Friday, September 30, 2005
Judith Miller Decides To Leave Jail (10:30 AM) - Reuters’ headline, “NY Times reporter freed from jail in CIA probe case” is inexplicably and indefensibly misleading. After being subpoenaed and having made the decision to ignore the judge’s order (generally a poor decision, pretensions of journalistic exceptionalism or not),…
Strong Connections (08:38 AM) - I reported yesterday on the unfortunate specters of consolidation of power and anti-petition electioneering enshrined in a proposed new constitution for Dartmouth. Prompted by reader email, I find that it is worthy of note that one of the major changes…
Does The Wiki Work? (06:53 AM) - I generally do not trust Wikipedia. It seems that the few articles it stores that are complete, accurate, and comprehensive have been edited by its professional stable of editors. The rest are iffy stubs. But here is one story of…
Scribes With Constipation and Fury (06:21 AM) - On the blogroll to the right (and down) there are a handful of liberal blogs listed. I like to keep tabs on both sides of the conversation, even if from time to time it feels as if those two hemispheres…
Marriage Matters (06:17 AM) - Posted without comment: First Trio Married In The Netherlands….
Or, What You Will (06:15 AM) - As far as filmic Shakespeare goes, this edition of Twelfth Night is one of the best I have ever seen. It’s a good rainy night movie….
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Families of September 11 Victims Thank Pataki (03:13 PM) - This press release just went out from a group of organizations representing many families whose loved ones perished on 9/11. There are thanks all around:We are deeply grateful to Governor Pataki for taking this decisive action after the IFC issued…
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra (01:47 PM) - This ridiculously silly link was emailed to me and I was forced to post it. It is only for Star Trek geeks, though. Obscure titular reference: forget about it….
Science’s Greatest Photos of the Year (08:47 AM) - I really enjoyed this set of award-winning scientific photographs. But number seven, the picture of a cancer cell descending down a pore, is downright frightening….
Changing The Rules (07:37 AM) - Joseph Asch ‘79 has a column in The Dartmouth this morning that inveighs against the proposed constitution. He writes:The Dartmouth community deserves better than schoolboy manipulation of the numbers and the petulant re-jiggering of election rules. Show some sense of…
“As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again.” (06:00 AM) - Dartmouth College is in the midst of a power shift. The Task Force on Alumni Governance was commissioned to draft an update to the constitutions of the Dartmouth Alumni Council and Alumni Association in the Spring of 2004, just as…
Religion at Convocation Miscellany (12:35 AM) - Andrew Seal pens a thoughtful open letter to Noah Riner, though in response I wonder how any speech might have been acceptable by the “cannot offend” standard. Jon Shea notes that in 1,172 words there were five mentions of ‘Jesus’,…
Journalists “turn to blogs in record numbers” (12:11 AM) - According to public relations and marketing firm Euro RSCG Magnet, 51% of journalists, among the least likely groups to give blogs any credence, read them daily….
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Death Knell (09:38 PM) - New York Governor George Pataki has finally done the right thing and banished the International Freedom Center from Ground Zero:The decision follows months of acrimony over the Freedom Center, with furious families and politicians saying that the museum would dishonor…
MIT’s $100 Laptop (09:32 PM) - I think this has the potential to be a watershed product. With the proliferation of public wireless internet access, the United States (in urban and suburban environments, anyway) is a cheap terminal away from being the world’s first completely mobile…
Suppose They Had Been “Hunting Wabbits” (09:26 PM) - At Bucknell University, “hunting terrorists” is offensive. Last year, while collecting footage for my upcoming film Indoctrinate U, I noticed that the campus was plastered with flyers that screamed “vagina” in large block letters. Although some people might find these…
Between FEMA and Life, Neither Is Sinecure (07:00 PM) - Even Michael Brown deserves some compassion….
Tom Delay Indicted (01:44 PM) - Oh, you hadn’t heard?…
You’re Walking Down The Street Chewing Gum— (10:25 AM) - WHAMMO! Flashes skip across the newswire. Things look grim. Your chips are down. You failed to unseat the president a year ago but you’ve still a chance to unseat his party in three years. Got to hold on to those…
Victory In The Taxis of England (10:16 AM) - A Reuters report asks, “Did you say dogging or blogging?”: LONDON (Reuters) - Proponents of the latest Web trends were warned Tuesday that the rest of the world may not have a clue what they are talking about. A survey…
What Landrieu Wants (08:16 AM) - Senator Mary L. Landrieu (D-LA) has a Hurricane Katrina Recovery Package in Congress. Along with her partner David Vitter (R-LA), they have proposed a $250 billion reconstruction bill described as “comprehensive.” Here is Landrieu’s press release of several days ago….
Halt, In Faith! (07:50 AM) - I find myself in the straits of confusion most dire. Dost thou mean to say a television programme doth fix to display a she-President? Who would blaspheme so? Why, this accursed vision offendeth all! And I be thus compelled to…
Proof Is The Bottom Line For Everyone (07:34 AM) - A law student gets this e-mail:The law school administration has noticed that an unnamed first year law student has posted flyers with the heading “Give me Proof,” offering to pay another student “to proofread certain Legal Writing assignments.” Paying another…
When Your Oxen Die And You Must Ford The River (05:08 AM) - Over at Vox Baby, tips for stagecoach travel circa 1877. Tip number five would make a great new slogan for Roy Rogers:Don’t growl at food stations; stage companies generally provide the best they can get. Don’t keep the stage waiting;…
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Convocation Reviewed (03:25 PM) - Playing off Trustee Peter Robinson’s post on the Corner of several days ago, both William F. Buckley and Stefan Beck have commentaries on the state of religion in academia and at Dartmouth specifically, over at National Review Online….
Bylaws and More Bylaws (12:03 PM) - The Constitution of Dartmouth’s Alumni Association, the language of which governs the election of Trustees, is located right here and consists of roughly 1,500 words. That’s four pages in standard Microsoft Word formatting. A proposed update currently circulating, reported noncritically…
The Lights Went Off In Baker (11:44 AM) - I’m sitting in the library, which just lost all power for 30 seconds. Half of the circuits are now back on. Whether they are running on redundant connections or not is unclear. The outage is likely related to nearby construction….
The Roberts Count (11:27 AM) - According to this tally, Roberts is already up to 69 ‘yea’ votes in the Senate. 17 Democrats are announced against, and 13 are keeping their decisions close to the vest. The conventional wisdom, I suppose, is that the fewer Democrats…
Times: Societies worse off with God on their side (10:04 AM) - London’s Times newspaper has a rather ridiculous story out this morning: “Societies worse off ‘when they have God on their side’” I thought it particularly timely in light of the Convocation contretemps of last week. The Times leads with this:RELIGIOUS…
Character at Convocation (07:52 AM) - My friend Tory Fodder, who graduated Dartmouth last year, has picked up on the Noah Riner story and is firmly, and eloquently, behind the speech:Dartmouth is many things. It is the majesty of a brilliant fall morning and a hot…
U.S. Special Forces Kill No. 2 Terrorist in Iraq (06:25 AM) - Even as the two sects of terrorists in Iraq are threating to destroy one another because of religious differences, U.S. Special Forces have launched an operation successful in killing Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq number two man—the money man—Abu Azzam….
Monday, September 26, 2005
al-Jazeera Journo Convicted of Terror Connections (09:08 PM) - It is no closely-held secret that, when the world’s most dangerous terrorist organizations want to distribute propaganda, their first (and usually only) stop is al-Jazeera, the satellite-based round-the-clock Arab news network with a distinctly anti-West and especially anti-American bent. The…
What Dreams May Come (07:54 PM) - Yesterday, Rudy Giuliani publicly denounced plans for an International Freedom Center at Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan. Cortlandt Street, I dare say, is saved. The IFC is dead before brick one. And now that Rudy, Hillary, New York’s finest, New…
Busting Pork (04:35 PM) - Nancy Pelosi has been a market leader is responding to bloggers demanding leaner and meaner budgeting in order to fund Katrina and Rita relief. As N.Z. Bear reports, she has pledged to “[r]eturn to the federal Treasury $70 million designated…
Racial Slurs In New French Dictionary (03:07 PM) - The Webster of France, Le petit Littré, came out with its 2005 edition dictionary this past July. Amazingly, the “computers made a mistake” and a version of the dictionary with ’50s era anti-Jewish slurs was printed. French children can now…
Cindy Sheehan Arrested (01:45 PM) - Outside the White House… I suspect this is at least one nail in the coffin of her short-lived “movement”, which is certainly a death welcomed by establishment Democrats….
