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Monday, October 31, 2005

U.S. Military Wants to Own the Weather (11:42 PM) - The King of Kings will be none too pleased with the latest lordly exploits of the military. And then there’s the military-meterological complex to lose hair over. ALSO: The Air Force has phasers. No word on how they’re set….

A Mark of Distinction (09:34 PM) - The standard-issue Associated Press report on President Bush’s nomination of judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court carries with it this silver bullet: “With no sign of irony, Republicans demanded that Alito get a vote in the Senate — something…

Good Economic News (09:26 PM) - Retailers, after initially projecting a middling shopping season, are bucking up today as spending, income, and factory production are all up. Oil drops again, leveling off. And the dollar is climbing against the Euro. Analysts have been saying for a…

Woodstock, Vermont Pictures (07:20 PM) - I’ve uploaded a few photos from Woodstock to this album, which I think presents a more enjoyable layout than Flickr. Only a handful survived the trip. That any of the shots came out well is a miracle: it was such…

Referrers One Would Prefer To Avoid (04:02 PM) - Intraday, I occasionally check the Dartblog server logs to see who is reading and from where. (Speaking of which, Symetrix Audio fellow: I am in need of a 528E. E-mail me, if you please.) Today, someone at Stanford University searched…

Top Ten Left-Wing Reactions To Alito Nomination (12:30 PM) - Mike Coffey reads the Daily Kos so you don’t have to. I am also wondering, Chuck Schumer, if this nomination is a dagger in the heart of American jurisprudence?…

Who Chooses the Choosers? (12:20 PM) - Nathaniel Ward looks at Dartmouth’s trustee selection process….

Suspicious Mention (10:26 AM) - Maureen Dowd’s much-discussed attempt to be heard from behind the pay wall, in which the New York Times columnist bemoans her spinsterhood, contains a fascinating bit of fact. Dismissing a gift of her mother’s (A book about how to attract…

I support the Fiscal Watch Team Offset Package. (10:07 AM) - A week ago, in “On the Coburn Amendment,” I wrote: “In general, all-out warfare on every special project would bog the Senate down to absolute stasis. But this isn’t a normal situation: there are deficits and horrors in one corner…

It’s Alito (07:45 AM) - Conventional wisdom wins this time around. Announcement should come at 8:01a. UPDATE: It is worth a mention that Samuel Alito earned his stripes on the mean streets of Trenton, New Jersey. Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer want diversity on the…

Medical Research and The Spin that Wins (06:50 AM) - The excellent gentlemen on the New Hampshire Union Leader editorial board Unhealthy spending:Dartmouth doctor blames her peers” href=”http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showfast.html?article=62512”>put the work of a Dartmouth medical researcher through the spin cycle and came out with a conclusion that makes a whole lot…

Underground City in Britain For Sale (06:07 AM) - Former Prime Minister Macmillan’s sprawling subsurface complex, which covers 240 acres, has 60 miles of roads, its own railway station and even boasts a pub—the Rose and Crown—is up for bids. Possible uses for the lair include rave centre, data…

Robots Do What Your Russian Spacemates Can’t (05:54 AM) - University of Nebraska researchers have come up with a $200 lipstick-sized robot, operable from thousands of miles away, that might soon be used by NASA to do surgery on astronauts’ wounds in the absence of an on-board doctor. AP reports…

Ill-Advised Activities For Halloween (05:36 AM) - Lauren has selected a safer (and cuter) costume in Uma Thurman’s character from Pulp Fiction, and I of course will be going as a Polo-shirt-and-jeans-wearing undergraduate. One thing not to do this Halloween is to kill yourself by spookily hanging…

Iran Deserves to have her own nuclear program (05:27 AM) - Yeah right, says Tigerhawk, referencing this Atlas Shrugs post which runs down a week in Iran as opposed to a week in Israel….

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Freedom and Unity in Woodstock, Vermont (08:56 PM) - I spent the day with my parents in Woodstock, Vermont: an archetypal Vermont town if ever there was one. Book stores affiliated with neither Barnes nor Noble, copious syrup, handmade furniture, galleries galore, and “fair-trade” everything. Here is a pickup…

The Legality (or rightness) of Active Call Jammers (07:52 AM) - Misanthropic technophile that I am, I happen to enjoy ubiquitous cellular telephone access, relish in halting live engagements for distant contacts, and just love the just-audible vibrations and blaring ding-dongs of my Lucky Goldstar telephone, but some aren’t so happy,…

Sale of M.R.E.s on eBay Being Investigated (07:37 AM) - A disheartening capper to the rest of the iniquity in the New Orleans region, some residents are selling the meals, ready-to-eat they received as aid on eBay. The United States Department of Homeland Security has launched an investigation….

The Human Flesh Alternative On The Daily Show (07:14 AM) - Mark Nuckols, a student at the Tuck School of Business and occasional Dartblog correspondent (Whenever he’s got new faux flesh to flog, that is.) is the founder of HuFu, a firm that sells vegan-safe fake human meat that lets ordinary,…

Websites In Season (06:48 AM) - Dartmouth.edu looked very festive for this weekend!…

U.N. Warns of Increasing Violence in Sudan (06:17 AM) - And, basically, advises that someone do something….

Dhimmi Down Under (06:10 AM) - Police in Australia are, according to the Herald Sun, being told to treat Muslims differently in domestic violence cases, since to arrest Muslim men for wife-beating—evidently a tradition—would be to offend Islam. And, Allah-willing, might finally provoke that anti-Muslim backlash…

Oi (06:04 AM) - Dartmouth fell to Harvard yesterday, 42-14. From, amazingly enough, the Dartmouth press release: “The Harvard lead at halftime didn’t appear insurmountable until the Crimson’s Dawson returned the kickoff 92 yards for a 21-0 lead with 16 seconds into the third…

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Happy Halloween (11:00 PM) -

Controversial Editorial In The New Hampshire (12:41 PM) - The student newspaper of the University of New Hampshire editorializes against women who falsely claim rape, an act which—to the terrible cost of true victims—is indirectly institutionally supported at some schools. (…via Andrew Cline)…

Terrorism In New Delhi (12:38 PM) - Horrible attacks in India. Could there be Iranian ties?…

The Dean and the Composer: Cantata in N.R.O. (10:22 AM) - Professor David Ehrlich—to whom I owe much of my extraclassical art knowledge!—sends along his comments on the aforeposted departure of Professor Jon Appleton, his e-mailed reasons, and Dean Folt’s due response….

Blogging Update (10:20 AM) - Things will be a bit light today, as my parents are up in Hanover for the weekend….

Friday, October 28, 2005

And Lose The Name of Action (10:14 PM) - When I memorized Hamlet’s famed orison in high school, I never dreamed how it might be apt to modernity, let alone the shortly-high image of Kofi Annan. But consider this recent sprung action in response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad present incitement…

So, You’d Like To Raise Your Hand At College (05:55 PM) - Dartmouth’s Department of Institutional Diversity and Equity provides a handy guide for politically correct obfuscation, both for speakers who plan to espouse “culturally insensitive” views and for professional offense-takers. E.g.: “Your understanding of this subject is important to me, but…

Bush To Nominate Next Person Who Walks In Door (05:51 PM) - According to the Onion, even Patrick Fitzgerald has a chance. (…via reader e-mail)…

A Final Solution for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (05:39 PM) - The usually hilarious Cox and Forkum is sobering today, with a too-accurate depiction of the the world envisaged by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the people whom he incites to terror….

Big Oil: Not Vaccinated and Even Bigger (04:15 PM) - Earlier today the oil giant Exxon-Mobil reported record quarterly earnings of $10 billion—prompting a capital explication of ‘market’ by Chuck Schumer, the Democrat from New York: “Big oil behemoths are making out like bandits, while the average American family is…

Reaction to Libby Indictment (01:34 PM) - O, it has been a sparse and dire Fitzmas. Only Lewis Libby was indicted and that only for misbehavior during the investigation of a crime which, by virtue of no charges for it, seems not to have been a crime…

Letter from Carol Folt To Department Heads (01:26 PM) - Dartmouth’s Dean of the Faculty, Carol Folt, has sent a response to resigning music professor Jon Appleton’s note, “The Decline Of Academic Freedom at Dartmouth College,” which I referenced here. Ms. Folt’s missive, “Message from Dean Folt,” is printed in…

Cat Leaves Family, Sails To France (12:14 PM) - Lauren e-mailed this to me under the subject, “Blog” and I herein comply. Lesley McElhiney had a small housecat, adopted from the humane society. That cat, Emily, was perambulating about Appleton, Wisconsin when it accidently hopped aboard a container. The…

Syria Strengthens Borders; Deploys Babes (11:38 AM) - The New York Times is reporting that Syria, feeling the heat of recent pronouncements from President Bush and other state executives that it take action on issues ranging from Iraq to its Kurds to its security officers implicated in the…

News Coming Out (11:22 AM) - Rove not indicted; Libby to be indicted, announcement perhaps at 9. White House will ask anyone indicted to go home. “Indicted” the new black. UPDATE: Presser at 2p. A lump of coal for some Fitzmas revelers! UPDATE: President Bush will…

Karl Rove Chipper; Garage Back On Lockdown (10:58 AM) - MSNBC is highlighting a photo of Karl Rove departing his home for work this morning looking awfully chipper. That’s the look of indictment-free bliss! Careful observers, though, will note that Mr. Rove’s garage is closed. That’s suspicious, I think, since…

Texting While Under The Influence (10:31 AM) - Electronics maker LG (Previously Lucky Goldstar; now slightly-less-embarrassing Life is Good.) has released what appears to be the world’s first cellular telephone with a Breathalyzer built-in. Finally, counterevidence to the police’s obviously over-sensitive devices….

USS Kitty Hawk to Yokosuka, Japan (09:14 AM) - The Japanese have welcomed the United States aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk to a spot just south of Tokyo….

Was Einstein a Space Alien? (08:07 AM) - NASA itself weighs in. MORE: Perhaps not an extra-terrestrial, but he did manage his inbox just like us….

A Revolution In Rest (06:20 AM) - Despite the rejection of the petition slate of candidates at Dartmouth’s Alumni Association meeting last weekend, the so-called Lone Pine Revolution is far from over. Writers for the Dartmouth Review recently published Professor Jon Appleton’s resignation letter which had been…

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Mier (v) — e.g., “Bush miered Miers.” (09:50 PM) - How quickly the lingo is fomented….

Interviewing George Galloway (06:24 PM) - The former MP has been revealed to be financially and politically complicit in Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime by Paul Volcker’s report released today. “Uncle Jimbo” e-mails:Last month George Galloway and Jane Fonda were scheduled to speak here in Madison, WI….

