The Blogs of War has the latest quote of the week, from Christopher Hitchens: “I am always impressed by sweet people who are evidence-proof.” What a man.
The Blogs of War has the latest quote of the week, from Christopher Hitchens: “I am always impressed by sweet people who are evidence-proof.”
What a man.
PeterPribik.2y.net has some well-brought-up comments on the special edition of The Sun prepared for France.
PeterPribik.2y.net has some well-brought-up comments on the special edition of The Sun prepared for France.
Craig links the Frisco Chronicle story in the number at Saturday’s Anti-Bush rally: CraigSchamp.org: Counting Leftists The crowd measured 65,000 malcontents, not 200,000, as reported earlier. Not everyone’s happy with the facts, though. 65,000 people represents a whopping one percent of the 6.5 million living in the Frisco Bay Area. Granted that this part of … Continue reading “The one percent solution”
Craig links the Frisco Chronicle story in the number at Saturday’s Anti-Bush rally:
CraigSchamp.org: Counting Leftists
The crowd measured 65,000 malcontents, not 200,000, as reported earlier. Not everyone’s happy with the facts, though.
65,000 people represents a whopping one percent of the 6.5 million living in the Frisco Bay Area. Granted that this part of the country is most likely the hottest hotbed of opposition to the Bush Administration, what does it say that only 1 percent feel strongly enough to come to a warm-weather protest? Not much.
Protesters are demanding a recount, of course, on the basis that many of them are named “Chad”, and they should have been counted multiple times. Al Gore agrees, and has instructed lawyers to prepare motions overturning laws of physics.
The people of Orange County are not amused by West Wing’s attempts in recent weeks to stereotype them as fans of the loathsome Jed Bartlett, and they’re striking back in the letters column of the Orange County Register (scroll down): ‘West Wing’ fantasy is an insult to Orange County Recently, in the TV show “West … Continue reading “They love us in Orange County”
The people of Orange County are not amused by West Wing’s attempts in recent weeks to stereotype them as fans of the loathsome Jed Bartlett, and they’re striking back in the letters column of the Orange County Register (scroll down):
‘West Wing’ fantasy is an insult to Orange County
Recently, in the TV show “West Wing,” President Bartlet’s press secretary said, “They love us in Orange County!” Then, during the next few minutes of this liberal propaganda, the politicos planned how Rob Lowe’s character would win the county’s 47th Congressional District. Martin Sheen, who plays Bartlet (and who actually thinks he is president), is one of the biggest anti-Bush activists in real life.
It makes me ill that the creator of the program, Aaron Sorkin, would for a moment think his Hollywood fictional characters and/or the real-life movie “stars” on the left wing are in anyway on a par with the honorable Chris Cox.
Larry M. Collins
Laguna Woods
He’s right about Sheen thinking he really is the president, but so do many in Hollywood. Unfortunately for Sheen, when he last tried to take his schtick to the world of real politics by taking a strong stand against the California proposition mandating treatment instead of jail for non-violent drug offenders, the people rebuffed him and passed the liberal initiative. Sheen believes in jail for drug users on the basis of his experience with one or more of his actor sons, which may have been Charlie.
Perhaps if he could see Saddam as an addict in need of tough love Sheen might see his way clear to imposing term limits on him.
The LA Times ran an unusually harsh editorial on the city council’s decision to spend hours considering an anti-Iraq resolution while a gang war rages across the city: Council: Fix Local ‘War’ The Los Angeles City Council deadlocked Tuesday on a proclamation opposing war in Iraq without United Nations backing. Meanwhile, the “war” here at … Continue reading “Fiddling while LA burns”
The LA Times ran an unusually harsh editorial on the city council’s decision to spend hours considering an anti-Iraq resolution while a gang war rages across the city:
The Los Angeles City Council deadlocked Tuesday on a proclamation opposing war in Iraq without United Nations backing. Meanwhile, the “war” here at home claimed another casualty. A 17-year-old girl shooting hoops at a city park in South Los Angeles caught a bullet in the head when three people in a gold Chevrolet fired at another car. She’s in critical condition. The council takes up Iraq again today.
It’s all about priorities, isn’t it? The first being the primacy of looking good over doing good.
UPDATE: Lonewacko reports that the idiots finally got their way and voted to give Iraq the finger.
The massive protests against Iraqi liberation are having a good efffect. The Wasington Post reports that they’ve jazzed-up Saddam so much that he no longer feels he has to even pretend to cooperate with the inspections, and this new recalcitrance should make the final resolution easier to obtain: Iraqi defiance on rise, say U.N. officials … Continue reading “Thank you, protesters”
The massive protests against Iraqi liberation are having a good efffect. The Wasington Post reports that they’ve jazzed-up Saddam so much that he no longer feels he has to even pretend to cooperate with the inspections, and this new recalcitrance should make the final resolution easier to obtain:
Iraqi defiance on rise, say U.N. officials / Inspectors sense less cooperation in past few days
Baghdad — President Saddam Hussein’s government, apparently emboldened by anti- war sentiment at the Security Council and in worldwide street protests, has not followed through on its promises of increased cooperation with the U.N. arms inspectors in Iraq, the inspectors say.
Thanks to the hippies who made this possible.