Weathering The Storm (10:47 AM) - Because today appears to be Chart Day at Dartblog, I decided to look at gasoline pricing for the last 24 hours in the wake of Rita. To my surprise, gas prices from sea to shining sea are now approaching pre-hurricane…
Joe to Dartmouth: Get HBO (10:41 AM) - Ann Althouse blogs the season premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I wasn’t able to see LD’s antics last night because, tragically, Dartmouth doesn’t get HBO. (I also had to study.) But if any enterprising pirate/readers want to point me to…
Hillary Clinton’s Liberalness Down Nine Points (10:29 AM) - I haven’t been tracking Scott Rasmussen’s ongoing Hillary Polls as closely as I would like, but that is in part because they haven’t been heavily advertised. In turn, that is because, except for perceptions, people haven’t really changed their view…
“Is A.N.S.W.E.R. Working For Karl Rove?” (10:21 AM) - For a conservative’s guide to readable left-wing blogs, read David Adesnik’s post on Democrats who are condemning the anti-war protests in Washington….
The Grand Old Pork Party (07:06 AM) - Bob Novak is displeased with the GOP’s action on pork, as he ought to be. But I think there have been some notable exceptions, and we’ll see how those exceptions fare at the polls in the mid-terms….
Mayors and Presidents (06:59 AM) - Brad Plumer asks which mayors have become presidents. The short answer: not many. I’m not sure this exercise is valid as far as Rudy Giuliani goes. For a good parcel of time, Rudy’s constituency was the entire nation, and anyone…
Daily Kos Interviews Juan Cole (06:51 AM) - Sort of like Rush Limbaugh interviewing Pat Buchanan….
For Hanover Readers (06:01 AM) - Kenneth Levin’s excellent new(ish) book The Oslo Syndrome, which is a keen history of the Jewish people and a keener treatise on why the peace process is failing, is for sale at a discount at the Tucker Foundation and the…
Sunday, September 25, 2005
Two Tales Of Diversity (11:02 PM) - One will affect a a jurisprudential body for two decades. The other will affect all the nation’s business for, potentially, generations. I suspect only the former will receive widespread attention. The one that calls for a nine-man judicial panel to…
Get posts and letters, and make friends with speed (10:57 PM) - My sincerest apologies for the dearth of postings at Dartblog. Weekends are suddenly bloated with this play-a-week schedule of Mr. Saccio’s—which is all well because what a profitable class it is. But on Sunday evenings, the play, and not the…
Second Suspect Caught In Starbuck Murder (07:22 PM) - The second suspect— Christopher Lester Hollis, 22 years old—accused of savagely gunning down Dartmouth student Meleia Willis-Starbuck in Berkeley, California on July 17, was arrested in Fresno on Friday night on a traffic stop, according to local police. Hollis is…
The Drudge Reports on Babs (12:21 PM) - Sometimes you’ve just got to hand it to Matt Drudge. You’ve just got to….
“My trust, like a good parent, did beget of him a falsehood in its contrary.” (09:12 AM) - A scant fortnight after Israelis abandoned their homes and livelihoods in Gaza’s West Bank, Muslim terror organization Hamas launched a surprise rocket barrage at Israeli towns. The Israeli army is engaged in a response but, per usual, the he-started-it game…
Capitalism (08:43 AM) - I have added Yahoo! ads to the top of each page. I have tried to ensure that they wouldn’t be too distracting. The program is still in invite-only beta, which means the problem I was having earlier got direct attention….
Iran Calls U.N. Resolution Illegal (08:32 AM) - The United Nations has yet another resolution bucked and defiled by a rogue nation. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had weak words attendant to the resolution, which told Iran it was one step away from Security Council referral: “The international community…
Ranking the Top 100 Intellectuals (08:19 AM) - Jacob Laksin notes an interesting contest….
Notes From The Lone Star State (08:08 AM) - A blog I read often but probably don’t link to nearly enough is Right Side of the Rainbow, the blog of “a right-of-center, gun-owning, gay Texan.” I’d say we agree about eighty percent of the time, but for Paul politics…
Blame the Nutty Professor (07:46 AM) - Germany was on the brink of a conservative reformation in the wake of Gerhard Schröder’s thoroughly failed policies. But the Christian Democrats and their allies the libertarian Free Democrats eeked out only technical wins. This balanced piece from Foreign Policy…
If You Weren’t Paying Attention… (07:42 AM) - The Vice President’s aneurysm surgery was a success….
Corporal Punishment Disputes Up in N.Y. (07:32 AM) - It is something of a strange epidemic. Reports of undue punishment from public school teachers have doubled in the past five years. And the number of districts complying with a law requiring semiannual reports on the number of incidents is…
Protest/Counterprotest Photoblogging (06:49 AM) - By many accounts the march on Washington was a failure. From legion and diverse camera angles on C-SPAN my friends estimated no more than a couple thousand. The march in San Francisco—which provided the wire photo the Associated Press has…
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Descending Upon Washington (11:31 PM) - I just spent thirty minutes watching the day’s protests on C-SPAN. I hope more people—on the left and the right—do the same. It was a grim sight. The protests were not so much about the Iraq War (and, when they…
Proof is the Bottom Line for Everyone (06:57 PM) - Inside this Ebertesque Associated Press review of today’s protestations (t’was a must see) in Washington, there sits this line: They were young people with green hair, nuns whose anti-war activism dates to Vietnam, parents mourning their children in uniform lost…
“How You Gonna Throw The Jacket at me?” (06:52 PM) - Curb Your Enthusiasm begins anew tomorrow at 10p. Only. On HBO….
Keep This Up And ‘Broad’ Is Coming Back (06:36 PM) - I don’t mean to imply that I personally am going to resuscitate that colorful cognomen. But decisions like this one (and why, exactly, does the Ninth Circuit so enjoy inviting reversals?) are precisely what spark backlashes against radical feminism.Screaming and…
A Presence Demanded and Condemned (06:04 PM) - President Bush is faced with an impossible situation. One the one hand his personal visitation schedule does not include enough Gulf Coast stops, and he has a heart of iron. On the other, how dare he visit hurricane disaster zones?…
The International Freedom Center (02:04 PM) - Now Hillary Clinton is against it. It is dead….
The Googolplex (06:59 AM) - Roger L. Simon agrees with the Writer’s Guild as they seek to challenge Google, which, as part of its beta Google Print program, is scanning in full texts of (presumably) millions of published books and inserting the data into an…
Friday, September 23, 2005
The Mozart Effect, Expanded (10:58 PM) - Clinical research (so popular it doesn’t even need to be legitimated with a link!) has shown that playing Mozart for a baby stimulates the brain in ways that foster learning and growth. Few, however, are aware of the related Wagner…
The Lighter Side: World’s First Inflatable Pub (06:01 PM) - The Airquee Inflatable Pub is a UK-made tavern that appears and disappears in mere moments. When you must have your iniquity on the go, the Inflatable Pub is just the thing. It is 40 ft. long, 19 ft. wide, and…
BBC Heaven (04:08 PM) - Americans beware when the Beeb calls….
For Hanover Readers (12:08 PM) - Especially in light of faith-borne contretemps of late, it is well worth mentioning that the Dartmouth Ethics Institute is hosting a speech from Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University and first amendment expert, this afternoon at 4p in Filene Auditorium….
Comment on Undue Universalization (11:53 AM) - In response to these two posts, which remark on the controversy surrounding a religion-infused Convocation speech at Dartmouth, a member of the Dartmouth community e-mails:Noah did make a mistake in his speech. Parts of the text suggest that Jesus died…
Religion at Convocation: Breathless Editorials (07:52 AM) - This morning’s issue of The Dartmouth includes, in addition to a report on a Student Assembly co-chairman’s resignation (linked as an update to my original post), two editorials denouncing Noah Riner’s Christianity-infused Convocation address. The first comes from Julia Bernstein,…
Are You Scarebussed Yet? (06:31 AM) - It is no great surprise that the cruel JetBlue flight 292, where passengers could not but watch in trepidation as their plane circled the skies in preparation for a fiery landing upon failed landing gear, was aboard an Airbus airliner….
