Elegant Distractions

Every year the principle of the sanction of the victim from Ayn Rand becomes more evident as the anti-[fill in the blank] forces work desperately to disassemble Western Civilization. (Number Five says, "No disassemble!")

Today's example come from this post from Roger L. Simon. He suggests that the Left is converting to capitalism:

"So politics today is a battle between capitalist forces with the moveon.orgs of the world acting as cannon fodder for one side. Sure they will be paid off to some extent (e. g. academic tenure) if this quasi-left is victorious, but I doubt to any significant degree. We are in an era when capitalism (the market) has won and the spoils are being divided."

These people, in a similar fashion as the terrorists, use the virtue of their victims as a weapon against them. They take the power, freedom and wealth of a capitalist society only to spend those resources to tear down the very structures that gave them such capabilities.

To borrow the motto from Forbes Magazine, capitalism has become the socialists' tool.

Posted by director at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow, Friday 1 April, 2005, Sandra Sandy Berger is expected to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of removing classified documents from the National Archives. This plea arrangement is a travesty of justice.

How are the librarians at the NA supposed to cope with the grief and anguish of having to "restore" the valuable documents which were spirited out of the building in Berger's pants?

Justice has not been served and this blog will not rest until the librarians receive adequate counseling for their trauma. Or until "CSI" comes on.

Posted by director at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After all the RatherGate^tm (or, if you prefer, MemoGate^tm) mess, it turns out Dan Rather was correct after all. Here is definitive proof. Time for apologies all around.

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The BlogFather saw The Incredibles and wasn't off-put by the Rove-powered Direct-Brain Induction^tm.

Glenn, perhaps the reason you didn’t find the individualist philosophy in The Incredibles pronouced is because you aren’t terrified by the concept? Maybe you've spent too much time around these sorts of people?

Posted by director at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The WSJ ran an article by Jeff Opdyke today explaining why some people shouldn't have control over their own finances: they might make bad choices! No, really! Turns out not everybody is a financial expert. Mr. Opdyke complains that his own mother is a fiscal wimp:

Allowing her to manage her account would be tantamount to encouraging her to serve as her own lawyer or dentist. She simply doesn't have the skill set. But she also may not be able to resist.

I am worried -- and, frankly, not just for her. Family members like me ultimately bear the brunt if our parents make a hash of their investments.

But here's the point: My mom had money, and she found the expenses to match the money. Like so many people, my mother doesn't really understand money or the importance of saving for tomorrow. And, like so many people, the knowledge that there's a big unspent slug of money in your name is just too tempting to overlook when there are expenses you have in mind.

Mr. Opdyke wants you and me to take care of his mother because she's a spendthrift and he doesn't want to pay for her crap as she gets older. Sorry, but I have my own struggling progenitors to deal with. I don't want his, or yours.

The problem with Social Security is that people expect it, and they expect it to absolve them from responsibility for themselves and their families. Used to be a time (only very old people will remember it -- I don't) when you took care of yourself because nobody else would. Too bad we've taught generations that they don't have to worry about the future. We will tax the hell out of people in order to save you from your own bad choices.

Parents who rear their brats absent of consequences discover quickly that their snot-nosed hellions run the roost. Now, the diaper-clad toddlers are retirees screaming for dessert after tossing their peas on the floor. How are they going to learn about consequences at this age? It may be too late.

Posted by director at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There I was minding my own business, running through the latest updates from the Good Blogs when LifeHacker throws me down the long and painful stairs of addiction. I had lived a good life to this point devoid of any knowledge of the fabled Moleskina notebook. Decades of self-control gone in the flash of a pixel.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had discovered moleskinerie where I learned of the right pens to use. Mike's review saved me the error of overspending for a good instrument (still resisting the fountain pen obsession).

Then it was on to finding notebooks. I couldn't stop myself. What was this power gripping me? I'd never experienced the like of it before. Two bookstores later, there they were, the little black notebooks with the bright-colored bands. Thank goodness for that bit of marketing acumen, otherwise how would I, a mere novice, distinguish these distinguished books from the sea of imitators on the shelves?

