Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Ten Errors about Rathergate in One Paragraph



Click here for AmazonThere are few things as delicious as seeing the mainstream media continue on its path of dissimulation and, therefore, self-destruction. I provided a set of ESPN-worthy highlights of MSM disintegration a couple of days ago. And to see it occurring again and again -- blindly and with malice aforethought -- is akin to watching Ron Artest charge the stands in Detroit while Jermaine O'Neal punches out fans. In the pit of your stomach, you know it's wrong and inherently recognize that there will be consequences far beyond the here and now.

Tom Shales of the Washington Post makes 10 errors in writing about CBS's Memogate...

...All in a single paragraph:

"...Tireless press critics during war or peacetime, the conservatives were handed a valuable new weapon when CBS News fumbled(1) a report detailing(2) the president's(3) shoddy record(4) as a member of the National Guard back in Texas. The report was attacked (5) virtually the moment it aired(6) on "60 Minutes"; documents used to bolster(7) the allegations were condemned by conservative(8) critics as phony and forged(9), though no forging has yet been proved(10)." ...



Scylla & Charybdis (hat tip: LGF): Ten Errors about Memogate in One Paragraph

Europe's Model and the Future



Click here for AmazonVia Winds of Change, James C. Bennett's Dreaming Europe in a Wide-Awake World is outstanding. I have excerpted it for purposes of readability, but it is worth reading in its entirety.

The world today is a vastly different place from what it was thirty years ago. Then the picture was dominated by the stark contrast between the generally prosperous and free First World, the economically stagnant and drably totalitarian Second World, and the seemingly hopeless Third World. Today, that disturbing but fairly simple tripartite classification has been replaced by a much more complex picture. What stands out in this new picture is the way winners and losers are emerging within each of the former categories. Within the former Third World, erstwhile basket cases such as China and India have become awakened giants, economically dynamic and increasingly more assertive on the international stage, while other Third World locations have become more of a Fourth World... Making sense of this complexity and illuminating a path forward is the intellectual task of today, one which becomes a metric for judging all international trends and policy analysis.

One of the most interesting analytical problems is that presented by the divergent paths taken by the developed nations of the First World, and their respective degrees of success. These are sometimes segmented out as Europe, America and Japan, but the more useful division is probably one of Japan, Continental Europe and what are variously called the "Anglo-Saxon" economies or, increasingly, the Anglosphere. In the early 1970s, all three of these regions were seen to be facing roughly the same set of problems: first, stagnation of a modified market economy defined by substantial economic regulation, high marginal tax rates, and a fairly high percentage of GDP captured by the public sector, as well as high wage levels and inelastic industrial structures reinforced by strong unionism; second, a declining birthrate, which promised trouble downstream for pay-as-you-go pension and benefits programs; and third, a weakening of the old sources of social cohesion, particularly religion, patriotic narratives in education and the media, and (in some countries) ethnic homogeneity.

From the end of World War II to the early 1970s, all three sectors of the developed world enjoyed a general economic expansion. Continental Europe and Japan in fact each experienced more rapid growth and development than the English-speaking nations, mainly from the spur of postwar reconstruction. However, as more and more of the Third World began adopting aggressive, export-driven industrialization strategies, the old cozy collaboration of government protection and passing wage increases on to the consumer began to fall apart.

The Anglosphere nations, led by the United States and Britain, reacted by reducing marginal tax rates, privatizing and deregulating markets, and refusing to subsidize declining smokestack industries. High levels of immigration were accepted, reversing the demographic patterns of decline. Continental European nations responded by increasing European integration, thus expanding internal market opportunities but retaining and even reinforcing the "social market economy"--legislated job protection and generous social benefits, particularly for the unemployed.

A wave of European Union-mandated privatizations ended the most egregious boondoggles, and small, protected national companies were absorbed into a smaller number of EU-wide champions, which were protected more subtly by disguised subsidies and ingenious non-tariff barriers. Meanwhile, most European nations accepted "guest workers", increasingly from North Africa and Turkey. But their assimilation into European national cultures was never aggressively pursued.

Finally, Japan addressed essentially the same set of problems through aggressive use of automation and offshore production, honing their competitive capabilities, and continuing a rather blatant policy of domestic protection. Japan also employed other labor-saving strategies and a minimal number of temporary foreign workers, though making clear that they were expected not to become permanent residents.

So the world economy must today be considered as one vast experiment. The object of this experiment is to determine whether the developed nations might continue to enjoy at least their current levels of prosperity, while the large developing nations of India and China become major economic players and a host of smaller, newly industrialized countries acquire the capability to offer almost every sort of manufactured good and advanced service at the same quality and lower price.

...It is in this global and historical context that we must examine Europe's present and future, and what they may mean for the United States. Any static view of Europe today, or one that merely contrasts Europe and the United States in a less-than-global context, is worse than useless....

...Rifkin's [analysis] is a two-level critique of America contrasted with virtuous Europe. First, he asserts that Europe is surpassing America on the conventional criteria of prosperity. But he then adds that where economic success is absent in Europe, that's okay too, because progress is bad for you anyway.

Rifkin, therefore, requires critiquing on both levels. Gersemann... provides an excellent analysis of Rifkin's surface level. The case for the coming European triumph over America is quickly refuted. Gersemann, himself a German financial journalist (currently Washington correspondent for Wirtschaftwoche), convincingly refutes all of the prevailing Euro-legends about America, from the supposedly collapsing middle class to medical care to income inequality. He likewise documents the growing structural and demographic crisis of a Europe that has created more unfunded obligations than it can fulfill--while producing too few children to pay the bills their parents are racking up.

...Young, mostly Muslim families struggling under ever-increasing payroll taxes will hear calls from ethnic-based politicians to repudiate the checks that old rich white Europeans had written to themselves. To the extent that Rifkin holds up Europe as a model for Americans to emulate, he is in effect urging the purchase of a ticket on the Titanic.

...Rifkin presents a distillation of the positions of a number of European intellectuals over the past decade or two (but with roots in a Europeanist tradition going back much further). This argument states, roughly, that the entire idea of progress--of autonomous individuals possessing stated constitutional rights in a contract-based market society--is a historical aberration, and an unfortunate one...