Frozen in Faith: Religion At Convocation (12:05 AM) - Dartmouth’s new Student Assembly president, Noah Riner, volleyed silver oratory at Convocation—the official opening of the academic year—on Tuesday. The usually-unobjectionable event provoked at least a few murmurs as Riner invoked God and Jesus Christ as he invited freshmen to…
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Whistling In The Dark (09:44 PM) - Good ideas stated succinctly take a lot of literary power to counter. But when the Republican Study Committee reported today that significant savings could be had (and thus liberated for use in hurricane-stricken areas) by verifying that everyone receiving the…
Dartmouth Economists To Washington (02:52 PM) - President Bush has nominated Tuck Professor of Business Administration Matthew J. Slaughter to the Council of Economic Advisors. Former professor in the College’s economics department, Katherine Baicker, was also nominated….
“Signs” That Mean A Lot (01:24 PM) - The blogosphere—myself included—has been covering relentlessly the contributions of the Iraqi Security Forces. And judging from the trickle of war dispatches that still report on progress, strategy, and successes in Iraq (in addition to the lists of US casualties that…
“The new, honed Clinton on the rostrum made sure that any earnest hand-wringing grappled with the raw brutality of irreconcilables.” (11:46 AM) - I just don’t know what to say about Tina Brown’s incredibly strange article on Bill Clinton, in today’s Washington Post….
Keeping The Memorial A Memorial (10:37 AM) - I have noted with respect and admiration the role of New York firefighters in condemning the International Freedom Center, a slightly-altered version of which is still slated to be built at Ground Zero. The NYPD has also joined in that…
No Commentary Here! (10:09 AM) - This incredible photo and caption moved on the Associated Press photo wire yesterday afternoon. Will we ever be allowed to win a war again?…
From String Quartet to Band to DJ to iPod (09:57 AM) - The quality of the average wedding music provision seems to be plummeting. Mendelssohn would be ashamed….
Mourn the Loss Of Sony Qualia (09:51 AM) - Sony’s Qualia line—the last bastion of high-quality manufacturing in audio components among major companies—is dead, along with about 10,000 jobs….
Your Lauren Resources Is My Personal Fave. Click Now, Friends. The Prince Needs Aid: What’s ur SSN#? (09:30 AM) - It looks as if spam blogs are coming into existence. Hey, at least they’re linking to Dartblog!…
Pork Busters Reaches Congressional Group (09:05 AM) - With Rita approaching, the Pork Busters project, initiated by Glenn Reynolds and N.Z. Bear, continues to gain momentum. And Congressional Republicans seem to have picked up on it. The Republican Study Committee has released a 24-page report, from an investigation…
Headline of the Day (08:49 AM) - It had been a long while since the last headline of the day, so here is a compelling piece of headlinage from USA Today: “Would you like life skills with that burger job?” The article is a worthwhile recapitulation of…
Rita. (07:09 AM) - Hurricane Rita, now a category five storm, bears down on American shores in the Gulf, and on New Orleans-area evacuees who sought umbrage in Texas. I’ll just echo MaroonBlog’s call: Heed evacuation warnings. There is no excuse not to….
Apple Computer and the Cult (06:51 AM) - The big Apple meme of the day, as dictated by Potentate of Acrylic White Steve Jobs, is that Microsoft and Dell are “copying,” which clearly falls into the legal zone of “no fair” since Apple Computer had “called” all of…
Hurricane coverage veers off course (06:34 AM) - Jonah Goldberg is waiting for the media to tell us that gays were the hardest-hit by Rita. But it looks like the Florida Keys were spared. I suppose Texas Republicans will now be hardest-hit, which is hardly worth reporting….
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Aging Technophiles Unite (11:55 PM) - Microsoft kindly provides the internet’s fools (defined officially as anyone who can name more than two protocols) a guide to the latest computer cant: leetspeek. Eminently useful, as I had been wondering what “pr0n” was. (…via Dan Bruno)…
Saddam’s Lawyers: Never Heard About Trial Date (08:38 PM) - This tactic has been seen before from the former Iraqi fleecer and his cronies—mostly before the United Nations General Assembly and mostly to great success—but evidently Saddam and his counsel are under the impression that misdirection, miscommunication, and the feigning…
Solomon—Back in Harvard Square (08:18 PM) - Despite vague objections (are they even codified in the university’s policies?) to the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” standard, Harvard University will accede to the law of the United States, the Solomon Amendment, and permit military recruiters on campus as…
A “What Does ‘Is’ Mean?” Moment (05:18 PM) - Law student Belgian Prince is invited to become a connoisseur of ambiguity….
Prepping For Round Two (03:15 PM) - Vermont Senator and ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy has announced his intention to vote for Judge John Roberts. Bloggledygook is right to pat him on the back: “Smart, Senator. Very smart.” Other votes are firming up: Committee…
What Would We Ever Do Without Studies? (03:01 PM) - Associated Press: “Women’s Hands Cleaner Than Men, Study Says” UPDATE: Forgot to add—this study never should have been conducted, since its premise was that there is something different between men and womyn. That’s ridiculous on its face. But, since it…
The Emory University Contras (12:02 PM) - Jeff Harrell notes stunning developments on the erstwhile quiet campus of Emory University: “The student-body president of Emory University has dissolved the legislature, named himself supreme leader and declared war on Washington University in St. Louis.” Che Guevara is also…
A Mean Post About Select Voices (11:28 AM) - Why is TimesSelect so called? Because, of course, the Times’ “voices” are select. Not so select that stale, one-day-old columns can’t be made free, mind you, but select enough that overeager political science students yearning for a pithy rhetorical question…
Hurricane Rita (08:19 AM) - If the worst happens, could this one, please, not be political? By that I mean: if Rita hits coastal Texas and a white-majority area, and post-Katrina policies and sudden attention to NOAA warnings means the damage is significantly mitigated, can…
Civility Averted by One Mr. Reid (07:05 AM) - [Note: Read update below.] Harry Reid has announced—for some reason—his intention to vote against Judge John Roberts. He also says that he wants a “mainstream, not extreme” judge who, one suspects, would lay bare all of his prejudices and promise…
Working the Overnight at Fox News (06:29 AM) - Fox News Channel has a depressed producer loose during the graveyard hours. He’d probably enjoy it more were he spinning the top hits of alllll time….
Scott McClellan’s New Retort (06:19 AM) - “You are stuck on stupid. I’m not going to answer that question.”…
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
“Survival is a privilege which entails obligations.” (11:12 PM) - I would be remiss if I did not pay due respects this evening to Simon Wiesenthal, the late Nazi-hunter who died in his Vienna home on Tuesday at 96 years old. Wiesenthal was one of the bravest warriors-for-good the world…
Karzai: Terrorist Threat Minimal in Afghanistan (11:00 PM) - Saying “We do not think a serious terrorist challenge is emanating from Afghanistan,” Afganistan president Hamid Karzai publically asked American troops to stand down from high-profile searches and security detail, because Afghanistan has become a relatively safe nation. “I don’t…
If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Burn ‘em (10:37 PM) - The world-famous Scotti’s Record Shop in my own backyard of northern New Jersey has fallen on difficult times. Fans of the often hard-to-find alternative music sold by the Scotti brothers have alternative methods of procurement. So the shop introduced the…
The Calm Before The Storm (09:15 PM) - Classes begin tomorrow……
The Lowest of Standards at the New York Times (07:10 PM) - This just in: According to New York Times editors, readers of the New York Times are near-illiterate reactionary language-bigots. Observe this wild parenthetical from Arthur Schlesinger’s essay on Reinhold Niebuhr, the 20th century theologian:In these and other works, Niebuhr emphasized…
War On Porn (06:45 PM) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation announces its War on Porn. Aren’t there cities to rebuild? N.B.: This wasteful and misguided effort is not being welcomed by the conservative blogosphere, which should teach caricature-obsessed Democrats something about painting with a broad…
Semicolon Adulation (11:25 AM) - Brad Plumer likes semicolons. He even goes to the trouble of HTML-ing up an emdash to prove just how much second-string punctuation means to him. Now that’s love. UPDATE: Why yes, I do know how to do an emdash in…
OMB Official Covers For Abramoff; Is Arrested (11:02 AM) - The Abramoff circus continues, with the OMB’s head procurement officer, David H. Safavian, having now been arrested for obstructing the criminal investigation of the prominent lobbyist. I suppose, one day, the lives of political operatives like Abramoff and Barry Myers…
Bilking Brown Cash (08:36 AM) - John Kerry’s office/campaign sent an e-mail to its mass-mailing list yesterday with an advance script of a speech he gave at Brown University later that day. In it, he dubs Bush’s the Katrina Administration- nabbing an idea from some left-wing…
De-Incentivizing Abortion Clinic Protesting (08:11 AM) - The Freakonomics blog reports on a new tactic being used in the mini-battles between pro- and anti-abortion activists waged all across the country, every day:Now a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia has come up with a very clever strategy for…
When You Outlaw Guns… (07:26 AM) - Dogs will walk around shooting people….