I picked up two pocket notebooks but they only had one large notebook. Had to have two each, so I could pull Writer into my increasingly rapid downward spiral. The next day, we found the notebook at Barnes & Noble, bought a dozen Pilot G2s and a couple Pilot Dr. Grip Gel pens. There was no stopping until this was done.

Now, Writer and I have assigned the pockets to a special project. Eldest Daughter will be wed in September and we are using the notebooks to write special messages to her. We keep these thoughts private from each other. On the Blessed Day we will present the notebooks to her filled with our experiences, thoughts, hopes, memories and best wishes.

Damn you, LifeHacker for adding these books to our lives. And thank you.

Posted by director at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the enimitable Ann Coulter

It turns out that, far from "de-escalating force" through their superior listening skills, female law enforcement officers vastly are more likely to shoot civilians than their male counterparts. (Especially when perps won't reveal where they bought a particularly darling pair of shoes.)

Unable to use intermediate force, like a bop on the nose, female officers quickly go to fatal force. According to Lott's analysis, each 1 percent increase in the number of white female officers in a police force increases the number of shootings of civilians by 2.7 percent.

Posted by director at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From Mark Steyn:

For the First Lady, New York has become a kind of Panderer’s Box: the minute you open it all kinds of competing identity groups fly out demanding you kiss up to them and you can never get the lid back on again. The only parade she should he marching in is the one for Tone-Deaf-Irish-Americans: not for the first time, she’s demonstrated her amazing tin ear for electoral politics.

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More unhappiness with the academic saboteurs at The Democracy Project.

I like the motto a great deal -- maybe I'll put that on the bloghead?

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The post by Jim Miller at SoundPolitics called "Don't Divide, Conquer" misses the primary benefit of the 51st state drive.

Miller believes we can do more good by hanging together and putting Rossi in the Governor's Mansion but that is too little too late.

Just look at this article in the Seattle Times. Everybody who visits the Temporary Governor has their hands out and is willing to raise taxes if it benefits their cause. On this one day, Gregiore turns them all away but not because she isn't interested in raising taxes but because she is afraid to.

The best remedy for the out-of-control ligature legislature is competition. Turning Eastern Washington into an American Hong Kong is the big stick that will pound the Dims into reality. Make it a free enterprise zone, a business haven with minimal taxes and very limited regulation that will suck the high-tech jobs out of King County and you'll start to hear a different tune in Olympia.

Posted by director at 07:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Every day you you either get stronger or you get weaker.

Posted by director at 07:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Wall Street Journal today ($$) contains an article entitled "Dodge Ball Doesn't Fly in Schools" describing all the reasons why the game is discouraged by crybabies in school districts around the country.

The article refers to a paper by the National Association for Sports and Physical Education:

NASPE believes that dodgeball is not an appropriate activity for K-12 school physical education programs. The purpose of physical education is to provide students with: · The knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to be physically active for a lifetime · A daily dose of physical activity for health benefits · Positive experiences so that kids want to be physically active outside of physical education class and throughout their lifetime

Uh, no. Sorry, but the purpose of sport goes back eons before Politically Constrictive language. Sports originated as life-skills training for boys and men where they learned hunting and fighting so they could survive. The games invented competition to push the males to perform at higher levels to increase survivability.

They specifically did not want to foster a false sense of "worth" in poorly performing individuals. It was important for tribal hunters and warriors to know who they could depend on in a scrape. Equally important, the less-physically-adept males would not have any false expectations and could be put to good use in less dangerous roles, thus increasing the survival rate for everybody.

Why do we think we are so much better today? Presenting a false environment where competition is bad, where nobody wins or loses, where nobody gets their precious feelings hurt is not only undermining the future of our nation it is all so....French. 1930's France, to be exact.

Posted by director at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

Hey, the Oscars are coming up! I knew they were around here someplace.

I had planned on watching (if I happened to catch the show) until I heard the foul-mouthed Chris Rock was the host. Now, no way. None of the shows up for awards are all that interesting, as Roger L. Simon notes.

