Straight Lies for the Queer Guys -or- Things to Do in Denver
When You're Dead and Don't Know It.

Dean: "I am a 'Metrosexual!' Simpson: "I invented the "Metrosexual'!"

FOR YEARS THE FEAR of a politician with "an alternative lifestyle" was that, sooner or later, he or she would be outed. Howard Dean, with typical verve, has gotten ahead of the curve and outed himself.

According to the Denver Post, Dean, while pandering for votes the other day,

"... declared himself a ' metrosexual '... as he touted his accomplishments in "equal justice" for gay and lesbian couples.

But then he waffled.

"... I've heard the term (metrosexual), but I don't know what it means."

Millions of Americans hearing that Howard Dean expose himself as a "metrosexual" are no doubt staring into space and saying, with Howard, "I don't know what it means."

Wonder not, America, for American Digest is here to help you. Our secret but very dependable sources have furnished us with a copy of the latest Roper Report of October 23 entitled: "Are Metrosexuals Real?" (A question increasingly asked of Howard Dean as well.) According to this report:

The idea behind metrosexuality is that urban men* are finding their inner woman. That is to say, they are getting more involved with the traditionally female arena of “style” in general, including clothing, personal grooming, and home decor.

The origin of the quest of men of Dean's ilk for better skin care, eyebrow tweezing, sharp suits and pedicures is given by Roper Reports as:

The term “metrosexual” actually originated in England nearly a decade ago in a 1994 article by Mark Simpson. It lingered in obscurity until a few months ago, when an advertising agency released a study touting the metrosexual trend, a New York Times Sunday Styles section cover story wrote about the phenomenon, and there was a flurry of online dialogue, not to mention the Bravo TV program Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

In recent interview, wordsmith Mark Simpson defined the Metrosexual as follows:

Q: How and when did you come up with the term ‘metrosexual’? What did you mean by it then?

MARK SIMPSON: The concept developed out of my 1994 book on masculine identity in a mediatised age called ‘Male Impersonators: Men Peforming Masculinity’ - I look forwards to the world of advertising catching up with what I was writing about in 1995...

However, I first used the word itself in an article in the Independent (a British national newspaper) to describe a new, narcissistic, self-conscious kind of masculinity produced by film, advertising and glossy magazines to replace traditional repressed, unmoisturised, unreflexive, un-mediated masculinity. I meant it both as cheeky satire and also sober observation.

Humm, a churlish critic might note that Howard Dean is a new, narcissistic self-conscious kind of politician produced by film, advertising, glossy magazines and thousands of web sites. But that would be wrong.

Dean's just getting fed the latest trends like a drinking bird bobbing over the glass.

You see, The Roper Report is all about turning trends into "winning strategies and competitive advantage." Dean is no slouch when it comes to turning flash into cash. We suspect that somewhere in the Mean Green Dean Machine he's got a marketing droid scanning things like the Roper Report and plugging those buzzwords into Dean.

Is Dean a real metrosexual or is this a case of Straight Lies for the Queer Guys? We'll believe it when Dean calls in the Fab Five for an netcast bikini-wax and online chat.

Tip via: Lileks

Fundamental web resource, Doc Searls, is tracking the current little dust-up on the Sun with his usual thoroughness:

Clearly last night was the night to go out in the desert to watch the Auroras. Here's SpaceWeather.com this morning:

Fundamental web resource, Doc Searls, is tracking the current little dust-up on the Sun with his usual thoroughness:

Clearly last night was the night to go out in the desert to watch the Auroras. Here's SpaceWeather.com this morning:

A coronal mass ejection swept past Earth today (at approximately 0630 UT on Oct. 29th) and triggered a strong geomagnetic storm. Red and green Northern Lights have been spotted as far south as Midland, Texas, Bishop, California and Enid, Oklahoma. Stay tuned for updates amd images.

That would have been at 10:30pm here in Nevada.

But... there's more:

Who knows who will be the best Democratic Candidate for President? God knows that's who and his name is Allah

How much longer must Allah wait before some bright-eyed American leftist realizes who the Democrats should really be nominating? He is like Allah's fucking dream candidate. And he is leaving office this month, in case you have not heard, so he is available! Seriously, Democrats, consider how closely aligned he is with most of your party. He opposed the war in Iraq and condemned it as a blatant example of western imperialism. Check. He thinks Bush is a filthy liar. Check. He is not totally opposed to shari'a, but he thinks maybe you should go slow for now. Check. Oh, and he hates the Jew. Check. What more do you want, kufr? He is like Howard Dean with a slight accent. Actually, if you believe Ariel Sharon's official cartoonists, Allah should say Colin Powell with a slight accent, no? Oho! All this time Allah has been under the assumption that Colin Powell answers to a superior, but apparently he is just some free-floating appeasement agent. Interesting. If Allah found out that one of his mujahids was going around making deals with the Jew without his knowledge, he would immediately be taken for a walk in the courtyard. But fair enough. As is said in the international language of capitulation, vive la différence.

BTW: Wouldn't a loving and caring Radical Islamic faction be willing to pony up enough dough to get Allah off of Blogspot, or at least wipe out that banner ad? Just asking.

Alas, clicking will not enlarge to 92"

Don't touch that "Buy" button.

With an insidiously Apple-esque site, Libermann, Inc has launched a major assault on every geek and gadget-hound's pocketbook. Let's start with their Hollywood Laptop. Looking suspiciously like a Powerbook, this thing sports a 17" WXGA display ( 1440X900), 3.2Ghz... [Michael's Web]

Who says a Vice-President can't be brilliant?

I thought this was a good idea in July:

American Digest: How to Destroy the Democratic Party in One Brief Presidential Election

George W. Bush will be nominated as the Republican candidate for President in 2004. There's no dispute here. Richard Cheney will also be nominated as Vice-Presidential candidate for 2004. He's done a great job and there's no reason to break up a winning team. Coming out of the convention, the Bush / Cheney ticket will be a done deal.

But it is not, I fear, the ticket that can destroy the Democratic Party. Hence, it simply won't do. After the convention, it will have to change.

It will have to change some time after the convention. Not a short time after, but not a long time either. The beginning of August would be about right. Just about then Mr. Cheney's health will become an issue. He will have to have a complete work-up and during that work-up it will be discovered that his heart simply cannot be depended upon. He will, regretfully but for the good of the country and the Republican party, withdraw his name from the ticket.

At that time, it will be up to the President to find and confirm, with all appropriate consultation and following the rituals and laws in this regard, another person for the Vice-Presidential slot. It is at this time the President must turn to the only person in his administration that can deliver absolute victory for the Republicans, destroy the Democrats for decades, and move the Republic of the United States of America into the 21st Century.

Gentle reader, I give you the next Vice-President of the United States: Condolezza Rice.

It's even better in October:

"Welcome to BushRice04.org, where our mission is to convince President Bush that his best chance at reelection, and the Republican party's best chance for victory in 2008, is to choose Condoleezza Rice as his running mate in the 2004 presidential election." Bush Rice '04: Ensuring America's Future

Minn. Farmers Use Human Waste Fertilizer (AP) AP - Farmers in northeast Minnesota are using a fertilizer rich in phosphorus, nitrogen and organic matter that can boost crop yields by 80 percent. Best of all, it's free. [Yahoo! News - Science]

Well, your mother always told you to wash your fruit before you ate it, didn't she?