Katrina Victims Less Angry Than Bush-Blamers (07:17 AM) - Ruth Ann Dailey notices that professional Bush-haters are much more incensed at Bush’s Katrina dealings than Katrina victims themselves. This is nothing new, though. A quick glance at the anti-war activists attempting to “support the troops” reveals the very same…
But First A Light-Water Reactor, If You Please (07:01 AM) - North Korea yesterday agreed to abandon its nuclear weapon programs and rejoin international agreements against proliferation. Today, there is a catch: Kim Jong-il would like a nuclear reactor, first. Agence France-Presse reports:SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea said that it would…
Bill Maher Show “Forgets” To Pay Photoblogger (06:52 AM) - Flickr photographer Brandon Stone noticed a strikingly familiar set design on a recent episode of Bill Maher. In the comments, visitor ponder whether he ought to sue….
Monday, September 19, 2005
The Iraqi Kids Project, Phase One: Success (10:52 PM) - Image Courtesy of The MI Guy.Dartmouth undergraduate Meredith Wilson reports on The MI Guy blog that her Iraqi Kids Project, which sought to provide needy children in Iraq with clothing, shoes, and other essentials, has been completed. Meredith and her…
In The “Only Consistency Is Inconsistency” Dept. (09:57 PM) - As the 1993 editorial board of the New York Times described then-Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she would serve a capital doppelgänger to Judge John Roberts today. Then, her judge’s judge qualities endeared her to the Times. Those same…
Triumphs from Tragedies (08:52 PM) - Overeager news outlets- fresh from a panoply of botched America-bashing assays (you’ll recall the flag-in-the-trash, the Koran-in-the-toilet, and the phantasmic legion of journo-killing National Guard soldiers)- had an unfortunate romp with Hurricane Katrina. The mass media caught the breeze of…
Buy Your Splits Now (05:55 PM) - The banana is going extinct….
Is Google Macifying The Wintel Computer? (05:44 PM) - The company continues its vertical domination of the computing experience, as it looks likely to release the Google Browser at some point in the not-too-distant future….
I Wasn’t Aware (02:35 PM) - Reader email informs me that on the Huffington Post, Greg Gutfield expounds on the importance of raising awareness. And those who devote themselves to raising awareness about raising awareness, he assures us, will undoubtedly change the world and be accepted…
Peaceful Painting (02:10 PM) - This is a far cry from painting portraits of a glorified Saddam Hussein….
crème de la crème (01:59 PM) - The New York Times’ TimesSelect program has begun, and high-profile blogger Ann Althouse has stopped linking. I suspect much of the conversation usually inspired by the Times’ editorialists will die down in time. The New York Times website, nytimes.com, is…
Cindy Sheehan’s Good Idea (07:47 AM) - A TalkLeft poster relays news that Cindy Sheehan, who has asserted that United States troops are wrongly occupying New Orleans, that the President should be impeached, and that the Iraq War was a Jewish conspiracy, is now calling on Senator…
OPEC Shrugged (07:31 AM) - The positioning of OPEC as dark lord in the oil market is too hilariously depressing to ignore, and it is illustrated brilliantly by articles like this one, which has OPEC “pondering” whether to increase oil flow by two million barrels…
The Hardest Thing To Admit (07:25 AM) - With respect to North Korea’s disarmament, the most serious and the most bulky consequence is that, at some point in the future, many people may not-be-killed as a direct result. It will be interesting to see if George Bush’s stubborn,…
Option D: None of the Above (01:50 AM) - Carl at No Oil For Pacifists provides a good recap of yesterday’s elections in Germany. The short answer is that there’s no short answer. But it was no win for Gerhard Schröder….
North Korea Agrees To Drop Nuclear Programs (12:36 AM) - AP alert just went out:AP News Alert BEIJING (AP) — A joint statement released at the six-party nuclear talks says North Korea has promised to drop all nuclear programs as soon as possible.Link here. The six-party talks were proceeding in…
The New New Deal (12:28 AM) - Stephen Moore, pithy as always, in the Wall Street Journal:When President Bush announced last Thursday that the feds would take a lead role in the reconstruction of New Orleans, he in effect established a new $200 billion federal line of…
Drop A Nickel In The Pot, Joe (12:11 AM) - In the end, a large double ristretto, non fat, no foam, extra hot latte with cinnamon in a double cup, no sleeve, just doesn’t taste as good as regular coffee….
Sunday, September 18, 2005
Two Articles Of Faith (11:26 PM) - Blog readers are well-aware that the most famous article of faith on the right is the Liberal Media. Mainstream, MSM, establishment, legacy, liberal. These are the descriptors of the Problem Child news departments of otherwise-respectable media conglomerates. For an inexplicable…
“According to Palestinian Sources…” (08:45 PM) - Pallywood is a web-documentary which attempts to show how Arab propaganda is turned into news by western journos. I’ve not yet seen it, but it sounds long overdue….
“Clear my channel! Clear my channel!” (07:37 PM) - You can do the anti-American dance if you want to….
Coalition of the Willing Welcomes Deutschland (07:21 PM) - If President Bush is repelling the world so, why do the pro-America contingents keep winning in every corner of the world? UPDATE: I am informed of the proper spelling of the proud nation of Deutschland by a keen-eyed Tufts student….
PC Load Letter (06:31 PM) - “What the $*@% does that mean?”…
KARL ROVE UNLEASHED! (06:20 PM) - Earlier this week, the master of darkness himself revealed his impure ruminations on all matter of black arts. Kos calls it “Rove Unleashed”; Huffington calls it a scoop; I call it a snooze….
The Occupation of New Orleans (04:54 PM) - According to Cindy Sheehan, whose radical comments are no longer reported in the press (her duty having been fulfilled) the presence of soldiers in New Orleans amounts to an occupation which must be ended and then Bush thrown out of…
While I’m Applauding The Washington Post… (04:27 PM) - The paper’s other Sunday editorial castigates Yahoo! for its recent genuflection to China’s autocratic journalism laws….
The Roberts Editorials (04:11 PM) - The Washington Post editorial board has come out in favor of John Roberts, with the sensical point that “If presidents cannot predictably garner confirmation for nominees with unblemished careers in private practice and government service, they will gravitate instead to…
From The Moderate Voice (12:07 PM) - Joe Gandelman looks at the support John Roberts has received- from the right and left- and concludes that, despite protestations from both -wings, neither party would be well-advised to throw down the gauntlet….
Saturday, September 17, 2005
She Saw A Bullhorn (04:28 PM) - Devoted Democrat and former campaign manager of Al Gore’s, Donna Brazile writes in the Washington Post: “I Will Rebuild With You, Mr. President.”The president has set a national goal and defined a national purpose. This is something I believe with…
Googlebombing ‘failure’ (08:20 AM) - Search for ‘failure’ on Google right now and your first hit is the official biography of the 43rd President of the United States. This is accomplished by publishing many popular web-pages which in turn link to President Bush’s bio with…
Highlight, But Why? (07:21 AM) - Kos says that “Every Democratic challenger in the House and Senate needs to highlight this” as they campaign this Fall:”There has never been a time where there is more total spending and more wasteful spending in Washington than we have…
Hill Winds (01:02 AM) - Back at Dartmouth, with a brand new room. The work was long and arduous, but it finally came together after four hours of shuffling, reshuffling, and much interpretation of Chinese desk chair assembly instructions, which are very much unlike the…
Friday, September 16, 2005
“Too DNC.” (02:27 PM) - Scott Ott is right on with regard to the White House’s stateish proposal that it rebuild New Orleans….
Does This Make Sense? (02:04 PM) - It could just be that I haven’t had a decent cup of coffee in 72 hours, but this sentence from the National Center for Health Statistics’ latest survey on sexual practices confused me: “Men age 30 to 44 have had…
Harvard Prof To U.S.: Negotiate With Terrorists (09:20 AM) - Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou is associate director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University. In Wednesday’s Boston Globe, he suggests “talking” to al-Qaeda might resolve differences and big to an end a war against terrorism that…
On that Reuters Photo (09:13 AM) - Photographer Tony Abu Tuz looks at the editing methods used to “enhance” the photo and finds that extreme measures were taken to make the President’s bathroom note legible. I’m not sure that is any terrible indictment of Reuters, but it…
Multiple Linksys WRT54G Vulnerabilities (08:46 AM) - One of the most popular wireless routers has a handful of security vulnerabilities that make it susceptible to hack attempts. Here is a list of the flaws, along with workarounds….