In Rifkin's narrative, medieval people lived a collective lifestyle, in which individuals were embedded in a web of connections and did not think of themselves as apart from their colleagues. It was only the introduction of the proto-capitalist mentality that shattered this comfortable universe of family, congregation and community and transformed mankind into alienated individuals. The coup de grace was provided by extreme Protestant sects in the English Civil War, who used the new invention of printing to shatter the last stands of community by preaching the direct link, via the Bible, between man and God. These individuals went on to develop capitalism and technology, destroy the environment, subdue the Third World, and create our current world of SUVs, beef eating, obesity, and excessive punctuality... America is of course the ultimate example of this alienated world, while Europe is on the path back to connectedness, mostly by creating vast, unaccountable bureaucracies and substituting positive rights (things the state must do for you) for negative rights (things the state cannot do to you).

...[related] theorists posited a world characterized by universal laws of cultural evolution: Everyone was once tribal, then agricultural, then feudal, then modern (or is destined eventually to become so). The Marxists posited subsequent stages of socialism and communism, and others debated how, when and why peoples moved from one stage to another. Rifkin's novel contribution is to identify the emerging European postmodernist society as the next stage. Instead of a proletarian revolution ushering in central planning, we are to have a centralized bureaucratic revolution that will plan proletarian immobilization.

...[Refuting Rifkin,] Macfarlane and his associates have demonstrated very convincingly that English society back to Anglo-Saxon days has been characterized by individual rather than familial landholding; by voluntary contract relationships rather than by inherited status; and by nuclear rather than extended families. Individuals were free of parental authority from age 21 on, and daughters could not be denied their choice of husband (unlike on the Continent). The English nobility, regularly churned by elevation of commoners and marriage of younger sons to non-titled families, tended to mix freely with the rest of society, rather than being a separate caste, again as on the Continent. Rather than the English Reformation being the event that caused this change, it seems to have been (for the majority of the population) the event that brought formal theology and church government more in line with the pre-existing customs of the country. So the English "peasant" that Hollywood is fond of depicting turns out to be the figment of a 19th-century Marxist's imagination.

Macfarlane's body of work represents a momentous intellectual revolution. The implications of this revolution have not yet been fully realized, or even generally understood. It suggests that modernity and its consequences came particularly easily for the already-individualistic English. Conversely, it came particularly hard for the Continental Europeans, whose societies were characterized by all the non-individualistic features England lacked. It was to these Continentals that the intrusion of individualist, market-oriented relations was particularly disruptive and shocking. With medieval traditions of representative government moribund or long vanished, it is not surprising that Continental states had a particularly difficult time adjusting to parliamentary government, experiencing instead frequent coups, revolutions and periods of authoritarian rule, spiraling down to the abyss of fascism and communism.

...Although certainly the majority of most Continental populations made a perfectly successful transition to modernist life, a significant minority never fully bought in to the psychology or assumptions of liberal society, and thus were easily recruited into the darker visions of fascism. That may explain why Anglosphere nations never developed significant fascist movements, despite experiencing the same traumas of postwar disillusionment and economic depression.

...One must then ask, if the divide between les Anglo-Saxons and the Continentals is genuinely deep rooted, why have Atlantic relations over most of the past fifty years been so relatively tranquil? It may be because the Cold War years, with their combination of Soviet threat and open American markets for recovering Continental industries, and with the Third World economically invisible, provided a period of unique military-political stability and economic opportunities that provided uniquely strong incentives to smooth over problems. With the end of the Cold War, the first incentive has disappeared. With the rise of the newly industrialized countries, the European share of the American export market continues to shrink. Japan now competes for the luxury markets Europe used to dominate, India targets software, while China and the East Asian Tigers take the low-cost manufactured-goods slot from Japan. The Anglosphere nations have navigated this tightrope with a combination of maintaining the high-technology pioneer slot, aggressively combining offshore, low-cost labor with their managerial and financial talents (a strategy followed by Japan as well), and growing their domestic services sector, primarily by entrepreneurism. Continental Europe has so far proven too slow and inflexible to follow this pattern. In this environment, the Anglosphere-Eurosphere divide promises to widen, not shrink.

Rifkin's analysis either ignores or trivializes this problem, despite his frequent invocation of the term "globalization", which in his eyes becomes primarily a justification for European-style multiculturalism. Fortunately, this global context is becoming more widely recognized...

...Given this recognition of the genuine case for an Anglosphere identity and dimension, two questions for Britain regarding Europe arise. First, is Britain a European nation with a special relationship to the United States, or is it an Anglosphere nation with a special relationship to Europe? Second, given that it must interact with both spheres, what should the exact nature of the institutional ties with each be?

....Are the structures of the EU the best vehicle for resolving Britain's need to maintain both cross-Channel and intra-Anglosphere ties? And are the structures of the European Union adequate to the task of maintaining the integration of Europe in the wider Euro-Atlantic world, and in the world in general?

...Draw a circle on the map of a thousand miles radius, centered on Brussels. Within that circle the states are free and democratic, and military conflict is virtually unthinkable. Now draw a similar thousand-mile circle centered on Tokyo. Within that circle or very near lie a half-dozen states. Three of them have nuclear weapons and the rest are close. These states are rising economic, technological and industrial powers. In contrast to Europe, it is highly conceivable that such weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction, could be used at any time. The transnational institutions and agreements that preclude war in democratic Europe have little purchase in this region.

Europeanists have maintained that Europe's model is the world's future, but while Europeans were combining nation-states into a wider entity after World War II, northeast Asians were taking an existing single-market area (pre-war Japan, which integrated Korea, Taiwan and Manchuria) and turning it into separate nation-states, with equally prosperous results. Even today there is no visible movement to a Northeast Asian Union, although many writers automatically assume that other regions will imitate European structural models. Both Free World and The Great Deception suggest the conclusion that the EU is probably a one-off happenstance from unique historical circumstances. Once one leaves the immediate neighborhood of Brussels, transnationalism does not seem so inevitable.

America faces both Brussels and Tokyo, and must act in both of these universes. It deploys troops and nuclear weapons in both theaters. Is it any wonder that America cannot wholeheartedly adopt the Europeanist outlook?

Yet it is this global environment that we must consider as we contemplate Thomas P. M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map. Barnett describes a world in which the historically industrialized nations are the Old Core, the new industrial powers are the New Core, and the bulk of the old Third World that has not achieved takeoff is the Gap. He sees the task of the 21st century as stabilizing the Gap enough for it to adhere to the Core through "connectivity"--flows of capital, people and trade goods. In order to sustain these flows in a stable world, he would combat anti-globalization jihadis (not all of them radical Muslims) with a combination of hard military power, "soft" economic-political power, and a new synthesis of the two: a "nation-building" capability which he calls the "System Administrator." This last would have been called a colonial constabulary and colonial civil service in the 19th century. Its mandate today, however, would not be an imperial one, but would emanate from the web of transnational institutions that have sprung up, and the bulk of its power would be provided by the United States.

