimmy Page wasn't playing his standard rock blues. He was playing some warbbling, annoying instrument that looked like a guitar.
- "I'll Never Let You Go" by Steelheart--The laws of physics prevent any man's voice from getting that high. And the singer looked like a Barbie doll.
- "Could've Been" by Tiffany--Sweet, sugary, sappy, and bad.
- "Kernkraft 400" by Zombie Nation--That cheesy synth line drills through your skull. And they play it all the time at Packers games to make the locals feel a little hip.
- "Mony Mony" by Billy Idol--He tried to turn this into a dance punk song and had it end becoming a lame fist-pumping anthem we're stuck with on 80s compilaiton albums.
- "Here I Go Again" (slow version) by Whitesnake--There were two versions of this song. The one I truly hate is the slow, quiet version that took all the heavy riffs out of the original. It was just a plain, vanilla ballad, not even a power ballad.
- "When I See You Smile" by Bad English--This song was a prom staple. Typical hair metal power ballad except this was even sappier. I liked the band, but fast-forwarded past this song every chance I got.
- "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips--Sugary, lightweight, and completely lacking in substance. At least the red head was cute.
---
UPDATE: I forgot to mention THE worst song I have ever heard. Even if I think about it I cringe. That song would be Styx's "Mr. Roboto." It's bad Queen, bad Broadway, and has insipid lyrics. So that means I have 11 worst songs.
Weird Dream
Michele's post makes me glad I don't remember my dreams.
"This One Time, at Blogger Camp..."
Terrorism Market
An electronic market where traders would buy and sell futures on economic, civil, and military events was a great idea. Too bad the Pentagon caved in to some Congressional pressure.
The premise was to use markets to gather dispersed information into a form policy makers and strategists could use to base their anti-terrorism plans. Sounds goofy? How could millions of people possibly know if Jordan's monarchy was about to fall in a coup? Participants in the market would presumably read newspapers, books, websites, watch television, or even talk with people who have insider information. With the explosion of media sources no one person can possibly read and listen to everything. People will following little snippets of the whole story. The market comes in to give people an incentive to make their educated guesses profitable. If there were rumblings within the Palestinian Authority, Policy Analysis Market (PAM) activity in an Arafat assassination future could catch policy makers' attention. Just like CNBC reports talk to corporate officials when their stocks make unexpected moves, officials and the media would get curious over futures activity.
F.A. Hayek wrote on how the market allows dispersed information to be used to generate economic activity. PAM would have served a similar role in terrorism analysis. Hayek writes on the economy, but it can be applied in our current situation:
The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequesntly contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess.
In a press release, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said, "We need to focus our resources on responsible intelligence gathering, on real terrorist threats." That is what PAM would have done. With the enourmous quantity of data flooding our intelligence agencies officials need some way to distill it. Supercomputers and lots of human analysts are one way, and using dispersed knowledge and the profit motive is another.
Should U.S. policy be determined only by the results of an events market? No, what PAM could have offered was an innovative mechanism for evaluating global threats. Since humans operate in markets and they're fallible market information won't be perfect. What PAM would have done process information human eyes might never see.
How an events market can guide policy makers toward the correct decisions is explained by Hayek:
The most significant fact about this system [the market] is the economy of knowledge with which it operates, or how little the individual participants need to know in order to be able to take the right action. In abbreviated form, by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on and passed on only to those concerned. It is more than a metaphor to describe the price system as a kind of machinery for registering change, or a system of telecommunications which enables individual producers to watch merely the movement of a few pointers, as an engineer might watch the hands of a few dials, in order ot adjust their activities to changes of which they may never know more than is reflected in the price movement.
"Real intelligence" is knowing what's going to happen in the future. PAM would have helped.
Democrats and Bush bashers went ga-ga over PAM. Kris Lofgren's freaking out. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) called the events market idea "wasteful" and "repugnant."
Since people already profit off weather futures and Presidential elections a terrorist events market doesn't seem that bizarre. But it does to people who don't appreciate the information-gathering abilities of markets.
Wyden and Dorgan won. The PAM website is down and with it went an innovative way to predict future crises.
"Pentagon Scraps Terror Futures Market"
---
Not surprisingly, Glenn Reynolds posted on this hours ago and has a bunch of updates. Then there is Matthew's post at A Fearful Symmetry.
Ronald Bailey thinks the market was a good idea. He points out that Tradesports.com already runs an "events market" like PAM.
---
UPDATE: Tyler Cowen compares PAM to Las Vegas odds-makers.
---
UPDATE II: John Cole at Balloon Juice calls the PAM cave-in "disgusting."
Dark Continent
AfricaBlog has a laudable goal:
The goal is to create a site that focuses on the challenges faced by the West in developing policies that help lift the continent of Africa out of the political and economic strife that has plagued the continent.