The Gentleman’s ‘C’ (07:54 AM) - Jeff Blanco posts the text of the President’s speech of last night, and offers commentary. He found it middling. I did watch the address, but find myself with very little to say about it. The elocution itself wasn’t bad; it…
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Does CAIR Care? Part II (08:44 PM) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations told us yesterday that Flight 93 was merely a “crashed” airplane that happened to fall out of the sky on the date 9/11. Today, its website appears to have doctored a press photo of speakers…
Breaking News (08:28 PM) - According to Fox News, another pretty white college girl has gone missing. I’m tempted to say that disappearances disproportionately affect pretty white college girls, and that that is the fault of a society whose very institutions are balanced against pretty…
Jobless Claims See Largest Jump in 10 Years (08:22 PM) - I suppose this was to be expected….
Universal Serial Fish (08:08 PM) - How crucial is USB Sushi? So crucial is must come in four different “flavors.”…
Uniforms, Anyone? (07:24 PM) - An outrageously provocative t-shirt leads to a brawl at a Jacksonville high school. Money quote, at the article’s close, by the student who wore the pro-KKK shirt: “I’m a redneck,” he said. “But no, I’m not racist.” Try again, buddy….
Bubonic Plague Makes Stateside Revival (07:20 PM) - Oddly enough, it all begins in New Jersey, where three mice infected with the Plague have disappeared from a Newark lab owned by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey….
To Whoever Subscribed Me To The DNC Distrib. List (07:15 PM) - Hilarious. But I prefer my DNC faxes distributed via the AP wire, please….
Exported Democracy and Happy Customers (06:46 AM) - Young men in Afghanistan, where the polls open on Sunday, are in the process of learning English, computers, and democracy. A “new generation” is emerging; made of young academic and political leaders who- and this will be hard to swallow…
Hitch and Gall (06:30 AM) - I wasn’t able to watch the Hitchens/Galloway debate last evening, but judging from this OxBlog account, it appeared to be one of those debates where the word ‘Halliburton ’ followed by a deftly-delivered exclamation point passed as a keen offensive….
The Buck Stops Where (06:26 AM) - Louisiana Conservative notes that Governor Blanco, in a Wednesday speech, also took “full responsibility” for the response to Katrina. No sense waiting for the AP alert on this….
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
World’s Smallest Mobile Robot Created at Dartmouth (10:19 PM) - Bruce Donald and Igor Paprotny, professors in the computer science department, have created a controllable microbot. 200 can march along the top of an M&M….
Mobile phone lands aircraft in wrong airport? (10:16 PM) - If this is true, it’s the first example I’ve heard of a cell phone actually disrupting navigational equipment….
“Good News From The Gulf Coast” (10:08 PM) - It’s necessary, isn’t it. TigerHawk provides an update:First, the media grossly overestimated the loss of life from Katrina. Then, they predicted that the Port of New Orleans would be closed for months (it unloaded its first cargo today). Now we…
I’ll Take Manhattan (09:51 PM) - The house is empty, the new family has “walked-through” and we’re now in a New York apartment for the interim. I’ll be leaving tomorrow to head to Boston, and then to New Hampshire. But for now I’m relaxing as I…
Senator Kohl’s Question (09:45 PM) - To John Roberts, today: “What, if you are confirmed, would be your agenda, your plans, or your policy objectives to advance in connection with your head?” The Althouses are laughing because Kohl asked Roberts what he would advance in connection…
Yo Delicious! (09:22 AM) - New episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm begin on HBO on Sunday, September 25 at 10:00P….
The United Nations General Assembly Meets (08:39 AM) - As the shambled world body prepares to meet in Manhattan today, prompting unintentionally hilarious local headlines like, “Gridlock alert as U.N. General Assembly meets,” here are a few words on the United Nations adapted from an article I wrote several…
Cosmetics Made From Executed P.R.C. Prisoners (08:20 AM) - For sale in the United Kingdom, as the Guardian reports.A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered. Agents for…
Does CAIR Care? (07:43 AM) - The Council on American-Islamic Relations, in a press release supporting the controversial Flight 93 memorial slated for placement in Pennsylvania, one which lionizes the Islamic Red Crescent, uses this language:WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)…
Google Blog Search (07:40 AM) - Launched….
The End Of Convergence (07:33 AM) - Cell phone/digital camera? Sure. Palm/MP3 player? Not a bad idea. Flashlight/radio? Understandable in emergencies. But when you invent the world’s first Toaster/FM Radio, the game is up. RELATED: The end of TiVo, as well. New TiVo software gives in to…
While Talabani Was In Washington… (07:26 AM) - Iraq’s Prime Minister had a similarly bold item on his plate:TAL AFAR, Iraq—Iraq’s prime minister toured the ancient northern city of Tal Afar on Monday—ignoring an alleged al-Qaida threat to strike with chemical weapons—to congratulate Iraqi forces for rousting militants…
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Learning From Mistakes (08:36 PM) - Responding to hurricane race-baiting, La Shawn Barber, who is a black woman (interesting to whom that classification lends her words varying credence) says that the federal government “has created a dependent class of people who’ve likely never had the desire…
(It’s not yet 10 a.m., but Aqua is drunk.) (08:00 PM) - A scene from another incredibly-ephemeral Mac theme….
On The News (11:43 AM) - Jalal Talabani is in Washington right now, in the capital of the world’s oldest democracy. On behalf of the world’s youngest, he thanks President Bush and the “glorious” American people. It is just incredible to see. He is reporting real,…
Delusions (08:46 AM) - David Adesnik, master of the dug-up quote, offers an excellent nugget of wisdom from William Jefferson Clinton: “There is nothing patriotic about hating your country or pretending that you can love your country but despise your Government.” That, from his…
Monday, September 12, 2005
Blogging Update (08:08 PM) - Posting will be spotty and light over the next 72 hours as the Malchows move (first to New York City, then to a new home in New Jersey) and as I, nearly concurrently, move back up to New Hampshire. The…
A Justice For All Seasons (12:01 PM) - [Bumped to top.] By fits and starts, the nation is coming to terms with the reality that it will soon have a new High Court. Tragic events and wingy, Rovian conspiracies aside, the debate on John Roberts has commenced, and…
Batty Things Being Said About/To John Roberts (10:13 AM) - Some awfully ridiculous things are being said, and some certainly ridiculous questions are being offered, of John Roberts. The first honor goes to Ted Kennedy: "As a nation, we must be sensitive to this inequality, sensitive as we respond to…
On Monday, September Nineteenth… (09:39 AM) - On Monday, September 19th the New York Times’ editorial section goes behind the pay wall. Krugmania will no longer sully Memeorandum. Bloggers will stop linking. Traffic to nytimes.com- some significant portion of it- will dip. On Monday, September 19th the…
Retail Gas Prices Back Away From High (07:45 AM) - The national average is back in the two-dollar range, at $2.967 for regular unleaded and $2.932 for diesel. Meanwhile, this AP report cites the Lundberg Survey, which has the average at $3.04. Reporter Jeremiah Marquez takes that as a cue…
Terrorism And The Year 2000 Bug (07:17 AM) - One of the things that always miffed me about the Y2K bug is that, come seven o’clock on January 1, 2000, 400 million Americans woke up to their “World Not Over!” newspaper, their “Annihilation-by-Fortran Averted!” morning news and, finally, their…
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Reflecting Presence (10:09 AM) - This will be post number 3752 on Dartblog, and even at that I must realize, as I flip through the archives, that this is a young blog. I’ve never written on the date of September 11. Not in 2001 and…
Sonic Boom Cloud Caught On Photo (09:54 AM) - If you’ve ever wanted to see the phenomenon, here is your chance, courtesy of a snappy shutterbug in the United States Navy….
President Bush Awards Medals Of Valor (09:30 AM) - In front of 442 Americans of “uncommon valor and decency and honor” the President awarded on friday the Medal of Valor to the survivors of September 11th’s heros. He singles out four emergency responders and tells their stories. He concludes…
The Fourth Anniversary (12:00 AM) - It is nineteen seconds past midnight on the morning of September 11, 2005, and here is something I don’t say often enough: God bless America….