Why the decline in show quality? Several reasons.

1. Studio execs live in constant fear for their jobs. As such, they don't dare take risks. This is why you get "Dukes of Hazard" instead of "Atlas Shrugged".
2. Terribly few actors have any character, any personal depth. Colin Ferrell as Alexander (no, I won't like it. Sorry)? Please. He couldn't conquer a hotdog stand. Brad Pitt as Achilles? Sorry, I like Mr. Pitt's acting but the world's greatest warrior? No. Way. It must have been a long, boring search to find Lucilla.
3. Terribly few execs have any character. Arguments, anyone? Anyone?
4. Terribly few directors have any character. You know who they are without being told.
5. It is impossible to put anything up on the screen that you don't have inside of you. A stupid person can't act brilliant. A hollow shell of a person can't show character, whether as a writer, actor, exec or director. People want to see characters with, um, character.
6. Studio execs don't understand, can't comprehend what makes a movie good, much less great. All they see are stars and gimmicks and FX. They have no understanding of story, which is why they make bad copies of each other. When a movie comes along that grabs peoples attention all they are capable of doing is copying the superficial elements.
7. Making a good movie is much harder than making a mediocre movie and the rewards for mediocrity are adequate enough to dissuade most execs from bothering to strive for excellence, even if they knew how. The VHS and DVD markets have provided a way for a box office dud to break even and, with foreign markets, perhaps turn a profit (for the producers, at least).
8. As with #4, writing a great script is longer and harder than writing an average script. And who cares? Many writers who may be capable hold back for fear the studio will ruin their story but most are only interested in writing well enough to get past the readers and into meetings where they can land a job doing rewrites. If they have a story that is OK, maybe it will be optioned, maybe bought in which case they will have plenty of time (and opportunity!) to do rewrites. So why bother toiling?
9. Oh, yeah. Political agendas, activist messages, and PC revisionist history. You already know the movies you've skipped because of this nonesense.

There you go. The Top Nine reasons why Hollywood movies bore me to reading books (how awful!) and blogs (that's better).

There is an alternative on the horizon that could change the way Hollywood does business but I don't want to give it away just yet. Pay attention because a new model will emerge within two years that will help bring the real talent out of obscurity in the way blogs have exposed talented writers.

Posted by director at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Deacon at PowerLine writes about Bill Keller’s comments to Jeff Jarvis concerning Keller’s worries about bloggers. Along the way he promotes the common myth of polarization familiar to MSM denizens:

His chief complaint about us is that we're "erod[ing] the middle ground and accelerat[ing] a general polarization of the nation into people, right and left, who are ardently convinced and not very interested in exposing themselves to facts or ideas that contradict their prejudices."

What Keller and the rest of the MSM fail to grasp is that the country has always been polarized. They have lived such insular lives with a stranglehold on the information flow to reinforce their limited, protected worldviews. Now that millions of cyber-Gutenbergs have the ability to demonstrate their distaste for their slant this somehow constitutes a “polarization” when, in fact, all it represents is a forced awakening among the gatekeepers and their drones.

The differences were always there but now the rest of the people can publish, too.

Posted by director at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I stood a stone's throw from the bow of an aircraft carrier in the Naval Shipyard at Bremerton. This monster of engineering and technology and two other sisters are being stripped down for scrap.

I walked the length of the gray corpse, marvelling at the audacity and capacity to create such machines. The ships are awe-inspiring but not for long. It seems foolish and short-sighted to cut up these aging ships without replacing them.

Only a few countries have made these mobile power projectors. Japan did, but not Germany. UK has since WWII. Sweden has submarines but not these. Russia put men in space but never build one. The Chinese don't have one. The French have some but only built one themselves and it can't leave the dock.

We need more of these plus the men and planes they hunger for. How else will we respond when the GWOT drags our fighting forces across the globe?

UPDATE: According to this site two of the carriers are being mothballed, not destroyed. Plus there are two new hulls in the works. Looks like we have twelve active carriers.