UN Oil-for-Food-Report Released (01:27 PM) - Everyone and his oil tyrant brother are downloading this 16-meg PDF file that contains the final 630-page report of Paul Volcker’s independent investigative committee on the United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal. (Other versions here.) I’m only a quarter of the way…

Miers Withdraws (08:59 AM) - AP alert just went out at 8:58A: Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications. The National Reviewers are all over it. What is…

Eventually The Shock Must End, at ‘awe’ or ere (08:19 AM) - Steven Stalinsky at the New York Sun reports that Arab hate television is coming stateside, and if Saudi Arabian news outlets are any indication of Arab broadcast mores, the reports soon seen in America shall be forever surprised that anyone…

2,000 Dead, In Context (08:16 AM) - Victor Davis Hanson in the New York Times….

Jerusalem Reacts To The Iranian Murder Brays (08:05 AM) - Israelis are properly outraged after Shimon Peres, Israel’s vice prime minister, said Iran should be expelled from the United Nations after its president called upon Arab states to destroy the nation of Israel. In a radio interview, Peres announced: “Since…

It’s Not The Conspiracy—It’s The Cover-up (08:03 AM) - Kevin Aylward reminds us that the revelation of the Plame name was hardly a crime, and that any “indictments handed down” (Love that newsspeak!) will be for crimes like obstruction of justice, which resulted from an investigation into what wasn’t…

Pigeon & Pillar On A Thursday Morn (06:00 AM) - He’s thinking: Worst World Series ever….

Clout On The Uptick (01:49 AM) - CS Monitor reports on the increasing political viability of blogs, and writer Gail Russell Chaddock does a fine job of recognizing that dissent on Harriet Miers came almost entirely from outside the beltway and almost wholly from political blogs….

Decisions, Decisions (01:33 AM) - Yesterday, two extremely worrisome pieces of news came out of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Early in the day, from his seat in Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed young Islamic Iranians at his “World without Zionism” conference. Espousing the same…

Incomprehensible Band Names (12:56 AM) - E-mail to campus:Date: 27 Oct 2005 00:52:47 EDT From: Friday Night Rock Subject: This Friday: THE MOUNTAIN GOATS To: (Recipient list suppressed) Body: Friday Night Rock presents The Mountain Goats w/The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>What sort…

Peggy Noonan Out Of Election Season (12:08 AM) - The operative word is malaise. Someone give this woman a candidate!…

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The Importance of Being Lucid (11:47 PM) - A Texas state constitutional amendment which would codify a ban on marriage between two men or two women was set to pass overwhelmingly mere weeks ago. But now, Proposition Two has elderly Texas couples demonstrating alongside homosexual activists in a…

Nefarious Radio Waves (10:59 PM) - I learn via e-mail from Sawyer Broadley that the Department of State has given clearance for a limited roll-out of second generation passports. The new documents will have embedded radio frequency identification chips (RFID) which, when pinged, will transmit a…

Donations To Extend Wifely Patience (10:50 PM) - Persistant David to the Guardian’s boastful goliath, Scott Burgess blegs your pardon….

Reinventing Constitutional Construction (09:09 PM) - Karl Spence e-mails a link to his forthcoming book, which will propose a constitutional amendment that would guide the interpretation of the Constitution itself. I post the link so that you may judge for yourself. A self-cast logician amidst what…

Traveling Tom Vilsack (04:51 PM) - Traveling Tom.com is the latest glove-slap in Iowa politics. The site is the work of the Republican Party of Iowa, and, though it is ridiculous in presentation, actually makes a pretty clear point about Iowa Democrat Governor Tom Vilsack, who…

Private New Jersey High School Bans Blogs (02:49 PM) - Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta has a cruel headmaster. Reverend Kieran McHugh has told his 900 students that they shalt not blog.McHugh said he was taking the unusual measure to protect students from online sexual predators who…

On The Subject Of Boycotts… (10:37 AM) - Some folks at Rutgers decided to see just how eager their contemporaries would be to sign a petition banning dihydrogen monoxide (Yes—water.) from campus in the name of environmentalism. Answer: very eager….

Making A Difference In Darfur (09:56 AM) - There is a group at Dartmouth—the Darfur Action Group—which seeks to induce the College to divest of holdings in companies which do business with the Sudanese government, because money exchanged in such a relationship indirectly supports the genocide being executed…

Dhimmitude And Endlessly Resettable Guilt (09:24 AM) - J.T. at Wizbang has a saucy and, unfortunately, highly accurate analysis of how plucks of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East play out in Western culture and in Western media. The takeaway: don’t let them have it both ways. All…

Iraqis Pray For Slain American Soldiers on Air Strip
[Updated: See Below] (08:04 AM) - Photo Courtesy: AP Photo/Bilal Hussein CORRECTION: Doug Wyman, via e-mail, asks what I was thinking in posting this. He writes, “I’m not saying it doesn’t happen sometimes but as a former resident of the area, it did not ring true…

The Battle For Most Opened Mind (07:53 AM) - I have not the motivation to find each link, but consider this. It’s a letter to the editor of Dartmouth’s daily student newspaper. It assails another student for being closed-minded in his earlier letter to the editor, which attacked a…

Axis (07:23 AM) - In a speech to students headlined, “The World Without Zionism,” the president of Iran has just called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” Perhaps we three can fold Iran into the resolution mix….

Harriet Miers Supports “Self-Determination” (07:00 AM) - President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee has released a series of speeches she gave ten years ago on abortion and other social issues. Reuters says they represent “the clearest insights yet into Miers’ thinking.” But the straits are dire indeed when…

McDonalds To Print Nutrition Information (06:38 AM) - WFMY is reporting that, “Starting next year, McDonalds will be offering nutrition information on the packing of its menu items.” By the end of next year, more than 20,000 of the world’s 30,000 McDonalds will have the new informative packaging….

Wait and See (05:53 AM) - At a fundraising dinner in Washington last evening, President Bush attempted to reassure conservatives worried about the government’s ballooning gut and the seemingly pervasive resistance to attacking the pork problem. He offered some words on fiscal responsibility, saying that programs…

Manamana. (05:39 AM) - According to at least one report:The Muppets could come back to primetime television with their own reality show. ABC has ordered a script and five episode outlines for “America’s Next Muppet,” in which viewers may join in choosing the newest…

Numerics In Iraq (12:42 AM) - The herd of independent minds that is the newsmedia keeps printing dire and unbalanced reports from Iraq. Enemy deaths continue to go unreported and Coalition deaths continue to be recounted daily as the only pieces of news from the theater….

A Helpful And Relevant Report From CNN (12:33 AM) - The Cable News Network informs: “Bush would lose an election if held this year.”…

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Markets: The Other National Passtime (11:52 PM) - On its national wire, the Associated Press released “Astros Roster Has No Black Players”, in which we learn that some, including, it seems, the dear wire service, are concerned about the dearth of black baseball players and especially the fact…

From Whom The Bell Tolls (10:21 PM) - Patrick Fitzgerald’s charges are brought to bear tomorrow, according to an increasing number of leak recipients. None, of course, will be proof of guilt, but all may be politically damaging, depending upon the targets. Tomorrow all shall be revealed. I…

High-Thrown Pillars and Sunken Stony Steps (05:37 PM) - Andrew Ferguson writes that Harriet Miers is precisely in keeping with Supreme Court tradition as fleshed out over past decades, and that tradition is mediocrity….

Red States Drink Coke, Blue States Drink Soda… (04:38 PM) - …and flyover country compromises on ‘pop’…[Click map for more detail.] Fascinatingly irreverent research at Oklahoma’s East Central University shows that denizens of more liberal states tend to refer to their soft drinks as soda, conservatives use the brand-name Coke in…

Women More Sensitive To Pain Than Men (04:17 PM) - A study published in the October issue of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery reports that while men’s faces have 17 nerve fibers per square inch of skin, women have 34, making women feel significantly more pain than men. Insert…

Scouring For Words, For Rare Precious Words (03:11 PM) - Wolf Blitzer, on nominee Ben Bernanke on CNN last evening: “He’s also got a very nicely trimmed beard. I don’t know if you noticed, Ali, very nicely trimmed beard. We’ll watch that, see how it grows over the next few…

Health Care Costs Caused by reckless Physicians? (02:47 PM) - Some Dartmouth researchers have concluded that doctors in affluent areas tend to order unnecessary tests and that is, in part, a cause of high health care costs….

A Better Slogan (01:23 PM) - When John Kerry’s campaign was in its earliest stages, its in-house media professionals and Kerry himself worked together to come up with a statement that would encapsule the presidential candidate’s policies, hopes, dreams, and visions. Recognizing their inherent superiority, and…

Bryn and Alison Together Again (11:07 AM) - I first heard Alison Hagley (and, for that matter, the presently preeminent Bryn Terfel) on an original Laserdisc of Le Nozze Di Figaro under John Gardiner’s baton. Terfel was a properly conniving Figaro (Though in his youth he embellished a…

551,000 Years of Blog Reading In One Year (09:49 AM) - Weblogs, apparently, are set to sink the national economy….

Can He Play The Cello? (09:18 AM) - Though the multifarious scandal wars being waged in the press these days have thus far failed to prove any wrongdoing, the public relations war is tipping decidedly against the administration. That is only to be expected for a second-term Republican…

Iraq Constitution Passes (09:14 AM) - Ninevah doesn’t come close to the 2/3 rejection needed, and so it is good news out of Baghdad today….

Esquivalience Is the Mark of the Undergraduate (08:18 AM) - Oh, the New Oxford American Dictionary and its made-up words:A call was placed to Erin McKean, the editor-in-chief of the second edition of NOAD. Upon being presented with the majority opinion, McKean confirmed that “esquivalience” was a fabricated word. She…

Defending Pat Fitzgerald (08:07 AM) - At National Review Online, Andy McCarthy defends Plame investigator Patrick Fitzgerald against charges of partisanship: “Let me just say this. Pat is at least as apolitical as his press clippings suggest. And just because Senator Schumer says something doesn’t make…

The Memory Hole To DeLay: Cut The Pork (08:02 AM) - Oink: from Representative DeLay’s campaign website….

Georgia on My Mind (07:56 AM) - Warren Meyer of the capital Coyote Blog, who was unfortunate enough to go to Princeton, e-mails:The restrictions on the voting process to people who actually can physically show up on campus was astounding. Its amazing to me that in an…

Monday, October 24, 2005

“Long Story Short, I Ended A Program On CNN.” (11:20 PM) - Jon Stewart brags about his altered rampage that brought about the demise of CNN’s long-running debate program Crossfire….