...A much more significant weakness is that Barnett's focus on the Core-Gap dichotomy leads him to minimize the importance of the existing links that connect particular Gap countries with particular Core nations. Given cheap air transport and telecommunications rapidly moving to a worldwide flat rate, the old paths of empire and emigration have given rise to a series of fluid, overlapping worldwide network civilizations. In the place of the British Empire there is now a demotic Anglosphere of Birmingham curry houses and Indo-American software engineers, a son of Jamaican emigres becoming Secretary of State, and Filipino immigrants commanding British, Australian and American troops together...

...The key point here is that these new constructs all cut across Core-Gap lines, yet they are almost always the most effective lines along which the money, people, goods and services will flow to bring connectivity from the Core to the Gap. Rather than striving for universality of approaches, we would do better to work with the grain and maximize the use of these existing channels.

...The most important fact of the 21st century may be the fact that the educated and ambitious of India have made of English not merely a useful foreign tongue, as have the Chinese, but a language they have taken into their homes and their literature, and into their heads and hearts by creating their own version of it. The new rising generation of well-educated, tech-savvy Indians increasingly regards this intertwining of India and the Anglosphere not as a colonial relic, but as a valuable card that history has dealt to their country, and one that should be played. Evidence that it is being played can be seen in both the quietly accelerating Indo-American military cooperation and the rapidly accelerating economic interpenetration between India and America...

...Continental Europe in general, but especially "Old Europe", has tended to see this emerging world as a game in which they are dealt a progressively worsening hand with every shuffle of the cards. Thus they have concentrated on cashing in chips for short-term gain, while trying to trip up stronger players when the opportunity strikes. At present, the costs of being in the coalition would probably include making major and painful structural adjustments to their economies. Domestic European electorates might therefore be tempted by the alternative of a Euro-Islamic alliance, in which Middle Eastern oil states would prop up unreformed European economies in return for international support, high-tech weaponry and open access to Europe for Islamic economic migrants. The growing "Eurabian" bloc of Islamic voters would thus combine with anti-reform pensioners to veto any other political alignment, driving politics in the direction of the Euro-Islamic solution.

This alignment might then attempt to pick off one other major player from the grand coalition. Russia would probably find this unattractive, given their problem with radical Islamic separatists, and Japan would gain little from it. China might be tempted by access to energy, European weapons technology and the European market, so long as their access to the American market was not entirely precluded. China might not be so much a partner as a semi-detached fellow-traveler, careful never to fully alienate either side. Russia might well try to play a similar semi-detached role to the Anglosphere-India-Japan group.

Under this scenario, we might see the world gradually align into several loose competing politico-economic alliances whose elbow-jostling would not rise to the level of war, or even cold war. The above scenario may in fact be emerging now, with an Anglosphere-plus-India-plus-Japan-plus-Russia team contending with a Euro-Islamic-Chinese bloc. Within such a framework there would still be a need for high-level international agreements and organizations to bind the major players together within a limited framework--to facilitate world trade and prevent any major conflagration among the major powers. But a new world order it would not be, and the transnational elements in it would probably wield about the same amount of influence as during the Cold War.

All in all, the European model is unlikely to be replicated on the world stage--and it may be scaled back and even dismantled in Europe itself when the evidence that India and China are overtaking it becomes too embarrassingly clear. As for the really big picture, instead of problematic schemes for transnational governance on the European model, we are likely to see the gradual rise of associated commonwealths, achieving more modest goals more effectively on a basis of cultural, legal and linguistic affinity. Rifkin's "European Dream" is likely to remain exactly that.


The National Interest: Dreaming Europe in a Wide-Awake World

Duke University hosts pro-terror organization's conference



Click here for AmazonIf this isn't enough reason to boycott Duke University and its related marketing collateral (e.g., logo apparel), I don't know what is. Powerline reports, you decide. And if it ticks you off, email Richard Brodhead (richard.brodhead@duke.edu) or call him (+1 919 684 2424) and politely take issue with his tacit approval of Jihadists.

The January issue of Commentary is out, and it contains a disturbing piece (no link is available yet) by two Duke University graduate students, Eric Adler and Jack Langer called "The Intifada Comes to Duke." The authors are referring to Duke's recent hosting of the annual conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM). One of PSM's stated principles is that it refuses to denounce any terrorist act committed by Palestinians. But that doesn't mean PSM is agnostic about such terrorist acts. One of the scheduled speakers at the Duke conference, Charles Carlson, has openly called for lethal attacks against Israelis -- "each wedding, Passover celebration, or bar mitzvah [in Israel] is a potential military target." (The seminar Carlson was scheduled to lead eventually was cancelled with no explanation). One PSM organizer, Fadi Kiblawi has written of his urge to "strap a bomb to his chest and kill those Zionist racists." Another spokesperson, Hatem Bazian has called for "an intifada in this country." And Sami al-Arian, who has been active in the movement, is awaiting trial in Florida for racketeering and terrorism.

"None of this was of concern to Duke president Richard Brodhead. He found the decision to host the pro-terror organization to be "an easy one" given "the importance of the principle free expression." It is true that after the PSM's statements and deeds were spelled out in detail for Brodhead, he modified his position. Now the "deepest" reason for hosting the conference was no longer free speech, but "the principle of education through dialogue."

The dialogue, as Adler and Langer show, was a one-sided and darkly anti-Semitic affair. Keynote speaker Mazin Qumsiyeh (a Yale professor of genetics) presented a short history of the virulent Zionist "disease." Israel was pronounced "racist" and a greater abuser of human rights than South Africa in the days of apartheid. One speaker defended the terrorist acivities of Hamas. At a workshop, Huweida Arraf of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) urged students to join her group, which she acknowledged cooperates with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and offered them tips on how to enter Israel surreptitiously. Thus, in the name of dialogue, did Duke University assist in the recruitment of accomplices to terrorism.

When it was all over, and after the dialogue had inspired a columnist on the Duke student newspaper to attack American Jews and their "shocking overrepresentation" in academia, President Brodhead pronounced himself satisfied. More than that, he expressed gratitude and pride at seeing his university involved in such a "constructive event."


Powerline: Duke University hosts pro-terror organization's conference

Hiding their Heads in Sand Francisco



Click here for AmazonHoward Nemerov of MichNews:

"We know that for even law-abiding folks who own guns, the rates of suicide and mortality are substantially higher. So while just perceived to be a crime thing, we think there is a wide benefit to limiting the number of guns in the city." – Bill Barnes, aide to Supervisor Chris Daly (1)

With this erroneous claim to bolster them, San Francisco supervisors kicked off a campaign to get voters to approve a city-wide handgun ban to take effect in 2006. What they are ignoring, besides statistical data, is history...