There's already a discussion on some of the root causes for Africa's political economic problems. It will be interesting to see what's posted.
[via Jay Solo]
July 29, 2003
Bring It On!
ScrappleFace's post on airline commuters telling terrorists to "Bring it on!" is funny but also true. Passengers won't sit quietly if their plane gets hijacked. They'll fight back because a possible alternative is certain death. If the Pentagon wouldn't have wimped out on their terrorist futures market, I'd have recommended shorting September 11-style attacks.
"Airline Passenger to Al Qaeda: 'Bring it On'"
A Director is Born
"Ode to Rachel Corrie" is an original web movie by Michelle.
Fantasy Football Options
Fantasy football players have plenty of options for Internet leagues. Here are some well-known options:
- NFL.com only charges $14.95 for the first team and $7.95 for each additional team. Great deal.
- ESPN.com charges $29.95 for one team, $49.95 for three teams, and $69.95 for five teams.
- CBS SportsLine.com is more expensive. They charge $39.95 for the first team and $29.95 for additional teams. You can pay even more money to play for bigger prizes. NFL.com and ESPN.com don't offer league prizes. SportsLine.com does power NFL.com's game, so I'd go for that one if you don't care about cash prizes and want good value.
- Yahoo lets you field one free team. They also offer Fantasy Football Plus. One team costs $24.95, two costs $37.50, and a whole league costs $124.95. When you buy a FFP team you get access to StatTracker which is Yahoo's real-time stats service.
- And there is the free Webloggers league.
I've compared these services solely on price. Most of my experience has been with ESPN.com and Yahoo so I can say anything on how nice SportsLine.com is.
Bum for Governor
OTB links to a story on some of the people running for California governor. The entrance fee is pretty low. You only need 65 signatures and $3500 or 10,000 signatures and no cash. That's not a lot, but how can "Homeless Navy vet Jerry Morissette (I) -- the adopted caretaker of an I-280 highway rest stop garden" afford to enter? If he has $3500 why is he homeless unless he chooses to be? Or will he harass thousands of people who come to his rest stop to sign his petition? Will he threaten to breathe on people if they don't sign?
This is turning into a British election with every Tom, Dick, and Harry jumping in the race.
Kudos
Thanks to Firefive for putting TAM on his blogroll.
Fantasy Football
Only 21 days until Webloggers draft day. Only three teams have signed up so there's plenty of room left. Just go to Yahoo's page and register. Here's the league info:
- League: Webloggers
- League ID#: 206845
- Password: 2003nfl
- Draft Type: Live
- Draft Time: Aug 20, 3:25 pm CDT
- Scoring Type: Head-to-Head
The draft is at an odd time of the day. If you can't make the live one, you can still play. Just fill out your player rankings and they'll be automatically picked (if still available).
New Bonfire
Attention, attention! The newest Bonfire of the Vanities is up. There are lots of bad yet funny posts. Just please ignore mine about the purple bear.
GenCon Coverage
When GenCon moved from Milwaukee to Indianapolis, the news coverage moved with it. Instead of the special section the Journal Sentinel use to give before the convention started, they're now down to one story printed after the con ended.
By the way, doesn't Stanley Miller II look a lot like Oliver Willis?
"High-Tech Fantasy Enchants Traditional Gamers"
Messed Up Priorities
California is suffering the worst budget crisis in its history. It's gotten so bad, voters will decide if they want to recall their governor this fall. While all this is happening, the legislature is poised to heavily regulate phone companies. Poor phone service is the last of California's problems right now.
In a Weekly Standard interview (sorry, not online) Dennis Miller said California was turning into Sweden. This "Bill of Rights" certainly demonstrates that.
"Telcos Scowl at 'Bill of Rights'"
TAM: Readers' Blog
Oscar Jr. has confirmed my suspicion that TAM is a "readers blog" as opposed to a "bloggers blog." According to his analysis, TAM gets "47 more visits per day than would be predicted giving the number of inbound links to, and the age of, your site." I noted in a comment on his site that on most days TAM's biggest referrer is bookmarks. That piece of information backs up Oscar's analysis.
The easiest conclusion I can come to is my audience contains many people who don't have weblogs of their own. If they did then TAM would have more links and fewer bookmark referrers. My audience either doesn't have time to write to their own weblog or just use TAM as part of their daily info fix.
Why TAM draws readers and not webloggers, I don't know. Any ideas from the peanut gallery?
Fisking Tom Tomorrow
Radley Balko rips apart a cartoon on libertarian ideas. Great effort.
July 28, 2003
Bob Hope R.I.P.