I'm willing to bet folding money that within a year we'll be hearing a Gates Keynote, at any one of the bazillion conferences onliners feel compelled to attend, about how essential blogging is to the "Microsoft Way." Then we'll have a BillBlog to show us the light!

What a pity Microsoft will have fired its better bloggers by that time.

Of blogging and unemployment

The day started like any other day — get up, dink around for a bit, bus into work, and start working through the stack of jobs. Just shy of an hour after I got in, my manager came in and asked me to step into his office when I had a chance. Sure, no biggie, and I headed over as soon as I finished the job I was setting up.

"Okay, here's the first question. Is this page," and here he turned his monitor towards me, letting me see my "Even Microsoft wants G5s" post from last Thursday, "hosted on any Microsoft computer? Or is it on your own?"

"It's on mine. Well, it's on a hosted site that I pay for, but no, it's not on anything of Microsoft's."

"Good. That means that as it's your site on your own server, you have the right to say anything you want. Unfortunately, Microsoft has the right to decide that because of what you said, you're no longer welcome on the Microsoft campus." [eclecticism]

Well, you can't argue with that. Or perhaps you can. Either way, the man is canned.

Either way, if you think he got a raw deal, and I do, you can send him a bit of cash to tide him over. I did. His PayPal page is: here.

UPDATE: Well, that's didn't take long. Instapundit reports Bill's into blogs:

THIS SPEECH BY BILL GATES on Longhorn, Microsoft's in-design operating system, indicates that they're thinking about blogs, at least a little: But what's interesting about this is a couple of things. First, it actually built in these common parts that show information, notification, services, that a user might really be... [Instapundit.com]

Meet the new Angelina Jolie

Jolie with Lip Shield in Place

OH, THE PAINFUL LONG MARCHES of movie starlets in search of enlightenment! ("What does it all mean? Is there a God? Why do slabs of chocolate cake increase the waistline?) Why is it we only get to catch up when they have a new film coming out?

Today's example: The long and winding road of Angelina Jolie. Short form, she's better now, thank you. Long form:

But that was before Jolie's film career and personal interests led her to Sierra Leone in 2000, then Tanzania, Cambodia, and, two weeks before the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

After the planes hit, "the fact that I'd two weeks before been on the Pakistan border with 3 million Afghan people that had been there for over 20 years -- it was a kind of reality check for me that when there are masses of people displaced for a lot of years, there's something happening in that area."

"It's not a coincidence that things explode."

So put a little liposuction on those lips while there's still time, Angelina.

New data says there's lots of new data

Researchers at U.C. Berkeley's School of Information Management and Systems estimate that the world stored 5 quintillion bytes of information in 2002, doubling 1999's total. [CNET News.com Entertainment & Media]

Tourists in the Roman Pantheon in Rome

What a 5,000-pound precision-guided bomb did
to a government building in Baghdad.

Source, Bottom Image: American Heritage

JAMES LILEKS NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE. Sometimes it is as if he's some sort of omni-American channeling the culture through the Mall of America, Target, and now supermarkets. If you could package his internal links to American pop culture, you'd have a reference work for the rest of us. Take today's catch, mentioned just off-hand in The Bleat

* The other day at the grocery store I noticed an interesting contrast: delicious pancake mix for the happy proles: 89 cents. Atkins special lo/no carb pancake mix: $5.49. Oy. Then I noticed the Atkins logo:

I'd seen it before, and it always reminded me of something. Then I realized what I was thinking of. Just stand it on its head! Fat is health! Bread is death! Freedom is - well, you know the rest.

...seems to be working.

YES, IT IS INSIDE BASEBALL, but it is strangely satisfying to watch a first-rate flame war with all the trimmings erupt in the Blogsphere. And, as is so often the case, here is Blogging's Bad Daddy Dave ("I invented you!") Winer first to the table with his signature dish of open ether cannister and K-Mart Bic:

Dave Winer:How about this. Both guys (Ballmer and Torvalds) make really shitty software. Microsoft, after decades of Windows development still can't make a robust operating system that a normal person can use. And Linux ships with every security feature wide open. An end user who actually installed it (an amazing accomplishment in itself) would end up (instantly) hosting a playground for script kiddies everywhere.

Dave, a man who while somewhat proficient at writing editors, never met an editor he liked, was not long in inhaling the flashback led by the "crunchy sarcastic goodness" of

kasia with "Someone smack me if I ever do this"

"Information that can be very easily verified as false.. at many levels, but for the sake of argument let's pretend we're talking about RedHat, undoubtedly the most popular linux distribution, which 'ships' (and has for a couple years now) with a fully configured firewall, turned on by default, and all insecure (telnet, ftp) services turned off. One less weblog for me to read.. anyone who refuses to correct an obvious error that's been pointed out to then by numerous people (yet takes the time to call them 'zealots') isn't worth my time.. Not a great loss for Dave, I'm sure, but still a disappointment to me. "

What follows in the comments is a fine flamefest of the kind they don't make any more. I commend you to them if watching the non-stop immolation of Southern California is getting you down.

Two Youths, Coney Island
Bruce Davidson
1958 1958-59
gelatin silver print

From: Eastman House -- America Seen

Diebold Global Election
Management System Ver. 1.0
Wally O'Dell, Diebold CEO, top right.

About Us
"We won't rest until we measurably improve the extent to which our customers' customers are delighted with our self-service and security solutions."

by William Jennings
American (b. England, 1860-1946)
ca. 1885 gelatin silver print
Click to enlarge

From: George Eastman House -- A Matter of Fact

File this under "The Cruel Sea":Methane Bubbles Could Sink Ships

Methane bubbles from the sea floor could, in theory, sink ships and may explain the odd disappearances of some vessels, Australian researchers reported on Tuesday.

The huge bubbles can erupt from undersea deposits of solid methane, known as gas hydrates....

"A recent survey revealed the presence of a sunken vessel within the center of one particularly large eruption site, now known as the Witches Hole."

"One proposed sinking mechanism attributes the vessel's loss of buoyancy to bubbles of methane gas released from an erupting underwater hydrate," they wrote." The known abundance of gas hydrates in the North Sea, coupled with the vessel's final resting position and its location in the Witches Hole, all support a gas bubble theory."

Race. Sometimes It Is All in the Mind.

Like most other black folk, [Wayne] Joseph grew up with an unequivocal sense of his heritage and of himself; he tends toward black advocacy and has published thoughtful opinion pieces on racial issues in magazines like Newsweek. When Joseph decided on a whim to take a new ethnic DNA test he saw described on a 60 Minutes segment last year, it was only to indulge a casual curiosity about the exact percentage of black blood.... The experience would at least be fodder for another essay for Newsweek. He got his kit in the mail, swabbed his mouth per the instructions and sent off the DNA samples for analysis....

When the results of his DNA test came back, he found himself staggered by the idea that though he still qualified as a person of color, it was not the color he was raised to think he was, one with a distinct culture and definitive place in the American struggle for social equality that he’d taken for granted. Here was the unexpected and rather unwelcome truth: Joseph was 57 percent Indo-European, 39 percent Native American, 4 percent East Asian — and zero percent African. After a lifetime of assuming blackness, he was now being told that he lacked even a single drop of black blood to qualify.