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Japan Can’t Do It, Either (11:56 PM) - Todd Crowell of Asia Cable notes a comparison between Katrina in the US and the Kobe earthquake in Japan. Both civilized, technologically advanced nations. Both left beguiled and impotent by nature’s power. (…via TigerHawk)…
Insanity On Parade (10:31 PM) - Jeff Jarvis has been far out in the anti-fed column with regard to Katrina, a position I disagree with but respect nonetheless precisely because of Jarvis’ estimable record as a thoughtful centrist. Jarvis offered the less intellectually-gifted elements of the…
Editing (03:21 PM) - No posting, as I’m editing articles all day. Paper publishing is so wholly inferior to blogging!…
“There will be no refuge.” (09:53 AM) - A massive offensive has been launched in northern Iraq, centered around the town of Talafar. Like al Qaim, it is believed that terrorists are using Talafar, which sits near the Syrian border, as a staging ground for the importation and…
“A Tale of Lost Innocence” (09:12 AM) - Michael Fromberger, a Dartmouth Ph. D. candidate in computer science, spins a forboding yarn about the new age of licensing, clickwrap, and digitized textbooks. An excellent read….
Here, There, And Gone Again (08:09 AM) - How many manufactured scandals and misplaced blames were trumpeted by Democrats and the media against President Bush, and then, when they failed to score points, abandoned in the vain hope that no one would remember the partisan skylarkings? I attempted…
Humble Folks Without Temptation (07:48 AM) - The barometer of our times remains in the game through 2008, as Matt Stone and Trey Parker have both renewed their contracts….
Click…Click…Ka Ching! (07:42 AM) - Did you know:A method and system are provided for extending the functionality of application buttons on a limited resource computing device. Alternative application functions are launched based on the length of time an application button is pressed. A default function…
If You’re Anything Like Me… (07:36 AM) - …heaven-moving fury ferments at little more than a sideways gaze at the insidious Rigged Carnival Game. The fine fellows at Retrocrush, however, are kind enough to offer a guide to beating the unbeatable. (And a window into the uniquely black…
epiphany of a girl on the strand (06:22 AM) - No idea how I missed this one. There’s a reason lightbulbs conjure the idea of ideas. They hit you and decelerate to zero from a breathless clip that leaves the message unmarred between sender and recipient. No sullying force can…
Friday, September 09, 2005
Differing Standards (09:16 PM) - When 50,000 people ‘boo’ a rapper for the whole of a live performance because he called the President a racist on live television: no news coverage. When 1 person uses colorful language to invite the Vice President to make love…
FANTASTIC! (09:09 PM) - Have you ever wondered what’d happen if Kos put up a poll asking, “Do you approve the way George Bush is handling his job as President?” Wonder no more!…
“Brownie, you’re doin’ one hell of a job.” (11:03 AM) - Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Micheal Brown has a dead career on his hands. The political forces allied against him will make it impossible for him to do his job in the future, and I suspect he’ll be asked to…
“Nobody told me that I had to request that.” (09:14 AM) - Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, on disaster relief….
Consider Your Heart Broken, Mr. Jobs (08:32 AM) - [Eds. note: Politically-interested readers will have to excuse the unusual multitude of tech posts in the past few days, but there has been much to discuss.]In a fawning PR article in the New York Times that reads like an Apple…
Don’t You Hate It When You Order stir fried-tiger… (08:21 AM) - …but they try to pass off donkey meat dressed with tiger urine as the real deal? (…via TigerHawk, your blog-source for exotic meats)…
A [Real] Winning Loss (07:37 AM) - Unlike OH-02, the liberal candidate’s defeat in Egypt’s historic elections is a ringing victory; a harbinger of Democratic things to come. The Egyptian government, in light of the Iraq War and examples worldwide of peoples thereby moved to demand greater…
Stealing Classified National Security Documents (07:23 AM) - President Clinton’s National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, stole classified documents from the National Archives while preparing to testify before the 9/11 Commission, which itself is on the way to being rendered irrelevant with mounting evidence that it dropped the ball…
Withholding Vital Family Guy Episodes (07:03 AM) - Let the cruel, cruel expurgation of anything and everything with a reference to “hurricane” begin. Fox is already refusing to broadcast a new episode of Family Guy that contains “a couple” uses of the word hurricane. Note that the episode…
When Did You Stop Watching The Daily Show? (06:38 AM) - Ann Althouse just changed the channel for good, anticipating partisan coverage of the hurricane, which she, like many of us, finds very distasteful. For me, it was when Craig Kilborn left that I stopped watching. And Althouse readers have some…
Condo Nazis And Katrina evacuees (06:22 AM) - Many flags have been pulled, satellite dishes fallen, welcome mats unwelcomed, and doorbell circuits blown under the fascistic fiat of homeowner’s associations. But never before have these microscopic dictatorships and their drunk-with-power barons brought such utter inhumanity into their tiny…
“Our Dichotomy Opens The Combat.” (06:18 AM) - Reader Zachariah Lakel e-mails a link to these hilarious screen captures from a Chinese bootleg of Star Wars III, which presumably featured the Chinese audio dub with translated English subtitles. I have no idea if they are Photoshops or not…
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Huffington Post Blogger Application Revealed! (10:32 PM) - Greg Gutfeld has the insanely funny exclusive….
Find The Closest 802.11 Hotspot (10:05 PM) - In order to keep on top of things, I’ve rigged it so that certain Associated Press notices are sent to my wireless phone as they move. Sometimes, reception of such news demands a quick jaunt to the internet to see…
What If, Every Time Your Cellular Phone Rang… (09:56 PM) - The ringer spoke the warning, “Don’t let mobile phone conversations lead to premature sex and pregnancy.” You, too, can be a bodice-bound technophile with the “morality ringer” series from Thai monk Phra Phayom Kalayano of the Glass Garden Temple….
displeasure with democrats’ response to katrina (09:35 PM) - A reader sends an understandable rant on the broad politicization of the hurricane and a correction to this post, where I dinged the National Guard for keeping the Red Cross out of New Orleans:If you will read the Red Cross’…
Gonna Run Your Computer Without It? Doubt It. (09:21 PM) - Jesse Roisin sends a link to the Famous Last Nerds, who are pretty funny. Have a listen to the Windows Rap, because my Outlook Excels me to my Powerpoint, Word….
What’s Light, Sweet, And Finally Flows? (04:52 PM) - AFP has put out a context dispatch that reflects the general trend that United States oil supplies are getting back on track. The federal government is ready to inject more from the strategic petroleum reserves into the stream if necessary,…
Read All About The Coragyps atratus (03:57 PM) - The black vulture’s eating habits and other crucial information at TheRaptorTrust.org, a site that is finally nearly almost complete….
Is John Roberts Too Successful For The Job? (12:27 PM) - I have to give the thumbs up to Richard Cohen’s WaPo piece of today, “Too Perfect to Know the People?” It has been somewhat maligned in the conservative blogosphere, but in truth the piece is more wishful than demanding, and…
“Saddam did not confess to mass killings!” (11:39 AM) - The former Iraq and its sandy magnates have a colorful and proud history of fibbing. The Hussein regime was full of characters- including, ultimately, Saddam himself- who would do worse than spit in your face and tell you it’s raining….
Early Review Of The iPod Nano (10:43 AM) - Playlist.com has it. Hardware looks to be good. But it appears that user-friendly-but-dumb-as-heck Apple has again presumed far too much about what users want to do….
What Do Katrina And John Roberts Have In Common? (10:37 AM) - Something, according to MoveOn.org….
Undesired Vindication (10:28 AM) - Just as Katrina was weakened to a tropical storm and traveling up north, and a day after the levees broke, the Associated Press authored a newsview that recklessly blamed President Bush for too much too soon. I responded by saying,…
Hello, world. I’m making an (08:42 AM) - Hello, world. I’m making an attempt at blogging via Palm. I’m using an application called HBlogger, which strangely does not have a title field. We’ll see how it works… [Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]…
About To Governate (08:21 AM) - I yesterday relayed the news that California’s legislature had passed an unprecedented approval of gay marriage. Reporting Arnold’s reported intent to veto, I wrote:To my personal surprise, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger looks likely to veto the bill on, of all things,…
Iraq Is The Same As Vietnam (08:15 AM) - But only with respect to the tactics of the anti-war elites. That column, incidentally, was written by Peter Kann, who covered Vietnam for the Wall Street Journal and is now chairman of Dow Jones….