Bob Hope died today. He was 100. Since I wrote a little on him when he turned 100 a few months ago, I'll just quote myself:
Today's Bob Hope's birthday. Many thanks should go to a very funny man who devoted so much time to entertaining our soldiers here and abroad. One World War II veteran wrote to him, "We are grateful we had someone who cared enough to come to the danger zones. You deserve to be an honorary veteran."One complaint about Hope was that he didn't write his own jokes. But writing jokes isn't enough for great comedy. All of us think of funny things to say, but few of us can find that right moment with just that bit of timing needed to get others laughing. Hope had that. If we should complain about Hope not writing jokes, we should complain about Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O'Brian, and every cast member of Saturday Night Live. All of them use lines written by others, yet we still consider them comedians.
But the worst I've found said about Hope is that his comedy supported the status quo. John Lahr, who wrote a profile in The New Yorker a few years ago told The Boston Globe, "Anyone worthy of the title `comedian' thinks against the culture. Comedy is not about sniffing the hem of power, yet Hope used laughter to reinforce the forces of power." For Lahr, comedy--even culture in general--should only be used as a bulwark against the mainstream. It's only purpose is to challenge authority.
But that's not the case. People don't seek out funny people because comedians are rebels. They seek out comedy because they want to be entertained; they seek an escape from the tedium of their regular lives. Many comedians do use satire and sarcasm to point out the obsurdities of the world around us. Through that, they are making social statements, but that's not the reason we like them. We like them because they're funny, and Bob Hope was one of the funniest even if he was part of the status quo.
Unlike celebrities today, you would never, ever catch Bob bashing the military or his country. Happy birthday to a real patriot.
Godspeed, Bob.
"Entertainer Bob Hope Dies at 100"
Vote for the Gipper
Reagan is still leading the Toypresidents voting. Keep it up. Vote, vote, vote!
RWN
John Hawkins has redesigned Right Wing News (lots of red, white, and blue) and got lots of good media.
Fantasy Football League
Attention football fanatics! I challenge readers and fellow webloggers to a season of frantic, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, and, at times, hilarious fantasy football. For those of you who don't know the game, it doesn't involve Hooters' girls putting on pads every weekend. It's a simple, yet sophisticated game of drafting players, picking a line-up each week, and hoping the Metrodome's astroturf doesn't tear up your star running back's knee. There is a total of 10 teams in the league, so space is limited. To join, go to Yahoo! Fantasy Football and register. Here's the info for the Webloggers League:
- League: Webloggers
- League ID#: 206845
- Password: 2003nfl
- Draft Type: Live
- Draft Time: Aug 20, 3:25 pm CDT
- Scoring Type: Head-to-Head
If space runs out and there are people interested in joining a league, I'd consider joining an ESPN or Sportsline league.
Going to California
Sharp legal minds are needed to determine the residency requirements to run for California governor. Here's what I have from Rich Galen:
The California constitution requires five years of residency to be Governor but a footnote says "it is the opinion of [the office of the California Secretary of State] that this provision violates the U.S. Constitution."
If the Secretary of State is right, then forget 2008 and let's get Glenn on the ballot in California. If he won, I'd take some boring highway commission post just to post on all the corruption and waste taking place.
Loss
Wish Kevin and his family God's blessings during this hard time.
July 27, 2003
Seabiscuit
My sister saw Seabiscuit and loved it. It's her "favorite movie of all time." She also wants me to get the book for her. There might be a few left at my store. It's been selling very well.
"Seabiscuit Overtakes Hard Times, Sprints Home"
Blogathon Recap
Michele is "too old for this shit," but you know she'll do it again next year.
Laurence wins the TAM Dedication Award. He weblogged for 24 hours straight and goes to work at a new job tomorrow. You're co-workers will just love your Monday morning demeanor.
Joni listed her food and drink consumption for the past day. You know you're desparate for posting material if you're down to that.
And speaking of desparate, Kevin was desparate enough to post a lesbian picture. When all else fails, think with the groin.
Good job all. You survived and lived to post about it.
Double Dipping
If Maryland school were actually businesses (and not just "run like businesses") there would be a few bankrupt ones. Why? Because they're paying teachers $110,000 to teach phy ed. For that kind of money, there shouldn't be any obese kids at that school.
"$110,000 to Teach Phys Ed"
Bucks Coach Candidates
For the three people who read this that care about the Milwaukee Bucks, here are some rumored replacements for George Karl's job:
On the early list of candidates for the Bucks job is Hawks interim coach (and former Milwaukee assistant) Terry Stotts, whose falling out with former Bucks coach George Karl remains a mystery. Other possibilities are Pistons assistant Mike Woodson, Kings assistant Terry Porter, Suns assistant Marc Iavaroni and Bucks assistant Sam Mitchell. Milwaukee would like a coach who can identify with and grow with its young roster.