“My son was flabbergasted by the results,” says Joseph. “He said, ‘Dad, you mean for 50 years you’ve been passing for black?’” Joseph admits that, strictly speaking, he has. But he’s not sure if he can or wants to do anything about that at this point.....

After recovering from the initial shock, Joseph began questioning his mother about their lineage. He discovered that, unbeknownst to him, his grandparents had made a conscious decision back in Louisiana to not be white, claiming they didn’t want to side with a people who were known oppressors. Joseph says there was another, more practical consideration: Some men in the family routinely courted black women, and they didn’t want the very public hassle such a pairing entailed in the South, which included everything from dirty looks to the ignominy of a couple having to separate on buses and streetcars and in restaurants per the Jim Crow laws.....

He’s wrestling with a riddle that will likely outlive him, though he doesn’t worry that it will be passed on to the next generation — his ex-wife is black, enough to give his children the firm ethnic identity he had and that he embraced for most of his life.

From: Black Like I Thought I Was

Democratic Tax Convergence? No Mystery

I have to assume that Kevin Hassett at TechCentral is being disingenuous in The Tax Policy of Hate. He professes puzzlement at how the tax policies of the current crop of Democratic candidates are simply clones of one idea, driven by the hate of George Bush.

"The hate of Bush is so powerful that it has even dominated Democratic tax policy. For example, Wesley Clark announced his tax plan in a speech on Wednesday, and the details were oddly familiar. Like just about every other Democratic candidate, Clark has proposed an enormous tax hike. And what form does that tax hike take? Why the same form chosen by his competitors. Clark would roll back the tax reductions that President Bush passed for those taxpayers who make more than $200,000 per year....

"The Democratic candidates each studied the tax code and the economy and reached precisely the same conclusion: The way to improve the world the most is exactly to reverse the tax policy of George Bush. Such a convergence of answers is extraordinarily improbable.

I submit that it is neither extraordinary nor improbable, but simply an expression of the political operating system currently being run by the Democratic candidates. Like all operating systems there are certain root assumptions running in the program. We only need to see the input to understand the output.

What needs to be asked is exactly what Democrats are fighting over. Unless the current trends in Iraq and the Economy suffer catastrophic reversals, the Presidency in 2004 will remain with the person who currently holds the job. The only way Iraq and the Economy can be turned around at this point would be if the United States were to suffer a second terrorist attack at or beyond the level sustained on September 11. In that case, the Presidency becomes a full-court war Presidency and remains beyond the reach of the Democratic Party for the rest of the decade.

No, what's being fought over by the "Amazing Shrinking Gang of Nine, Eight, Seven, Six..." is the leadership of the Democrats -- the position of 'First Loser.'

In order to become the Democrats' annointed First Loser, the candidates must appeal not to the American People en masse. They are irrelevant to this quest. No, the Democratic "winner" will be the one who most successfully attracts the greatest number of energized, committed Bush Haters. As a result, there can only be a scorched-earth program for the "Bush Tax Cuts."

Indeed, scorched-earth HateBush programs are the only programs that can be run on the Democrats Mainframe. Why? Because the Democrats' IT Department has installed an operating system best known as "MicroDem." And, as we have learned over and over, any operating system with the word 'Micro' in it is pre-ordained to be full of security holes, ridden with viruses, and destined to crash at a moment's notice.

Michael's Web is on a roll:
===
The Chinese Space Program's Insidious Mission
Dateline, March 30, 2006

Today China announced "The People's Network", whose motto is "All content for all the people, all the time".

In the RIAA's worst nightmare, for $4.95 a month, The People's Network allows anyone, anywhere, to upload or download anything, without regard for "capitalistic" copyright or patent restrictions. On the first day alone, over 1 million people, or roughly 1/100th of the connected population, had signed up.

In 2003, China's first foray into manned space travel was lauded as a benefit to all mankind (and not the threat that some had envisioned).
===

There's more right here. Check in and see if the RIAA's response was to launch 3 Billion Ballistic Lawsuits.

The Once and Future Face
of the Democratic Party

It seems that every fortnight, Michael Moore, like some early precursor of Jabba the Hut or Latter-Day ambulatory version of Larry Flynt, manages to slurp up another rich greasy gobbet of publicity. He does this by running his time-tested con for enriching himself, the large lie masquerading as “Moore Truth.”

Leftists and liberals and Democrats throughout the country suck down these lies because they are, by now, addicted to The World According to Michael Moore. Like heroin addicts, they constantly need Moore to feel ‘normal.’ Even more, they need Michael to up the dose by providing ever more outrageous lies for them to skin-pop or mainline. It’s the only way they can get off. And while it is always unsettling and degrading to see a junky getting nasty and oozing while searching for his angry fix, it seems to be a fixed part of our popular culture that we will be exposed to this with distressing frequency as the run-up to the 2004 elections (to be heralded by the release of Moore’s next and even more degrading film).

Moore’s fans are addicted and as anyone who has known a junkie has learned: “Once the needle goes in, it never comes out.” Moore too is addicted. Addicted to his own fame and to the wealth that it brings him as he pushes ever more potent levels of his junk on his fans. This is not surprising since the pusher and the junk are forever locked in “the algebra of need.”

But what is surprising is the vitriol poured on Moore by those who see through his con. Let Moore eruct on the political meaning of Chinese Checkers and a thousand blogs and commentators erupt to condemn him. They rail and bluster. They enumerate his lies (and they are legion), and they catalog his sins against rationality -- numberless. They even criticize his films and provide worth to that which is worthless.

This is the wrong stance to take. This is a deep and abiding political error. This is something that must be resisted at all points and at all times.

The only way to use Moore is to “Let Moore be More Moore.”

Let him run loose across the screens and pages of the society. Let him hang from the ceiling of our culture and drip green over all below. Let his films be shown against the walls of buildings in the inner cities. Let every magazine cover in the known universe put his picture on its cover under the banner headlines: THIS IS THE FACE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY or MICHAEL MOORE: WHAT HE IS YOU WILL BECOME or MOORE MEANS MORE FOR YOU.

There should be a nationwide agreement that Michael Moore’s face and body should decorate billboards on all major highways to a level of density that it is impossible to escape his visage and his fashion sense, all with the slogan: MOORE IS THE VERY MODEL OF THE MODERN MAJOR DEMOCRAT or A VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT IS A VOTE FOR THIS MAN.

Recordings of Moore’s reedy and whining pronouncements should be played at the beginning and end of every NPR or PBS broadcast right after their self-serving moments of silence for men killed in Iraq.

McDonalds needs to sign Moore to a Superbowl ad whose tag-line reads, “I never met a dictator or a cheeseburger I didn’t like.”

The NRA should quit grumbling and get with the program. Large Michael Moore shooting ranges should be endowed in all the states. Large targets and free Ammo Fridays.

MTV needs to shelve its current roster and put the films and film clips of Michael Moore into heavy rotation for the next 13 months.

In short, there needs to be an unremitting campaign to associate Michael Moore’s face, body and voice with the Democratic Party.

What we want is for every voter in every booth in every polling station next November, to gaze at the ballot and see Michael Moore’s face and form wavering in front of it saying: “Do you want some Moore?”

In an extended meditation on the retreat of God from the Western World, David B. Hart, writing in First Things, strikes a major chord with: "Christ and Nothing."