Rosa Parks Dies (10:34 PM) - She was 92. May she rest in peace….

Predictable, Stupid, and Confined (07:57 PM) - TigerHawk is rightfully worried about Republicans impugning the integrity of Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel investigating the Valerie Plame case. His even-handedness I have complimented on several occasions on Dartblog. It would be neither productive nor proper to bring undue…

Tuition (07:17 PM) - The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that the average college tuition maintains its steadfast upward march, but the increases are outpacing inflation by less and less:According to a study by the College Board, the average tuition and fees at four-year private institutions…

Divestment? Dartmouth? Hmm? Misascription? (05:08 PM) - An alumn in Hanover to attend the Association of Alumni meeting and elections ran into some students petitioning to have the Board of Trustees divest the College’s holdings from, evidently, all companies that have branches which do business in the…

More Dartmouth Election Reaction (04:27 PM) - Drew Cline, National Review contributor and opinion editor of the Union Leader calls it a sham election, and asks: “Where are the campus activists who are always running around advocating ‘speaking truth to power’?” Grant Bosse ‘94, staff director for…

Bush Nominates Ben Bernanke To Fed Chair (03:40 PM) - Professor Samwick gives the thumbs up to Mr. Bernanke. So does Larry Kudlow. I can’t help but think that the White House has incredibly incongruent internal selection processes (That’s right: IIISPs.) for the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve. With…

Sex Offenders and the Ivy League (03:26 PM) - So, which Ivy League school has the most registered sex offenders in perilous proximity to campus co-eds? Here’s the rundown, courtesy of MapSexOffenders.com: Cornell University - 1 Princeton University - 1 Dartmouth College - 2 Brown University - 2 Harvard…

Crushing Dissent (01:27 PM) - The Valley News editorial yesterday inveighs against the Dartmouth professors who protested the excellent debate “Coercive Interrogations and Targeted Killings: Justifiable Measures or Self-Defeating Excess?” by saying that such a debate should not even be considered or sponsored by Dartmouth…

Colbert Report: Gravitas-Off (12:33 PM) - Stone Phillips and Steven Colbert engage in a match of gravitas. Wonderful. Amidst the mists and fiercest frosts, With barest wrists and stoutest boasts, He thrusts his fists against the post, And still insists he sees the ghosts….

The Body Count Double Standard (11:48 AM) - The Washington Post, its opinion beaming brightly through gossamer wordage, reports:Eager to demonstrate success in Iraq, the U.S. military has abandoned its previous refusal to publicize enemy body counts and now cites such numbers periodically to show the impact of…

Beneath the rule of men entirely great… (10:35 AM) - A nice cartoon e-mailed to me….

Get Out The Vote (10:19 AM) - A reader, presumably a Dartmouth alum, e-mails:I wonder what you think about the influence on the election of the Dartmouth alumni that live in the Hanover environs and in Upper Valley? Their political profile is arch liberal Democrat. Was this…

Virginia Gov: Kilgore Edging Kaine (09:52 AM) - The latest poll shows a still-tight race, with the Republican Jerry Kilgore up….

Dartmouth Election Numbers (09:10 AM) - In the extended, the official ballot counts….

Who Are The Liberals Here, Anyway? (07:50 AM) - So the United Nations wants to take control of the internet. Does anyone—anyone—actually believe that getting a new voice out there will be one whit easier with a domain name system under the control of the United Nations? Anyone who…

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Exhaustion (10:32 PM) - Between Homecoming events, the Alumni Association meeting, various consultations thereafter, Richard II, and of course my dear Lauren, this was a busy weekend indeed. Now it is time to take a break!…

Petition Candidates Lose Alumni Assoc. Election (03:27 PM) - More later, but the nominated slate won. MORE: To roughly put it, the results were 250-150 against the petition slate. There are interesting numbers here. In the 2005 trustee election, which is all-media (voting via internet, snail mail, etc.) 24.3%…

“I don’t think she is getting enough credit for it.” (09:59 AM) - The words of Judy Miller’s attorney, on her 85 days in jail. Because it’s all about credit….

Another Rush-the-Field Story (09:44 AM) - A small group of freshman may have rushed the Big Green’s field yesterday, but no one was hurt. That is more than can be said for the University of Minnesota at Morris, where a twenty-year-old student died after fans rushed…

“soon it was being said that Saddam himself had ordered retribution via a coded communication” (07:38 AM) - Saddam Hussein’s ability to inspire fear and confusion seems to be unfettered. Can any more be expected? Even with the presence of American troops, Saddam enjoyed a thirty-year iron-clad reign during which the western world repeatedly failed to break his…

Chinese activists protest Yahoo’s Capitulation (07:27 AM) - The Hong Kong Democratic Party, whose Yahoo accounts I trust Beijing would very much like to obtain, protested outside the local headquarters of the internet company whose absolutist ‘local law policy’ provided the secret police with personal information on dissident…

China The Slave State (06:43 AM) - Former Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui is accusing China of being a slave state that, to use AFP’s words, “uses the false promise of its booming economy to dupe the free world into appeasing its tyranny.” That sounds about right, doesn’t…

Tests of Archimedes’ Solar Death Ray Fail (06:28 AM) - The excellent television show Mythbusters has busted Archimedes of Syracuse’s infamous sun-channeling death ray. UPDATE: Death Ray possible after all! Reader Darrell Long e-mails that the myth isn’t entirely busted. I imagine there might be a big market in Washington,…

Morale High In Iraq (06:23 AM) - Doing its part, the Associated Press frames this good news by beginning “As U.S forces approach a dark milestone of 2,000 American dead…” UPDATE: Photogs are lending a helping hand, too. Here is the accompanying graphic….

The New York Times Endorses Michael Bloomberg (06:10 AM) - For what seem to be institutional reasons all its own, the New York Times is telling its droves to vote for Michael Bloomberg (who at last polltime was ahead of Ferrer 56-33 and assured of victory, Ladyless or not) in…

Preliminary results illustrate Iraq sectarian divide (05:48 AM) - The Iraqi government has released preliminary voting results, and to the surprise of seemingly every headline writer in the United States, the vote was divided along various factional lines, such as religion and minority self-interest. The results aren’t complete, but…

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Another Nugget Of Wisdom From On The Charles (10:13 PM) - “The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists.” Some truly strange things seem to emanate…

Federalist Society Not Evil After All (09:58 PM) - Over at the Standard, Dean Barnett writes that the Federalist Society is not a doomful secret operation at all but rather a debate club for elite attorneys. Even with reliably conservative underpinnings, he writes, the organization is mostly an intellectual…

Rush The Field (06:17 PM) - Lauren and I had a great time at the victorious Homecoming game against Columbia. So did the eight or so freshmen who ran onto the field as halftime was ending. Then, as we both tried to dash off a bit…

Hope For 007 (05:51 PM) - At National Review Online, Alex Massie pines for the brighter Bond days of old. It’s one of those “the things I like are conservative” pieces, but as with most Bond analysis, there is real history to be learned….

“End it Already.” (03:18 PM) - In the proper words (namely, “I oppose the Miers nomination.”) Ann Althouse has revealed against Harriet Miers. Her reasons are compelling. While we disagree on one point (the necessity of being able to express a general theory of constitutional construction:…

New Yorkers (10:19 AM) - Rick Lee will take Manhattan….

More Charges In Oil-for-Food (10:10 AM) - A Texas oilman and two Swiss corporate executives have been implicated in the Hussein/U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal to the tune of multiple millions. Stunningly, they had opposed the Iraq War, one of the three crying “blood for oil.”…

Can We Finally Withdraw Trust From The U.N.? (10:02 AM) - Once again, the UN has shown itself to be a body ready, able, and willing to maintain the status quo—dictators, murderers, assassinations, and all—while at the same time giving guff to the only nations willing to do something about the…

Is the Times Ready to Roll Over On Miller? (09:52 AM) - This e-mail from Executive Editor Bill Keller seems to indicate as much, and the Associated Press reporting goes like this: “Judith Miller’s boss says the New York Times reporter appears to have misled the newspaper about her role in the…

Russia Population Shrinks to 143 Million (09:38 AM) - Post-Soviet Russia’s population continues to decline, and in the past year as shed about 500,000 individuals permanently. Russia is still the largest population in Europe, and may remain so, as the vast majority of European nations, including Western Europe, have…

Searching for a Miers Exit Strategy (09:23 AM) - Fortunately for the White House, you don’t go to war with the nominee you have. The Washington Times—and they’ve been waiting upon this for weeks—reports that senior administration folks have perhaps hardened against Harriet Miers, adopting a new strategy that…

Another Anti-Petition E-Mail (01:28 AM) - Yet another e-mail inveighing against the petition candidates for the Alumni Association’s executive committee has gone out, this time accusing them of reactionary and anti-diversity views. The e-mail, which is posted in full in the extended, has implied references to…

Friday, October 21, 2005

Another Unconscionable Patent (05:36 PM) - Cereality is a restaurant chain. They serve breakfast cereals to hungry businesspeople on the move. And they’ve applied for a patent. A patent for the unique process of combining two cereals and a liquid. That’s gold, Jerry. (…via Dan Bruno)…

The Rules of Computers in Hollywood (05:20 PM) - High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, will have easy to understand graphical interfaces. Those that don’t, have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in…

Walking the Walk (05:04 PM) - Tom DeLay appeared at the Travis County Court House today, and one blogger caught some photos. DeLay did all the right things, and kept smiling—without a break—the entire day. The cover artists at Time magazine, those masters of the “shame…

Going Behind The Green Curtain (01:07 PM) - Though I still have a request or two outstanding, it is likely that I will not be permitted into Dartmouth’s Alumni Hall to even listen to the discussion of the proposed constitution or to hear news of the election winners….

Ah, The Phantasms That Pollute Brady Room Air (12:33 PM) - About a week ago, an intrepid reporter took it upon himself to demand of Scott McClellan the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It was a thoroughly unproductive exchange:Q. What do you say to reports that the White House…

Conservatives to Press: Pun the Nominee (12:03 PM) - I cannot help but agree wholeheartedly with Jonah Goldberg’s strongly worded comments today: that Harriet Miers’ name needs to be punned into ‘Quagmiers’ in mainstream media headlines. It’s so obvious. The silence on all the opportunities for wordsmithery is indeed…

Red, Blue, and Read (10:29 AM) - Gregory Pence, Class of 2006, has been doing a great job with editorial cartoons for the New Hampshire Union Leader. Gregory sends along a few of the toons that got him the job. Here’s one of them; click to enlarge….