Of those listed, I like either Stotts or Porter. Stotts is a well-respected up-and-comer while Porter has local connections and his court savy could fare well with a young team.
"Inside Dish: Hawks Shed No Tears over Robinson's Departure"
Ambassador to France
I've been nominated for Ambassador to France. I'm honored. If Glenn's elected and the Senate confirms me I'll do my best to bug the hell out of them while sampling as much of the fine cuisine the French would offer to butter me up (and they are French so lots of butter would be used). I would give lots of pro-Israel speeches at synagogues and help pro-democracy Iranian dissidents. I would also visit lots of American institutions like McDonalds and Euro Disney. Finally, I'd try to get Paris a NFL Europe team.
Blogathon Update
After about 10 hours away from the computer it's time to check on our Internet money-making friends.
From these cam shots I'll be nice and say most of them look like hell.
Kevin has pleasantly forced me to listen to cool 80s tunes.
You know Laurence has been up way too long when he's publically fantasizing about ACME products.
Michelle was desparate for material so she told us her dream about a member of Slayer.
Last, but not least, Joni posted on her cat whisker collection.
Keep it up guys. You don't have that much longer to go. What am I saying? You guys have HOURS TO GO!!! Are those eyes getting heavy? I promise not to dream about you when I'm catching my Z's. Good night.
July 26, 2003
Blogathon is Go
The Blogathon is underway. Go comment, e-mail, harass, or just laugh at Michelle, Kevin, Joni, and Laurence.
America's Defining Events
Kate got all hacked off at John Hawkins' greatest Americans list so she decided to put together a list of her own: the 50 Most Defining Events In American History. When I think of "defining" I look at events that have caused important trends--both good and bad. Here are some events just off the top of my head.
- The Delcaration of Independence--The even that started it all.
- The Battle of Gettysburg--The Confederacy's last real chance of leaving the Union. Led ultimately to Black emancipation.
- Publishing of the Federalist Papers--The best defense of constitutional ideas.
- The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor--Unleashed the "Sleeping Tiger" that dominates the world.
- Marbury v. Madison--The ruling gave the judicial branch real power for both good and bad.
- The Great Depression--We're still dealing with government programs designed in that era. Plus created the ethos that the government is the solution to problems.
- Creation of the Federal Reserve--A cause of the Great Depression, but also led to America's financial dominance.
- The fall of the Berlin Wall--One superpower fell while a "hyperpower" was born.
- The Monroe Doctrine--America's diplomatic Declaration of Independence.
- Roe v. Wade--The Culture of Death became federal law.
- The Seneca Falls Declaration--Led to women's sufferage and modern feminism.
BloggerCon
BloggerCon is scheduled for 10.04. Nice date, since that is my birthday. Maybe a trip to Cambridge would be a nice present to myself. Seeing Glenn Reynolds in the flesh is reason enough.
Legal Downloads on Campus
Finally, Big Music is looking for some model beyond selling CDs. The industry is talking to colleges about legal media downloading services that would be similar to cable television. This won't stop the lawsuits because legal downloads would still leak out onto illegal file-trading systems.
"RIAA, Colleges Seek Piracy Fix"
July 25, 2003
Call Me Darth Sean
If some psychologists think conservatives are evil (i.e. the Sith) where do I pick up my double-bladed lightsaber?
Toypresidents Update
The Gipper has passed Slick Willy in the action figure vote. Let's keep it up. Vote, vote vote!
Thanks to resurrectionsong for the link.
July 24, 2003
Purple Bear
No, you're not tripping on some bad batch of acid. The picture is real. Give him a green tummy and we'd have a living, breathing Barney. Scary.
"Medication Turns Polar Bear Bright Purple" [via RWN]
Duck Wins Nomination
At least that's what Hugh Hewitt predicts:
John Hawkins: In a related question to that, who do you see coming out of the primaries for the Democrats in 2004?Hugh Hewitt: I think it's going to be Howard Dean and I believe it's because of his unique appeal to the unhinged element within the Democratic Party which is large in the primaries. Dean's appeal is his pugnaciousness and the primary voters see reflected in him, their own sense of having been blocked out of every branch of government and their rage at George W. Bush's success. They're doing self-destructive things and the ultimate self-destructive thing is the nomination of Howard Dean and so I expect it.
John Hawkins: He does seem to be the only guy who is producing any energy right now.
Hugh Hewitt: The field poll in California should put to rest any doubts about that. He has moved from the middle of the pack to the top of the pack, he bled Lieberman and Gephardt significantly, Edwards is mired in the sand and anyone with charisma beats John Kerry. You can't listen to John Kerry for six months. I do believe that absent an extraordinary gaffe he'll be the nominee. He's playing to the rage of the Democratic, Democratic, Democratic wing...