As modern men and women —to the degree that we are modern—we believe in nothing. This is not to say, I hasten to add, that we do not believe in anything; I mean, rather, that we hold an unshakable, if often unconscious, faith in the nothing, or in nothingness as such. It is this in which we place our trust, upon which we venture our souls, and onto which we project the values by which we measure the meaningfulness of our lives. Or, to phrase the matter more simply and starkly, our religion is one of very comfortable nihilism.

This may seem a somewhat apocalyptic note to sound, at least without any warning or emollient prelude, but I believe I am saying nothing not almost tediously obvious. We live in an age whose chief moral value has been determined, by overwhelming consensus, to be the absolute liberty of personal volition, the power of each of us to choose what he or she believes, wants, needs, or must possess; our culturally most persuasive models of human freedom are unambiguously voluntarist and, in a rather debased and degraded way, Promethean; the will, we believe, is sovereign because unpremised, free because spontaneous, and this is the highest good....

Modern persons will never find rest for their restless hearts without Christ, for modern culture is nothing but the wasteland from which the gods have departed, and so this restlessness has become its own deity; and, deprived of the shelter of the sacred and the consoling myths of sacrifice, the modern person must wander or drift, vainly attempting one or another accommodation with death, never escaping anxiety or ennui, and driven as a result to a ceaseless labor of distraction, or acquisition, or willful idiocy. And, where it works its sublimest magic, our culture of empty spectacle can so stupefy the intellect as to blind it to its own disquiet, and induce a spiritual torpor more deplorable than mere despair.

"Polygyny is therefore also relevant to terrorism. Young males even in monogamous states are volatile, prone to violence, and inclined to risk-taking. Whatever the religious incentives are for a young man to commit suicide, they will be all the more attractive if he believes he will never attain a wife. He dies a hero, is provided with wives in heaven, while his earthly family or group benefit from his death. It is probable, Rubin says, “that we humans have evolved tendencies to be particularly altruistic to kin in situations where we as individuals cannot breed anyway.” The suicide bomber whose family is promised money or new furniture is respecting this kind of altruism. Islamic polygyny is there­fore a force tending to inflame a sense of desperation and increase violence in the Middle East and elsewhere."

From: Denis Dutton, Darwin and Political Theory

In a lather to sink deeper into the La Brea tar pits of its own slime, the Los Angeles Times continued its trumped-up attack on General Boykin today by publishing yet another "commentary" by one William Arkin: A General Bind for Rumsfeld . Mr. Arkin is consistently identified by the Times as "a military affairs analyst who writes regularly for Opinion. E-mail: warkin@igc .org. "

In today's "Opinion," Mr. Arkin writes:

On Oct. 17, after the Los Angeles Times and NBC News reported on Boykin's extremist statements about terrorism, Islam and religion, the Pentagon issued a statement in which Boykin said he was "not anti-Islam" and apologized "to those who have been offended." Boykin said he was curtailing his appearances at evangelical Christian churches and asked Rumsfeld to initiate an investigation into his conduct.

Missing in the copy above or below this wheezing victory lap of Arkin's is any mention that the Times and NBC New's reports were fed by one source. Mr. Arkin, of course. And, once the item was reported as "news," why Mr. Arkin was free to ride the rump of the news with his "findings."

The findings it turns out can be summarized as: "American General Believes Christian God is On Our Side in War on Terror."

One would think that that sort of thing would be comforting to the troops and to Americans generally and it is. "God and Country" are concepts loathed by professional America-haters such as Arkin. Since there are many of these swanning about and masquerading as career journalists at major publications, this is good news for Arkin. By peddling this garbage to those who hunger for it, he can keep his cosy little lifestyle humming.

As detailed here and here as well as through an interview by Hugh Hewit with Arkin ... here, the Arkin item is nothing less than a two-bit hit job humped and pumped to be dumped on the plate of the Bush administration. Purpose? To expose the Bush administration's belief in God and Country. And since there's little in the Democratic kettle that's palatable to an inceasing segment of the American populace, the Times and Arkin warm over their thin gruel this morning by stirring in a little bitter bile over the leaked Rumsfeld memo. Who would eat such a dish of spite and nihilism? Evidently the Los Angeles Times and NBC. Such poor nutrition probably accounts for their declining circulation and ratings, respectively.

Of course, an ignorant reader who depends on the characterization of Arkin as a "military affairs analyst' would be forgiven if he failed to see Arkin as yet another failed liberal toady grinding his limp hatchet on the worn stones of secular anti-Americanism. Little wonder since we learn nothing of Arkin's career as a hack and flack for Human Rights Watch, his work as a director for Greenpeace during the First Gulf War, and his continued association with the Institute for Global Communications. He also seems to have an inordinate fascination with counting the corpses of civilians killed by the U.S. military since 1991. None of that seems to trump the august title of "military affairs analyst."

It would, of course, be more truthful to say: "William Arkin ekes out a living by attacking the Bush Administration for anyone who will write him a check," but since the Los Angeles Times evidently cares little for God and less for America, the truth is obviously not on their agenda.

Saxophonist Dexter Gordon
1948 from Herman Leonard's "Images of Jazz"

"Light. Shadow. Swirling cigarette smoke. These elements of Herman Leonard's photography helped define the "look" of American and European jazz for the last 50 years."

From: HistoryWired: A few of our favorite things

As researched and reported on: Michael's Web

Be kind to Aliens,
And treat them nice.
Be kind to Aliens,
Take my advice.
Be Kind to Aliens.....
And you will hear them say:
"Thank you for being kind to Aliens,
We love to be treated that way!"
--Proposed Planetary Anthem for Earth

Ok, you've read it all. Roswell. Crop Circles. Close Encounters. Slashdot. All of the hubs of Alien Conspiracy. You've parsed it out, you know it all, and you've made your call. Well, you're wrong.

The Aliens are here, and blending into your everyday life in ways so insidious you regard them as .... should I say it ... annoyances.

Here is a brief guide to three of the many Alien races you meet every day and don't even know it:

THE SURVEILLIONS

Surveillion: Natural State and Human Disguise

These folk live every libertarian and Slashdotter's nightmare: Constant and accurate surveillance of their thoughts. One might question, on an enlightened planet like our own, how they survive at all. Indeed, Surveillions live out their daily lives here on the cusp of mental mayhem.

Think of the last time you were standing at a fast food restaurant, or any other establishment where the choices are Prominently Displayed. The person in front of you, who, like you, should have read those Prominently Displayed Choices and made their selection, is then confronted by the "Chooser" who asks, "How may I help you?"

In the Surveillion mind (which is nothing like yours or mine, but small and located within their buttocks), this is like asking "Why is grandma building a cyclotron in the cornfield?" There's a stunned silence, and then a panicked reading of the choices, followed by long, long moments of indecision before they start stammering out their selection. (The planet of the Surveillions orbits it's Sun once every 14 solar years. A moment to them is approximately 37 hours to us.)

Indeed, the “Choosing” process seems so alien to them, Surveillions often make several choices: "I'll take a Rotweiller with that", or, "Can I get quartz on my burger?" In those moments you may wonder if they're from another planet, or just Southern California. Be assured they are not from Southern California, although it support their largest colony.

On the Surveillion planet, devices resembling our outdoor space heaters monitor their every thought and desire. When they walk up to a lunch counter (or their equivalent, which is unpronounceable in our language), the "Chooser" already knows what they want, and it's already prepared.