...Internationally, the US compares even more favorably, rated 24th overall in murder rate. All countries with higher rates have far more gun control... there is [also] no relationship between civilian disarmament and suicide rates. As with murder rates, the US is 27th overall in suicide rate, and countries with higher rates have more gun control. (6) ...a study that collated a United Nations report... found no positive correlation between gun ownership and higher levels homicide or suicide...

...In 2003, our nation’s capitol experienced a murder rate of 44.2 per 100,000 population, about 10 times the rates of nearby states and nearly 8 times the national rate. (8) This is a continued trend begun in 1976, when D.C. instituted a gun ban, claiming the dubious title of “Murder Capital of the World” 14 of the last 15 years. (9)

...Since it has been in vogue for cities to sue firearms manufacturers for criminal use of highly-regulated, non-defective products, it would seem legal ground has been prepared for similar suits in the reverse direction: that city politicians should be held accountable for death and destruction of public safety resulting from the flawed policies they enact. Perhaps we need to start a new holiday: Take a Politician to Court Day.


Gun Control: Hiding their Heads in Sand [sic] Francisco

Monday, December 27, 2004

Some opinions count more than others



Click here for AmazonCheck out this Military Times poll:

Among active duty military, 63% approve of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Two-thirds of combat vets think the war is worth fighting. A whopping 87% are satisfied with their jobs. And one of my favorites: "60% blame Congress for the shortage of body armor in the combat zone."

None of this is a surprise to those who have been paying attention. But if all you read is the mainstream media, wouldn't you be puzzled as to how all of these military personnel could be enthusiastic about a war in which nothing good ever happens?


Powerline: Troops Support War

Meltdown



Click here for AmazonIt is with a general sense of awe -- and perhaps a thimble-full of wistfulness for the good old days -- that we watch the mainstream media continue to self-destruct. The cold, hard proof comes in the form of falling Nielsen ratings for the likes of CBS News, rattlingly low subscription renewal rates for the LA Times, the continued ratings rise of Fox News and talk radio, and the accelerating importance of the blogosphere as a legitimate news outlet.

The latest, most devastating salvos -- all raining down on the MSM in the last few hours --come in the form of:

* Powerline's eviscerating takedown of Thomas Friedman's latest op-ed.

...Friedman... recapitulates, in a sentence or two, ten recent news stories, all of which are intended to reflect badly on the Bush administration; the general theme--reminiscent of leftism of the 60s and 70s--is that there is plenty of money for defense, while social programs are being cut. Friedman concludes:

So what is the common denominator of all these news stories? Wait, wait, don't tell me. I want to tell you. The common denominator is a country with a totally contradictory and messed-up set of priorities.


There is a fundamental problem, however, with Friedman's attempt to show that our national priorities are wrong. The news stories he cites are largely either false, or mischaracterized by him. Let's take them one at a time...

Ed: here Powerline shreds Friedman on nearly every point, highlighting a level of intellectual dishonesty on his part that is as stunning as it is blatant.

...Friedman concludes: "If we were actually having a serious national debate, this is what we would be discussing, but alas, 9/11 has been deftly exploited to choke any debate." Actually, Tom, there is a debate going on. The New York Times just isn't part of it, because it operates at too low a level of information to be useful to knowledgeable news consumers.


* As a bonus, the Palm Tree Pundit effectively slams Friedman for another major oversight.

* The Mudville Gazette torches CNN and the MSM in general for demonstrating egregious bias in Iraqi reporting -- on a daily basis. Read the whole thing.

* In another pointed attack, Tim Blair notes more evidence of Maureen Dowd's disintegrating skillset (part 183 of a long series of MoDo's continuing woes).

* Captain Ed takes Glenn Kessler of the WaPo to task for ignoring one minor detail in European criticism of the US regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians have still not acknowledged Israel's right to exist and appear dedicated to a course of continued terror. That Europe's history of monstrous anti-semitism bears directly on this issue is casually obfuscated by Kessler, as the Captain eloquently points out.

* And Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs rightfully slams the Chicago Tribune for encouraging dhimmitude while willfully ignoring the real threat of jihadists. Don't these people visit MEMRI? Haven't they heard of Robert Spencer?

The term 'out of touch' isn't sufficient. The MSM is unwired and unplugged.

Hugh Hewitt's new book entitled Blog, due out January 15th, will likely paint the new topographic map of the media: with the seismic recast of the balance of power, both East and West coasts are sinking into the sea.

Actually, the Titanic might be a more apt analogy. Blinded and unrealizing, the MSM continues to frantically rearrange deck chairs while their once unsinkable ship has surpassed the maximum number of flooded compartments capable of keeping it afloat. The compartments - CNN, NYT, LAT, CBS, et. al. - must have their seawater pumped out, quickly, if the ship is to survive.

The odds don't look good.


Update: Hugh Hewitt noticed the trend as well and had a good suggestion to boot:

But if they were so inclined, the very first step would be publication on the internet of biographies of every reporter/producer on the news team along with that individual's responses to a series of questions on important issues of the day. Everyone brings baggage to the reporting of the news. Some of us lay that background out for the world to see --most reporters don't. A sure sign of something to hide is the hiding of something, and the unwillingness of MSM to tell us about their staffs is a giveaway that the lack of intellectual diversity in the newsroom is a scandal.

What questions would I like answered? Very simple ones: For whom did the reporter vote for president in the past five elections? Do they attend church regularly and if so, in which denomination?...


It's a great idea and therefore one certain to be ignored by the MSM. But the power of the blogosphere is still capable of dealing with this issue. How about the following?

Let's have the 800 pound gorillas -- Instapundit, Powerline, LGF, etc. -- agree to publish the same survey. The question the survey asks of readers is to identify the MSM's currently most biased "journalist". When we have a weekly winner, the entire blogosphere gets together and orchestrates a "bias bash", highlighting the person and their obvious prejudices.

Journalist by journalist, we can change the MSM ourselves.

p.s., I'll volunteer to run the Hall of Shame blog site, which will list the weekly losers.

Second Update: Instapundit provides a review of Blog and offers his favorite quote from the book:

"Blogs are built on speed and trust, and the MSM is very slow and very distrusted."


Perfect.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Tsunami



Click here for AmazonLatest estimates indicate that more than 12,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands left homeless by tsunami waves that may have measured as high as 150 feet. The waves were generated by an enormous undersea earthquake, which measured about 8.9 on the Richter scale; the largest recorded quake in 40 years (the '64 Alaska earthquake was similar in size).