A couple days ago, The Fat Guy Scott Chaffin observed in the comments that George Gilder’s view of dumb networks with smart edges had hurt the industry, and yesterday, as if on cue, Gilder had an Op-Ed in the Journal, Broadband’s Narrow Minds, in which he blamed the failure of the US telecom industry on … Continue reading “Backwards prophecy”
A couple days ago, The Fat Guy Scott Chaffin observed in the comments that George Gilder’s view of dumb networks with smart edges had hurt the industry, and yesterday, as if on cue, Gilder had an Op-Ed in the Journal, Broadband’s Narrow Minds, in which he blamed the failure of the US telecom industry on government regulations:
But all this bandwidth is useless if it is not connected to homes and offices. Deployed through the world economy and extended to final users, optical wavelength technology can still unleash the boom in broadband video teleconferencing, education, and entertainment anticipated by the stock market during the late 1990s. But to fulfill this promise, Washington can no longer treat the industry as a political cash cow or plaything. The industry’s customers and shareholders, and the nation’s economy, deserve better.
Gilder’s a weird character. He works for the ultra-conservative Discovery Institute, an organization whose chief obsession is with Intelligent Design, a great load of snake oil if there ever was one. That doesn’t prove he’s a poor prognosticator, of course, but you can decide that for yourself after looking at the next heaping morsel of snake oil goodness I’ve prepared for you.
Back in 1995, Gilder wrote an article for Forbes ASAP predicting changes to the computer industry that would come about as a result of the consumerization of the Internet. In short, he said that Marc Andreessen would be the next Bill Gates, and that Sun’s Java would make Windows and the PC obsolete. A few months ago, Andreessen quietly sold his LoudCloud web hosting service to EDS, and he’s now sunk beneath the radar. Java’s an interesting widget, but it’s most commonly used on Windows, Bill Gates is still the only Bill Gates in town, and we’re all waiting for real broadband and applications that might leverage it.
Even more interesting are the responses Forbes printed from industry figures going pro and con on Gilder’s predictions. Many endorsed his view, although most of those who did had a self-serving reason for doing so, but the genuine smart guys didn’t – that would include Andy Grove, Larry Ellison, Nathan Myhrvold, and a few others. One comment from Grove rings especially true as a correction to the Intelligent Design people and others who believe in miracles:
Five years from now, my computer will still be connected to an ordinary phone line and to ISDN, but also to broadband networks via a cable modem and to an ATM network to reach other lucky computer users; and probably to do some kind of wireless connection. Ten years from now, it will be another set of communications transport media. But it will never be a single superconnection, because goodness doesn’t arrive in a single step. It comes a little at a time.
If you enjoy saying I told you so, or the view from the rear view mirror generally, this is fun stuff.
Looking backwards is probably the one thing that Gilder himself does well; Open Source libertarian Eric Raymond and others have claimed that the consumer Internet was not originally a military tool, but Gilder shows that it was a RAND employee, Paul Baran, trying to solve a military problem (second strike missile command and control) who did the seminal design work and has the papers to prove it. Gilder wrote this up in Inventing the Internet Again.
The only dispute on authorship would be that the Internet Baran envisioned was more powerful in terms of real-time and QoS than the one that was eventually lashed together by ARPA contractors with less insight into network fundamentals, excessive faith in queueing theory, and less concern for future needs.
Evan Coyne Maloney went to New York and interviewed protesters on camera. The resulting movie is, like, hilarious, man, especially when he asked them why the US didn’t seize the Iraqi oil fields after the 1991 Gulf War.
Evan Coyne Maloney went to New York and interviewed protesters on camera. The resulting movie is, like, hilarious, man, especially when he asked them why the US didn’t seize the Iraqi oil fields after the 1991 Gulf War.
The LA Times reports that the text of the next Security Council Resolution on the disarmament of Iraq is taking shape: U.S., Britain to Set Deadlines for U.N., Iraq UNITED NATIONS — The United States and Britain will present a resolution to the Security Council “in the next few working days” authorizing the use of … Continue reading “Resolution 18 firming up”
The LA Times reports that the text of the next Security Council Resolution on the disarmament of Iraq is taking shape:
U.S., Britain to Set Deadlines for U.N., Iraq
UNITED NATIONS — The United States and Britain will present a resolution to the Security Council “in the next few working days” authorizing the use of military force to disarm Iraq and imposing a deadline for the council to vote on it, U.S. and British officials said Wednesday.
Key elements include deadlines for Security Council action, and Iraqi full compliance with UNSCR 1441, and as we might expect, Russia, France, and Germany maintain that the “last chance” spelled out in 1441 should go on forever.
I listened to some of the Non-Aligned Nations speaking to the Security Council this week, and there was a lot of equivocation, with most speakers saying “yes, Iraq’s out of compliance,” and “no, we shouldn’t enforce the resolutions yet, 12 years isn’t near enough time.”
But the underlying message, made clear by India, was the fear that warfare will spike crude oil prices, limiting poor nations’ ability to import fuel, and consequent damage to their economies and transportation systems, especially where food is concerned. They aren’t coming on board until something can be done to protect oil markets during the fighting, and their concerns are well-founded in hard experience for them after the Gulf War.
I don’t know that the US and the UK can solve this problem, but they should try to get pledges from oil exporters outside the Mid-East to boost production and hold prices steady if there’s any interruption in oil production from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
Happy Fun Pundit reports that Iraqis are preparing for liberation by investing in land: For those of us that lean strongly towards ‘liberator’, there is some new evidence: Iraq’s real estate market is booming. There is a surge of investment in commercial construction, home prices are skyrocketing, the Iraqi stock exchange is rising, and real … Continue reading “Iraqi real estate market booming”
Happy Fun Pundit reports that Iraqis are preparing for liberation by investing in land:
For those of us that lean strongly towards ‘liberator’, there is some new evidence: Iraq’s real estate market is booming. There is a surge of investment in commercial construction, home prices are skyrocketing, the Iraqi stock exchange is rising, and real estate speculators are making a killing. According to Newsweek, “there is an air of undeniable optimism in the marketplace”.
They know something the protesters don’t, apparently.