In fact, if their choice is somehow unavailable, the surveillance devices have altered the Surveillion’s brain waves to make them want something else. Likewise prepared and waiting.

Here on Earth, no such devices exist. Asked to choose, the Surveillions are thrown into a fugue state by having to decide and elucidate on their own, what they want, all the while trying to read what is essentially a foreign language. Meanwhile, hostile aliens (you and I) are grumbling behind them, muttering epithets to strange gods, and threatening their very existence.

Thank goodness they are a patient people, and don't unleash their galactic weapons of extermination, or, worse yet, tools of surveillance, on us.

Pity the Surveillions among us. They're just trying to get along. And a Happy Meal.

THE P2PIANS

P2Pian: Natural State and Human Disguise

These folk are actually every Slashdotter's fantasy, and every RIAAer's nightmare.

Through ECE (Extended Cybernetic Evolution), every P2Pian's experience is shared with every other P2Pian through Active Thought Matrices (ATMs). Due to their small cranial cavity, they can only capture a week or so of experience before uploading it via a ATM, to be shared with other P2Pians. (P2Pians breed, at a minimum 14 times each month, but intercourse only results in success 10% of the time, and must involve a minimum of 3 members of the opposite sex. You do the math.)

Unfortunately for us Earthlings, "ATM" means something quite different here. So, the next time you are in a line at one of our primitive ATMs trying to withdraw bus fare to get to the Emergency Clinic, and the person in front of you appears to be entering their life history into the ATM, don't get mad.

They probably are entering their life history. They're a P2Pian, who has mistaken the ATM for an Active Thought Matrix input device.

Take pity on them. They are working with a limited keypad.

THE COPPERNIANS

Coppernian: Natural State and Assuming Human Disguise

Through an unfortunate twist of fate, an interaction between dark matter and quantum strings has rendered the Coppernians’ planet almost devoid of copper. Like us, copper is a small, but very important, part of their metabolism, so the shortage has rendered it more precious than gold, or evenMetabolite.

Even more unfortunate for you and I, the Copperinians on earth don't realize that copper here is almost as plentiful as dirt, and every bit of it is still as precious to them as a bar of gold is to us.

All that aside, the Coppernians are a diminutive and gentle folk (On Coppernia, Silver is like dirt is to us, and Coppernians often spin it into hats resembling "hair" to us. You think that's odd? You think that's odd? See this.). They either hoard copper or mete it out slowly, very slowly, as a reward for seemingly small favors, like ringing up your groceries.

To them, pennies, or even dimes with copper cores, are incredibly precious. Apparently one Earth penny contains enough copper to sustain an entire Coppernian family for a solar year. In fact, in the cryptic Coppernian language “Penny” translates to "The Very Precious Token of Copper."

Coppernians are most often spotted in grocery lines, where they either pick through their coins to ensure they don't give away too many Precious Tokens of Copper, or, worse yet, parceling out the Precious Tokens to the cashier or baggers, bestowing upon them a gift of longevity and virility.

In fact, many Coppernians find employment here on earth as cashiers and baggers, so the entire process takes on the significance of a communion-like ritual, with much smiling and cooing as The Precious Tokens of Copper are counted out.

Caught behind this ritual, as you steam in impatience, think again. Do you want to be the one to interrupt a highly religious and spiritual Alien Ceremony, risking galactic revenge on Life As We Know It, or would you rather inventory the breath mints conveniently displayed in the checkout aisle?

The choice, and the Fate of the Earth, is yours.

A short but touching item at the Belmont Club ("The Death of Minds") contrasts the fruits of two systems, one educational and one, well, not that educational at all in the final analysis. This is the conclusion:

The contrast between the youth at Caltech, striving to touch the face of God and the illiterate Muslim boys in a French suburb striving to touch the underpants of their neighbors is a consequence, not of the difference in their natures, but of the contents of their minds. Nothing in the US Army arsenal has been half so devastating to the Muslim world as the Saudi-funded Wahabi madrassa. For where one can injure the body, the other can destroy the mind. Nor is there help in the land of France for those who have managed to leave Arabia yet are never quite permitted to arrive in Europe. The dole for food and a policeman's truncheon, maybe; but never a candle for the dark; nothing whatever from the condemned store of Western values.

But the dark context that shapes this conclusion will chill you.

An upclose and personal message from Jeff Bezos of Amazon from the omniverous online retailer's home page:

We'd prefer having the video of Jeff Bezos discovering the power of the "Resistojet" up close and personal, but for now we'll settle for spending even more money at Amazon.

No such thing as a "small" dose.

"You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round
With tombstones in their eyes
But the pusher don't care
Ah, if you live or if you die."

Officials across the United States are expressing serious concern about a new "designer" drug which has hit the streets across the nation. Unfortunately, this new drug, known as "QuickSilver" or "Baroque" is neither regulated nor even recognized by the FDA.

Reluctant addicts describe the drug as "a mission begging for my commitment" or "it's not too big for me, I can take it." Symptoms of addiction include long periods of somnolent silence and contemplation, interrupted only by serious lifestyle needs such as sleeping, working, or eating. Usage of the drug in the lavatory is common, and sometimes it's major venue.

During a typical "session" (typically begun just before going to bed, or, in bed), the addict quickly finds their world transformed into a medieval world of stultifying detail. The user valiantly continues on, sure that there is something of interest, somewhere. Instead, the session quickly resembles a computer game where "you are in a maze of self-indulgent passages, all alike". Shortly afterwards, the addict gives up, and puts the drug aside.

For that session. In roughly 24 hours, it begins again.

One of the most puzzling aspects of the drug is the drive of it's users to finish it, as if "running out", or "finishing all of it" was a goal. Officials suspect this is an insidious experimental additive to encourage future sales, but it seems self defeating since the user would only have to buy more QuickSilver for at least the next 5 years, something officials admit only the stupidest addict would resort too.

FDA scientists have analyzed the molecular structure of the drug, and determined that it's actually part of a family of drugs which have been evolving since the '90s. The first version, Snowcrash, actually had no detrimental affects, but led it's users to a significant expansion of their thought processes. Indeed, some readers went on to found companies after taking the drug. Repeated use had no detrimental affect, and new users are still appearing.

Later evolutions included Diamond, and Cryptonomicon. Each was similar to Snowcrash, but the latter was already showing the detrimental effects of QuickSilver. Indeed, in a thinly veiled ploy to work through stockpiled product, induces repeated visions of Cryptonomicon, encouraging the user to supplant their addiction with the older drug.

Our own sleuthing has traced these drugs back to a single lab, known in the underground parlance as "Stephenson", "Neal", or even just "Steph's". This shadowy character is apparently a native of Maryland, and our investigators have captured photos here, and here.

Pusher or Prevaricator?
The pony tail is a dead giveaway

Officials are at loss as to what to do. Addicts really want to believe QuickSilver will be as good as Snowcrash or Diamond, but have yet to find it's substance. The biggest fear is that many of them will die of old age before finding out the truth, or just toss their dose out, and live forever not ever knowing if they should have finished it.

As a Public Service, we warn you. You will find this new drug being pushed at bookstores across the nation, and even on the web. We'd like to tell you more, but we're too addicted ourselves to take the time to do so.

