DOW 36,000 REVISITED: James Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett take an updated look at their 1999 book, Dow 36,000 in The Wall Street Journalin light of the recent gyrations of the market, and find its principles still sound. The whole piece is a very good, especially these paragraphs:

For students of modern finance, the real mystery is how to reconcile these two facts: Over the long term, stocks return much more than bonds, but stocks are no more risky than bonds. This paradox is called the "equity premium puzzle"-- the premium being the extra return that stocks provide over benchmark bonds. For decades, economists were at a loss to explain the puzzle. A 1997 paper by Mr. Siegel and Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago concluded that the answer was "myopic risk aversion." In other words, investors are so frightened of short-term losses in the stock market that they can't see beyond their noses.

We argued, to the contrary, that investors were finally solving the equity premium puzzle. Starting about 20 years ago, irrational risk aversion to stocks began to decline, thanks mainly to the spread of new research, better financial education, the rise of defined-contribution retirement plans, and increased world stability.

HAPPY 90th, MILTON FRIEDMAN! National Review Online has two articles in honor of the great economist (including one by Donald Rumsfeld), and so does Reason magazine.

MORE BAD PRESS FOR AOL-TIME WARNER: Time Warner to charge flood victims for cable boxes, according to this Houston Chronicle story.

Just when AOL-Time Warner's reputation is at its worst, they could have looked like big heroes for replacing the boxes for free, but no....

DYNAMIC DUO REUNITED: John Stallworth and Lynn Swann are together again in the NFL Hall of Fame.

MARSUPIAL LIONS AND WOMBATS THE SIZE OF CARS: Come for the incredible headlines, stick around for the multi-part series on reductions in English civil liberties on Group Captain Mandrake's Weblog.

ELECTRIC CAR BURNS SUPER MODEL'S HOME: The New York Post's Page Six says "Veronica Webb's eco-friendly electric car turned into a fire-spewing death machine the other night, burning down her Key West house and killing her beloved dog, Hercules." Here's more:

Firefighters who rushed to the scene told Webb that good intentions often turn lovely homes into blazing death zones. "They said they see this kind of thing with electric cars all the time," she says. "Electric cars and golf carts are always overloading their chargers and burning up, but no one knows about it."

Among the hidden dangers, Webb says, were four hidden high-powered batteries. "There are four extra batteries that aren't shown in the [owner's manual] diagram. They need to be serviced but you can't service them if you don't even know that they're there."

Luckily, Webb was in New York shopping for baby furniture when the blaze erupted, but her new husband, Wall Streeter turned amateur archaeologist George Robb, was asleep in bed. He barely escaped with his life. "By the time the fire department showed up, they didn't even go inside to look for survivors because they assumed that anyone left inside was long dead. They said George got out with 30 seconds to spare."

THE ULTIMATE TAILGATE PARTY: The NFL is planning a Times Square bash to kick off the upcoming season.

DOA: That's what the UK Sun says is the condition of George Michael's career, with his current single, the one with that generated all the controversy in the Blogosphere selling only 3,000 copies.

I actually liked the elegiac sound of "Playing for Time" on his Listen Without Prejudice album. But I'm not at all sure why entertainers like Michael feel they have to insert politics into their songs, when most people listen to music to escape from the events of the day. Having heard my share of Crosby and Sinatra from my father, I can't remember a political statement from either of them (except maybe for obvious WWII, let's kill Hitler and Tojo stuff--that's not politics, that's common sense). The Beatles and Stones of the 1960s kept their political statements sufficiently vague so that most of their late '60s stuff is still very listenable today.

The exception of course are John Lennon's political songs, both with the Beatles and with Yoko--and those songs had a very, very short shelf life--their expiration date expired with the arguably the end of Vietnam and most definitely the end of the 1970s. (I cringe whenever I hear "Imagine" these days, whereas most of Lennon's stuff with the Beatles is still amazing and fresh.)

I do think that pop music fans have short memories--and if Michael starts thinking of making music that entertains--and sells--rather than proselytizing, his career could rise from the grave. In the meantime, RIP, you old Whammer.

HOORAY FOR JOE BIDEN!, says Jonah Goldberg. As to why, read his syndicated column.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER: Tres Producers boils it all down to what we'll miss about Jim Traficant: his unbelievable hair and muttonchop sideburns, and compiles a list of media quotes (and creates a few of their own) of the most incredible hair in politics, the anti-JFK, the Bizarro-Gipper, the alternative Star Trek universe where Lt. Uhura wears a uniform with a bare midriff, and Spock sports a goatee Trent Lott (insert the name of your favorite politician with incredible hair--real or Sy Sperling-created, here).

It's easy to feel sympathetic to the Traficant locks, (although to be honest, I suspect they'll be spared prison time, if you get my drift...), and to agree with Eric Olsen's comments that:

Perhaps the hair should have been afforded independent counsel and mounted its own defense. The thought of it shorn, constrained or incarcerated is hardly bearable. Traficant may be more concerned with locks of another sort, as he plays his final act on the public stage, but the rest of us should behold it while we can.

What is hair today will be gone tomorrow.

TURNING JAPANESE: Niners ready to take American football to Japan.

ANTI-GRAVITY PROPULSION comes ‘out of the closet’, in a way cool Jane's Defense Weekly article.

(Link via InstaPundit.)

Martin Amis' new book, Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million has definitely generated some good discussions on Stalin and the Soviet Union. Here's Andrew Stuttaford's book review, Andrew Sullivan on The Times and Stalin, James Lileks on Diego Rivera, and Group Captain Lionel Mandrake on communism's lasting appeal to intellectuals.

Meanwhile, Orrin Judd has a long reader letter and his rebuttal, on the wintry George Orwell, arguably the first neo-conservative. Or the last honest socialist. Or something.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN THE MILITARY: Sgt. Stryker and Tres Producers are on the story, which involves the killings of four military wives in the past six weeks, allegedly by their husbands, who are based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

THE PASSOVER MEAL THAT WASN'T A BIG SELLER: Hilarious photo of an not-very-well thought out ad on Howard Fienberg's Kesher Talk blog.

WHITHER WI-FI, asks Duane Freese in Tech Central Station.

(Freese did a superb job editing my earlier piece on Wi-Fi for TCS--which he links to in his story--by the way. Thanks on both accounts.)

THE GOOSE AND GANDER AMENDMENT, as proposed by Dave Kopel & Robert Racansky.

WOW, DREHER REALLY IS A GRANOLA CONSERVATIVE...

HEAVY HANDED BIAS IN ACTION: Little Green Footballs finds the New York Times running roughshod over an op-ed critical of the United Nations.

Andrew Sullivan also weighs in, in a post called "Even Op-Eds Get Neutered".

JEWISH SUPERHEROES (The comic book kind, not Milton Friedman), were the debate of the day on The Corner on National Review Online. If you're interested, start here (with the New York Post's announcement that Benjamin J. Grimm, aka The Thing, one quarter of the Fantastic Four is Jewish), then scroll up.