"I just couldn't believe what was happening before my eyes," Boree Carlsson said from a hotel in the Thai resort of Phuket.

"As I was standing there, a car actually floated into the lobby and overturned because the current was so strong," said the 45-year-old Swede.

"I heard an eerie sound that I have never heard before. It was a high pitched sound followed by a deafening roar," said a 55-year-old Indian fishermen who gave his name as Chellappa. "I told everyone to run for their life."

In Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands, one official said nearly 4,500 people had died. The worst affected area was Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province, where 3,000 were killed. More than 200 prisoners escaped from a jail when the tsunami knocked down its walls.

In Sri Lanka, the death toll also reached 4,500 and 1 million people, or 5 percent of its population, were affected. It was the worst natural disaster to hit Sri Lanka.

In southern India, where at least 3,000 were estimated to have died, beaches were littered with submerged cars and wrecked boats. Shanties on the coast were under water.

Thai government officials said at least 392 bodies had been retrieved and they expected the final toll to approach 1,000.

NO WARNING SYSTEM

In Los Angeles, the head of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said U.S. officials who detected the undersea quake tried frantically to get a warning out about the tsunami.

But there was no official alert system in the region, said Charles McCreery, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's center in Honolulu.

"It took an hour and a half for the wave to get from the earthquake to Sri Lanka and an hour for it to get ... to the west coast of Thailand and Malaysia," he said. "You can walk inland for 15 minutes to get to a safe area." ...

...The tsunami was so powerful it smashed boats and flooded areas along the east African coast, 3,728 miles away.

SCALE OF DISASTER NOT YET KNOWN

Aid agencies said with communications cut to remote areas, it was impossible to assess the full scale of the disaster.

The Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was seeking 7.5 million Swiss francs ($6.5 million) for emergency aid funding...


Asian Tsunami Kills 12,300, Many More Homeless and Red Cross

Deadly consequences



Click here for AmazonThese [bodybuilders] were Schwarzenegger’s heirs, modern behemoths who had been inspired by the movie Pumping Iron, which was distributed in 1977 and made bodybuilding briefly glamorous. They existed in a hermetically-sealed sport in which they exhibited themselves to other people interested in bodybuilding while the rest of the world ignored them...

...Even the tiny few blessed with genetics that let them respond to the training, diet and drugs like almost no-one else alive found that the damage could be incremental, progressive and unpredictable.

Andreas Munzer was from Pack, a village in Styria a few miles from where Schwarzenegger had grown up in Austria. He died in 1996, 12 days after finishing sixth in the Arnold Classic, the Terminator’s own tournament. Andi’s body had suffered a catastrophic shutdown brought on by the use of steroids and diuretics. His liver had melted, his heart had failed.

Mohamed Benaziza perished in 1992, suffering a heart attack on the European tour after abusing the diuretics Lasix and Aldactone. Mike Matarazzo collapsed at the Arnold Classic in 1993, but recovered after prompt treatment [DR: Matarazzo has since undergone a triple bypass]. Paul Dillett "froze" on stage at the Arnold in 1994, too dehydrated to move.

Steve Michalik, a former Mr America, narrowly survived his preparation for a contest called Night Of Champions in 1986. He had cysts in his liver the size of golf balls.

The Mentzer twins, Mike and Ray, died within a day of each other in strange circumstances.

Bodybuilding remains extreme.

By the time we reached Las Vegas for the Mr Olympia show of 2003, the extremity of it was apparent, but I did not really care. Bodybuilders were wildly-interesting characters, unlike the usual monosyllabic modern sportsmen. They lived lives that were hard and obsessive, that pushed them towards their limits; they were as determined and driven as any competitors I had met....


The Scotsman: Muscling in on exotic universe can build up to deadly consequences

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Blog Power Rankings



Click here for AmazonThe December 25th Blog Power Rankings (computer-generated votes in parentheses):

December 25, 2004 Blog Power Rankings
1) Instapundit (41)
2) Buzzmachine (32)
3) Hugh Hewitt (30)
4) Daily Kos (24)
5) Boing Boing (15)
6) Talking Points Memo (13)
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How to Implement your own Google Suggest Interface



Click here for AmazonAre you wondering how you might implement your own Google Suggest-style web interface, which automatically populates a listbox based upon characters entered into a text-box? Okay, maybe you're not, but if you happen to be (a) a geek, (b) with nothing to do on Christmas afternoon, and (c) not otherwise engaged, you might have a look at the following.

From the JoelOnSoftware discussion board, Gavi Narra points to his own implementation of a dictionary application with a complete (and nicely done) description of how it was implemented in ASP.NET.

Update: Robert Plank points us to this PHP tutorial: Google Suggest with PHP.

Friday, December 24, 2004

Best of the Hughalanche



Hmmm... care to see the results of a "Hughalanche"? Yeah, I know, I've got a long way to go to reach even "third tier" status in the blogosphere, but...



...when Hugh Hewitt's blog (worth reading every day, BTW) posts a link to your site, you'll know it.

I first came across Mr. Hewitt on, I believe, Fox News. Interviewed in typical Fox "boxing match" fashion, with a Left-leaning pundit opposite him (it might have been Newsweek's Jon Meacham), Hewitt laid down an eviscerating rap that left his opponent -- literally -- speechless. It was a devastating victory in a difficult venue and one which doesn't often happen on television.

I was like, "who is that guy?". That led me to the Hewitt site and, of course, his Liberal-punishing daily missives that combine simile and historic perspective in concise, expansive, and often breathtaking fashion.

Hewitt on a Richard Stevenson article:

It isn't surprising that the New York Times intends to attack the president throughout his second term and to try and turn Iraq into Vietnam. What's surprising is the baldness of the tactics, and their lack of art. Peddling the same old story line with the same old tired sources isn't going to impress anyone outside of the fever swamp.


On Roger Ailes' comments on the MSM:

The anti-Americanism of many elite media is palpable, and increasingly resented by Americans of all backgrounds. Ailes knows this, and knows as well that any network that simply does not attack America on a nightly basis will be ahead of CNN.


On Time Magazine's naming a blog of the year:


Time has named a first-ever "blog of the year," and it is the very blog that not only nailed Rather, but also helped propel Christmas-Eve-not-in-Cambodia into the mainstream... Look a little closer and you'll find three extraordinarily credentialed legal professionals who have been writing on serious subjects for years... The Minneapolis Star Tribune ought to have locked these guys up a year ago, but the self-importance of the always-ignored editorial board has probably intimidated the time-servers there from raising the subject of the bloggers who have generated more news and sparks in one year than the Strib has in 50.