ANNEX I: HURRICANES (07:55 AM) - The “hurricane plan” for the City of New Orleans can be read here. It states in no uncertain terms that “approximately 100,000 Citizens of New Orleans do not have means of personal transportation” and therefore will require shelter. The $134…
Confusion (07:10 AM) - David Brooks writes in the New York Times this morning: As a colleague of mine says, every crisis is an opportunity. And sure enough, Hurricane Katrina has given us an amazing chance to do something serious about urban poverty. That’s…
irresistible Populism During Gas Price Spikes (12:14 AM) - Bill O’Reilly, as TigerHawk handily notes, got it wrong on the oil companies. For those that missed the hour-long bloviation, O’Reilly went on an increasingly-familiar tear on “Big Oil.” Exxon is fleecing America, he opined, because it makes $140B per…
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Unlikely Impossibly Small (11:51 PM) - What do I think of the new Apple iPod Nano? It seems to be a decent product. Despite the name, it certainly isn’t one-millionth the size of its iPodic predecessors, and it is a far cry still from its “impossibly…
The Right To Keep And Bear Arms, Anyone? (11:40 PM) - Those who stockpiled food and water in advance of Katrina were evidently equally prescient on the need to defend themselves against those who did not have such foresight….
Technolust (11:07 PM) - I am obliged to confess: your correspondent has fallen prey to the sultry gadget siren this Fall day. No new posts after 5:00P? N’importe, if one has a shiny new Palm handheld device- a Tungsten T5 in my case- with…
Geraldo Rivera embarrasses Himself (05:22 PM) - Here. What a ham. RELATED: But he hasn’t stopped Fox News’ outstanding climb up the television ladder. TVNewser flashes:FNC had 34 out of the 40 top programs in cable last week — not cable news — but all of CABLE,…
To Know John Roberts Jr., Think Ronald Reagan (10:54 AM) - New Dartmouth alumni trustee Peter Robinson, former Reagan speechwriter and current enjoyer of the cool climes of Hanover, is quoted in this Bloomberg dispatch on John Roberts….
Personal Grudges Yield Weak Eulogies (10:50 AM) - I generally think Alan Dershowitz’s writings are well-considered, but I frankly cannot determine if he is even being serious here….
Poll Shows Neutral Opinions on Katrina Response (09:31 AM) - A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released this morning shows that a majority of Americans think that the federal government responded either well or as expected. The results were mixed for state and local governments, with 37% saying well, 35% poorly, and…
Fences Mended And Repulverized (09:03 AM) - Upon winning re-election, President Bush saught to repair Eurorelations with a series of endearing trips to most key European capitals. In “So Much for Mending Fences,” Washington Post reporters John F. Harris and Lori Montgomery relay the results of that…
The Wisconsin Senators Are Right On Cue… (09:00 AM) - In my first post on John Roberts the Chief Justice nominee, I said:Democrats will issue bogus statements that Roberts requires extra scrutiny for the chief justice chair (because of all the additional voting power the chief has?) and they will…
California Legislature approves gay marriage bill (09:00 AM) - California is now the only state in the union to have approved gay marriage by will of a democratically-elected legislature. The AP’s early dispatch:The California Legislature on Tuesday became the first legislative body in the country to approve a bill…
Guffaw. (08:51 AM) - The New Yorker, via cartoon, is not too fond of the ol’ blogosphere, as a TigerHawk scan reveals. I just got that issue, so I hadn’t yet flipped through. You know what? Barking in septuasyllabic parlance is still barking. And…
Paul Volcker’s O.F.F. Report To Be Released (08:46 AM) - Read the advance preface here. The full report should be available here midday….
Nameless, Faceless Internet Companies (08:25 AM) - Internet juggernauts like Google and Yahoo, steeped in the ancient traditions of search technology though they may be, continue to do stupid things. Google’s intra-industry escapades play out like a junior high prom drama and now it appears that, much…
Agreed. (08:07 AM) - Per RealClearPolitics: Michael Brown needs to be shown the door, Governor Blanco probably needs to go to jail for criminal negligence, and the Mayor’s spunk slightly mitigates his own failure to plan ahead. And as for the President, the red…
From 400 megahertz to 2 Gigahertz in a Mac (07:58 AM) - Engadget upgrades a criminally-underpowered Macintosh G4 box c.2000 to 2 GHz with some subtle aftermarketing. I found it fascinating what must be done to upgrade the CPU on a Mac, given that Apple traditionally goes to great lengths to stop…
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
Doing The Right Thing III (09:56 PM) - Amazon.com has finally dedicated its front page to hurricane relief, and its one-click donation program has, as of this writing, raised $9,629,760.99 for the American Red Cross. Clearly, Amazon taps into the incredible generosity of mainstream America in a way…
Bush Body Language And SCOTUS Speculation (06:33 PM) - Excerpts from today’s press pool report on the president:(1) When the President was asked about a possible woman nominee for the other Supreme Court vacancy, Secretary of State Rice smiled broadly. (2) The President was sitting right across from Attorney…
Katrina Missing Persons Search (03:54 PM) - Yahoo has the best tool, because it searches all of the “safe lists” out there on the internet….
It Is Funny… (03:43 PM) - …and it’s a shame Dennis Miller went off the air….
Watching The Gas Prices (11:45 AM) - The Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) is holding a conference call today at 2P EST to offer updates on the damage Katrina did and to suggest “where we go from here.” Free registration is available at the above link. I…
“the federal response in N.O. needs clarification…” (11:10 AM) - Craig Martelle, a retired major in the Marine Corps and someone who received FEMA training, makes the point that FEMA is a crisis manager, but is certainly not a first-responder. And indeed it is sounds silly to claim that Washington’s…
While A Former French Colony Was Drowning… (10:40 AM) - The city of Lyon in France put on its annual fashion show over the weekend, complete with a la mode conceit and ostentation beyond belief. Reuters covered it fully. The French have a right to their haute couture, of course,…
Paul Volcker’s Final O.F.F. Report Due Wednesday (10:32 AM) - The Financial Times received a preview of the report and offers this:The UN’s leadership needs comprehensive and urgent reform following a failure of management in Iraq’s oil-for-food programme, the Volcker inquiry is expected to say this week. “The main conclusions…
Pre-Planning Symposium On Commission Creation (10:12 AM) - Hillary Clinton writes an open letter to the President. Dear Mr. President: It has become increasingly evident that our nation was not prepared to launch an effective federal response plan to an emergency such as Hurricane Katrina. Therefore, I urge…
Are NYC’s Random Subway Searches Effective? (09:47 AM) - My friend Chris Wilt explores the question in the Dartmouth Free Press and comes to a not-very-surprising conclusion: “A competent and responsible policymaker surely must realize that the idea of random searches is probably the worst way to successfully catch…
I Hope It Doesn’t Run Windows II (08:08 AM) - Last week I reported that General Motors is innovating robotic driving into its new vehicles. The “traffic assist” system will use computer-controlled lasers and video camera to drive the car at speeds up to 60 MPH. Today, it was reported…
al Qaeda Terrorists Control Small Iraqi Town (08:00 AM) - The town of al-Qaim purportedly has a sign on its outskirts that reads, “Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Qaim”. Qaim has always been a tough spot for coalition forces, but that sign may be truer now than ever before….
Recession in New Orleans (07:25 AM) - Flood waters are receding in New Orleans as the Army Corps of Engineers have repaired (albeit temporarily) one of the broken levees….
Monday, September 05, 2005
You Could Just Blog… (07:33 PM) - But OneFreeMinute is a fascinating piece of interactive art….
Victor Hugo Said, “Stupidity talks, vanity acts.” (02:55 PM) - Actor-cum-activist Sean Penn represents a unique amalgam….
National Guard Keeping Red Cross Out Of N.O. (11:10 AM) - Don Boudreaux reports that both the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are being denied access to Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Seems like an awfully bad call, but as long as the feds are in charge, there is no higher authority….