BEST SERVED COLD: The Digital Bits reviews the new deluxe director's edition DVD of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

AS HEADS IS TAILS: Victor Davis Hanson finds an interesting duality amidst the usual tired old cliches that Europeans give for hating America:

[W]hen these criticisms are probed, a startling revelation appears: Far from being radicals, Europeans are, in fact, in a fundamental sense more reactionary than Americans. And here things get interesting. In conversations, the Europeans very soon begin to voice all the old right-wing complaints about America that explain why they see our country as so insular, crass, and dangerous: We have no respect for tradition; our movies and television are uncouth; our volatile citizenry is increasingly ignorant, multicultural, and lawless, and so blinkered to the concerns of others. Welcome to radical democratic culture.

Read the rest of the article--as is usual with Hanson, it's very, very good.

THE TEN MOST SHOCKING MOMENTS IN NFL HISTORY, on ESPN.com's "Page2" section.

Can't argue with #1.

FALSE PROPHET: Tech Central Station looks at the long strange history of Kevin Phillips, who got things right in 1969 and rarely has since.

GEORGE MCGOVERN: LUDDITE: The Walter Mondale of the 1970s has an essay in the Wall Street Journal, complete with these eye-popping lines:

The computer has become a new weapon of mass destruction to overrule our minds and our common sense. Did I tell you that I am terrified by computers, e-mail and the Internet? The only things worse are automated telephones that tell you to press numbers 1 through 99 and then inform you that the item you want is no longer in stock. Civilization is crumbling before these awful gadgets--although my grandsons are threatening to show me that they are not any more dangerous than the atomic bomb or AIDS.

I'll probably yield to the computer age eventually despite my strong instincts against it.

Well let's see, computers first started showing up right after World War II. The Altair, Apple II and TRS-80, those first home PCs, arrived in the mid-1970s. So you've had well over 25 years to "yield to the computer age", and haven't yet?

Keep 'em flying, George!

SNORT: Speaking of time warps, the Brothers Judd finds a writer at the Washington Post with a rather short memory...

SURFING USA: Eric Olsen has long essay, and lots of links on the subject.

I've never surfed, but I was an avid skateboarder in my teens, which combined similar skills with the appealing expectation (at least to someone who was never a very good swimmer) of not drowning!

FAULK, RAMS, INK SEVEN-YEAR DEAL: "We want to make sure Marshall finishes his career as a Ram,'' Martz said. The impact he's had not just on this team but this entire organization is pretty extreme.''

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: The great Milton Friedman turns 90 this week.

INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY, 101: Check out this astonishing quote by Joe Lieberman:

"In just eighteen months, this administration has unraveled the fiscal discipline it took us eight years to build," said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who spoke to the Democratic Leadership Council's annual policy meeting along with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

Let's parse this out, shall we?The economy of the 1990s would have been in the dumps if (a) Hillary-Care had come to pass. Fortunately, it didn't, but Americans were royally p.o.'ed by it, resulting in them electing (b) a Republican-held House and Senate in 1994, which attempted to balance the budget and blocked the most egregious of wealth-destroying Democrat ideas. (c) The Nasdaq began to tank during the Microsoft Lawsuit, in mid-2000. Who was President then? (d) It was at its peak during the late-1990s, when both parties were too distracted by Clinton's impeachment to monkey with the economy. And finally (e) the current economy has its roots in the combination of early-80s tax cuts by the Reagan administration and inflation destroying actions by Paul Volcker.

Lieberman must be caught in the same distortion of the space-time continuum that Al Gore is in.

AL GORE IS A VICTIM OF THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM, according to Jonah Goldberg.

DOW 9000, NASDAQ 1500: I know, I know, we're not there yet, but a man can dream...

THE ROLLING LAPTOPS GET THEIR YAH-YAHS OUT: I have a major geek-a-palooza in the August issue of Nuts & Volts, complete with a profile of Evolution Robotics and their two pre-fab commercial robots, and a product review of Line6's GuitarPort product, which allows electric guitarists to plug their axes into their PC's USB port, and then simulate the sounds of vintage tube amplifiers (and a lot of other nifty features). It's also a great interface for recording the guitar via multitrack recording programs.

The Evolution Robotics piece is the centerpiece of a separate, robots only mini-mag that's bagged with the main issue! Call R2-D2 and Robby! It's robot mania!

Seriously, robots and electric guitars--what more do you want? Run out and buy an R2D2-sized stack of copies today!

AUDITED BY CLINTON, UNDEFENDED BY BUSH: I guess Judicial Watch really is bipartisan.

UPDATE: Jonathan Adler has more.

A 'BERG TO REMEMBER: Group Captain Mandrake says that the only known photograph of the iceberg that sank the Titanic may go on display in the UK.

AIR TRAVELERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR BOXED LUNCH! British passengers stage EasyJet revolt.

WHAT'S AETNA GOT TO DO WITH IT? Patrick Ruffini says we need to rein in awards from huge malpractice lawsuits.

NIFTY ANALYSIS OF LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, by Orrin Judd, on The Brothers Judd Blog.

THE BLEAT IS BACK! James Lileks' Weblog returns after a month of...well, read his latest post to see what Lilek's month was like.

...And to check out the spiffy California Zephyr Vistadome illustration at the top of the page!

DASCHLE EXEMPTION UPDATE: Michelle Malkin says what's good for Daschle is good for the rest of the country.

Click here for our original coverage of this item.

MEN ONLY NEED APPLY: Not at Field & Stream or The American Rifleman, but...The New Yorker according to this Matt Drudge piece.

It is pretty staggering, considering that I'm sure the vast majority of the readers of The New Yorker are suburban housewives who want to feel some sort of psychic connection to the Big Apple, as well as peruse The New Yorker's endless classified ads. (We get The New Yorker delivered to us, thanks to my wife's mother, who wants to make sure that we pioneer settlers in the hinterlands, living in our little house on the prairie, have some culture in our lives.)

I guess male tiny mummies only should apply for a gig there.

THE BEST COMPANY NAME, EVER. As found by Neal Boortz.

RESTORING THE VERY BADLY TARNISHED REP OF THE FOREST SERVICE: Excellent article in The Washington Times by Valerie Richardson on the Forest Service's currently exceedingly poor reputation, how it got that way, and how to restore it.

THE FINAL CUT: A fan has created "The Kubrick Edit" of Steven Spielberg's A.I. (which of course Kubrick had gestated for nearly 20 years before Spielberg finished the film after Kubrick departed for the great Castle Hackton in the sky.)

Link via Nick Denton.

PARTYING LIKE IT'S 1933: Larry Kudlow's latest column on banks and liquidity begins with a lead that sounds straight out of the era of FDR:

We dodged a bullet yesterday. A threatened run on the banks — on top of the plummeting stock market — was halted.

Kudlow calls for a combination of sound medicine: a Fed rate cut, and some jawboning:

[S]ources also tell me that President Bush and senior advisors are catching their breath and realizing they need to get back on message — which was the optimistic growth message of 2000 and 2001. It would also be nice to hear some new thinking on regulatory and tax reform that would promote growth and offset the negative effects of higher regulatory costs for accounting, securities, and corporate governance.