Advertising Executive Gets Larry Summered (09:01 AM) - Neil French, an industry-famous advertising executive with WPP has resigned as a result of observing, at a private party and in response to what he termed “a belligerent question,” his opinion on why there are so few female creative executives…

A guide to the new newswriting (08:07 AM) - Lost Remote has a translation dictionary for promospeak. My favorite:”We are the number one news station in town!” OLD: We won in the ratings. NEW: We won in the ratings among 34-59 year old middle-income white females earning $34,500 -…

Bow Before The Little Red Book (07:51 AM) - That the People’s Republic of China has banned Wikipedia, I must say, doesn’t speak especially poorly of socialist autocratic societies. UPDATE: A joke!…

Open Source Software, Open Source Prosecution (07:38 AM) - A coterie of more than 150 drunk driving defendants are asking a judge to force a local Florida police department (or maker CMI of Ownsboro, Kentucky) to open up and reveal the source code that drives the Intoxilyzer 5000, the…

On The Coburn Amendment (06:24 AM) - In Congress, pork is an institution, and that’s a problem. Special and not-so-urgent local projects being funded by the federal government: those are inevitable. And not all bad. The ability to fund pork barrel projects does to some extent benefit…

“Dartmouth Struggle Set For Showdown” (05:38 AM) - This morning’s New York Sun will feature a front-page article on Dartmouth and this Homecoming’s elections… link forthcoming. UPDATE: The article, “Dartmouth Struggle Set for Showdown Over the Weekend” by Jacob Gershman is online and on pages 1 and 5…

Answering Constitutional Questions (12:10 AM) - Alumni Governance Task Force member Bill Hutchinson e-mails:I am sorry that I have yet to respond directly to you and to have you post something of mine on your blog. I hope, however, that you are keeping an eye on…

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Firearms and Hamburgers On Capitol Hill (06:05 PM) - Today was personal responsibility day in Congress, with two semi-historic, semi-symbolic bills passing. At noontime, the House of Representatives voted to pass S. 397, 283-14, which is the “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,” sponsored by Larry Craig (R-ID)….

Is this a dagger which I see before me… (05:41 PM) - Chuck Schumer sees daggers everywhere, in every heart….

Dartmouth Blogosphere Rising (04:39 PM) - Matt Martin, class of 2006, has created MN Publius.com, which he styles “a progressive blog focusing on Minnesota Politics that forays into national politics from time to time.” The site looks great. Although Matt’s description (and I don’t intend this…

Life Just Isn’t Fair (04:06 PM) - Who wins the multi-state, giant, huge, unthinkably immense Powerball lottery? A United States senator. Judd Gregg, no less, from my adopted Granite State and one of just one hundred lucky Americans who won an earlier lottery to control the incomes…

Building the Bonfire (01:20 PM) - On the Green, construction of the Class of 2009’s bonfire begins. Work is finally starting to slow down in advance of Homecoming, which I am very much looking forward to. Lauren will be coming up to spend some time with…

Iraq Moneyman Captured (09:59 AM) - Saddam Hussein’s nephew Yasir Sabhawi Ibrahim has been captured, after (importantly) being rejected and reported by Syria. Ibrahim is suspected of not only financing the Baathist terrorists, but of linking them with Zarqawi’s al Qaeda-in-Iraq group. That is an endeavor…

American Internet Firms And Communist China (09:45 AM) - Dave Kopel finds a letter to Yahoo! from a Chinese dissident, publishes it, and then gives what is perhaps the most salient explication of why companies like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! are in the wrong: “Simply put, there appears to…

Ailes Recieves The Freedom Of Speech Award (09:26 AM) - Fox News president Roger Ailes was honored at Wednesday night’s Media Institute dinner in Washington D.C., where he received a Freedom of Speech Award. Over at Broadcasting & Cable, John Eggerton reports on the event, where Roger Ailes evidently said,…

Ride the Rainbow Book Reading Assistant (09:05 AM) - Many a time with a strained left arm, or perhaps in search of a yet-heavier paperweight, I have dreamed for this exact device, and lo, some strange Japanese company has produced it: the Rainbow Book Holder. But now that I…

Peach (08:44 AM) - Colin Powell dares to state the obvious—that ideological hyperbole notwithstanding, America’s diplomatic relations aren’t in bad shape at all. Part of that probably has to do with Saddam Hussein, and the realization that over the course of fifty years this…

Superlative Reporting From Iraq (02:00 AM) - Mohammed at Iraq The Model relates the story of he and his buddies’ viewing of Saddam Hussein’s first day in a court of law.”Does he deserve a fair trial?” this was the question that kept surfacing every five minutes…he wasn’t…

Birds of a Feather Crow Together (12:54 AM) - Carl at No Oil For Pacifists has more on Mugabe and Chavez….

Breaking: Shakespeare Not Actually Written By He (12:36 AM) - The Associated Press reports on a new tome dedicated to proving once and for all (as all the previous niggling academicians have failed to) that Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare. Englishers at the University of Wales, Brenda James and William Rubinstein,…

Subtle Political Dig Or Freudian Slip? (12:20 AM) - In a letter to supporters, New Yorker Jeanine Pirro, who is running against Hillary Clinton for her Senate seat, asked for donations of $1,000. In a bit of an embarrassing flub, her campaign sent one of these letters to the…

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

All The Right Things (11:48 PM) - Senator Norm Coleman, the Republican from Minnesota, is again taking the lead in the Senate against international efforts to pry a de-centralized and open network from the control of the American private sector and to bring it under the auspices…

“Because I could get uromycitisis poisoning and die: that’s why.” (05:00 PM) - Hilarious e-mail to class from distinguished professor; posted without comment:ALSO, lecture manners: I’ve been a little surprised at the number of students who needed to take a break in mid-lecture, I suppose to pee. I’d have thought that folk of…

Promoting chastity is homophobic (12:34 PM) - Princeton students have started a new group that aims to promote chastity as a means of avoiding teenage pregnancy and the panoply of STDs. Anscombe, named after the English philosopher, has come under attack on the Princeton campus as being…

Remember The Daily Dollar v. Euro Reports? (12:20 PM) - I sure do. The dollar “sinking to new lows” against the euro was a staple to the daily news report for a year. But the dollar has been rising again, with nary a mention. Forbes dutifully reports that the dollar…

Oil-for-Food Update (11:39 AM) - Paul Volcker, whose investigative committee is commonly seen as not being as tough as it ought to be, has requested that the United States restrain the UN’s budget if the organization does not reform. The Washington Times reports here. Supporting…

An Excuse To Finally Get That Monitor Wall (11:24 AM) - According to Jeremy Zawodny, internal research at Microsoft reports that larger computer monitors directly translate into increased productivity. UNRELATED: Another nerd link: the hundred oldest .COM domains. I could have registered Cisco.com on May 13, 1987!…

Going Down To South Park (11:18 AM) - Today’s New York Times re-profiles Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who just re-signed South Park to another three years with Comedy Central. Tonight’s episode will be about the importance of assigning blame after natural disasters….

Perhaps God Really Is Angry (11:02 AM) - Yet another Atlantic hurricane—Wilma—and the most powerful in history, no less….

Hussein Scuffles With Courtroom Guards (10:06 AM) - When a break in proceedings came up, Saddam Hussein once again acted out, getting into a shoving match with guards.The confrontation then became physical. When a break was called, Saddam stood, smiling, and asked to step out of the room….

Blogging Update (07:20 AM) - Busy morning, so updates will be slow. Hopefully I’ll be back on the stick by 10. The Belmont Club is keeping on top of the Hussein trial, all the way from that aCambridge arcadia….

The Hussein Trials Begin (06:27 AM) - The historic series of trials against Saddam Hussein have begun (to horrifyingly little attention in America). And there are already notes that will go down in the history books: the presiding judge is Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd of the…

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Cruel and Unusual Confirmation Hearings (04:50 PM) - Andrew Cline offers (sorry, no permalink) a tactic that would presumably founder Harriet Miers’ chance at assuming the big seat: change the hearing paradigm from one of circuitous partisan prodding (“Alright Ms. Miers… blink once if you are pro-choice and…

Alternative Viewing Habits (04:37 PM) - Simmons Market Research conducted a study on the media consumption of 19,000 gay and lesbian adults over the past year and found that they watch basically the same things as everyone else—even the habitually heteronormative South Park. And, of course,…

Granola Bars (04:23 PM) - Surprisingly delicious….

Armed Forces Radio Pulls Plug On Anti-War Show (01:17 PM) - Liberal radio host Ed Schultz inked a deal (presumably with an escape clause, as is usual) with the Pentagon to have his show broadcast on Armed Forces Radio, a network that beams audio worldwide to American troops. It currently includes…

The Quick Fix To Defeat Iraq’s Terrorists (01:10 PM) - An MP3-playing pillow, of course. That’s Denmark’s solution, anyway….

Mired in Miers (08:25 AM) - President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court is much in the news today, as she prepares to fill out the Senate questionnaire which will finally reveal her judicial philosophy. A few items of note this morning: Helen Thomas has a…

Iraq Election Commission Checking Ballots (07:17 AM) - Because of unexpectedly high ‘yes’ votes in some provinces, Iraqi election officials are randomly auditing some ballot boxes to ensure that the constitutional referendum was not gamed.Election officials in many provinces have released their initial counts, indicating that Sunni attempts…

Capitalism Spurs African Economy (06:29 AM) - Entirely without the benefit of a candlelight vigil or of rubber armbands, large telecom corporations are putting new meat on the bones of Africa’s ailing and antiquated marketplace. As USA Today reports, more than a tenth of Africa suddenly has…

Blogspot.com A Spammer’s Haven (06:23 AM) - Calls are quickly mounting for Google to fix Blogspot.com, from whence a good-n-hearty slice of the internet’s spam is now emanating….

Avoid Earlier Recommendation (06:18 AM) - It was in humble comity that I passed on to you this somnolent advice to sleep in 90-minute intervals throughout the day. As any good car maker would do, I feel it is now my duty to inform you that…

Looking for a Job? (06:12 AM) - Like a lot of folks, I think CNN’s daily “blog check” segment is a wee bit dull. I can’t take much of, “Thanks, Wolf! Here’s Instapundit.com. He seems to support President Bush, but—and this is interesting!—a man named Atrios seems…

Responding To Criticism (06:09 AM) - Anton Anderson informs me that the AGTF Blog now has some questions-and-answer up….