Racism: Hunting Ahab’s Indefatigable Whale In N.O. (10:43 AM) - I asked my friend Andrew Seal, editor of Dartmouth’s lefist Free Press, to flesh out for Dartblog readers the warp and woof of the racial issues Democrats are raising amid Katrina’s aftermath. He writes:The coverage of the looting may be…
Now You Know Why They Are Underground (09:12 AM) - Seen on Democratic Underground: Prepare thyselves, DUers. It’s all about the LOOTERS In 2 of the CT and MA newspapers I read on Sundays there were OpEds decrying the looting. Jeff Jacoby, resident a**hole of the Boston Globe and John…
Rice says race had nothing to do with Katrina aid (09:05 AM) - Said Rice, while touring relief centers in Mobile: “I don’t believe for a minute anybody allowed people to suffer because they are African-Americans. I just don’t believe it for a minute.” I haven’t yet visited the left-wing blogs, but I…
John Roberts Nominated For Chief Justice (08:49 AM) - Yesterday I relayed a prediction that the President would withdraw John Roberts’ nomination as associate justice and re-enter it as chief justice and just a few moments ago, Bush did exactly that. This is a good move, since the unavoidable…
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Wal-Mart (04:45 PM) - Has quietly upped its Katrina donation to $15 million….
Spilled McDonalds Coffee On My Lap This Morning (04:15 PM) - No thoughts of suing yet……
Cruising The AP Wire: The Creation of controversy (12:38 PM) - I’m watching on the AP wire and this just moved at 12:27:16 EST:Condoleezza Rice defends Bush’s Katrina response in visit to Alabama Eds: RECASTS to RAISE reference to Rice comments on race By LARA JAKES JORDAM, Associated Press Writer MOBILE,…
Power Struggle In Katrina’s Wake (07:00 AM) - We know that President Bush goaded officials into evacuating New Orleans in the first place. And the Washington Post provides a window into the rather embarrassing power struggle in the aftermath, of who was to do the work, who was…
Filling A Big Chair (06:58 AM) - Carl at No Oil for Pacifists thinks that President Bush should and will withdraw John Roberts and re-nominate him as Chief Justice, leaving the associate justice position empty for the time being….
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Economics One-Oh-One (11:43 PM) - Real headline: “Hawaii sets caps on wholesale gas prices; Some analysts warn move may spur supply problems.” Rand Simberg: “Imagine the headline, ‘Legislature Mandates Pi To Equal 3.00000 — Some Analysts Warn Move May Spur Engineering Problems’” He then offers…
William Rehnquist Dead (11:13 PM) - Just received the AP alert: Chief Justice William Rehnquist died Saturday at age 80.And President Bush will make a second appointment to the high court. The first AP dispatch. Official statement: “The Chief Justice battled thyroid cancer since being diagnosed…
Fair And Balanced And Unafraid (07:15 AM) - Fox’s Shepard Smith is emerging as a world-class reporter in the aftermath of Katrina, and here is one of the many reasons why….
Can You Feel The Demagoguery Tonight? (06:38 AM) - Hillary Clinton breaks silence and contributes her bit to the situation: “Oil Firms Turn Katrina Into Profits, Clinton Says.” The junior senator listed her new enemies Arnold-style: “I want to go after the oil companies and the oil speculators and…
Yikes. (01:45 AM) - Yikes, yikes, yikes. What was I saying about celebrity “here’s how to help” prime-time packages?…
Colleges Offering Free Admissions To Students (01:44 AM) - I’ve relayed Rutgers’ and Dartmouth’s dispatches on the matter. Ann Althouse has posted that of Wisconsin and I’m sure there are others. They are kind moves, though I sense by now that such offers are becoming something of a “me…
Friday, September 02, 2005
What Color Rubber Wrist Band WIll We Be? (08:25 PM) - TigerHawk rounds up the foreign aid- which is becoming substantial- and praises the State Department’s open attitude toward the international help. But at least one offer is ripe for a “thanks, but no thanks.”Hugo Chavez has apparently offered to send…
Was Katrina A Racist Hurricane? (08:10 PM) - Harken! And let thine stomachs swirl….
Rutgers To Accept Affected New Jersey Students (07:46 PM) - Richard McCormick, president of Rutgers University, dispatched this message to the community:Students from New Jersey who attend colleges and universities in the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina are welcome to enroll as visiting students at Rutgers, The State University of…
The cavalry has arrived. (07:02 PM) - FoxNews.com has the story….
You Could Just Go To RedCross.org… (06:45 PM) - I’ve never understood why, whenever a national disaster occurs, minor and medium-sized celebrities on the cusp of the ‘B’ list crop up to explain “how people can help”. Nor why it is that explaining “how people can help” always seems…
The Hotline’s Lowdown On Katrina and Blogs (06:39 PM) - For my money, there is no better overview of the political blogosphere than William Beutler’s Blogometer at The National Journal. Fair and Balanced is quite the pocked trademark nowadays, but William is just that. And he is a keen observer…
Yahoo! Advertisements Update (04:18 PM) - On the individual post pages, the Yahoo ads seem to be functioning properly. But their ad server isn’t sending out content to the frontpage here at dartblog.com. Strange, but I’m working on it……
Dartmouth To Take Some Katrina Refugees (03:46 PM) - James Wright, president of Dartmouth College, has just released this message:To the Dartmouth community: In response to the needs of college students whose lives have been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina, I have today approved a plan to offer temporary admission…
FBI Arrest Made In Oil-For-Food Scandal (12:28 PM) - Vadim Kouznetsov was the chair of a UN budgeting committee, but he is now a guest of the nation, courtesy of the FBI. He is the second Russian UN operative to be arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigations. An…
There Are Times To Score Political Points (12:05 PM) - But ongoing hurricane relief is not one of them. I’ve been saying this all day and I see that even Bill Clinton is attacking CNN’s outrageous wont to guilt assignation….
Untalking Failure (11:43 AM) - The Anchoress posts what shouldn’t be necessary: Good News from New Orleans, on the same stratum as Good News from Iraq and Good News from Afghanistan….
Talking Failure (11:08 AM) - The AP’s Newsview on Hurricane Katrina and the politicians who “failed” her victims is halfway decent. The writer is right to take aim at the ridiculous $286B highway bill of this year: Yet the lawmakers and Bush agreed to a…
AP: Hastert Questions Rebuilding New Orleans (11:04 AM) - It is premature and puerile to blame President Bush for Army trucks’ inability to cross broken bridges, and it equally improper to- so soon- question whether rebuilding New Orleans is the right thing to do. That talk needs to stop,…
August Employment Report: Breaking It Down (10:57 AM) - Professor Samwick looks at what seems to be a good report all around….
There Is No Oil Problem…Do Not Panic…There Is N (10:39 AM) - RAND Corporation, some conspiracy-theorists believe, is the secret government. And it attempts to read one’s mind using microwave rays in everything from Cheerios to the robotic ants it inserts into everyone’s home. The truth is that it employs around 1000…
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Blogging Update (02:58 PM) - Did I mention that my family is moving? Light blogging today as Lauren and I check out the new town….
Downhill (09:23 AM) - The situation in New Orleans is deteriorating: the National Guard has been deployed, police have called off search and rescue missions to quell unrest, and the evacuation of the Superdome was halted because shots were fired at military aircraft… Unbelievable,…
From One Tragedy To Another (07:52 AM) - As America searches for a footing in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster in her history; as patriotism, nationalism, unity, charity, and strength of response simmer in the pot; another disaster, one related to what befell us four years…
“…like they’re Santa Claus.” (07:38 AM) - Peggy Noonan says, “kill the looters”. Alright, she doesn’t get to that ‘till the end of the piece. But it is a worthwhile analysis of the national damage Katrina threatens to inflict….
Blog For Relief Day (07:14 AM) - Proprietors of online publications nationwide are blogging for relief today. Led by Glenn Reynolds, Hugh Hewitt, and others, the massive universe of bloggers and their readers will be identifying reliable charities for donations. Mine, along with many others’, is the…
For They That Spin Shall Reap the Whirlwind (07:09 AM) - Robert F. Kennedy begins his breathless rant talking about carbon-dioxide emissions in 2001, moves on to claim that Hurricane Katrina “spared” New Orleans, and arrives at his obviously logical conclusion that it was all the Republicans’ fault….
Blame of Fools (12:50 AM) - Kos is outraged that unscreened Canadian soldiers in unsecured Canadian military vehicles are being denied access to the disaster area, despite the mitigating fact that the Canadian Red Cross has been allowed access and that at least 10,000 United States…
A GOP In Disarray? (12:21 AM) - President Bush’s reaction so far has been inadequate. We know that he and Gerson are capable of stirring, nation-moving speeches. We know that, when past events have struck so deeply, an élan in elocution has appeared, marked by an intimate…
Enviro-predators: Robots in Disguise (12:13 AM) - I think James Glassman is right to be angry at extreme environmentalists, who seem to regard this horrible tragedy of Katrina as an opportunity to peddle unrelated sophistry and bad legislation. Glassman says, “Katrina has nothing to do with global…