Yesterday, the market stayed up — marking its largest one-day gain in more than a decade and a half — and we dodged a bullet. One day at a time is the best way to get through this financial crisis — and just about everything else in life, too.

FREE MUSIC: Tres Producers wants to turn the Blogosphere into a critical mass. Or a mass of critics. I'm game, but I suspect I'd write a number of brutal reviews of most new music.

Come to think of it, that used to be exactly what Rolling Stone did, back when it was fun to read.

REPRESENTATIONAL SECURITY: Now this is just silly.

Instapundit linked to this story in the LA Times about San Francisco tourism down. I can't help but think that if I were from the so-called "Red States", San Francisco would be the last place I'd want to go: Liberal politics run amok (9th Circuit Court, anyone?), homeless people running amok, anti-Semitism, lots of rundown areas, a city government that oozes corruption, etc., etc. This quote probably says it all:

Patrick Tierney, a tourism and hospitality professor at San Francisco State University, said that at least until business travel fully rebounds, the city may have to do more to position itself as a family-friendly destination.

The city's reputation as an adult playground, with its pricey restaurants, urbane nightlife and sexually liberal ambience, may not be the most desirable in a climate in which families are looking to spend less money--and more quality time together--on vacations, Tierney said.

"Forget about business travel meltdowns and the dot-com exodus," he said. "To survive right now, you have to be affordable and you have to have a family market. San Francisco is becoming a little more affordable--but only out of desperation. So now it has to highlight its family attractions too."

As I said before, the city is where Philadelphia and New York were in the late 1980s. If even a liberal Republican like Guliani is unelectable, is there a West Coast equivalent to the former mayor of Philadelphia, Democrat Ed Rendell, who will step forward and try to clean up the mess?

(By the way, the LA Times email registration I had to go through is just silly. I simply used my rarely checked Yahoo email address, registered my name to John Doe at 123 Any Street, Beverly Hills 90210 and registered to read the article. If the LA Examiner had had enough of it quoted, I wouldn't have even bothered to do that.)

GOD, MAN AND HACKERS AT YALE: Jane Galt, in her Live from the WTC blog, looks at the declining moral standards of the Ivy League, by way of the Yale hacking Princeton story. (By the way, at one point do standards simply hit rock bottom, instead of declining?)

Link found via Group Captain Mandrake.

IT TOOK 'EM 90 YEARS, BUT...The New York Times discovers that proper insurance planning helps reduce estate taxes and preserves wealth.

(And of course, this is a big deal that must be stopped now...)

ADVANTAGE ED: Yesterday, I posted:

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN: Ryan Leaf calls it quits.

Today, AP quotes Chargers safety Rodney Harrison, a frequent critic of Leaf, as saying, "It was probably the best thing for him to do. He took his money and he ran."

EdDriscoll.com: influencing opinion in the NFL, the blogosphere and beyond!

THE HIGH WIRE: Stanley Crouch of the NY Daily News says Sharpton just can't get off it:

Those are the elements of a Sharpton performance. He takes the high ground too infrequently - and too frequently proves himself addicted to standing before TV cameras and microphones. Even the idea of backing away and letting things settle down appears beyond him.

His inflated rhetoric and willingness to appeal to the true believers who see everything in terms of black victims and white conspirators keep the prize of serious recognition beyond him.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON TURF RETURNS: Super Bowl loss isn't haunting Rams, who have 20 of 22 starters returning.

The Rams are one of the reasons I'm happy we purchased the DirecTV Sunday Ticket package. If any other games are blow-outs, the Rams are always fun to watch--kind of the like the high-powered offenses of the Cowboys in the 1970s and the Chargers of the early '80s.

PUNK MEETS THE GODFATHER, BUT WHO'S WHO? Elliott Marc Davis, who tipped Little Green Footballs off about Noam Chomsky’s expensive capitalist tastes, has been carrying on an email exchange with Chomsky himself, with often (unintentionally) hilarious results!

THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED TRAFICANT: Found this in an email sent to me a few minutes ago:

"Am I different? Yeah. Have I changed my pants? No. Deep down, you really want to wear wider bottoms, you're just afraid."--Rep. James Traficant during the debate over his expulsion on the House floor.

T.S. Elliot, call your office...

MICHAEL JACKSON, CALL A FINANCIAL PLANNER! (Actually, the reverse is true. If I were still doing financial planning, I'd probably use this article as exhibit one about how a celebrity's assets can go to hell--and beyond.)

Check these paragraphs out:

for the first time we can see how Jackson came to be in such tremendous debt.

For example, there is the widely discussed loan against the Beatles catalog. According to Lee, it was he who arranged for Bank of America/Nations Bank to loan Jackson $140 million in 1998. The bank required Jackson to put up his portion of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which was then valued at $272 million.

In the middle of 1999, Lee says Jackson told him he'd gone through the $140 million and needed more money for his divorce settlement.

How does one man (person? eunuch? space alien?) go through $140 mil in a single year??

Coming soon: The MC Hammer/Michael Jackson bankrupted former multi-millionaire superstars tour!

THE AUSTIN POWERS/ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI CONNECTION REVEALED, on Tres Producers. OK, it's really, really, really, really, really tenuous, but I did get a kick out of this paragraph:

The vague details of a plot are now coming into focus: the buffoonery; the mangled language and logic; the social ineptitude; the insistence on defending himself although he is neither a lawyer, an American, nor (apparently) possessed of half a brain. Is it all a very clever defense strategy by real al Qaeda mastermind Sheikh Z. Moussaoui? The brains behind the operation, smooth operator, and international man of mystery?

THE NEW YORK SUN IS NOW ONLINE! (Thanks go to InstaPundit for pointing it out.)

I'm glad to see them online. My wife and I had a real challenge actually tracking down a hard copy of it during our last trip to New York. Hopefully when we go back next time, their circulation will have grown that much more. God knows the Times needs the competition!

NEAR DEATH WEIGHT-LOSS EXPERIENCE: Seeking a new image, New England Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis nearly lost his life.

TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN: Ryan Leaf calls it quits.

THE VIBRATOR POLICE: Matt Drudge links to an article about a Tampa Bay woman who is suing Delta for $15,000 because they allegedly "took her to the bag on the tarmac and forced her to open it 'and remove the adult toy and hold it up for visible view.'". The article goes on to say:

One side of the plane's passengers witnessed the scene, the lawsuit says, as three male Delta employees nearby "began laughing hysterically" and offered "obnoxious and sexually harassing comments."

After being forced to hold the item up for a minute, the suit says, Koutsouradis was allowed to re-pack and return to her seat for the flight to Tampa.

Now, leaving the batteries in the thing was dumb. But Delta's treatment was dumber. As is this quote by Michael Boyd, an airline planning and security consultant from Colorado, said embarrassing incidents have become more common with increased security by all airlines since Sept. 11.

Uh, I thought we wanted to encourage folks to travel, not humiliate them. Hey, isn't that one of the reasons Norman Mineta gives for why we can't profile folks?

THE FENDER FORUM: A new forum for fans of Fender guitars and amps, from the folks who brought you the Les Paul Forum.