In short, Time has identified the hot blogger(s), and any media property looking for eyeballs ought to be beating a path to their collective door to try and sign the free agents.

Just a thought. A profitable, market-driven thought, so it will probably not occur to the dopes running CNN, to cite one example of legacy media trying very hard to reclaim audience.


On JP Blecksmith, a US Marine who died fighting terrorist insurgents in Fallujah.

"Good versus evil" I put those words in bold above because that is the only way to communicate the stakes --in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Netherlands, in the Ukraine, in countless struggles across the globe. JP Blecksmith gave everything, including his life, for "the good," and as Lincoln said 141 years ago, we must agree "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain." That "we" means "us," and that means freedom for the Iraqis and the Afghanis, and nothing --nothing-- less for the children of the Netherlands. JP believed in "the good." That is why we honor and grieve his sacrifice, and pray for the comfort of his family.


The bottom line is simply this: if you're not reading Hewitt, you should be.

Instrumenting Code



Here's an example of how I've instrumented code in the past. The main focus of this logic is to provide peer-to-peer services for the BadBlue software. The server can listen for connection requests, which can come in either of two formats: HTTP or Gnutella. HTTP requests are dispatched to web services processing, not covered here.

Gnutella protocol requests are dispatched to, among other places, the snippet of code, below. Each request operates in its own thread (this is Win32, which uses a threading model - not the forked process model of Unix/Linux). Multiple threads are thus connected to multiple peers, simultaneously, all exchanging messages, relaying query results, performing discoveries, etc.

The net result can be a system of some complexity. In order to debug this code -- and to get a glimpse into activities of a running production box -- a tunable logging system was added.

The beginning of the snippet notes that we are initializing, with a logging level of 7. This means that if the administrator has "turned up the instrumentation dial" to 7 or above, this message will be sent to the system log.

A little bit further down, we report errors: a bad port number (logging level of 7, we really don't care too much during normal operations) and an attempt to connect to a restricted IP address (which we always want to report as a noteworthy error).

Note that rather than throwing exceptions, the code breaks out. This enables us to dispense with the overhead of exception processing and provide inline instrumentation of any noteworthy events and errors. But exceptions could be thrown just as easily once the instrumentation has done its job. In C++, there appears to be some overhead for using exceptions (and they're forbidden in certain types of real-time or mission-critical systems), so I trap for miscellaneous exceptions - but don't rely upon them for normal error-handling activities.

The log method, below, provides tunable logging consistent with what I've already described.

I suppose the key point here is not whether you're returning error-codes or throwing exceptions; it is, instead, to have sufficient discipline to provide paranoid levels of error-checking and instrumentation so that you can always determine what kinds of things are happening in your code. Even if you think things are hunky-dory.

	// beginning of snippet...

//
do { try {

// Mark initialization.
//
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Thread initializing",
m_hThread
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 7);

// Initialize our socket.
//
if (!m_sockID) {

// Do we need to connect ourselves?
//
if (!m_strConnectAddress.IsEmpty()) {
if ((nCursor = m_strConnectAddress.Find(':')) >= 0) {
i = atoi(m_strConnectAddress.Mid(nCursor + 1));
strTemp = m_strConnectAddress.Left(nCursor);
if (!i || (UINT) i > 0x7FFF) {
//
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Error, bad port (%s)",
m_hThread, m_strConnectAddress
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 7);
//
break;
}
if (!m_pEXTObject->CheckIP(strTemp)) {
//
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Connection forbidden: IP address %s",
m_hThread, m_strConnectAddress
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 0);
//
break;
}
} else {
strTemp = m_strConnectAddress;
i = DEF_HTTP_PORT;
}
// ...

// ...end structured processing.
//
} catch (...) {
rc = BBX_MISC_EXCEPTION;
} } while (0);
m_bTerminating = TRUE;
m_dTerminateStarted = COleDateTime::GetCurrentTime();
if (m_bBaseThread) {
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] BT: Error %d, base thread closing",
m_hThread, rc
);
m_pEXTObject->LogEvent(rc, EVT_WARNING, strLog);
} else {
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Thread closing (%d)",
m_hThread, rc
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 3);
}
if (m_SocketID != INVALID_SOCKET && m_SocketID != 0) {
// SD_SEND, don't allow any more sends
m_Thunk_p->shutdown(m_SocketID, 1);
m_Thunk_p->closesocket(m_SocketID);
m_SocketID = INVALID_SOCKET;
m_hFile = (UINT) CFile::hFileNull;
}
//
// Array locking should not be necessary (terminating flag)...
//
for (i = 0; i < m_cpaOutboundQueue.GetSize(); i++) {
pcbaTemp = (CByteArray*) m_cpaOutboundQueue.GetAt(i);
if (pcbaTemp != NULL) {
delete pcbaTemp;
}
}
//
strLog.Format("[%8.8lX] Thread closed",
m_hThread
);
m_pEXTObject->Log(strLog, 7); //

// ...end of snippet

// Gnutella logging.
// Multi-threaded tunable logging facility.
//
VOID CExtExtension::Log(
LPCTSTR pMessage,
DWORD dwLoggingLevel,
BOOL bFlush
) {

// SP...
//
CTime timeTemp;
CString strLogEntry;
do {

// Not available? Forget it.
//
if (m_fileLog.m_hFile == CFile::hFileNull) {
break;
}

// Logging level not sufficient? Forget it.
//
if (dwLoggingLevel > m_dwLoggingLevel) {
break;
}

// Get our timestamp.
//
timeTemp = CTime::GetCurrentTime();

// Format a log entry.
//
strLogEntry.Format(
"%s %s\r\n"
,
timeTemp.Format("%y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"),
pMessage
);
m_ccsLog.Lock();
m_strLog += strLogEntry;
if (bFlush || m_strLog.GetLength() > MAX_LOG_CACHE_BYTES) {
m_fileLog.Write(m_strLog.GetBuffer(0), m_strLog.GetLength());
m_strLog = "";
m_fileLog.Flush();
}
m_ccsLog.Unlock();

// ...end SP.
//
} while (0);
}

2004 Joseph Goebbels Awards



Click here for Amazon...This year's Joseph Goebbels award goes by a narrow but decisive margin to CBS News anchorman Dan Rather for his planned broadcast on "60 Minutes" -- just days before the election -- to discredit President Bush's National Guard service 30 years earlier. Leave aside for the moment the fact that discrepancies in the documents he relied on have convinced experts and many others that they were forgeries. Why was what George W. Bush did or didn't do 30 years earlier "news" in 2004?