Posted by director at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

According to this Seattle Times Editorial Senate Joint Resolution 8009 will ask that Washington State be split East-West. Co-sponsored by Joyce Mulliken, R-Ephrata, the bill would ask for authorization to create a new 51st state of Eastern Washington.

However much I prefer the climate of Western Washington I can certainly simpathize with the frustrations the desert-side of the state. King County in particular is viewed as the tail that wags the rest of the dog, imposing its will throughout the state. Citizens from Vantage to Republic are tired, for example, of paying taxes for the largest ferry service in the world that they rarely (if ever) use as well as professional sports stadiums and boondoggles. I don't blame them a bit.

The only problem with this scenario is that it leaves too many counties in the fevered grip of the high-density counties. I say let each county vote on which state they would rather belong to, as long as the results are a contiguous block of counties. The Democrats will find themselves controlling an ever-shrinking empire.

If the State of Eastern Washington becomes a reality and they have the type of business environment that is condusive to, you know, conducting business there will likely be a huge population migration to the barren beauty of the desert.

This is the type of government-as-service-provider described in The Sovereign Individual. The more mobile citizens and businesses becomes due to technology, the more governments will need to treat citizens as customers. These citizen/customers will go where they (and their money) are welcomed and treated well.

The time has come.

Posted by director at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hugh Hewitt sets the MSM bar low enough for a toddler to crawl over:

Here are the rules: Don't serially slander the military as assassins and torturers, and you can say whatever you want at Davos. Don't pass off obviously forged documents as super-"Scoops!" in the middle of a presidential election, and you can intone all the absurd "anchor" sayings you want. Don't cover for plagiarists, and you can be the off-the-cliff lefty editor for as long as you want. Don't say the memory of Christmas-Eve-in-Cambodia is "seared, seared" in your memory and then say "oops," you were mistaken, and folks won't question your credibility on other war-stories. Don't appear to endorse segregation, and you can be the Leader. These aren't high bars. Cross them.

Unfortunately, all most many some "professional" reporters and editors would need a ladder to reach these lofty heights.

Posted by director at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The post below mentions the Oregon experiment with GPS-based mileage taxes to replace (ed: when does the government stop a tax?) gas tax revenues which are expected to decline dramatically over the next decade or so.

Maybe they should drag their little GPS unit away from the classroom for a while. I got a nice Garmin unit for Christmas and have had some fun with it. One day I hooked it up to my laptop via the serial port (how long before they figure out USB?) and drove around Bellevue, WA.

The map software from National Geographic showed the routes I took just fine -- as long as the unit could keep in touch with the satellite. See, here in the topographically challenging Northwest we are surrounded by things that get between a GPS and its signals. Hundred-foot-tall trees, hills, mountains, plus the normal buildings that any city has made for weak signal coverage in many areas and none at all in others.

The folks in Oregon will probably solve this problem like what the map software does: draw a straight line between the last two known positions and call it a night. It will drive some beaurocrat crazy to think that some miles are going untaxed. Well, now...

Don't forget the growth industry just waiting to explode around GPS-fake-out units. Of course they will be illegal from the start but so were cable boxes for many years yet it didn't slow down sales much.

And what will the State do if the military decides to suspend the civilian GPS band for a period of time? Probably sue the Feds for loss of revenue.

Posted by director at 07:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Oregon is experimenting with GPS-based mileage tax, according to the Seattle Times. Brilliant, of course. The arguments against are solid:

The state would need a record of a car's movements to document the
mileage-tax assessment if someone contested it, Sobel says: "Just from a
due-process perspective, there will be pressure to retain
data."

"They want to go into our proprietary systems," says Brian Doherty, a lobbyist for the Western States Petroleum Association. "Would you open up your million-dollar computer and let them have access to it?"

What would be funny is if all the oil companies decided to leave the state rather than comply with the proposed law. Unintended consequences, such as the decline in gas tax revenues due to better mileage cars, tend to also be unforeseeable by those who create the circumstances.