Stop on by there, today!

IF YOU WANT TO GET DOWN, DOWN ON THE GROUND: Cocaine led to death of Who bassist John Entwistle.

(Link via The Brothers Judd Blog.)

DISCOVERY WINGS: I don't know if many cable companies have added this channel, a spin-off of the Discovery Channel, but the Discovery Wings channel, which basically consists of 24 hours of their assorted excellent Wings series is lots and lots of fun.

Via DirecTV, I'm currently watching their episode on the role of the Marine Corp's Harrier jets in Desert Storm (which hopefully is also a nice preview for their role in The Mother of the Mother of all Wars, coming soon to a Baghdad near you).

I'm not a real airplane buff, but the shows are usually so well structured and edited, that this network is highly recommended if you have DirecTV, or its on your local cable channel.

BIG WHEELS ROLLIN', MOVIN' ON: Cold Fury has some News, Views, and Random Cursing on what it's like to drive an 18-wheeler, and deal with crazed automobile drivers everyday. The whole post is excellent, but I particularly love this one:

7) This one is so obvious, I still can't believe the number of people who simply refuse to do it. So I'll put it in caps and throw in some profanity for emphasis, to make sure you remember: USE YOUR F**KING TURN SIGNALS, YOU G****MNED DOPE. It's truly difficult for me to comprehend why, but nobody does this anymore. What in the name of all that's holy is so difficult about this? Are you arthritic and find it hard to move your hand the 3 or 4 inches required to activate the little lever? Is the signal lever in your car hooked up to a half-ton of bricks in the trunk, therefore requiring the strength of an unshorn Samson to move the few millimeters required to activate those pretty blinking lights? Perhaps you belong to a heretofore-unknown sect of militant Islam that advocates bringing on the Jihad by fomenting Terror On The Highways? Whatever, just use the damn things. Make it a habit - it's not a hard thing, I promise. I can't react to whatever boneheaded move you're planning and maintain a safe distance between 80,000-pound me and 4,000-pound thee if you don't at least give me some hint of where you're going.

I don't know if it's a Silicon Valley thing, or if American driving schools in general have gone to pot, but since moving to California five years ago, I can't believe many drivers never use their turn signals. It's just astonishing.

Excellent post by H.D. Miller on his Travelling Shoes Weblog about the dangers of presidential candidates emulating JFK.

I think that compared with the liberals who followed him, Johnson, Nixon(!), Carter and Clinton, Kennedy was an OK guy, and a reasonably conservative Democrat (despite what Bill Clinton and Oliver Stone would like you to believe) whose rep has gotten knocked into the stratosphere because of his assignation. (I once bought a 1960 Mort Sahl comedy album in a used bookstore, and it was interesting to compare how similar he thought Nixon and Kennedy were, and how exceedingly average he thought both were, long before one was shot and the other embroiled in Watergate).

It is interesting how desirable a pre-fab image is to a presidential-wannabe in the era of television. And of course, Kennedy, his handlers, his follicular genetics, and barber essentially created the concept of "the television-friendly politician". (Marshall McLuhan spent thousands of words on this topic--amazing how out of everything he wrote in the 1960s, his ideas on television-friendly politicians are one of only a handful of his concepts that live on--often unknowingly by those who embrace them--to this day.)

And yet, Americans will embrace a maverick, quirky personality, if they feel that that man embraces their interest. As Miller notes, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and the Bushes all have unique styles, and all were successful at presidential politics.

One comment though. Miller writes:

While there have been scores of politicians who've done a good job of JFK mimicry, there are no politicians who've managed to successfully evoke the memory of Reagan. It's apparently not possible to do.

It's not. And this is not something we want to encourage. Al Gore looked absolutely ridiculous made up in Reagan-style ruddy colors during the first presidential debate. And while I'm glad if it contributed to his defeat, the amount of therapy required by voters on both sides of the isle was considerable, and is still being calculated.

(Link found via the Brothers Judd Blog.)

One of the many gulty pleasures of my mispent youth were taco-flavored Doritos. James Lileks understands what it's like to be addicted:

Doritos came along in early childhood. One flavor: Taco. That was it. How they reproduced the flavor of lettuce I'll never know. They were brownish and delicious and capable of producing acne in truly amazing quantities, even if you ground them up and inhaled them. But Taco was just the warm-up; in the late '70s, I think, Doritos rolled out Nacho Cheese, and Taco didn't stand a chance. Now and then I see a bag; I buy them, eat them, wash them down with Mr. Pibb and curse progress in all its forms.

Taco flavor failed because it gave too much. It cared too much. Every bite was bursting with chemicals. Nacho Cheese, on the other hand, was indifferently dusted; the amount of Nacho particles varied from batch to batch. Why? Why not douse every Dorito with Nacho flavor? Was there a strike in the Nacho mines, and production had halted? Had the Nacho Cartel cut back on supply to boost the price? Then you'd buy a bag that just plain got it right -- your hand would wear a furry orange Nacho mitt after a few dips in the package. You could only imagine that some employee had fought his way into the control room, duct-taped the engineers to their chairs, commandeered the machinery and set the Nacho dials to 11 while his captives gaped in horror: Good Lord, man! American palates cannot handle that amount of savory Nacho flavor! "I say they can! I strike this blow for under-Nachoed mouths across this land!" Then the next bag would be back to normal. (Recently Doritos relabeled their bags "Nacho Cheesier!" as if to say "sorry about the insufficiently flavored machine-formed corn triangles." Apology accepted.)

He's right. If ever a snack food cared too much, it was taco-flavored Doritos.

(Later on, I discovered they go very...interestingly with Martinis. Especially when watching The Harder They Come in your appartment at 1:00 in the morning.)

LEAVE IRAQ: The Aussies have been warned.

THE NO-FUN LEAGUE: Kids selling drinks and cookies booted out of Redskins camp.

THE RUBIN FALLACY: Excellent analysis of Robert Rubin's tenure as Treasury Secretary during the infamous Clinton versus Republicans budget standoff by Patrick Ruffini.

THE JONAH "AXE" GOLDBERG/ISAAC HAYES CONNECTION REVEALED: Start here, watch the video clip (warning kids: definitely PG-13 rated), scroll up for theme song.

IT HAS BEGUN: FOXNews.com is reporting that "Ailing Man Sues Fast-Food Firms".

Hopefully "big hamburger" won't cave as fast as big tobacco did when faced with these suits, and the rest of the insanity that goes with them.

FIVE POTENTIAL BLOCKBUSTERS THIS COMING NFL SEASON, according to DallasNews.com's Rick Gosselin.

(Registration may be required.)

ARE THE 49ERS PRIME TIME PLAYERS? John Clayton of ESPN.com says first they must solve the Rams' puzzle.

TERRELL OWENS UPDATE: Skip Bayless of the San Jose "Murky News" has some thoughts.

NASTY BREAKING SCANDAL IN PERU, according to Rod Dreher on The Corner Weblog on National Review Online.

Dreher writes "former President Alberto Fujimori forcibly sterilized 200,000 (!) poor women as part of a population control plan. This human-rights horror was partially paid for by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which the Bush Administration is refusing to fund."