The Harriet Miers Hail Mary (12:24 AM) - Back to the much-juicier sport of national politics! Since from John Robert’s introduction until the end of time all Supreme Court nomination analogies must be sports-related, Newsweek dubs the White House’s second start on Harriet Miers the “Harriet Hail Mary.”…

Monday, October 17, 2005

Nothing Political About This Revolution (11:43 PM) - The left-leaning student majority at Dartmouth has found both little to get excited about and little to get offended about with respect to the so-called Lone Pine Revolution, which despite claims to the contrary has involved more than the expression…

Reaction Against Dartmouth Petitioners (08:32 PM) - An e-mail circulating among Dartmouth alumni in the Upper Valley area warns against the petition candidates for the Alumni Association’s executive board….

Professor: Racial prejudice breeds lameness (07:59 PM) - As reported in the San Francisco Gate, a study headed by Jennifer Richeson, an assistant professor in Dartmouth’s psychological and brain sciences department has proven that prejudices “make you stupider.”Richeson and her colleagues began by recruiting a group of white…

Worst. Exclusive. Ever. (03:33 PM) - The Associated Press goes inside Karl Rove’s garage! Resultant headline: “Karl Rove’s Garage Proves to Be Typical.” MORE: Fox News, fair as always, re-titles the article: “Bored Press Scouts Inventory Rove Garage.” EVEN MORE: Why yes, the AP story did…

The Jingo Economy (02:53 PM) - Facing a dour slump and dire outlook, French officials are relying on “economic patriotism” to grease the wheels. Not necessarily a bad thing, I’d say. But policy reform seems more pressing….

Blogger Reconnaissance (02:51 PM) - Tom Bozzo notices a strange referrer on his server log. Opposition research via blogs: not at all surprising these days, I’d say….

Robert Mugabe Goes Crazy; Back In Ten Minutes (12:30 PM) - When Lyndon Johnson launched a War on Poverty, he did it through economic reform and new initiatives. When Robert Mugabe launches a War on Poverty, he drones about the evils of George Bush. Zimbabwean President Robert “Non Grata” Mugabe is…

So Many Hurricanes, So Few Names (10:16 AM) - The next name on the hurricane list is Wilma, and it appears as if the incipient Flinstones storm is forming up rather well. What comes after Wilma? Alpha. Wilma is the last name on the National Hurricane Center’s annual list….

Voting Preferences (08:58 AM) - I’ve previously inveighed against the new voting system recommended by Dartmouth’s proposed new constitution- that of partial preference, where voters rank candidates in order of preference. My quibble was that, since the field is composed of any number of petition…

Prejudging Miers (08:18 AM) - An occasional refrain from anxious conservatives on Harriet Miers is, “Let’s wait for the confirmation hearings.” But if this account from John Fund is accurate—and it gels with the weakly-recanted bomb that James Dobson dropped: that Miers would be certain…

Forthcoming Indictments (08:10 AM) - Ana Marie Cox seems to have a wee bit of knowledge about Patrick Fitzgerald plans in the Plame case. He will “drop whatever bombs he has” on Wednesday. Rove has said he’ll be gone if indicted. Perhaps he and Judy…

Dartmouth Elections Heat Up (05:58 AM) - In six days Dartmouth’s Homecoming will be upon us and alumni will flock back to Mecca for the festivities. I hope all who do so will also take the time to vote on October 23 at 11a in the Hopkins…

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Editors’ Sense Of Propriety Falls Short (10:07 PM) - These days, it seems that spades are so rarely referred to as spades. President Bush speaks in simple language, sure. “Enemies of freedom”, that common refrain, sounds more like a line for the trailer of an upcoming Bruce Willis movie…

Sell Crazy Someplace Else—We’re All Stocked Up (07:16 PM) - As Good As It Gets has been running on television lately, and I’ve been catching bits and pieces each day. What a wonderful film. Only Jack Nicholson can take a crotchety, aloof, bigoted, hilarious, romantic, obsessive-compulsive old writer character and…

Emily Messner versus Maureen Dowd (05:49 PM) - The high-brow hussy from Washington takes on the high-brow hussy from New York. Boringly enough, the topic seems to be, “Which one of us cares more about women’s rights?”…

Pining For The Old Days (05:20 PM) - While I may not have had a super-early computer like some e-mailers who responded to this, I was on the internet from its relatively early days. The IQ of the average chatroom participant must have been staggering (compared to today)….

Louis Farrakhan and the Dozens More March (01:12 PM) - Hoping to repeat the decibel level of the 1995 Million Man March, radical public figure Louis Farrakhan organized the “Millions More March” to take place on the Mall in Washington, D.C. today. Were there millions more? Hard to tell: the…

The Latest Word (01:11 PM) - “Assured.”…

Reading (11:14 AM) - I think the room at Dartmouth most conducive to reading is the Sanborn English Library. It also has some nice ironwork on the balcony and chandeliers.Useless Photoshop Maneuver: Look how old….

Chronicling Gender Education (10:19 AM) - Jane Haladay interviews for a postdoctoral fellowship in the “Gender Studies” department of “a prestigious Midwestern liberal-arts college.” In addition to the general silliness of that school’s miles-high scaffolding of assumptive cant and iron-clad conclusion that there shall be no…

If You Want Safety and Security In Iraq… (07:49 AM) - …just hold nationwide elections every day. Iraq’s historic constitutional referendum looks very likely to pass, and under peaceful conditions no less. Many Sunnis, who were for a time united in boycotting the vote itself, actually turned up to vote after…

So You Just Ditched that EGA Relic… (07:32 AM) - …and you’ve stepped up to 8 megabytes of RAM and a whopper of a hard drive: 250 megs. Best of all, it’s all loaded up with a Sound Blaster Pro and Diamondback VGA video card. You’ve resolved the interrupt conflicts…

Protestations (06:54 AM) - Remember when liberal groups threatened to boycott Wal-Mart, CNN and Fox News, a small group of network affiliates, Michael Savage, a Montana church, Israel, Australian wool, most of the nation’s major retailers, Turtle Bay Hawaiian Luxury Resort, fried chicken, Exxon,…

No Confusion For Them (02:34 AM) - Proceedings in Iraq have been very pleasing, both to progressive Americans stateside (It is progressive to wish the franchise upon ever-broadening segments of mankind, is it not?) to the soldiers who may smile that they have brought them about, and…

Recruiting Roundup (02:08 AM) - Harvardian escapades aside, the armed forces’ “recruiting crisis” is a myth, according to most data….

Skipping Across The Gender Gap (01:54 AM) - I am not terribly concerned about the much-vaunted “gender gap” in college education, which reportedly cleaves daily toward a man-less undergraduate base. Part of my refusal to join in the worry is a recognition that the bachelor’s degree, as it…

Revised and Extended (01:16 AM) - Judy Miller writes, “My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Grand Jury Room” a self-styled personal account so long that it almost certainly includes more words than any witness could have uttered during four hours of testimony. Preface, contexture, and…

Is the Lecture Obsolete? (01:13 AM) - I vote no, as do many of the commenters over at Vox Baby….

When 800 Years Old You Reach… (12:15 AM) - Dartblog has quietly slid past its 4000th post—one about an underreported House vote on the construction of additional oil refineries—and I had not even noticed. So my thanks are due to the technical wizardry of Movable Type and Matt Heaton…

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Undergraduate Alert (04:03 PM) - They say Einstein was a learned proponent of the 4.5-hour sleep, and here is a guide on how to get by on just that much per day….

Initial Election Reports (02:57 PM) - Very high turnout; high Sunni representation among the voters….

The Devil Went Down To C.D. Hylton High School (02:35 PM) - A marching band has been banned from playing The Devil Went Down To Georgia, since, by one community member’s unfortunately accurate logic, there would be an establishment-clause-rage if the band’s song had mentioned God….

Tough Diplomacy (02:31 PM) - First the president pulls through Chilean security his Secret Service detail, who were being denied entry. Now Condoleezza Rice, after meeting with Kazakhstan president/dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev, nudges him toward the press podium as he tries to avoid answering questions. Very…

Defending Israel At DePaul (01:39 PM) - Are things so bad at DePaul University in Chicago that it is now being called a “university”? Evidently so….

For The Rain It Raineth Every Day (11:06 AM) - I’m heading out to Wal-Mart to “buy all of my crap,” as the song goes. Not the best day to do it, though. Much more important than my exploits in consumerism are the Iraqi Elections. Iraq The Model has updates….

Don’t You Just Hate The Pop-In? (09:53 AM) - Bill Gates could be coming to a college near you soon; he’s touring the country to talk to young programmers. A 101 at University of Wisconsin-Madison was stop number one.Gates told the students that jobs in software were more important…

Friday, October 14, 2005

O, Big Box Mart! (11:14 PM) - The latest Jib-Jab cartoon—and the visuals in these things are ever more dazzling—tackles the evil empire known as Wal-Mart. UPDATE: Well, of course it is silly and misleading. It wouldn’t be a very exciting cartoon if it just displayed this…

Beethoven Manuscript Found In Seminary Library (10:14 AM) - Heather Carbo, the librarian at a seminary just outside Philadelphia, was sitting on a shelf while cleaning archival cabinets last July, and discovered a lost Beethoven manuscript for the Grosse Fuge, which went missing 115 years ago. The piece is…

King Solomon Many Strange Amendments (09:31 AM) - In response to “Suppose There Were Equality”, Michael Herman takes issue with my representation of the ability of government to control private institutions which take its funds. I think he overplays my argument and I have trouble with the Boy…

What Is Oil for Food All About? (06:58 AM) - Roger L. Simon explains the mammoth boondoggle to some young’uns: “It’s not just about graft. It’s about the preservation of fascism for money. You down with that, liberalists? Think about it in your hearts.” Roger L. Simon roars out the…

Louis Farrakhan’s Conspiracy Theories (06:47 AM) - I saw Louis Farrakhan on the Cable News Network last evening. He proposed that the white destroyed the levies in New Orleans to flood the black. He was not challenged by the anchor. He has previously impugned the dignity of…

The Polarizing Nature of Blogs (06:34 AM) - Without referencing any, Iden Sinai in yesterday’s The Dartmouth expounds on the idea of blogs as polarizing devices, but he also doffs the old hat to the democratization of media they represent. Iden’s most salient point—and one I’ve made before—is…

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Calling Old Maids (09:39 PM) - Jeff Jarvis, as is often the case in these high-level matters, is right on the money. From its ‘vows of poverty’ to sacred schools to the unique cant (think the dozen levels between on-the-record and off-the-record), to a sort of…

Suppose There Were Equality (07:49 PM) - Sean Barrett over at Harvard reports on efforts of a forty-strong guard from the law faculty to nullify the Solomon Amendment, the much-ballyhooed federal law that forces private schools which receive taxpayer dollars to admit military recruiters to campus. Especially…

New Jersey Governor Race Heats Up (05:15 PM) - Photo Courtesy: Mike Derer, Associated Press.Doug Forrester and Jon Corzine sparred Tuesday evening on a radio station near and dear to my heart- New Jersey 101.5 out of Trenton. That radio station, now the largest FM talker in the nation,…

The Conservative Problem with Harriet Miers (04:38 PM) - Andrew Cline, opinion editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader explains the conservative problem with Harriet Miers in the American Spectator. He writes, “For years the Left has accused the Right of wanting to stack the U.S. Supreme Court with…

Pinter Moment (01:39 PM) - Britain’s Harold Pinter has won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature. MORE: Conservatives are predictably upset. But Pinter is a fine writer, and aren’t the best supposed to be insane? MORE: And he certainly seems to be a better pick…

Cue The Machine (12:54 PM) - What with two hurricanes having hit the United States in the past month, disagreement about a Supreme Court nominee who has Democrat support, and an Iraq on the cusp of a new constitution, it is rather clear that Republicans have…

Bow Before Jobs And His Vast Demesne (11:19 AM) - Less trumpted than Apple’s new products is Apple’s new dictum for the sundry iPod accessory manufacturers: We take ten percent of your revenue, no questions asked. Yikes. White acrylic plastic wholesalers: brace yourselves….