John Hawkins: Let's say Dean comes out of the primaries. How do you think he does against Bush?
Hugh Hewitt: We'll win 45 states.
John Hawkins: Yeah, I think we'd kill him too. The war would be front and center if Dean were to win the nomination.
Hugh Hewitt: He is the only candidate who I think would create the clearest choice since McGovern/Nixon. All the other candidates have some capacity to cloud the real choice, but Dean will make the choice very clear between national security and becoming part of Europe (laughs). You know what? We don't want to become part of Europe (laughs).
There's plenty of other good stuff in John Hawkins' interview with Hewitt. Read it all.
Indiana-8
Rich Galen has a great story on a re-count way back in 1984 that led to the GOP take over in 1994 and the political hardball of the 2000 Florida re-count.
"The Thomas-Crowd Affair"
Football Weblog
After reading this Wired News story I did a quick Google search for fantasy football weblogs and came up with one that hasn't been updated since last year. This is a niche that could garner a lot of traffic. If there is any interest I'd be willing to start up a group weblog on my server. Just leave a comment or send me an e-mail.
"Divvying Up the Pigskin Pie"
Bush Action Figure
President Bush now has his very own action figure. Not bad, but it should have had him in his flight suit.
The company is taking votes for their next figure. Right now, Bill Clinton is leading. He can't win. We don't need a toy that bites his lip along with female victim's. Would there be a cigar accessory along with it? Vote early, vote often and do your part to make sure Clinton doesn't win.
What Toypresidents should come out with are X-Presidents action figures.
We'll Be Korea Soon
For a glimpse of what a truly wired America will look like, there's this Forbes.com article on South Korea where 70% of homes have broadband connections.
"Korea's Weird Wired World"
A Google Browser?
Anil Dash on Mozilla and Google's new business focus:
Since Google's all but announced that they're no longer "just search", I'd probably amend my qualms about lack of focus and say that if Google wants to own the entire area of information innovation, they need to be significant contributors to the evolution of Mozilla.Firebird is, finally, a usable browser, and damn close to the being the best in the world, if it isn't already. Google's shown the ability to get an installable client onto millions of desktops around the world. And they have a user experience focus that would nicely shore up the critical weakness that's dogged Mozilla from day one. If the goal is now organizing and presenting information instead of just being the best search engine, then a browser client focused on information retrieval, search, and management is a great first step. And I'd give them better than even odds at being able to grow that application into a full microcontent client if they were so inclined.
What would be the business model? My mind tells me that a free, open-source browser with built-in hooks to Google services and APIs would be good enough to push increased usage of Google's revenue-generating services and advertising. Microsoft has publicly conceded that they're going for Google's market, and Yahoo threw more than a billion and a half dollars at the Google problem earlier this week. Against those challenges, I'd say the onus is on Google to embrace and extend with a free product that's better than anything the competition can offer: That's what works.
So, a Google browser, based on Mozilla. An easily-justified commitment to cross-platform support and outstanding user experience, based on Google's history of honoring those tenets and the Mozilla organization's inherent preference for them. Culturally, hiring the core members of the Mozilla dev team would be an extraordinarily easy fit. And, frankly, it'd probably require little more development resources, bandwidth, or staffing than the Pyra acquisition did.
I'd pay $500 for a Google-branded microcontent management platform based on the Mozilla core if it were scriptable, stable, and integrated API-neutral blogging and aggregation tools. Or I'd pay $150 annually. So, Google, are you guys game for taking your position as a platform vendor seriously?
A browser hooked into Google sounds good. But imagine if Microsoft did something like this? There would be screaming from geeks across the globe. We would here stuff like, "That monopolist is using their brower monopoly to extend it to their other businesses. Gates must be stopped! Call your Congressman! Elliot Spitzer, file a lawsuit!" Yet that's what Anil suggests Google do.
If Google went down this path, I'd have no problem with it, just like I'd have no problem with MS doing something similar. There isn't a browser monopoly. Many different products are available and anyone can learn a programming language and write their own browser. I'll just keep this post tucked away for the next time MS does something "monopolistic."
July 23, 2003
Kobe Sickos
So, if you post some stuff about Kobe Bryant's rape case you get a flood of trolls. It's been said that any publicity is good publicity, but on the Web any traffic isn't necessarily good traffic.
"Your Search Cannot be Completed"
Only When a Democrat is President
The Washington Times reminds us that Sen. John F. Kerry's Iraq War complaints are nothing more than Presidential politicking:
But let's revisit Nov. 17, 1997, when nobody else in Washington except the Inside the Beltway column led with an item headlined, "Finish the mission.""Debate on whether to take out Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi strongman, is over as far as one Democratic senator is concerned," or so we had written.
"Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts is calling for a 'strong' military attack in response to the Iraqi leader's 'horrific objective of amassing a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.' "
Weapons of mass destruction? That's what Mr. Kerry called them.
"As the senator points out, military might is the only language Saddam knows — and fears. 'Saddam Hussein should pay a grave price, in a currency that he understands and values, for his unacceptable behavior,' says Mr. Kerry. 'This should not be a strike consisting only of a handful of cruise missiles hitting isolated targets primarily of presumed symbolic value. But how long this military action might continue and how it may escalate ... and how extensive it would reach are for the [White House National] Security Council and our allies to know and for Saddam Hussein to find out!' "
[via Drudge]
Saddam's Invite
Laurence has posted an invitation to the world's second-most-wanted man:
OPEN LETTER TO SADDAM HUSSEIN:Darling Saddam,
Feel free to camp out at my home anytime. Sure, it's just basic cable, but we've got a lot of the same movies that you had in one of those palaces (the nice ones, not the porn ones from Uday's stash). I'll even get the wife and cats out of your way. Just make yourself at home, have anything in the fridge (Miller Lite and Coors Light, your favorites!), and make all the long distance calls you need.
Oh, and I'll even toss in a trip to my dentist. Don't worry about the insurance and that garbage... it'll be my treat.
Signed,
Laurence Simon
Blogathon Entrants
There's still a few days left until Blogathon 2003. Sadly, TAM will not be participating. I'll be earning money to fix the AC in my new (used) car. It was a steal so I have no problem putting a little money into it.
As a show of solidarity here are a few webloggers who will be posting 24-hours straight for some good causes:
- Michelle at a small victory
- Kevin at Wizbang
- Joni at JoniElectric.com
- Laurence at Amish Tech Support
Support them. Them's good people, and none of them are posting for some lame Lefty cause.
We Shouldn't Have Killed Them
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) sounds like he prefered that Uday and Qusay Hussein, two of Iraq's chief brutalizers were still alive. Instead of praising the work of U.S. troops on vanquishing those evil men, Rangel mocked them by saying, "I personally don't get any satisfaction that it takes 200,000 troops, 250,000 troops, to knock off two bums." At least he had enough moral sense to call Uday and Qusay "bums."
In Iraq, instead of indignation, there was jubilation.
As word spread of the deaths of the feared and ruthless brothers, celebratory gunfire crackled across night-time Baghdad.
"Rangel: U.S. Acted Illegally in Killing Uday and Qusay" [via Betsy's Page]
"Saddam's Sons Killed in U.S. Raid, Iraqis Rejoice" [via Right We Are!]
UPDATE: It's informative to write an article on how the U.S. has been ignoring the (stupid) ban on political assassination; but George Gedda makes it look like the U.S. were the bad guys here. Remember, we didn't start this war, and I have little sympathy for the deaths of those two tyrants.
"Odai, Qusai Deaths Go Against U.S. Ban" [via Drudge]
Teapot Dome
Somehow Teapot Dome came up in a conversation with a friend last night. So, as a service to you, I offer this brief article on the Watergate of the 1920s, Teapot Dome. Politics, bribery, scandal, and Congressional investigations--and it didn't involve the Clintons.
"Teapot Dome"
July 22, 2003
Michelle's a Packers Fan
Michelle has the best Packers story I've ever read in the Blogosphere. Why she hasn't been on it before I don't know, but she's earned her way onto my blogroll.
"Answering Steve's Burning Question: Why do I Root for the Packers?"
BuyMusic.com Review
My music tastes are a bit out of the mainstream. So if I could find some stuff I wanted the selection should be enough for the average Joe. I looked up King's X. Great, there were six albums listed. Not bad since their other albums are through independent labels. I clicked on Faith, Hope, Love and discovered I could almost download the entire album. All the songs are available except "Faith, Hope, Love." For the Gretchen Goes To Nebraska album two songs can't be downloaded. I'm guessing BuyMusic.com couldn't get all the proper permissions from artists, companies, and songwriters for every song, and that's why it's unavailable.
Then there are the restrictions. Some albums and songs only allow a limited number of downloads, transfers to music players, and CD burns, while others allow you unlimited transfers and burns. Rush's greatest hits collection Chronicles lets you have unlimited transfers and burns. That's great, but even better is the price. For only $9.99 you get 28 songs. If you went to a store, you could easily pay twice as much. So without having to hunt through used music shops or wait for your used copy you bought through Half.com to arrive, you can be listening to Rush's greatest hits.
A way around the burning restriction (if the song has any) is to burn the song onto a CD then rip it back onto your computer as an MP3. I can't think of a reason why that wouldn't work.