THE ZIMBABWE VIRUS! Very, very scary details found on Mad Musings of Me.

Link found via Group Captain Mandrake. I wonder if Apples can be infected...

UPGRADE UPDATE: Speaking of Apples, Joanne Jacobs is tapping out her typically excellent Weblog on a snazzy new iMac. Silicon Valley thanks you for stimulating the economy!

GREIL MARCUS, POSEUR, according to Andrew Sullivan. Having seen the commercial in question about five times in two hours of watching DirecTV tonight, I'm with Sullivan--trying to implicate Dubya's role in American culture via a Subway ad is one helluva stretch.

NEGROPONTE GROKS 802.11: The director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab says that the wireless technology is behind a sea change that is developing worldwide in the telecom industry.

PREMIERE KISSOFF IS ON THE PHONE WITH THE REPOSSESSORS, AND HE'S HOPPING MAD! Pejman Yousefzadeh says that the Russians are withholding some of their top fighter jets from air shows for fears that they will be seized by creditors.

ROBERT RUBIN RECONSIDERED: Excellent letter from a reader to Andrew Sullivan.

TELL ME SOMETHING I DIDN'T KNOW: InformationWeek has an article whose headline is Book Business Keeps Amazon Afloat.

WAY TO GO AP: It's rare when you see stuff like this in newspaper articles, so I'd like to give Associated Press some congratulations for getting something right.

Buried at the end of an article titled "Woman Arrested in California Wildfire", were these two paragraphs:

Thomas Bonnicksen, a forest science professor at Texas A&M University and a national sequoia expert, said mammoth fires that have burned nearly four million acres this year in Western states should sound a warning to environmentalists whose opposition to forest management have allowed the undergrowth to proliferate.

"My only hope is that this threat to a national treasure will make people understand that the forests have to be managed," Bonnicksen said. "The sequoia is one of the most durable trees in the world, but it cannot resist this kind of fire -- it's too hot."

HOUSE EXPELS JIM TRAFICANT. AP says:

Representatives voted 420-1 to remove the nine-term Democrat for taking kickbacks from employees, encouraging the destruction of evidence, soliciting bribes and other gifts from businessmen and filing false income tax returns. A federal jury in Cleveland convicted Traficant of all of those offenses in April.

The expulsion takes effect immediately.

UPDATE--this is perfect:

The only member who voted against expulsion was Rep. Gary Condit, a California Democrat who was defeated in a reelection bid this year after being romantically linked to a missing federal intern.

NOAM CHOMSKY, CLOSET CAPITALIST: Little Green Footballs looks at some of Chomsky's larger acquisitions.

To paraphrase another famous radical, imagine no possessions, indeed!

TOXIC GREEN: Jeff Stier, an attorney for the American Council on Science and Health plans to use a little political jujitsu against a California organic foods company for violating state law.

ANOTHER REDESIGN: James Bowman's Website gets a redesign. It's very clean and handsome, but I'll definitely miss the Bowman-as-Sterling Hayden-as-Gen. Jack Ripper photo that used to be on every page!

CATS AND DOGS, PART II: Eric Alterman agrees with Podhoretz.

HAMAS KILLS ITS OWN: John Podhoretz is right on the money.

UPDATE: Here's Steven Den Beste's take on things.

THE MOUTH THAT BORED: The 49ers' Terrell Owens is at it again.

THE DOW IS UP AND DONAHUE'S DOWN: Sanity returns to America, if only briefly.

WHO'S OUR QB? The Cincinnati Bengals face their annual riddle.

MERE ALCOHOL DOESN'T THRILL ME AT ALL: Protein Wisdom links to a New York Daily News article about Al Sharpton's alleged use of high-powered white powder--and I don't mean his barber's talcum powder.

UPDATE: Sharpton files $1 billion libel suit against HBO.

THE ANTI-CHE! Bitchin' pro-capitalism products now available from Patrick Ruffini!

THE DASCHLE EXEMPTION: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle quietly slipped into a spending bill language exempting his home state of South Dakota from environmental regulations and lawsuits, in order to allow logging in an effort to prevent forest fires, according to this Washington Times story.

Hopefully he'll get it, so that every state will as well.

EVER SPARK UP A DUBER? Forget about joining the FBI, no matter how talented you are, according to this post on Instapundit.com

POST AND RUN: VodkaPundit makes a surprise guest appearance in the Blogosphere, in-between house guests, wedding plans and de-balling and de-clawing his cat.

THERE ARE WORSE WAYS TO GO: Pa. Man Dies in Vat of Chocolate.

CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER: The Brothers Judd defend David Corn, editor of that far left house organ, The Nation.

THE FAT TAX IS COMING, says Jonah Goldberg in his syndicated column.

MEDIA BIAS EXHIBIT A: Brent Bozell looks at the changing image of Larry Klayman as he goes from suing Clinton to Cheney.

"BUT OFFICER, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" The Tampa Tribune has an article about cops pulling motorists over for a light-rail survey.

They claim it's perfectly legal, but I'll bet they got some choice responses from their interviewees.

SPURRIER'S SECRET: Unlike Marty Schottenheimer, the new Redskins' coach is breaking in footballs, rather than breaking players' balls in his first NFL training camp as a head coach.

Will Spurrier's approach work? See you in September...

SIMON VERSUS DAVIS UPDATE via The Brothers Judd Blog.

SONGS THAT MAKE THE WHOLE WORLD SICK: Tim Blair has some examples of the worst in songwriting on his eponoymously-titled Weblog.

Links via The Blogger Formally Known as Sgt. Stryker.

Incidentally, the article that used quotes from my interview with the Sarge can be found here.

HOW TO BLOG IF THE WEB GOES DARK: Survival instructions from The Truth Laid Bear.

Link found on Group Captain Lionel Mandrake's Weblog.

FCC SAYS HIGH-SPEED INTERNET SUBSCRIBERS SOAR, according to this Reuters piece.

And here's James Glassman's recent piece on broadband.

WIFI METRO POSSIBLY "WINDING DOWN". I've written before about WiFi Metro, the company who created wireless Internet "hot zones" in several blocks of Palo Alto and San Jose. Its parent company, hereUare is on the block. If no buyer is found, the article says that WiFi metro could "wind down" and close up shop.

Link sent to me by Glenn Fleishman, the proprietor of the 802.11b Networking News Weblog.

THE OTHER WIRELESS FORMAT: I just discovered (via the 802.11 Networking News Weblog), that there's a Bluetooth Weblog!

While 802.11 has gotten the lionshare of recent publicity, due to its flexibility and ability to work over fairly large distances, Bluetooth is a short range wireless format that may have a variety of office and home automation uses (for example, sending data wirelessly to printers, and that sort of thing).

If you need a technology fix, stop by The Bluetooth Weblog!

FATHER KNOWS BEST? Reason looks at John Walker Lindh's parents--nonjudgmental open-mindedness taken to its very extreme.

SHORT THE NEW YORK TIMES, says this post by Jane Galt.