Who Can Vote In the Alumni Association elections? (11:06 AM) - There has been some confusion regarding just who is eligible to cast a ballot in this Homecoming’s Dartmouth Alumni Association elections, which I have discussed here and here (and in other posts). The short answer: if you matriculated with the…

Error. (08:49 AM) - James Mansfield was a b-list British actor. Harvey Mansfield debated Peter Travis on the topic of manliness last evening. UPDATE: Ah, corrected, but not in print….

“Have a Great Life” (08:17 AM) - When one respectable, undesigning person says to another respectable, undesigning person, “Have a great life,” does that not traditionally imply that the sayer expects never to hear from or to see the recipient again? Is not “Have a great life”…

Clear and Present Danger (07:35 AM) - When I wrote yesterday that Al Gore had announced that he would not seek the presidency in 2008, I left it at that. But Gore himself, I now learn, did not. Al Gore was speaking in Stockholm, Sweden yesterday at…

Rounding The Bell Curve Once Again (07:20 AM) - OpinionJournal reprints Charles Murray’s op-ed explaining that not all humans- just as not all baboons- have the same cognitive capacity, and that lineage can be shown to be a defining factor….

It’s A College Again (06:50 AM) - Chinese food returns to Hanover, New Hampshire….

The Post and Scalia (06:29 AM) - Antonin Scalia, who probably wishes he were chief justice, says he is glad he isn’t chief justice. Asked his impression of Miers: “Never having met her, I have no impression of her,” he replied. Though that isn’t stopping most pundits…

The Tin Foil Works Perfectly, Thank You (06:18 AM) - As linked from the Dartmouth Alumni webpage, the Alumni Governance Task Force, which drafted the proposed constitution that has generated so much controversy, has established a blog at Blogspot to answer questions and because one of the members is “a…

UGRESEARCH.ORG (06:14 AM) - I last reported on Peter Noteboom’s undergraduate thesis depot in August, and the site now has a larger database spanning multiple colleges….

San Francisco Police Oppose Handgun Ban Prop. (06:09 AM) - San Francisco is always in the midst of eroding to nill the second amendment, but not if their own police officers have anything to say about it….

DULCE ET DECORUM EST (06:05 AM) - Noting recent development in military policy on politics and blogging, Welton Chang reflects:Higher ups here at the basic course don’t want LTs involved in political discussions, even though we have an AZ state rep in my class and an aspiring…

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Now Is The Hour (09:10 PM) - John Hinderaker, master of the big picture, ably defuses Democrat triumphalism in the face of the Miers dispute. If anything, the “crack-up” as it’s been deemed seems like confirmation of the party’s willingness to debate itself: the eleventh commandment need…

Good News From Iraq (And Britain) (06:06 PM) - al Qaeda is displeased with its lack of progress in Iraq, and needs Zarqawi, chief al Qaeda agent for Iraqi operations, to cut a check. A last-minute slurry of amendments compose a Sunni compromise for the Iraqi constitution, and indicate…

Gore Out (06:04 PM) - Saying the United States “would be a different country” had he won the 2000 election, Al Gore has announced that he will never run for president again….

Boston: No Longer The Education Capital? (03:17 PM) - Tufts Democrats report on Beantown’s demise….

Dan Rather Doubted Source All Along (10:53 AM) - The former anchor must have lost his media touch quickly, because this new line just isn’t going to play….

Andrewsullivan.com Hacked (09:49 AM) - But the hacker is sorry….

Election Reform and Communication Reform (08:21 AM) - In The Dartmouth, alum Frank Gado of White River Junction, VT, who is running for second vice president on the upcoming petition slate, complains rightly that dissent on the proposed constitution, which would severely limit petition opportunities, is being quieted.Geoff…

The First Decision of the Roberts Court (08:16 AM) - The case is Dye v. Hofbauer, and it is a per curiam opinion, so no name….

A Steerable Piece of Dust (08:08 AM) - Kenneth Chang at the New York Times reports on the micro-robot invented by Bruce Donald and his team here at Dartmouth. Videos of the little feller in action (and videos on DivX, no less) are available here….

Accessing Public-But-Hidden Websites: Hacking? (07:44 AM) - Bringing echos of the great Dartmouth/Harvard business school “hack” of last Spring, a London man has been convicted of hacking because he, desiring to donate money to tsunami relief and desiring not to donate that money to a sham organization,…

Average age of newspaper readers: 55 (07:09 AM) - And readership is down commensurately. Bad news for legacy operators. UPDATE: The news isn’t perfectly sunny on the other side, of course….

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

So Buzzy It Could Cut A Log Truck In Two (08:29 PM) - ‘Crony’. I’m sick of it already. It’s the new ‘quagmire’. Possible alternatives to commit to memory: friend, associate, chum, buddy, comate, companion, comrade, cully, pal, amigo. John Tierney, whose more-Select-than-Boar’s Head-ham article of this morning was e-mailed to me (and…

Wordsmithery (04:50 PM) - First Le Note, then Cox (who, in decoding The Note, is no better) and a Dartmouth publication as well….

French U.N. Envoy Arrested In Oil-for-Food (12:17 PM) - Jean-Bernard Merimee is charged with being one of the hundreds of recipients of Oil-for-Food bribes from Saddam Hussein. He was France’s UN ambassador from 1991 to 1995 and was a “special advisor” to Kofi Annan in the run-up to the…

John Bolton Demands U.N. Action In Sudan (11:53 AM) - Reuters, unbelievably, spins this story as, “US blocks U.N. briefing on atrocities in Sudan.” John Bolton today killed a United Nations Security Council meeting where the members were to be “briefed” once again on how bad the situation is in…

Big Beer Ad (09:41 AM) - It’s pretty big. (…via TigerHawk)…

NJ GOV: Corzine Lead Vanishes; Dead Heat (09:28 AM) - In recent weeks the race for New Jersey governor has morphed into just that: a race. Jon Corzine, representing the Mammoth New Jersey Democrat Machine, was presumed the shoe-in for a long while. But along comes Doug Forrester, whose plan…

Antonin Scalia Is Wrong On TV In The Courtroom (09:01 AM) - The associate justice doesn’t want cameras in the Supreme Court. His rationale is reported in today’s Washington Times:”We don’t want to become entertainment,” he said. “I think there’s something sick about making entertainment out of real people’s legal problems. I…

Missouri Spies on Drivers Through Cell Phones (08:49 AM) - By using signal triangulation as cell phone talkers hop from tower to tower, Show Me officials are observing traffic flow and doing something with gobs of data about who goes where, when, how, and at what speed. Is it an…

Capture Decent Sound for your Podcast (08:37 AM) - Baltic-Latvian Universal Electronics (more commonly known as BLUE, the microphone house that created the ill-fated Ball model*) makes wonderful mics, and their prominence in major studios is fast approaching the Cardinal of Condensors, Neumann. They now are cracking the podcasting…

How To Leave The Adobe Hut (08:24 AM) - For every Photoshop, there is a Gimp. This website lists free alternative (and largely open-source) alternatives to major content creation software. Nothing for inDesign, unfortunately….

Harriet Miers: “an unabashed fan” of Bush (08:00 AM) - The New York Times discovers that President Bush’s appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States likes him. Nothing particularly surprising, but the Times’ findings do support the running meme that Miers is a follower, not a leader, and…

American U. Dismisses President Ben Ladner (06:34 AM) - His half-page ad in Sunday’s Washington Post evidently having failed to change minds, American University’s board of trustees dismissed the university’s president, Ben Ladner, last evening. Ladner was accused of misusing more than $500,000 in university money since 2002. As…

Monday, October 10, 2005

Note To Future Politicians (05:26 PM) - Do not write poetry ere stepping onto the public stage. It isn’t working for Roy Moore and it won’t work for you. UPDATE: Well, alright, it works for some….

He Wouldn’t Have Said It If He Couldn’t Back It Up (04:19 PM) - The White House has released a list of major (and only major) terrorist plots disrupted since September 11. It goes along with this excellent speech. The attacks averted: The West Coast Airliner Plot: In mid-2002 the U.S. disrupted a plot…

Breaking News (04:10 PM) - The New York Daily News dropped a bombshell this morning: Hollywood millionaires support Hillary Clinton!…

Note To Filmmakers (04:03 PM) - Do not forget, as Stanley Donen, who directed the 1963 Grant/Hepburn vehicle Charade, did, the copyright notice. Else, the gaping maw known as ‘public domain’ gobbles it up. (…via Dan Bruno)…

John Podhoretz (01:13 PM) - Fascinating guy….

Saddam may face execution before trials end (12:46 PM) - As Knight-Ridder valiantly reports, Saddam Hussein may not even have the chance to be convicted on all counts. Once the court is finished with the first case, Saddam will likely face another trial for allegedly committing similar crimes in other…

The Hello Kitty Digital Camera (10:49 AM) - I thought this a crucial piece of information for Dartblog readers….