You also have to use Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player 9. If you don't like that, you'll have to wait until iTunes comes to the PC.
BuyMusic.com also has some quirkiness. You can download U2's Wide Awake In America for $9.99, or you can download the four individual tracks for $0.99 each. And I can't believe they really are selling a KISS 4-CD box set for only $9.99. If I'm wrong, my cable modem will get quite a workout tonight.
What isn't available? There's no Janet Jackson, but there is Michael Jackson (not all songs off Thriller are available). No Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or the Rolling Stones, but there's plenty of Elvis. There's a lack of dance/electronica music. Showing no catagory tipped me off, but I did some searches anyway. There's nothing from the Chemical Brothers, John Digweed, Prodigy, or Sasha; and only a anthology from Moby.
BuyMusic.com has a service that looks to be a serious alternative to illegal music downloading.
For some other opinions, there's a discussion at Metafilter and links from PaidContent.org.
---
In a related story, Michael Jackson doesn't want online music pirates to go to jail. Let's see, would we be better off filling jails with Kazaa users or with real threats to society?
"Pop Icon Michael Jackson Comes out Against Locking up Music Pirates"
UPDATE: Some more opinions on BuyMusic.com from tingilinde and Damien.
News Aggregators
I'm looking for suggestions on news aggregators. Feedreader is ok, but it's alpha software with lots of eccentricities. I'd think about Sharpreader but I'd have to download the .NET framework. I don't want to do that if it will end up messing up my pretty stable OS (Win ME).
Bonfire of the Vanities
The latest Bonfire is up. More of the best of the worst in the Blogosphere. TAM's lame entry involves a desparate plea for attention.
My vote for the worst is Pietro's link to the workings of German toilets. After reading it I may never visit the country.
John Forgets Packers
John at Right Wing News listed his top athletes. There isn't a single Green Bay Packer on the list. Shame, shame. Here are some suggestions:
- Don Hudson--He still holds receiving records.
- Brett Favre--Ironman quarterback who can make magic with a football.
- Bart Starr--Incomparable leadership and talent for a 15th round pick.
- Forest Gregg--Vince Lombardi called his the greatest player he ever coached.
- Reggie White--Greatest defensive end in NFL history.
Dingell vs. Connerly
Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) sure got snippy at Ward Connerly for having the audacity to promote a colorblind society in Michigan. In a letter to Connerly, Dingell called Connerly's efforts "ignorant meddling in our affairs." Also, Connerly's "brand of divisive racial politics has no place in Michigan, or in our society." Odd since he's calling for Michigan to end racial preferences. Here's a killer line from Connerly's response:
Ironically, your advice is the echo of southern segregationists who sought the comfort of states' rights to practice their discrimination against black Americans. Have you learned nothing about "civil rights" from that horrible chapter in our nation's history?
"Dear Congressman John" [via Hoystory.com]
"Taking It to Michigan"
BuyMusic.com
BuyMusic.com wants to be the iTunes for the PC. If this works as well as iTunes does, this could be a winner. The price sure is right: $0.70 a song. Since the company couldn't get uniform licensing deals with Big Music like Apple could there will be different restrictions on different songs.
As of this moment it isn't up yet, but later today I'll see what this service has to offer.
"New Music Download Service Launches"
Studio Security
With music being made with computers and the ease of releasing stuff on file sharing networks, studios are employing new security methods to keep working projects from leaking out to the public.
"Web Music Leaks Spur Studio Clampdown"
July 21, 2003
Greatest Americans II
When readers ask, TAM delivers...sometimes. The Eye asked for my picks of the greatest Americans. Well, here they are:
- Ronald Reagan
- George Washington
- James Madison
- William F. Buckley
- Thomas Jefferson
- John Adams
- Abraham Lincoln
- Alexander Hamilton
- Milton Friedman
- Jackie Robinson
- Vince Lombardi
DMN Weblog
Rob Dreher, formerly of National Review is now posting at the Dallas Morning News' new editorial weblog.
Greatest Americans
John at Right Wing News certainly can conjure up hooks to get everyone to read his weblog. His latest is sure to climb the charts of blogdex and Daypop. [Have I just made the first blogospheric comparison of those two indexes with the music charts? Probably not. The chattering of a few million people in the Web makes a truly original idea rare.] The list of the greatest figures in American history is pretty good. With the voters being mostly webloggers of the Right (including me), it's not a surprise that Ronald Reagan tied with Thomas Jefferson for first. My only serious qualm is with Teddy Roosevelt. He was a big government Republican (later Progressive Bull Moose) who had an unhealthy passion for war.
"Bloggers Select The 20 Greatest Figures In American History"
Reality Meets Fantasy
Tell me this doesn't remind you of the communicator from Earth: Final Conflict.