EX-MARINE, EX-U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR HAS GONE OFF THE DEEP END, says Travelling Shoes, in an excellent post found via the Brothers Judd. "For whatever reason, [Scott] Ritter, who I briefly thought was one of the good ones", H.D. Miller writes, "has become a serious crank, one who can be safely ignored." Read the whole post to see a stunning transformation in action.

SAN FRANCISCO MAN'S FLAGS ANGER PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT: Foxnews.com says Ed Yee was fined $5000 for putting American flags in flagpoles in Little Italy. The public works department cited him for "defacing" more than 70 light poles and fined him $5,000.

the Fox News article had this wonderful quote:

"You just can't go around and start sticking things you know anywhere you want," said Mohammad Nuru, deputy director for the San Francisco Public Works Department. "This city will not tolerate that."

Umm....errr.....it won't? San Francisco?? Where people come all the time to stick things anywhere they want?

Hey, irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

(Link found on Flyover Country.)

THE IRAN-AGENTINA CONNECTION? The New York Times reported today that Iran bribed Argentina's then-President Carlos Menem $10 million to cover up an anti-Jewish bombing in 1994. (Not suprisingly, the report was rejected by both Iran and Menem's family.)

Here's what Reuters says:

Argentine and Israeli security services have long blamed Iran for the car-bomb attack on a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Victims' families also blame the Menem government for failing to find culprits beyond a car thief and policemen who provided the vehicle and are only now on trial.

Two years before a bomb razed the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association, a strikingly similar attack hit the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people.

UPDATE: Matt Drudge says "Former Argentine President to Sue NY TIMES over Iran/Bribe Story; Says 'Defamatory' and Politically Motivated..."

THAT CAGEY OLD CAGE: If we remain silent, the terrorists may or may not have won, but we'll definitely owe John Cage thousands of dollars in royalties.

TOBACCO ROAD: Bruce Bartlett looks at the reasons why high cigarette taxes are worse than the effects of smoking, in National Review Online.

BEWARE THE ECONOMICS TEACHER WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND HIS SUBJECT, says Joanne Jacobs in Tech Central Station.

Back in the early to mid '90s, when I was doing financial planning, I can't tell you how many new clients would say something like "man, I never learned that in school", when I explained the basics (and I do mean basics) of the stock market, investing, the long term record of the DJIA, mutual funds, etc.

Jacobs' article explains why.

STARSKY AND HUTCH, CROCKETT AND TUBBS, AND OTHER COPS WITH COOL WHEELS have nothing on these guys.

INSTAPUNDIT GOES HIGH-TECH!

Yep. I'm typing this on an Altair 8080 in Electric Pencil. I'll upload it to my BBS (new 1200 baud modem! it's blazing fast!) where dozens of people will see it. Then I'm putting on my white suit and going dancing to the sounds of Evelyn Champagne King.

My TRS-80's modem is only 300 baud. No wonder that Insta-guy can crank out posts so quickly!

But disco, like totally sucks, dude. At least he didn't mention anything about roller-skating.

NOW THIS IS JUST SILLY: The Washington Times says that the Forest Service ordered removal of poles flying the American flag.

(By the way, sorry for the lack of posting this weekend. Much time was spent cleaning out the garage (which was starting to resemble the Xanadu storage rooms at the end of Citizen Kane) and getting the home ready for some much-needed improvements and renovations.)

HOW TO BE POST-MODERN: Will Wilkinson explains the Stanley Fish school of post-modernism and why po-mo is so evil.

See also this recent essay by Jonah Goldberg.

9/11 PILOT'S WIDOW SUPPORTS ARMING PILOTS, according to this CNSnews.com article.

UPDATE: And here are Thomas Sowell's thoughts.

ANN COULTER: I can't say I'm Ann's greatest fan, but this is one riot of an interview with her. Check out this riff:

At the moment, she is without a boyfriend; curiously, her last beau happened to be a Muslim. "The relationship was complicated by his interest in committing jihad," she jokes. "I took away his box cutters. At first, I thought he was a terrorist. I just kept on running into this handsome Muslim on the street. He was a fan of mine."

So was he stalking her? "He was, but he was a good-looking stalker. I'd been so looking for one of those."

UPDATE: Here's Coulter's take on Phyllis Schlafly, who received as many brickbats in the 1970s as Coulter gets today. (See also Orrin Judd's thoughts on Schlafly, complete with hyperlinks to her books and his reviews of them.)

OUT OF OPTIONS: Just as Group Captain Mandrake has been exploring the loss of civil liberties in England, the Brothers Judd Blog links to an excellent post by Iain Murray on England's crime, rapidly dwindling civility and what its options are. Orrin adds some of his thoughts on what the US's option are, and says that while we're a little better off (in general), the clock is ticking for us as well.

THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, A DEAN KAMEN PRODUCTION: Segway News says the Segway has come to San Francisco, if only for a temporary trial by the US Post Office.

OK, MAYBE WE ARE GOING TO PARTY LIKE IT'S 1999: Assorted headlines on the Drudge Report today:

Hillary Clinton Shouts Down Senator...

Little Rock Library Dogged By Controversy...

Tonight's Janet Reno dance party a hot ticket...

Gore Leads Polls on '04 Democratic Race

I don't mind the retro-thing, but I don't do Regis ties, OK?

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts on that last headline. If he's right, personally I can't wait to see the '08 model Gore run!

AMERICAN MUSLIM COUNCIL THREATENS JEWISH JOURNALIST: Howard Fienberg has the details on his Kesher Talk Weblog. Check out these quotes, from the Eli Kintisch, the journalist who was apparently threatened:

Could you imagine, I asked him, the outrage that would have followed if an official at a Jewish organization had kicked a reporter from an Arab paper out of an event? He apologized, saying he retracted any comment that I may have found threatening. "Sometimes people flare up," he told me, referring to the crowd. "I just wanted to protect us, the council, and you from that."

... Alamoudi may have been inclined to muzzle me because he's "been burned" in the past himself. In 2000, he told a Washington rally that "we are all supporters of Hamas." He added that he supported Hizbollah. Alamoudi says that he supports Hamas for its humanitarian efforts. In 1995 in The Washington Post, however, he defended Hamas leader Abu Marzook as "a moderate man on many issues. If you see him, he is like a child." American authorities deported Marzook to Jordan in 1997 after an American judge found probable cause that he had he had helped plan 10 terrorist attacks against Israeli targets.

I wish my run-in with Alamoudi, mentioned in this week's Weekly Standard, was an isolated case. But for all of my good relationships with officials at Arab-American organizations, Arab reporters and Arab diplomats, many members of the "other side" in town won't speak to me. Some Arab reporters in town are unwilling to meet a Jewish reporter, and I've never gotten my calls returned from Saudi, Syrian or Iranian diplomats here.

COMRADE FORD PILOTS DRIPPY SHIP: Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News says K-19: The Widowmaker has just enough pizzazz and novelty to keep it afloat, and gives it two and half stars:

The subtext of the movie is about being a good parent, a clash between the "good" father (Neeson) and the relentless one (Ford). The faceoffs provide the lead actors with plenty of meat. But because Ford is an executive producer, his bad guy isn't all that bad, ultimately, and he sees to it that he gets the most traffic-stopping speeches, even if his accent is all over the map and the script has him uttering such clunkers as "Men, you have done your duty for the Motherland!"