Happy Christopher Columbus Day (10:10 AM) - Today, the second Monday of the month of October, is Columbus Day. It is the only remaining non-religious holiday (though some, of course, have put to question how any holy-day can be secular) that is celebrated pan-America. In the United…

Does Karl Rove Know Something We Don’t? (07:09 AM) - This Bloomberg report has Arlen Specter preparing to chastise Rove and the White House because of comments from James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, to the effect that he has private assurances from Rove on the way Harriet…

No Offense Taken (06:49 AM) - Offense, sadly, is a potent tactic with the American media. And some Muslims—the ones evidently not entirely sure whether they support terrorism or not—are in the most useful habit of taking it early, often, and several times per day. The…

WashTimes: Half of GOP Senators Doubt Miers (06:41 AM) - I don’t doubt it. It isn’t that Miers lacks any judicial experience (most observers do not mind, though I cannot yet see past even that shortcoming) nor that she is made of two ‘X’ chromasomes (despite the feckless Democrat line…

South Asian Earthquake Photos (06:33 AM) - Reuters has a photoset here and folks are releasing photos from Islambad here at the Flickr site. It looks like devastation all around, although it clearly behooves the media to reign in breathless reporting on the rising body counts. The…

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Good News From Germany (11:42 PM) - According to a deal freshly inked, Angela Merkel is set to replace Gerhard Schröder as Germany’s next chancellor and the latter will reportedly leave the national scene altogether. To the United Nations, perhaps?…

Of Gray Hair and Gravitas (11:36 PM) - CNN anchor Anderson Cooper lays bare the story behind his gray hair. The sprouts began when he was twenty. That does not bode well for me, as I’ve already more than a few grays! (…via Althouse)…

The Incorrect Correction (11:31 PM) - Patrick Ruffini notes a half-hearted and wholly-disingenuous correction at the Washington Post, appended to its much-derided “novice protestor” piece of puffery on the recent anti-war protests….

New Hampshire Rains (04:56 PM) - It indeed rained nearly without respite for more than two days here (though things are finally quiet now), and the situation elsewhere in the Granite State appears even worse, with flooding on several highways and a state of emergency in…

Weekend Grand Canyon Blogging (03:09 PM) - Precisely what the weekends are for. This, and this, incidentally, are not what the weekends are for. Unless you are Harriet Miers—her homework is piled high this fine Sunday….

Bork, v. (08:49 AM) - By the way: in the Oxford English Dictionary. With the implication that it is expected to happen again….

Dartmouth Needn’t Another Red Sox Professor… (08:17 AM) - But, Professor Drezner, fie on U. Chicago and please come to Dartmouth. We are dreadfully short on government professors—every one of my courses this term bearing full witness to that—and an open-minded person like yourself would do much to balance…

Tyranny Of The Minority (08:06 AM) - Scott Kahn notes that the University of Pennsylvania (Which was actually routed by Dartmouth 99-0, by the way) is “taking a turn for the left”, in the form of minority pandering. He recently received an e-mail informing him of internship…

Smile And Say Fourme de Montbrison (07:14 AM) - Introducing the camera that won’t take the picture until its sensors confirm that everyone in the frame is actually smiling. Which is to say that, in a room with that acrid Fermier cheese, no shutter shall ever click….

Small Town To Build “R&R” Centers For Illegals (07:10 AM) - Trevor Bothwell has the heartless, soulless, and probably correct response to this nonsense: “Instead of building “day laborer” centers in the attempt to keep criminal illegal aliens from drinking in public and urinating on public and private property, how ‘bout…

Happy Birthday (07:06 AM) - Movable Type, the delightful little killer app that runs Dartblog.com, turned four years old yesterday….

Blogosphere Rising (07:01 AM) - The Washington Post comes out in favor of Harriet Miers, beginning its editorial with, “To hear the reaction from some conservatives to President Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, you would think the president had named an…

Good Night, and Good Luck (06:54 AM) - I hadn’t the distinct pleasure of growing up with America’s quintessential crusading television journalist, Edward R. Murrow. I understand that he is on the gottarespecthim list, though I tend to play cynic on these matters—they all seem like salesmen to…

Saturday, October 08, 2005

CNN: Pakistan puts quake toll at 18,000 (10:37 PM) - CNN, sans wires, is reporting that the death toll from Paktistan’s 7.6 magnitude earthquake which hit both it and neighboring Afghanistan today has sharply risen to 18,000 up from earlier estimates of 3,000. Of course, Katrina taught us too well…

Ongoing List of every politician traveling to n.h. (09:00 PM) - Unbeknownst to well-nigh everyone, John Kerry was recently in New Hampshire schmoozing with the NASCAR crowd. The event occasioned this photo, which moved on the AP wire with the caption: “Former presidential candidate and current senator from Massachusetts, John Kerry…

A Modestly Nutty Proposal (07:15 PM) - Adam Shpeen rightly rips to shreds a Dartmouth history professor’s proposal that The Dartmouth, instead of printing the closing numbers for the NASDAQ and NYSE, print running death counts for the Coalition forces in Iraq. I found the proposal and…

Guidage For Lingual Pedantry (04:32 PM) - Aaron Schlosser presents a guide to writing, and includes the following helpful advisory: “When there exists a French word where an Anglo-Saxon word would do just fine, always use the French word. Example: instead of using the word ‘embarrassment,’ employ…

China Will Censor Nation’s Cell Text Messages (07:21 AM) - By all means, let’s cede control of international communications to these curs, who are worried that impure knowledge might be transferred via SMS, and are thus seeking to censor the whole system. UNRELATED: You can read the Bible in SMS-shorthand…

More on ElBaradei ‘s Merits (07:08 AM) - Jacob Laksin at Moonbat Central writes:In January of 2003, ElBaradei undertook a one-man diplomatic mission on behalf of the embattled Ba’athist, pleading on CNN that Saddam, after years of flouting the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions on disarmament, be granted “one…

Gas (06:43 AM) - The United States, of course, faces two gas crises. One in the long-run: that of dependence of imports from unsavory states. And one in the short-run: our local refining capacity is shot as a result of Katrina. Americans are missing…

Government Subsidies That Work (06:26 AM) - Paul Simmons makes the case for government programs that distribute free trigger locks to gunowners. He’s exactly right, although I do think it would be more efficient and less expensive to rely on individual police departments across America to distribute…

Reaching Those Drudge Roots (06:12 AM) - Bill Kristol made news yesterday when he kindly asked Harriet Miers to withdraw herself from the confirmation process. I don’t think there is much hope of that happening, and if it did the GOP should expect nothing less than a…

Friday, October 07, 2005

Award It To Someone Noble (07:01 PM) - Yes, with great sadness I observe that the once-great Nobel Peace Prize has in recent years—and today confirmedly—degenerated into a “You recently teed off the American government. Huzzah!” award. For what, precisely, has Mohamed ElBaradei done? We all understand that…

It’s The Little Things That Count (06:51 PM) - Since George W. Bush took office, cable news outlets have all but gagged the “dolphin stories and pet rescue” departments. I do not mean to imply that such a trend has anything to do with the President. But as an…

FedEx plane crashes in downtown Winnipeg (06:41 PM) - The plane crash occured in Manitoba, mere dashes from the local Freemason lodge. And the FedEx plane in question was carrying “four frozen 0.5 milliliter (0.015 fluid ounce) vials of herpes virus and two of influenza” which were to be…

The Race To In-Flight Internet Ends (06:34 PM) - Who knows if typical consumer radio bands ever did interfere with cockpit transmissions. But the race for legitimate wi-fi in the air has ended, with Boeing running a test flight today of “Connexion One”, its most wired (and wireless) plane…

The Man Behind The Head (10:25 AM) - In the Dartmouth Beacon, I offer the often-squelched biography of t-shirt icon and left-wing hero Che Guevara. I close this way:Ernesto—Che, as he is limned in adulation—succeeded in nothing. He achieved only death and destruction. Romantic for himself, and tragic…

Katrina Pushes Unemployment to 5.1% (10:02 AM) - Putting a break on a [woefully underacknowledged] red-hot economy, Hurricane Katrina has pushed unemployment up to 5.1%….

An Intellectual Exodus (08:37 AM) - In The Dartmouth, my friend Michael Belinsky raises strong questions about where Dartmouth is going and what students can do to ensure that it remains strong. A most worthwhile read. In related news, The Dartmouth still refuses to apologize for…

Co-opting the Internet (07:07 AM) - Master of the domain name Milton Mueller is quoted in this Guardian report on the EU/UN effort to wrest control of the internet from the United States: “It’s not clear to me that governments know what to do about anything…

U. Chicago Folks Don’t Get Jobs at the New Yorker (06:56 AM) - In the nation’s weekly journal of pretense, Malcolm Gladwell looks at the social logic of Ivy League admissions.The Ivy League schools justified their emphasis on character and personality, however, by arguing that they were searching for the students who would…

“How Long Did You Spend On This Assignment?” (06:55 AM) - That’s what MIT asks at the end of every problem set….

Greenspanning the World (12:57 AM) - The New York Times takes a somewhat slanted look at possible successors to Alan Greenspan, calling likely candidate Ben Bernanke “deeply conservative… but respected for independent thinking.” Professor Samwick engages in a full Fisking of the piece, saying “There is…

A Day In The Life Of A Law Librarian (12:45 AM) - Meant to link this much earlier. TigerHawk notes the hilarious winning photo in perhaps the strangest photo contest known to man: the American Association of Law Libraries’ “Day in the Life of a Law Librarian” contest….

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Fall In Hanover (05:34 PM) - In between readings I popped outside for a several minutes and snapped a few pictures. It was a perfect day for Fall photography. Click here to see some more shots….

All This Hullabaloo (01:35 PM) - There are a lot of batty things going on in the world today, and I haven’t the time to write about them, so I’ll just link them. Based entirely on second-hand Palestinian sources—sources who know precisely how American politics work…

A Spy in the White House (10:21 AM) - This is a developing story that is still very tightly packed, but the FBI and CIA are investigating the nation’s first case of espionage inside the White House. The spy is purported to be Leandro Aragoncillo, a naturalized citizen from…

Candidate Slates (08:16 AM) - I posted earlier that an election for a new executive board of the Dartmouth Alumni Association was going to occur at the Association’s Homecoming meeting. Via e-mail, I am pointed to this website, which lists the petition candidates and describes…

The Anti-War Demographic (01:14 AM) - In the New Republic, Lawrence F. Kaplan observes that the one traditional contingent missing in recent anti-war protests is the perennial favorite: college students. By and large, college students aren’t fools. I suspect one key factor in their absence are…

Defending the New Constitution (12:55 AM) - Dartmouth Alumni—or at least those making the trip to Hanover for Homecoming Weekend—will be considering the proposed new constitution which would govern Dartmouth’s alumni organization and the election of the College’s trustees at the Association of Alumni Annual Meeting on…

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Evening Links (06:42 PM) - John Roberts Sworn In; World Ends. Questionable editorial choices at the L.A. Times. Bruce Carroll, noticing more hangings of homosexuals in Iran, begs the gay lobby to support the War on Terror. If you are going to criticize Todd Zywicki,…

“Carlton’s B-list celebrity status” (04:38 PM) - I really thought Vanessa Carlton was a big deal. She was here at Dartmouth last night, belting ‘em out to the back(ish) rows. I didn’t go to the concert myself and, based upon the aforelinked article, basically no one else…

Bollywood, Anyone? (04:17 PM) - Sir Humphrey looks at some AP and Reuters photos of insurgent “fighting” and doesn’t like what he sees….