Don't buy this drug. But, if you do, please tell us what happens.

Alert First Published at Michael's Web

QUESTION OF THE DAY around the plant ... What do you do when your forklift won't go high enough? Well, the answer is simple enough ... you get another forklift, that's what.

-- Dual-Action Forklift

If you haven't seen this, you should.

[Bandwidth Intensive. But worth it.]

All right, everybody, let’s just take a deep breath and ask ourselves one question: Why did Gregg Easterbrook receive a hot, steaming cup of STFU! from ESPN as he was shown the door, and who, really, did the deed?

There have been a lot of garment-rending posts from here and there that it was that Darth Vader of Disney, Michael Eisner, that sent Gregg to sleep with the fishes.

Indeed, my reliable sources have it that Gregg himself has been whining and moaning in this wise all week. Not a hint from him that, for all that he is hip to the ways of the online world, he “just forgot” that “The Send Button Is Forever.” This is similar to the Pryoresque plea; “You Honor, I forgot armed robbery is illegal!”

Nope, it is all “a rank injustice” because, wait for it, he apologized for calling a couple of the most powerful people in the media ‘money-grubbing Jews.’ This is the “But I took it back!” explanation that you last used in the schoolyard just before a peer planted you flat on your back with one punch.

Of course, the fact that Disney “silenced” this “great sports writer” [and repentant Jew-baiter], quickly became a corporate attack on ‘free speech,’ an example of the crass vindictiveness of Michael Eisner, and a shining example of the continuing evil kingdom that is Disney.

This is, of course, all complete and utter hogwash.

It is hogwash composed of two all-too-human emotional fluids: shame and envy. Shame because many online commentators thought they may have had a hand in breaking one of Easterbrook’s multiple rice bowls. Envy in that many people online and off just cannot stand the fact that Michael Eisner is very rich and very powerful. Hence, Eisner just has to be sitting up at the top of his massive empire, sending down ukases demanding this or that head. Hogwash, as noted above.

Men like Eisner may have more money and power than the rest of us, but they have just as many minutes as all of us and they don’t spend their time reading blogs or bothering about the anklebiters below. They have empires to run and it takes a lot of time. What really goes on is this.

Deep within the corporate realms that folks like Eisner rule there is a widespread executive survival environment. This econiche is finely tuned and so sensitive that someone of Eisner’s rank doesn’t have to know about anti-Semitic insults such as Easterbrook’s, and, what is more, he never, ever, has to make any calls about these petty irritations.

Why? Because nobody, and I mean NOBODY, working under executives like Eisner wants to ever get The Call. And if they do get The Call, what they want to be able to say is: “Oh, that Easterbrook guy? He was history last week, Mike. Scrubbed all his blather off our boards before he could read the termination email. Yes, great. We’ll do that the next time I’m out. How’s the family?”

So who did see to it that Easterbrook was retroactively never at ESPN Online? Companies never comment on this, but my money’s on Mr. John Skipper, Senior Vice President and General Manager of ESPN.com and ESPN, the Magazine. He probably got an email from an underling, meditated on what to do between two sips of coffee, typed out something like “Erase this Bozo .” And hit “Send.”

And “The Send Button Is Forever.”

Anticipating the happiness of the CEO is the key to upward movement in the world. Always has been and always will be.

But in the final analysis, who exactly did fire Easterbrook from ESPN Online?

Easterbrook. Autopsy Report: Self-Inflicted Death by “Send.”

"What where the milestones of the first 10 years of online news? So asked Mark Glaser in Online Journalism Review a while back. Off the cuff, I'd say the defining element was the perception of the newspaper industry vs. the perception of the pundits.
1994: Curiousness vs. it'll change everything;
1995: Nervousness vs. you HAVE to do something;
1996: Dabble your feet vs. go full out or you'll be dead;
1997: Where is the meat vs. it takes time, and build communities;
1998: Still where is the meat vs. go multiplatform publishing;
1999: How do you play the stock market vs. you are in the content business;
2000: Who can we buy, merge, or partner with vs. whoa, is this ever taking off;
2001: It is not panning out vs. look closely where it does, imagine 9-11 without;
2002: Cut the weight vs. don't stop believing;
2003: Not where our problems really are vs. you'll never solve them without understanding it."

From: Poynter - E-Media Tidbits by Norbert Specker
Pointer via: [PressThink]

The astute James Taranto at WSJ Online writes:

What's curious about the partial-birth debate, though, is that although journalists feel compelled to add the disclaimer that only "critics" or "foes" use the term "partial-birth abortion," the other side of the debate doesn't seem to have a term of its own. The New York Times does provide one synonym, referring to "a procedure that doctors call intact dilation and extraction but critics call partial-birth abortion." But "intact dilation" is just a clinical way of saying "partial birth"; the Times' formulation is the equivalent of saying "a condition that doctors call melanoma but critics call skin cancer."

So the question remains: If only critics and foes call it "partial-birth abortion," what do advocates and enthusiasts call it? One suspects they would simply rather not talk about it.

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

Imaginary Interview File: Terry Gross and Al Franken

It's possible to do a political interview with a satirist whose politics you support. Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air, says to Al Franken...

TerryGross: Al Franken, thank you for joining me on Fresh Air. I must confess at the start that when I read your books I find myself laughing and nodding my head. So we aren’t coming from different places. We agree on a lot of things going on in the country today, and like anyone else I enjoy seeing certain people skewered. You skewer them, and I’m a satisified Franken customer.

But it makes me curious about what you are at this point in our culture. You began in comedy, now you have many media projects. You have branched out into social criticism, with a political bent, and you have a big audience. You say you do satire, and so do some others. Some object to that label, I suppose because they take you more seriously.

More at: [PressThink]

U.S. Patent Office Backlogged 500,000 Applications; Biotech to Blame

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office is backlogged with some 500,000 unprocessed applications, a number expected to double in the next five years. Part of the reason is the growing number and complexity of biotechnology patent applications, which are overwhelming patent office investigators. Needed: An invention that can process patent applications faster or -- better yet -- stricter rules on what can and cannot be patented... [Mike's List: The Raw Feed]

Today Kirk Jones’ story is that the "Vodka and Coke" made him do it. And he's sticking to it in order to get a little slack from Canada:FOXNews.com - Judge to Niagara Falls Survivor: Get Out

A judge has released the Michigan man who survived a plunge over Niagara Falls and ordered him to stay out of Canada except for court appearances....

Prosecutors told the court that Jones and a friend consumed an unknown amount of vodka and Coke before heading to the falls where Jones climbed a protective railing into the Niagara River and floated feet first over the falls.

Makes sense since anyone would agree that even one vodka and Coke cocktail would make you want to kill yourself. But in a report yesterday we learn:

Surviving a leap from Niagara Falls had intrigued Jones for years, said his mother, who had spoken to him only briefly since the jump.

"He said he always thought there was a spot you could jump and survive," Doris Jones, 77, told The Associated Press from her sister's home in Keizer, Ore. "We never agreed to it. We thought it was risky."

No vodka and Coke swirling about in mom. Other details from this story include a person that made a video tape and:" Eric Fronek, 21, also of Canton, said his friend had been talking about possibly going over the falls for weeks. "No one believed he would actually do it," Fronek said Tuesday. "He said, `If I go over and I live, I am going to make some money."'