Posted by director at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Green Spin has a nice take on the anti-climatic (sorry, couldn't help it) inauguration of the embarrassing Kyoto Protocols, which are destined for the World Class Hall of Shame.

(via www.junkscience.com)

Posted by director at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When I went back to college in the early 90's, one of the young women on the school paper wrote an article about teenage drama queens, calling them "pre-madonnas".

I was incapciatated for several minutes while I gathered the strength to pick myself off the floor.

Posted by director at 06:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

BODY:
With apologies to Andrew Lloyd Webber, I present the The Phantom of Olympia:

RON SIMS
Your public needs you!
DEAN LOGAN
We need you, too!
GREGIORE (unassuaged)
Would you not rather have your precious little ingénue?
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Signora, no! the world wants you!
(The DEMOCRATS adopt their most persuasive attitudes)
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Prima donna first lady of the State!Your absentees come from their graves to implore you!
RON SIMS
Can you bow out when they're blogging your name?
DEAN LOGAN
Think of how we both adore you!
BOTH
Prima donna, endorse us once again!
RON SIMS
Think of your new shoes . . .
DEAN LOGAN
And of the News in the evening!
BOTH
Can you deny us the cover we need? Please, prima donna, hold fast!

(GREGIORE registers her acceptance as the DEMOCRATS continue to cajole and the OTHERS reflect variously on the situation)

ROSSI
Christine spoke of an angle . . .
GREGIORE (to herself, in triumph)
Prima donna your voters live again!
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN (to GREGIORE)
Think of your public!
GREGIORE
You took a snub but there's a public who needs you!
SAM REED (referring to CHRISTINE)
She has heard the voice of Carville and Gore . . .
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN (to GREGIORE)
Those who hear your voice liken you to a harpy!
GREGIORE
Think of how we’ll buy their undying support!
ROSSI
Is this her angle on voters. . .?
RON SIMS (to DEAN LOGAN)
We get our State . . .
DEAN LOGAN (to RON SIMS)
She gets her felons!
GREGIORE
Follow where the provisionals lead you!
JOHN CARLSON
Are theses ghosts an angle for ballots. . .?
ROSSI
Angle for ballots. . .?
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN (aside)
Misleading audits are on trial!
SAM REED
Heaven help you, those who doubt . . .
GREGIORE
I'll win again, and to unending ovation!
ROSSI
Orders! Warnings! Lunatic demands!
SAM REED
This miscounting will invite damnation . . .
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Briefs . . . oaths . . .lunatic demands are regular occurrences!
JOHN CARLSON
Bliss or damnation? Which has claimed her . . .?
GREGIORE
Think how I'll shine in that courtroom! Sing, prima donna, once more!
SAM REED
Oh fools, to have flouted Shark’s warnings!
ROSSI
Surely, for truth's sake . . .
JOHN CARLSON
Surely he'll strike back . . .
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Surely there'll be further hearings -worse than this!
SAM REED
Think, before these ballots are rejected!
ROSSI
. . .I must see these ballots are rejected!
JOHN CARLSON
. . . if his threats and demands are rejected!
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Who'd believe a diva happy to relive a bogus threat, who's gone and won with felons?
Rossi and the blogs, entwined in love's duet!Although he may demur, he must have been reading them!
JOHN CARLSON/ROSSI
Christine must be ousted!
GREGIORE
Blah blah blah blah
Blah blah blah blah
Blah
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
You'd never get away with all this in Texas, but if it's loudly sung and in a liberal tongue it's just the sort of story the Times and P-I adore, in fact a perfect outcome!
ROSSI
Her game is over!
SAM REED
This is a game you cannot hope to win!
ROSSI
And on the blogs a new game will begin . . .
SAM REED
For, if Shark’s cursor is on this data . . .
JOHN CARLSON
But if his cursor is on this data . . .
RON SIMS/DEAN LOGAN
Prima donna the press is at your feet! A mansion waits, and how it hates Republicans!GREGIORE
The stress that falls upon a famous prima donna! Terrible death threats, audits and protests and judges! Still, the stalest threat will reach the evening news, in search of the perfect outcome!
RON SIMS/SAM REED
. . . then I fear the outcome . . .
ROSSI
Christine plays the victim, blaming phantom talk shows. . .
SAM REED
. . . should you dare to . .
JOHN CARLSON
. . . when you once again . . .
ALL
Light up the News with that faulty report! Sing, prima donna, once more!
SHARK'S VOICE
So, it is to be war between us! If these demands are not met, a disaster beyond your imagination will occur!
ALL
Once more