It was news by Dr. Goebbels' standard -- something that could lead to desired political reactions by the audience. Waiting until it would have been virtually impossible for an effective answer to be made before election day was in the same Goebbels spirit. Had the documents been real, Dan Rather would still have been a strong contender for the award. The fact that virtually everyone, with the notable exception of Mr. Rather, now regards those documents as fake -- instead of simply "not authenticated" -- makes Dan Rather the clear winner of the Joseph Goebbels award for 2004...


Thomas Sowell: 2004 Joseph Goebbels Awards

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Leave Rumsfeld Be



Click here for Amazon...Have we forgotten what Mr. Rumsfeld did right? Not just plenty, but plenty of things that almost anyone else would not have done. Does anyone think the now-defunct Crusader artillery platform would have saved lives in Iraq or helped to lower our profile in the streets of Baghdad? How did it happen that our forces in Iraq are the first army in our history to wear practicable body armor? And why are over 95 percent of our wounded suddenly surviving — at miraculous rates that far exceeded even those in the first Gulf War? If the secretary of Defense is to be blamed for renegade roguery at Abu Ghraib or delays in up-arming Humvees, is he to be praised for the system of getting a mangled Marine to Walter Reed in 36 hours?

And who pushed to re-deploy thousands of troops out of Europe, and to re-station others in Korea? Or were we to keep ossified bases in perpetuity in the logic of the Cold War while triangulating allies grew ever-more appeasing to our enemies and more gnarly to us, their complacent protectors?

The blame with this war falls not with Donald Rumsfeld. We are more often the problem — our mercurial mood swings and demands for instant perfection devoid of historical perspective about the tragic nature of god-awful war. Our military has waged two brilliant campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. There has been an even more inspired postwar success in Afghanistan where elections were held in a country deemed a hopeless Dark-Age relic. A thousand brave Americans gave their lives in combat to ensure that the most wicked nation in the Middle East might soon be the best, and the odds are that those remarkable dead, not the columnists in New York, will be proven right — no thanks to post-facto harping from thousands of American academics and insiders in chorus with that continent of appeasement Europe.

Out of the ashes of September 11, a workable war exegesis emerged because of students of war like Don Rumsfeld: Terrorists do not operate alone, but only through the aid of rogue states; Islamicists hate us for who we are, not the alleged grievances outlined in successive and always-metamorphosing loony fatwas; the temper of bin Laden’s infomercials hinges only on how bad he is doing; and multilateralism is not necessarily moral, but often an amoral excuse either to do nothing or to do bad — ask the U.N. that watched Rwanda and the Balkans die or the dozens of profiteering nations who in concert robbed Iraq and enriched Saddam.

Donald Rumsfeld is no Les Aspin or William Cohen, but a rare sort of secretary of the caliber of George Marshall. I wish he were more media-savvy and could ape Bill Clinton’s lip-biting and furrowed brow. He should, but, alas, cannot. Nevertheless, we will regret it immediately if we drive this proud and honest-speaking visionary out of office, even as his hard work and insight are bringing us ever closer to victory.


Victor Davis Hanson (hat tip: LGF): Leave Rumsfeld Be

"Dying can't be as bad as living"



Click here for AmazonHas there been a tragicomic character in recent memory as simultaneously compelling, disturbing, and paradoxical as Mike Tyson? If you haven't been tracking the escapades of the former heavyweight champion and ex-con, he recently lost two bouts in a row. The latter, against journeyman Danny Williams, was specifically designed to catapult him back into the ranks of contending heavyweights.

Instead, it has relegated Tyson into a state of semi-retirement and shattered his dreams of rebuilding his wealth, once valued at around $400 million. He now lives in a $100,000 house in Arizona, contemplating his fall from grace... and a new life.

...The last time I'd met Tyson was more than a year ago, after Frank Bruno was taken to hospital to help him deal with his own demons.

Tyson says he cried for his old foe at the time and is glad when I tell him Frank is on the mend.

"That makes me happy," he says. "The worst thing that can happen to you is for you to lose your mental powers, especially when you've got a wife and kids."

And he should know. Muttering something about a boxer's biggest fight coming after he leaves the ring, Tyson then comes over all philosophical.

"Dying can't be as bad as living," he muses. "There's no way that dying can be as bad as living. But while you're living you have to live.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I just live, I guess, get some food. But I don't cook. I go to restaurants every night." Asked how he fills his days, he replies: "I don't do anything. My life sucks." ...


The Mirror: Dying can't be as bad as living

Islamist Intentions for the U.S.



Click here for AmazonDaniel Pipes:

I frequently meet with disbelief when I explain that the Islamist goal is to take over the United States and replace the Constitution with the Koran. Well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and here is that picture, culled from "The American Muslim" website:



The Arabic written across the United States is the basmalah, usually translated into English as "In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate." This Koranic invocation, the authoritative Encyclopaedia of Islam (vol. 1, p. 1084) informs us, "at the beginning of every important act, calls down the divine blessing on this act and consecrates it."

It also bears noting that "The American Muslim" website portrays itself as "providing a balanced, moderate, alternative voice focusing on the spiritual, dimension of Islam rather than the more often heard voice of extreme political Islamism." Sounds great, yet this website includes precisely such voices of "extreme political Islamism" in the form of Yahiya Emerick and Ibrahim Hooper. In keeping with the above graphic, Emerick is author of an essay titled "How to Make America an Islamic Nation" and Hooper has stated "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future..."


Daniel Pipes: Islamist Intentions for the United States

DESPERATE MEASURES



Click here for Amazon...The key point of this attack — and indeed of a number of recent attacks against U.S. soldiers, Iraqi police and military and, most significantly, Iraqi civilians — is that the insurgents are taking fewer and fewer personal risks.

Devastated by American assaults, demoralized by the stubborn determination of Iraqis to participate in upcoming elections and to return to a normal and newly democratic life, the radical Islamists are desperate. Their perverted dream of a medieval society dominated by terror is evaporating before their very eyes. The Iraqi people are winning. Thus the terrorists pursue any desperate ploy to disrupt, to delay to terrorize the Iraqi population.

You'll notice that I did not refer to the population as "their fellow Iraqis" because a great many of the terrorists are now foreigners — Syrians, Palestinians, Saudis, Iranians — the enemy has had to draw from disaffected radicals throughout the region.

They're fighting a losing battle...

Frederick J. Chiaventone is a novelist, screenwriter and a retired Army officer who taught counterinsurgency at the U.S. Army Command & General Staff College.