In the late '80s, I remember reading a GQ profile of Ford, where the author said that Ford knows his limitations as an actor, and accents were one of them. Too bad Ford seems to have forgotten that self-limitation: judging by the few minutes of trailers and commercials I've seen for K-19, Ford's Russian accent sounds painfully bad, right up there with Mr. Chekov from Star Trek and Boris from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

ARMEY REJECTS NATIONAL ID CARD AND DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE VOLUNTEERS: The Washington Times says "House Majority Leader Dick Armey, in his markup of legislation to create a Homeland Security Department, yesterday rejected a national identification card and scrapped a program that would use volunteers in domestic surveillance".

Good man.

JEWISH SCHOOL CHOICE: The Brothers Judd weigh in.

THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS HAVE A NEW $430 million stadium. Click the link for a description and photos.

HOW THE TIMES WISHES HISTORY UNFOLDED: Robert Leiter says the New York Times' bias in their Israeli reporting is becoming more and more obvious.

BUSINESSMAN AS HERO: Bob McNair spent 700 million dollars to bring football back to Houston.

Arnold Beichman asks the question, and has some thoughts, in The Washington Times.

TIME TO BUY? Remember that old "buy low, sell high" cliche? The first thing you learned about investing? Well, Reuters says, Stocks Hit 5-Year Low on Dismal Profits.

As a wise man once told me about investing, "where there is no fear, there is no value". This is NOT an investment blog. This is NOT meant to be investment advice. But, if you're in it for the long haul (by long haul, I mean at least five years), if you're patient, if you're diversified, this might be a very good time to consider buying.

Here's some historical data to chew on.

GOVERNORS VERSUS THE CONSTITUTION: Jon Reisman says that New England Governors pledge to implement Kyoto, and thereby violate the Constitution.

HONOR: James Bowman analyzes the events concerning Mukhtaran Bibi, (the 28-year-old divorced Pakistani woman condemned by a tribal council to be gang-raped as a punishment for a relationship her younger brother may or may not have had with a woman from a tribe of higher status) and The Road to Perdition with an emphasis on honor, in a similar fashion to the way Tom Wolfe has long used status as an organizing force in his writing.

THE GEORGE WALLACE/ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON CONNECTION, on readjacobs.com.

AOL HELL: Reason looks at the abortion that it is AOLTimeWarnerCNNWTBSCompuserve.

UPDATE: Bob Pittman is stepping down as the chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner Inc.

FLASHBACK: Here's my take from March 25, during this blog's Jurassic period.

TRANSPORTATION SECURITY CHIEF QUITS: AP says that John Magaw, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, resigned Thursday. No reason was given for his resignation, however Dave Kopel has some ideas, and some thoughts on the first steps for his successor, on National Review Online's The Corner.

And Kathryn Jean Lopez asks, "could Mineta be next?!"

We can only hope.

UPDATE: MSNBC has more on Magaw's resignation.

THE SEAM BETWEEN LAW AND WAR: Philip Carter says that by pleading guilty, John Walker Lindh has contributed to the American war on terrorism in two very important ways.

MEIN KAMPF: A bestseller in the Middle East, according to David Pryce-Jones.

Does this mean that the next Jordanian ad will show that little Johnny of Palestine wants to grow up to be Martin Bormann?

ALSO ON HAPPY FUN PUNDIT...The Janet Reno/George S. Patton connection.

Conclusive photographic evidence that the moon landings were faked, probably by the same folks who shot the news footage in Wag the Dog.

Link via the Happy Fun Pundit.

LAMBAEU LEAP INVENTOR RETIRES: Veteran NFL safety LeRoy Butler calls it quits, after 12 seasons, two Super Bowls (and one ring), four Pro Bowls and five All-Pro seasons, all with the Green Bay Packers.

In a game in December 1993 against the Raiders, Butler forced a fumble by running back Randy Jordan that Reggie White recovered and lumbered with 10 yards before pitching it to Butler, who scored his first career touchdown and celebrated by jumping into the stands.

The "Lambeau Leap'' became an entrenched tradition for wide receivers in the years that followed as the Packers went from also-rans to a perennial playoff team, reaching the Super Bowl twice and winning the championship following the 1996 season.

Only five players in the club's 83-year history played longer than Butler -- Starr (16 seasons), Ray Nitschke (15), Forrest Gregg (14), and Charles Goldenberg and Dave Hanner (13).

MEET THE NEW HOSS, SAME AS THE OLD HOSS: Don Banks of Sports Illustrated writes about new faces in new places in the NFL.

Of course, he left off the most impressive new face in a new place: Pat Tillman left the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army Rangers.

WE'RE NOT GOING TO PARTY LIKE IT'S 1934, SAYS REASON. Here's a sample:

"The last time we faced a hangover like this one, the president didn’t just talk, he acted," writes Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter. "In 1934 Franklin D. Roosevelt created something called the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate Wall Street." Alter went on to transcribe DNC’s talking points, dutifully copied by The Wall Street Journal’s house liberal, Al Hunt, and NBC’s Tim Russert, among others, noting that current SEC Commissioner Harvey Pitt was unfit for the job because he "came in talking about a ‘kinder, gentler SEC.’"

That Alter would compare 2002 to 1934 indicates that he’s about as grounded in reality as a WorldCom financial statement. The stock market is not the economy. And the economy of 2002 is not the economy of 1934.

In 1934, one in five Americans were unemployed -- and one in three for those who didn’t work on farms. The real economy had contracted by 37 percent from 1929 to 1934. Although it’s still disputed, many believe that it wasn’t the stock market crash of 1929 that caused the Depression, but the government’s response to it. A restrictive monetary policy caused banks to fail and businesses, starved for money, tanked in massive numbers.

Today, unemployment stands at 5.9 percent. There’s talk of a double-dip recession, but even the first dip is now being disputed. We’ve only actually experienced one quarter of negative economic growth. The stock market hasn’t crashed, as it did in 1929 or even 1987, when it collapsed 22 percent in a single day.

I'll never forget the last presidential election, watching Alter's tirade on NBC at about 1:30 in the morning Pacific Time when Alter demanded that Gore be handed the election, despite the outcome in Florida. (When Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert lecture you on the Constitution, as they did to Alter afterwards on the air, you know you're really out there.

The Reason article is a very good look at what's right and wrong with the economy today, and as usual, remarkably free of typical journalistic spin.

SELLING MARTYRDOM: Little Green Footballs links to a very, very strange ad campaign filled with Palestinian kids emulating famous celebrities and western European icons they'd like to be when they grow up.

In an astonishing bit of irony, the campaign includes such images as John Lennon, Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, and other pacifists and proponents of peace who (we'd like to think), would be appalled by suicide bombers and all other forms of terrorism.