So was it the vodka and Coke or was it the money? As always, it is probably a little of both. Jones doesn't look like the kind of guy who's good for a book deal, but we can easily see the Coke Ad at next year's Superbowl:

Niagara Falling

Pan shot of Niagara Falls

Voice Over: "150,000 gallons a second of pure bone-pulverizing, flesh-shredding thrills.... And one jackass with a cash-flow crisis."

Close Up on Jones at the edge chugging from a Smirnoff fifth.

Jones: "Goodbye cruel world!" Leaps in with only the fifth for flotation.

Long shot of Jones being swept to his doom!

Pan to below the falls.

Zoom to Jones climbing out on shore.

Coca-Cola corporate helicopter swoops in from above.

Lands and Catherine Zeta-Jones in tight black leather bustier pops out while Arrowsmith sets up in the background. Zeta hands Jones a frosty bottle of Coke.

Jones quaffs Coke.

Tight close-up of Jones as Zeta-Jones nibbles his ear.

Jones: Coke! Adds Life!"

Off-camera voice through bullhorn: “Nice, Kirk. But let’s do a retake with a little more conviction this time. Places, people!”

The indispensible LGF has an interesting excerpt from the infinite LGF email stack. It is from a soldier in Iraq to his wife. Subject: Fighting a War With Hands Tied

...The Army can stop them. They know where the enemy artillery is coming from and can fire back. But the politicians are afraid to let us use this weapon because the Iraqis are firing from a village. The politicians are afraid of civilian casualties and collateral damage. You know what? Those damn villagers shelter, feed, and protect the bastard mortar crew who's attacking us. They deserve to get a few high explosive rounds dropped on their heads. They deserve a taste of their own medicine. And the next time some Islamic fanatic talks about how great martyrdom is, I vote we send him to Allah right then and there...

From family conversation I gathered that, outside of my Yiddish child-world, there were savages who didn’t have much to say but could fix the plumbing. They were fond of animals, liked to go swimming, loved to drink and fight. All their problems were solved when they hut geharget yiddin. Killed Jews. Only the last has been impossible for me to dismiss. Like many other people I have fixed my own plumbing, owned a dog and a cat, gotten drunk, etc., but everything in my life, beginning with English, has been an uncertain movement away from my hut geharget Yiddish childhood. When a BBC poet said he wanted to shoot Jews on the West Bank, I thought, “Epes. What else is new?” His righteousness, his freedom to say it, suggests that he believes he is merely speaking English, and antisemitism is a kind of syntax, or what Wittgenstein calls “a form of life.” But in fact there is something new, or anyhow more evident lately. The geharget yiddin disposition now operates at a remove. You see it in people who become hysterical when they feel that their ancient right to hate Jews is brought into question. To give an example would open a boxcar of worms.

From: Threepenny Review: Leonard Michaels, "My Yiddish"

• If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing pound puppy underwear and a superman cape.
• It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20x20 ft. room.
• If you use a waterbed as home plate while wearing baseball shoes it does not leak - it explodes.
• A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 square foot house 4 inches deep.
• A 3 year old's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.
• A six year old can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36 year old man says they can only do it in the movies.
• A magnifying glass can start a fire even on an overcast day.
• The fire department has at least a 5 minute response time.
• Always look in the oven before you turn it on.
• Plastic toys do not like ovens.
• Always locate the hamster and look in the oven before you turn it on.
• You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on.
• When using a ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit.
• A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.
• The glass in windows (even double pane) doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.
• Any sentence which contains the word 'Oooops' is bad.
• Any sentence beginning with, "How much do you love me?" means 'prepare for bad news'.
• Baseballs make marks on ceilings
• Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it. 60% of men who read this will try mixing the Clorox and brake fluid.
• Bugs are not a dietary supplement.
• Cats do not like to be wrapped in duct tape.
• And cats get even.
• Certain Legos will pass through the digestive tract of a four year old.
• But not all Legos.
• Collecting things is good.
• Collecting things that come out of your nose is not.
• Eating string is a bad hobby.
• Discovering string the next day is a disgusting hobby.
• Driveway seal coating and children DO NOT MIX!
• Fan and flour should never be heard in the same sentence.
• Finger painting is good.
• Finger painting walls is dangerous.
• Fish can not use a remote control, even if placed in their tank.
• Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.
• If you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades,they can ignite.
• If you hear the words, "Can ya eat a lizard's tail?" it's too late.
• If you hear the words, "Guess what's in my hands," you don't want to know.
• If you hear the words, "Guess what's in my mouth," you REALLY don't want to know.
• Lipstick on the TV screen changes mommy's mood.
• Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.
• McGyver can teach us many things we don't want to know.
• Most toilets can not consume an entire roll of toilet paper without choking.
• Never light fireworks inside.
• No matter how much Jell-O you put in a swimming pool you still can't walk on water. Pool filters do not like Jell-O.
• No time is a good time to hear, "Daddy, your tires are 'hisssssing.'"
• Nor do you want to hear, "Your new cell phone doesn't work underwater."
• Play Dough and Microwave should never be used in the same sentence.
• Quiet does not necessarily mean everythings just fine.
• Scissors and hair are often a dangerous combination.
• Setting the hamster free changes the cat's mood.
• Some things will pass through the digestive tract of a four year old that you'd imagine would remain forever.
• Super glue is forever.
• The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy. It will however make cats dizzy. Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.
• The toilet does not make a permanent fish aquarium.
• There is no such thing as child-proofing your house.
• Throwing daddy's wallet in the trash compactor can change his mood.
• Two AM is not a good time to hear, "Daddy, diapers don't flush!"
• Under the bed is not a good place to save snowballs for summer.
• VCR's do not eject peanut butter and jelly sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do.
• Walnuts make the blender act funny.
• When you hear the toilet flush and the words, "Uh-oh," it's already too late.
• You probably do not want to know what that odor is.
• You never want to hear, "Watch me fly!" coming from the roof.
• I dont know. is not an acceptable explanation or legal plea.
• "Why do fish float?" means trouble.

What elements make up a path to a third way in contemporary American politics? It is more than self-evident that millions of citizens are, to say the least, disenchated with the two major options presented to us at election time. It is manifest that "There's something happening here. / What it is ain't exactly clear."

Or, at least it was unclear yesterday. Today, in a detailed and insightful mediation, Michael Totten responds to a bit of predictable Timesian blather by James Atlas, with an internal checklist of what he does believe. His conclusion is:

"So when James Atlas at the New York Times says we liberal hawks are turning into conservatives, I have to say sorry, but no. Foreign policy is one subject among many. I may have a neocon wrench in my toolbox, but my liberal and libertarian tools are awfully useful, too. Neoconservatism may have its virtues, but Independence is better."

He's correct. But of more interest are the steps by which he gets there, and the issues he illuminates en route.

Read the rest at: An Inquiry into Neoconservatism (Updated)

Smoke Break Among Girders
Lewis Hine, American (1874-1940)

From:George Eastman House Lewis Hine - Empire State Building Series

The stork brought me your memo on the Global War on Terrorism this morning. I don't know why but it seems that everyone in America received a copy of it -- either from the stork or cranked out on some illegal mimeograph machine and stuffed into the morning paper with a note attached that read "Courtesy of Bill and Hill, 2004. Smooches and Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."