NY Post: Desperate Measures

Prime Minister Allawi: Ballots more powerful than bullets



Click here for Amazon...In just over one month's time, the citizens of Iraq will be presented with a unique opportunity to close a chapter of decades of tyrannical rule and take their first steps to shape their own future by participating in the first free and fair elections in generations...

...despite all the pessimism by the skeptics, we see encouraging signs as Iraqis enthusiastically register to vote, and thousands of candidates from across the political spectrum put themselves forward for election. The cowardly targeting of voter registration centers by terrorists demonstrates their fear of the coming fulfillment of Iraq's aspirations for democracy and freedom...

...The elections next month will be transparent and competitive, supervised across the country by the thousands of brave workers of the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq, and by international organizations including the U.N. Iraqis will have over 250 different parties and political entities from which to choose--a far cry from the farcical referendum with Saddam as the single candidate who received 100% of the vote...

...Though... attacks may escalate in the coming weeks as we approach the elections, they cannot and will not be allowed to achieve their destructive aims. As Iraqis, we will refuse to be divided and cowed into fear by such criminals. We will stand firm.

Ballots will prove far more powerful than bullets in the end, and the will of the peaceful majority of Iraqis will triumph over the terror tactics of a hateful few... A free and secure Iraq will be a victory for all peace-loving people, and we Iraqis face a historic opportunity that we shall not squander.


AYAD ALLAWI: A Historic Moment for All Iraqis

Interview with Steven Vincent



Click here for AmazonThis interview with Steven Vincent, author of In the Red Zone, is enlightening. Vincent is a former art critic turned war journalist by the events of 9/11. His book covers his experiences during two separate trips to Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

...Jeff Harrell: When, after all the planning and the long journey, you finally made it to Baghdad, were you disappointed by what you found? Your descriptions of the city in In the Red Zone are unsentimental: It’s an unlovely city, you say, choked with smog and littered with garbage. What was it like to arrive in such a place?

Steven Vincent: Actually, I was pleasantly surprised. I’d packed mosquito netting, water purification tablets, protein bars and a set of silverware, all sorts of survival equipment, as if I were heading to Mogadishu. What I found was a bustling city with markets overflowing with food and bottled water, not to mention countless restaurants and “kabob stands.” (Iraq has never in its history suffered famine.) The harshness of the environment — the “unloveliness” of the smog and garbage (and, I must say, many Iraqi people) — didn’t affect me until the novelty of simply being there faded.

To be in a place like Baghdad — or perhaps any storied place — is to experience the microcosmic and macrocosmic of life simultaneously. By that I mean every detail, even the smallest, is fascinating — the architecture, the way people look and talk, the taxi cabs and heat, trying to speak Arabic and learn what to order on the menu. Then there is the overwhelming sense of the past and present. I remember walking at twilight down a busy shopping street just as the lights switched on and a muezzin began calling from a mosque. Right at that moment, two American Humvees rumbled past, each with a soldier standing and surveying the scene. They passed a grove of palms, and the mixture of the light, the crowds, the muezzin’s call and the military vehicles transfixed me. This is significant, something told me. For good or ill, this is history...

Steven Vincent: ...I’m frequently asked, how can a nation cobbled together by Winston Churchill from disparate religious and ethnic groups possibly form a democracy? In response, I mention the 13 colonies before the Revolution. In retrospect, they strike us as rather homogenous — aside, of course, from the issue of slavery. But to the colonies themselves, they were wildly different, split by religious, regional and economic interests. Somehow they pulled it together. And in fact, a pluralistic society like Iraq is probably the most suited for democracy. Within the limitations of a constitution, various parties of Shia and Sunnis and Kurds must dicker and horse-trade and compromise among themselves. Because of these conflicting interests, no one party can accumulate total power — a system of checks and balances, in other words...

Steven Vincent: ...Say a foreign power invades a nation, topples a heinous dictator and attempts to midwife the first democracy this nation has ever had. Are they "occupiers" or "liberators?" Are they "occupying" the country, or “reconstructing” it? Are they "imposing" democracy, or "assisting its birth?"...

...To describe the Coalition as "occupiers" legitimizes those who take up arms against them. We oppose the “Nazi occupation” of France, and admire the "French resistance" — while those who assist the Germans become "collaborators." "Guerillas" are brave fighters risking their lives to overthrow imperialism in the name of national liberation; "paramilitaries" are terrorists seeking to re-establish a right-wing tyranny. One side constellates images of resourceful rebels — from the colonial Minutemen to the Viet Cong to Star Wars’ "Rebel forces" — the other conjures imperialist oppressors, storm troopers, Darth Vader’s minions. Somehow, we have allowed the press and academia to reverse the definition, permitting them to call fascists and criminal thugs "freedom fighters" while the true Iraqi resistance become members of the "American-backed government"...

Here’s a question I’d like to put to Ted Rall and Michael Moore: could you stand in front of the families of the election workers killed in Baghdad and tell them that their loved ones were "collaborators" killed by the "Iraqi resistance?" ...


Shape of Days: Interview with Steven Vincent

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Neo-Mecha: NMX04-1



Click here for AmazonInteresting... but I would think there would more compelling and profitable uses for 'mechs' than 21st century jousting matches.

The NMX04-1A is the first attempt by Neogentronyx to create a fully functional mech. At 18ft tall it is a biped (walks upright on two legs), and has two arms, it is humanoid in appearance. Walking as we do it will be able to walk much faster due mainly to the distance between its strides, it is not intended for use in the civilian world as such machines would pose a danger to those around them as well as the risk already taken on by the pilots themselves.

Initially our mechs will be used for entertainment purposes and will eventually be fitted to fight in a large arena designed to accommodate these great machines. This is of course after prototype testing has proven that such a thing is feasible which we believe it will.

The pilot control is a special system called mech interface manual integration control (mimic) system, designed specifically to allow the mech to emulate any movement done by the controlling pilot of the mecha. Safety features include a pilot harness, helmet, suspension backboard, shock absorption, external sensors, and force-back pads, so the pilot can feel what the mecha would feel were it capable of feeling anything at all, a completely encompassing steel cage which will protect against falls and plating which will protect against any possible penetration into the pilot control area.

In an arena setting there will be several blunt weapons designed for the mecha to be able to wield against opposition. No sharp penetrating weapons will be allowed in the arena as death and injury are not to be a part of the sport. The only thing being damaged and disabled will be the mechs. That makes for a rather expensive sport, but entertaining nonetheless...


Neo-Mecha: NMX04-1