Will She Get A Chance? (11:42 AM) - Jonah Goldberg opines that Harriet Miers may yet wow the nation with golden talk of constitutional jurisprudence at the confirmation hearings. He forgets that she can only respond to what the senators ask, and one thing they won’t ask are…

After UN Heat, Iraq Parliament Undoes Vote Change (10:42 AM) - The Iraqi constitution will face the same standard for ratification as before the rule change of last week: Sunni protesters will be pleased, but I doubt they’re optimistic on stopping passage. They still need 2/3 of voters in three provinces…

Upon Reading The Unabashed Miller Spin… (10:34 AM) - Jay Rosen says the New York Times is no longer the greatest newspaper in the land. He’s right: as the first post-jail article about Judy Miller makes plain, the organization is simply not up to the important task of honest…

“Access to the Requested URL Is Not Allowed!” (10:19 AM) - That, complete with point of exclaim, is what Saudi internet users see when attempting to look at any website that ends in ‘blogger.com’. According to Reporters Without Borders, Saudi Arabia’s Internet Services Unit (ISU), which by law is able to…

Harriet Miers And Gay Rights (06:56 AM) - As several readers have noted to me, Bidisha Banerjee’s ‘Today’s Blogs’ feature at Slate mentions Dartblog while discussing reaction to the news of Harriet Miers’ comme-ci comme-ça responses to a 1989 campaign questionnaire from the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas….

The New York Times’ Most E-mailed Articles (06:50 AM) - Not a single one today comes from anything behind the TimeSelect wall. Of course, the internet users are legion who start off every morning by typing in ‘nytimes.com’. But the site also earns a great portion of its traffic from…

About That Agenda Gap… (06:45 AM) - Dartmouth ’07s Adam Shpeen and Michael Herman have started The Agenda Gap, what looks to be an excellent blog aimed at filling in the lonely—well, lonely as in there are no politicos there—middle of American politics. Their take on the…

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

“Just obeying local law…” (01:08 PM) - Go to http://maps.google.com. Type ‘Taiwan’ into the search box and click ‘search’. When the map of the island of Taiwan appears, look to the left-hand panel and Google’s geographic data for Taiwan appears. It says: “Taiwan: Province of China.” MORE:…

The Horrors of “Full Civil Rights” (01:00 PM) - I can usually appreciate a good Drudge headline, but I think this one goes just a tad overboard. It links to this Time article which in turn links to this form purportedly returned by Miers to the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition…

“Ideology trumps all…” (11:17 AM) - “…If a mangy yellow dog were the SCOTUS nominee, I’d support it, if it would consistently vote with Scalia-Thomas.” PoliPundit’s supporting arguments for Miers are not very convincing….

Harriet Miers’ Hole-in-One (09:57 AM) - Sources say it was merely a par three. Filibuster! MORE (via e-mail): The town of Keyser, West Virgina, made news on September 12, 1981, when three different golfers scored a hole-in-one at the Mill Creek Golf Club, an unprecedented athletic…

Headline of the Day (09:51 AM) - From the Associated Press: “GOP, Democrats Conflicted Over Miers.” And the first graf represents the gender-bending that’s going on in Washington:President Bush’s decision to make White House counsel Harriet Miers his second Supreme Court nominee is causing some strange friction…

Bush Holds White House Presser at 10:30a (09:16 AM) - He’ll defend Miers, because no one else seems interested in doing so, save for Harry Reid, and his endorsement isn’t likely to get Bush supporters fired up. No one, in fact, is especially please with the pick, least of all…

Changing The Rules In Iraq (08:49 AM) - Quietly, the number of “nay” votes needed for the new Iraq constitution to fail has been increased. Previously, 2/3 of the vote must be on the “back to the drawing board” side. Now, 2/3 of the entire electorate, whether they…

Check (08:38 AM) - President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, is a fan of the second amendment. As one might expect, her legal roots in Texas have gone far in affirming the notion that arbitrary gun bans allow more crimes than…

The Google Catch (08:32 AM) - Google’s forthcoming free wireless internet service has a catch: the bandwidth is capped at 300kbps per user. That’s fine for websurfing, but this News.com article is right: “any reports about the death of traditional telecom and cable carriers would appear…

The Dartmouth Publishes Holocaust Denial (06:16 AM) - The Dartmouth is the student newspaper—the oldest in the nation—at Dartmouth College. By and large, the ‘D’ is staffed by nice and thoroughly competent people. There are critiques to be made, of course. The paper’s coverage of the Noah Riner…

Blogging Update (06:12 AM) - My apologizes that things have been so slow. I’ve been sick lately, so until semi-hourly Benadryl poppings are no longer needed, posting will be light….

Monday, October 03, 2005

Supreme Qualifications (03:09 PM) - Tom Bozzo on Harriet Miers: “So Bush, no kidding, cites Harriet Miers’s learning right from wrong from her mom among her qualifications for SCOTUS. Hey, me too!” That is just beyond the pale. Clearly, there are more important factors at…

Lessons In Cause and Effect (02:09 PM) - “I did not vote for the petition candidate in recent Trustee elections; I did not vote at all. But if the leadership of the College chooses to act in such a patently disingenuous, manipulative and anti-democratic manner to rig trustee…

NPR’s SCOTUS Coverage (10:56 AM) - Jared Smith e-mails in observations on NPR’s initial angling of Harriet Miers’ nomination to the United States Supreme Court. Though there is an indication she was on the Democrats’ list of “pre-approved” candidates and though her political largesse has been…

Could The New Jersey Governorship Go To GOP? (10:18 AM) - A long while back I promised to stay on top of the race for New Jersey governor, which is being waged between the nation’s penultimate limousine liberal and rich-guy-but-not-all-preachy-about-it conservative Doug Forrester. I did not follow through on that promise,…

Chuck Schumer In Presser (10:05 AM) - The senator from New York is on television remarking on Harriet Miers. He invoked John Roberts’ non-responsiveness, saying Miers must do better. But John Roberts, being nominated for chief justice, deserved extra scrutiny, according to Schumer. It stands to reason…

The World Government Dream Team (07:22 AM) - An obvious premise for a BBC viewer quiz: “Who would you want in charge of a world government?” The winners: 1 - Nelson Mandela 2 - Bill Clinton 3 - Dalai Lama 4 - Noam Chomsky 5 - Alan Greenspan…

Politically-charged Nouns (07:11 AM) - There is some political language that comes about in an even-handed and broad way. ‘McCarthyism’ comes to mind. The New York Times, on the other hand, thinks it can conjure a word from thin air and use it to puff…

“fairly unfortunate language” (06:59 AM) - When members of the Bucknell University Conservatives Club were dragged into the president’s office and browbeaten for using the phrase “hunting terrorists” in a mass e-mail advertising an upcoming lecture from a soldier, they faced the usual war of asymmetry….

Al Qaeda claims kidnapped two US Marines (06:54 AM) - Reuters rushes the claim to the western wire: DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has kidnapped two Marines in western Iraq and issued a 24-hour ultimatum to U.S. forces to release female Sunni Muslim prisoners, a statement posted on a Web…

The Disaster Mayor, the Disaster President (06:46 AM) - In Patrick Ruffini’s latest poll, Rudolph Giuliani came out comfortably on top. Evidently, he received a 5-point Katrina bounce….

Does This Make Sense? (Update) (06:35 AM) - Several weeks ago I asked if it made any sense that the National Center for Health Statistics’ latest survey on sexual practices revealed that “Men age 30 to 44 have had a median of six to eight sexual partners in…

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Gov. Blanco gets no Katrina questions (08:45 AM) - Kathleen Babineaux Blanco appeared before a Senate panel to request more money for her state (more and more of which, it is becoming evident, is going to pork) and as a condition for her appearing demanded that she not be…

Google Will Make San Francisco Wireless (08:19 AM) - Google has no on-site, large-scale networking experience and, I suspect, employs no RF engineers. It also has no business plan with which to at least cover costs. But the young firebrand, undaunted by these, has submitted a plan to blanket…

Russ Feingold at Dartmouth (07:53 AM) - The right good gentleman from Wisconsin was at Dartmouth yesterday and- fie on it- I wasn’t. As in his very-left home state of Wisconsin, at Dartmouth Feingold eschewed the speechifying for an equally-stilted “listening session”. Though I’ve heard no direct…

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Hail to The Chief (10:16 AM) - Justice Roberts isn’t the only new chief in Washington. Marine General Peter Pace is now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Semper fi….

Morning Conversation (08:46 AM) - Lauren: What were you blogging about so early? Me: A stupid tax in New Hampshire. Lauren: Did you post the pictures of my cat I gave you? Me: No, I just sent them to someone. Lauren: You should have posted…

Good On ‘Ya, Mate (07:09 AM) - Huzzah to the European Union for keeping a stiff upper lip, along with the United States, against the efforts of Arab states to manipulate the IAEA to bulwark their own propagandistic devices. A bloc of Arab nations wanted the IAEA…

Conservative Radio Host Tests Soundbyte Limit (06:44 AM) - Well-nigh everyone, especially politicos and media folk, is keenly aware of the seven or eight-second soundbyte. That means that, if you say anything that takes more than eight seconds to preface, contextualize, explicate, or elucidate, to the gallows go you…

Blogging Update (06:36 AM) - The torrent is reduced to a trickle, as I am visiting Lauren in Boston. We really enjoyed the ballgame last night, since the Yankees played so well. It was really a thorough embarrassment for Boston. Being routed like that. You…

Room With A (Taxable) View (06:30 AM) - Far be it from me to draw party inferences, but just after Granite Staters oust their Live Free or Die Republican governor by one percent, new taxes begin to surface on the misty horizon. Weekend Pundit introduces us to the…