Posted by director at 09:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

"In their words, I can sense them looking coolly at the pretenses and attempted restrictions placed upon them by yet another branch of an Anglican establishment that they imagined they had left behind in Ulster, a pervasive aristocracy that in America controlled most of the "flatlands" along the colonial coast. They were told that they could practice their religion in the mountains even if it was not "lawful," so long as they did not seek to infect the more ordered societies along the coast. And they were expected to reciprocate by both staying in the mountains and keeping the Indians at bay. These memories burned like fire among the people who knew, even nearly three centuries ago, that the Eastern Establishment looked down on them, openly demeaning their religion and their cultural ways, and at bottom sought to use them towards its own ends."

Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, p. 129.

Posted by director at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sat with the Writer and Director-Daughter to watch the painful attempt to force Dead Poets Society into Wellesley College. The movie seemed like nothing so much as a desperate attempt by feminists to stem the flood of professional women who are abandoning their jobs in favor of raising families. The theme presented is that women are all smart and nearly perfect and men are dogs.

First of all, Julia Stiles? Please, no. Just stop hiring her, OK? She has the personality of a flounder. There must be other young, blonde actresses (oops, female actors) with some shred of talent to take these roles.

Julie Fiona Roberts plays Katherine Ann Watson, a pathetic quitter who is supposed to be the inspirational teacher leading the young women in her charge out of the girdles of 1950's oppression into the liberation of modern opportunity. First of all, Katherine is overwhelmed on the first day of class when the students have read the entire text for the term. Oh, what a crisis this presents!

The primary deficit of this story is that the antagonist seems to be Madison Avenue. The great culminating scene shows Katherine running through a series of slides of advertisements aimed at women while yapping about the injustice of it all. The horror! How did anyone survive?

In the end, instead of being fired a la Robin Williams, the writers took the daring risk of having her hired back. But Katherine has made her mark, you see, so her work is done and she is free to run off to "find herself". Apparently one graduating class is enough to satisfy her teaching jones.

The didactic messages of this film are:

1. All men cheat. Get used to it.
2. Only a job provides fulfillment. That must be why men work, I mean, if it wasn't fulfilling why would they do it?
3. Women are only trampy because of #1. Tramps should be accepted since it isn't their fault.
4. Fight for what you believe in.
5. But only a little while.
6. Then its OK to run away.
7. Only working women are valuable to society.
8. All men cheat. Get used to it.

Ever the trend-setter, Writer was an ardent feminist in the seventies and she led the charge from the workplace to the fireplace when she quit her job of thirteen years to raise the kids. She discovered the great secret: men don't work because they love their jobs (most of the time) but because there are no more wooly mamoths to kill.

There is no secret satisfaction to working, it is a means to the end of survival and (hopefully) prosperity. Men work to better their rivals and to make the Spousal Unit happy. If those things could be solved without a job, every man would take it (see Athlete, Professional).

Posted by director at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If a tree falls in the woods and nobody wants to hear it does it make any sound?

That is the metaphor for MSM coverage of Eason Jordan. Now that he has resigned, expect perfunctory news coverage and flaming columns denouncing the rumor-mongers of the blogosphere.

Here's a suggestion to all you nervous newsies wondering if you are the next in the crosshairs. There is a book about this strange internet phenomenon that might be informative, infuriating and terrifying. Gee, what is the title? I remember it was something clever. Oh, right.

Blog

This would be a great place for a book quote but I lent my copy to the CEO. Hope he reads it. I will have more on the book once I get it back.