I don't know why those working for you can't seem to zip it up when they get around a member of the press. I guess they've decided that if Loose Lips Sink Ships, that's the Navy's issue. Of course, when it comes to living in a free society, I'm proud that the media can play the role of shill for our enemies and the Democratic Party. After all, they're "just doing their job," right? Right.

At any rate, here are my thoughts on your stemwinder. I know your didn't ask me but, given the 'Let's Discuss' tone of your ruminations it is clear that you need some feedback. And, as always, I'm prepared to give it to you.

The questions I posed to combatant commanders this week were: Are we winning or losing the Global War on Terror?

Don, Don, Don.... How many times do we have to go over this? You've got to get a name for this thing that doesn't echo Jimmy Carter promising a war on thermostats, Ronald Reagan promising a war on drugs, or Bill Clinton promising a war on Ken Starr. Cut the mush and give it a handle that means something more than America trying to Johnny Mop its way into Utopia.

If you are unsure about what a war looks like, take a tour of the Holocaust Museum over lunch and report back. If you can't do better than a phrase that was done to death in the 1980s, pick up the phone and speed dial Aaron Sorkin. He's currently between rehabs and may want to pitch in if you promise him an all-expense paid weekend in Bogota.

Is DoD changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment?

Change? Fast? The DOD? Better put them all on that plane for that weekend in Bogota. That commissary coffee just isn't cutting it. Consider stocking it with cans of Starbucks's Double Shot.

Can a big institution change fast enough? Is the USG changing fast enough?

No and no. Why? Screen "The Crying Game" and pay attention to the story at the beginning about the scorpion and the frog. Got it? Good.

DoD has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air forces.

How many times must I remind you? Don't believe everything you read in the New York Times, no matter what services Maureen Dowd may have promised you in that Hamptons hot tub. Look where it got Howell Raines.

Hear us now or hear us later: The DOD "has been organized, trained, and equipped" to only fight wars that involve us in casualty rates that do not exceed single digits in one week. It believes to the marrow of its money-grubbing epaulettes that "the American Public will not tolerate significant losses in a war." This is because DOD believes everything it reads in the New York Times. So if you are looking for places to cut expenditures at DOD.... Well, we'll say no more.

It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution either within DoD or elsewhere — one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.

Emphasis ours, but only to point out that you cannot keep running over to the Coast Guard's evidence vaults and stuffing Tommy Chong's Bongs with whatever bales of herbal remedies they fished out of the drink near Key West last week.

Remember, just because the entire population of the United States is one drink and one joint behind, that doesn't mean we want our Secretary of Defense

Continued...

to kill all the lawyers, is that he didn't set a date.

Welcome to America. Mud and reeds have been dumped on natural and necessary human activities throughout American society. Playgrounds have been stripped of all physically active equipment, like monkey bars, with the effect, among others, of contributing to a crisis in childhood obesity. Health-care costs are skyrocketing, in part because paranoid doctors are in the habit of ordering unnecessary tests to provide a possible defense in case there's a lawsuit. Because of fear of legal claims, teachers can't put their arm around a crying child.

From: WSJ.com - When Judges Won't JudgeBy Philip K. Howard

Space Object Box: “Little Bear, etc.” motif, mid-1950s–early 1960s. Box construction and collage, 11 x 17 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches.

Joseph Cornell was born December 24, 1903, in Nyack, New York. From 1917 to 1921, he attended Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. He was an avid collector of memorabilia and, while working as a woolen-goods salesman in New York until 1931, developed his interests in ballet, literature, and opera. He lived with his mother and brother, Robert, at their home in the Flushing section of Queens.

The Swimmer in the Econo-mist (painting 3), 1997–98
[Click to Enlarge]

James Rosenquist A Retrospective at the Guggenheim

Born in 1933 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, James Rosenquist studied art at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts as a teenager and at the University of Minnesota between 1952 and 1954, painting billboards during the summers. In 1955 he moved to New York to study at the Art Students League. He left the school after one year, and in 1957 returned to life as a commercial artist, painting billboards in Times Square and across the city. By 1960, he had quit painting billboards and rented a small studio space in Manhattan where his neighbors included artists Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, and Jack Youngerman. In 1962, he had his first solo exhibition at the Green Gallery in New York, and afterward was included in a number of groundbreaking group exhibitions that established Pop art as a movement.

Overlawyered alerts us that someone has neglected to ties Gray Davis's hands behind his back and lock him in a limo trunk for the duration of his "term":

Calif.: here comes labor-law bounty hunting

Outgoing Calif. Gov. Gray Davis has quietly signed S. 796, a first-of-its-kind bill that authorizes lawyers to file private damage suits over labor code violations. Business leaders "argue it could have far-reaching financial consequences to employers across the state and and be more costly than the landmark employee health bill, SB 2, signed by the governor earlier this month. ... The legislation would allow a worker to sue on behalf of other employees for wage and labor code violations. Moreover, it permits a judge to force employers to pay attorney's fees and penalties." (Gilbert Chan, "Sue-your-boss bill becomes law", Sacramento Bee, Oct. 20). "This is probably the worst bill I've seen in my three years in the State Legislature. Senate Bill 796 is the 'Son of 17200' – California’s much-maligned and highly abused Unfair Competition Law," said Assemblymember Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach. "Large employers in California will now be a cash cow for trial lawyers thanks to SB 796," said Harman. "A minor one-year Labor Code violation at the business employing 3,000 workers will generate civil penalties totaling more than $31 million". ... [Overlawyered]

Brian Chin notes the crocodile tears streaming out of Microsoft's Digital Media corporate clone:

My colleague, Todd Bishop, blogged about Microsoft's response to Apple Computer's rollout of iTunes for Windows yesterday. Dave Fester, GM of Microsoft's Windows Digital Media Division, doesn't think much of iTunes because it limits users to Apple's technology and Apple's...

"Windows users, who expect choice in music services, choice in devices, and choice in music from a wide-variety of music services to burn to a CD or put on a portable device. Lastly, if you use Apple's music store along with iTunes, you don't have the ability of using the over 40 different Windows Media-compatible portable music devices. " [seattlepi.com Buzzworthy]

Hey, Dave, why don't you just download a copy of "Cry Me A River" and play on a closed loop forever? Thanks.

Today's Washington Post leads with the news that accused sniper John Allen Muhammad fired his lawyers and chose to defend himself Monday.

In a sidebar to this story, "A Legal Move That Rarely Helps," the Post quotes Edward B. MacMahon Jr., a defense attorney, as saying:

"If a witness testifies that they saw him, what's he going to say, 'It wasn't me'?"

Meanwhile, back in the courtroom, Muhammad said,

"And I say to these people: We know something happened. They wasn't there. I was. I know what happened, and I know what didn't happen."

[Click for larger but invisible image]

Human Spontaneous Involuntary Invisibility

In the summer of 1994, I became aware of a very strange phenomenon, human spontaneous involuntary invisibility, which was apparently happening to people in the U.S. When I checked with other researchers and discovered that a number of them had also heard of such cases, I decided to place an inquiry letter in several well-known journals, asking other researchers and the general public if they had any experiences of this nature that they would like to share with me. Besides the publication of my inquiry letter, my inquiry was placed on several Internet bulletin boards. The letters began pouring in, giving me a broader picture of this phenomenon. I want to share a few stories with you and pass on some of the information I have come across during this past year.