"Sony Breaks Ground With New PDA"
July 20, 2003
Simon Watch
On a good local sports note, Randall Simon went 0-4 with a strikeout in Saturday night's game, and he didn't play on Sunday.
Guerilla War Planned
From a Iraqi memo discovered by Al-Hayat the guerilla warfare happening right now was the plan should Saddam fall.
[via Oscar Jr.]
Reading the Speech
I may not be as sharp as usual today (lack of sleep can do that), but James' examination of the State of the Union speech (including those sixteen words) blows Bush bashers' criticisms right out of the water.
"What Bush Said" [via PoliBlog]
Canada: Land of Mediocrity
According to Perry Michael Simon, Canada isn't the place where success is nurtured and glorified:
I've known several Canadians who told me the same thing about their country. They all love it, but they all feel that in order to really make it in their work, they have to move south of the border. I asked one guy why he felt that way, and he said "Canada has a weird mindset. They don't want you to succeed too much. You're not supposed to get too big, too successful. And there are plenty of people up there who are content to stay there, be medium sized fish in a medium-sized pond. If you have a creative or enterpreneurial bone in your body, you get out as soon as you can. You don't want to, you have to."And that's the opposite of the mindset of Americans who want to bolt to another, less "competitive" country. If you truly don't think you can cut it in a competitive situation, what you're saying is that, deep down, you think you're not good enough. It's easy, then, to want to go someplace that cuts all the tall grass down to a more manageable size, rewards success and failure at roughly the same rate, treats everyone as the same (in other words, socialism). In America, you're rewarded by the success you achieve, the ability you demonstrate, the value the market places on what you do. If you're afraid that you're not good enough, if you're afraid of your own individuality, that's when you want the government to take care of you, to subsume you into the whole. You make a run towards a system that celebrates mediocrity.
[via Cam Edwards]
Clash of Civilizations
Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad seems intent on starting an arms race between the Muslim world and the West (i.e. the U.S.). He sees it as a "clash of civilizations."
Echoing the military philosophy of Ronald Reagan (peace through strength), Mahathir told the AFP,
This idea of striking fear into the hearts of enemies is part of the teachings of the Koran.If they are strong then people will not attack them. But at the moment they are not strong, and because of that, because of their frustration, their anger, they resort to acts of terror.
If the Muslim world wants to play the game of military tit-for-tat let them. Even with a flat economy the West could still out spend and build a mightier military force than the Muslim world. I'm not just talking about the U.S. If Europe, with all its problems, were willing to spend money on the military she could out do the Muslim world. That's because the West has a (relatively) free economy from where technological advances can be developed.
One last item to point out from Mahathir's interview: his inability to grasp the Israel-Palestine situation. He believes Muslims are the ones being targeted. He should tell that to the Israeli families of victims of Palestinian homicide bombers. The situation is pretty clear. On one side there is a free state defending itself from terrorists while on the other side is an entire government led by a terrorist. Mahathir picked the Palestinians. He chose the unfree side. He chose to side with religion over liberty.
"'Clash of Civilizations' Looms Between Islam and West"
Beatallica Rules!
Beatallica is in the same vein as Dread Zeppelin. They take two styles of music and slam them together into something unique. Imagine if John, Paul, George, and Ringo lived in San Francisco in the early 80s surrounded by the embryonic speed metal scene while hanging out with Weird Al. You'd end up with Beatallica. Let's call it a mash-up with instruments. The lead singer and drums are dead on Metallica while the songs are Beatles. And the lyrics constant call for beer is a riot.
There's even a Flash music video.
[via mtpolitics]
Karl Canned
With George Karl getting the axe, Milwaukee can lay claim to two of the most screwed up teams in sports. But at least the Brewers are making some progress. The team is playing hard for Ned Yost. As for the Bucks, with no-names like Brian Skinner and Eric Strickland pencil them into the lottery already.
All this doesn't matter because Packers training camp has started! Go Pack Go!
"Karl Out as Bucks Coach"
Training Camp Starts
Yes, yes yes! Packers training camp has started. That means football season is only six weeks away. But poor Brewers. With real football stuff happening in Green Bay it will be all Packers all the time for Wisconsin sports fans.
"Training Camp Report - July 19, 2003"
July 19, 2003
Serenade to Econ
Jane Galt reminds me that serious economic thinking requires more than Google:
But how do I do that, I hear you cry. Why, it is difficult, my little chickadees; that is why people have to get PhD's and things. It is so difficult, in fact, that when you see a blogger who has claimed to prove some grand theory, such as the superior economic performance of their political party, or the ability of budget surpluses to generate astonishing rates of growth, using only numbers they can find on the internet in fifteen minutes or less, you should be very