Posted by director at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I emailed the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about their lack of coverage of the Eason Jordan scandal. Here is the response in full:

Thanks for your message. I discussed the topic with several editors. None of our wire services offered a story when Jordan made his remarks and subsequent stories I have read say he immediately sought to clarify what he said as being mainly concern for his reporters in a dangerous situation.

Had CNN done a story supporting the position that the military targets journalists, or even if Jordan had made that claim and stuck to it himself, that would be a story worth reporting. As is, it seems considerably less. Any editor who sends reporters into harm's way has concerns about their safety.

Our editors are willing to consider running something if the controversy itself becomes a story.

We appreciate your interest and that you took the time to write.

Glenn Drosendahl Reader Representative Seattle Post-Intelligencer (206) 448-8007 readerrep@seattlepi.com

So it would seem that unless the AP or CNN puts out a story, there is nothing the poor P-I can do! They are at the mercy of forces greater than themselves! Can't expect a paper as small as the P-I to, you know, write something on their own. Or read (dangerous, mind-bending) blogs.

Our editors are willing to consider running something if the controversy itself becomes a story.

If the stonewall crumbles then they will be forced to come up with their typical weak attempt to turn the tip of the controversy towards the accusers and the evil blogs. Maybe Eason will notice and give them a job!

UPDATE: Then again, maybe not. Eason Jordan resigns. Is it a story yet, Mr. Drosendahl?

Posted by director at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the Wall Street Journal, Wednesday February 2, 2005, page C1 in an article entitled "GM Bond Worries Fade With Some Magic From Lehman":

"Did it become more profitable? Did its debt melt away? No, not that. Instead, Lehman Brothers soothed the bond market's savage breast."

Sorry, no, that isn't a typo. If you are like many people (myself included) you always heard it phrased something like this:

"Music can soothe the savage beast."

Kudos to WSJ for getting it right. Here is the full quote from William Congreve:

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak."

Add that to my collection of mental corrections (I'm still getting used to "taking" decisions instead of "making" them).

I suspect that the conversion from "breast" to "beast" was a product of the FCC in the fifties and sixties. The first time I heard it was in a Looney Toons cartoon.

Posted by director at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the always enjoyable (and highly informative) Dimplomad comes his laws of the Saber-Toothed Tiger.

Lying on the bed, recalling the horror I had been through and plotting revenge
against the political officer and all her descendants for sixty generations, I
lifted the glasses and looked at the small TV screen across the room. No glasses
on and I could read the crawl on CNN! This Lasik stuff works! The prior day the
screen would have been a total blur. I rushed to the window, and although the
light still bothered me, I could see a cat walking on the sidewalk some ten
floors below! A cat, I could clearly make out that it was a cat -- and not a
blob which could have been a rat, a dog, a shoe, or who knows what. I remember
the thought flashing into my mind, "G-d, what would a near-sighted caveman do?"

Posted by director at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The introduction of the Canon XL2 doesn't change anything. I still want the Panasonic AJ-SDX900 but with a starting price of $27k, it may have to wait.

In the mean time, making due with the Canon XL2 looks like an easy arrangement. Lots of adavanced features make this camera a nice step in the right direction.

Posted by director at 07:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The incessant whining of the Democrats proves one thing: they are just little children who were never disciplined growing up. Nor were they taught manners. Or ethics. Or sportsmanship.

Just shut up already.

Posted by director at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Writing is foundational, at least in the fields I'm interested in. Programming is writing where the audience is a compiler. Screenwriting is the source code for filmmaking. Neither writing is interesting in its own right. They both require additional processing to create something usable by the intended audience.

Nobody (outside of Hollywood) stands around the water cooler regaling coworkers about the great script he read over the weekend. Nor will you find hush reverence for C++ code from an end user. These types of writing are not end products in themselves but provide the basis for creating them. As such, the writing is far less fun than say writing a short story.

Short stories and other narratives are entertaining to write. A clever turn of phrase or the snarled description of inner turmoil can be a treat to create. You can show your paragraph (or sen