Err, didn't Lennon sing "Give peace a chance"? "War is over, if you want it"? "You'd better recognize your brothers, join the human race"? "Imagine all the people living life in peace"? Hey, it all sounds incredible trite, simplistic and silly in retrospect (it sounded the same back then as well, to anybody over 16 years old), but at least his emphasis wasn't on murder.

And if the Palestinians had had the sense to try Ghandi's non-violent tactics 20 years ago, instead of suicide bombers, it's a pretty safe bet they'd have their state by now.

Mideast Truth, the bloggers whom LGF links to, write "Noticeably absent from the aspirations of the young children.....to be Muslim. In fact if you look at the list of people they model themselves after, you'll see a few Jews and a bunch of Christians. No Mohammed's in this list!"

(Check out the comments as well on the LGF site, to get some idea of just how strange/sick/ill-conceived/bizarre, etc. this campaign is.)

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Dawson Jackson has much more graphic photos that probably won't be part of a Palestinian ad campaign anytime soon.

ADVANTAGE: ED! Nick Denton links to a Wired article that says hydrogen powered cars will be ready in a decade. "Apply the Wired discount", Denton adds cheekily, "that means they'll be on the roads by 2022 or so". He adds, "And then we can dump the Saudis."

I wrote about hydrogen powered cars a year ago, when I interviewed Syd Mead, automobile designer extraordinaire, who designed the Spinner flying police cars for Blade Runner.

THE MOBILE WEB: I have an article in today's Tech Central Station on 802.11b Wireless Internet. Stop on by there a few hundred times today!

UPDATE: When I wrote the piece on 802.11 for Tech Central Station, I said:

There needs to be either the equivalent of the roaming services that allow a cell phone to be used across the country, or one 802.11 provider needs to step up to be the next AOL or AT&T to provide national, universal coverage. Currently, the typical business user of 802.11 who travels has to have separate accounts and pay for three to five different wireless providers to get anywhere near reasonable coverage while traveling.

As I posted yesterday, the New York Times says that a nationwide 802.11 service may be coming, thanks to a coalition including Intel, IBM, AT&T Wireless and several other wireless and Internet service providers including Verizon Communications and Cingular.

Smart move!

REDUCTION IN UK CIVIL LIBERTIES: Group Captain Mandrake continues his regular series, with further proof that they're official.

SPIDER-MAN: COMING IN NOVEMBER ON DVD. The Digital Bits has details and cover photos. (Start with the photos, then scroll down for the details.)

And here's my review of the film, from early May.

MEN IN HOSPITAL: Group Captain Mandrake says that just about every time director of Men in Black I and II, Barry Sonnenfeld makes a movie, he ends up in hospital. During Men In Black II he suffered a heart attack. Mandrake includes this quote from the UK Telegraph:

"I was rushed to Bellevue and had all the tests. My dad's cardiologist came and saw me the next day, and they did echo-cardiograms and all that stuff, and then she went, 'His heart's in great shape. There's no blockage. It's strong. It's a great heart. However, this is the most stressed-out, uptight human being I have ever met in my life. You must immediately get him into meditation.' And my producer said, 'No, no, no, no. He was meditating when he had the heart attack."

NATIONAL WIRELESS INTERNET LINK IN PLANNING STAGES, according to this New York Times article.

THE BETAMAX OF WORLD HISTORY. Jonah Goldberg does one of the things he does best--bashing the French, and having lots of fun doing it:

While most of the West, if not the world, is Americanizing for good and for ill, France remains determined to stay French. The beautiful jabbering they call the French language is disappearing like an ornate sandcastle washed over by the global English tide. French officials debate for years over whether words like CD-rom are acceptable cultural imports (It's not. "Cederom" is the accepted form), while the rest of the world increasingly treats France as the Betamax of world history — an interesting alternative, but no less irrelevant for it.

This would be touching, save for the fact that France increasingly defines being "French" as disagreeing with the United States. We support Israel, so the French hate Israel (and they really do hate it). McDonald's is American, so noodle-armed French intellectuals flex their wine muscles by tearing apart a few Mickey D's (even as France remains among the biggest consumers of Big Macs in the world). We say the war on terrorism is important, so they say it isn't. We say Osama bin Laden launched the attack on 9/11, and so the number-one bestseller in France says the Pentagon attacked itself.

You can see the problem here. If you want a culture which is defined by thinking and doing the opposite of another culture, that's fine. The British played this game with the French and became the pedestal upon which liberty, the rule of law, and the free market rest while France, in the words of Thomas Carlyle, remained simply a long despotism tempered by epigrams.

GEFFEN SHRUGS: Brian Doherty of Reason asks "What does it take to get liberals sounding like Ayn Rand in defense of property rights?" Having their own property threatened.

WATCH MCCAIN, says Rod Dreher, on National Review Online's The Corner:

the corporate scandals might give John McCain an opening here to challenge Bush for the GOP nomination in 2004. Whatever else it did, his campaign finance reform crusade (which I didn't support, on First Amendment grounds) gives him a history of being against "corporate fatcats." If anything, he's more hawkish than Bush on the war, which is the president's strong suit. And the media love him. If the bear market continues over the next year, the country goes into a double-dip recession, and things go awry with Saddam ... whaddaya think? Might Bush have to slay that dragon before taking on the Democrat in the fall?

JOHN LINDH=NELSON MANDELA?? Check out this quote from John Walker Lindh's father:

Frank Lindh said he told his son after he was brought back to the United States that South African leader "Nelson Mandela served 26 years and I told him to be prepared for something like that."

THE TELLTALE QUOTATION MARKS: Spotted on the Little Green Footballs site.

FIGHTING FOR THE POUND IN THE UK: No, not the kind that you spend, the kind that you weigh. Group Captain Mandrake reports on how one man who tried to carry on selling fruit and vegetables in pounds and ounces has finally lost his battle. It went all the way to the House of Lords in the UK. He has not been given leave to appeal. As Mandrake says, "The legislation he was defying came, unsurprisingly, from the Eurocrats".

SOME CHOOSE COUNTRY OVER FOOTBALL: ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli (who's responsible for about 75 percent of the NFL content on their site these days), lists the other athletes besides Pat Tilman who've chosen to serve their country over playing in the NFL.

THE THIRD WAY ENDETH in England, according to Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan says:

In perhaps the most important decision of its six years in office, the Blair government in Britain has reverted to the old socialist past. It has raised taxes and now it's going to pour billions into public services. No real reforms needed. In a way, it's clarifying. Labour cannot reform public services, cannot privatize them but cannot afford the political cost of their deterioration. So they're back to tax and spend - big time. The danger, of course, is that the services don't improve even then. Then the backlash will be intense and the Tories given another chance. My prediction: the British welfare state will barely exist in its current form in a decade's time.

HE SHOULD HAVE USED POLYGRIP: Skydiving cameraman filmed his false teeth falling out of his mouth at 9,000 feet during his first jump.

PASSWORDS AND PINS CAUSE STRESS, according to Ananova.

You know, in an era of worldwide terrorism, a shaky economy, a rocky stock market, an overactive government, an out of control European Union, and other serious issues, having to remember a few passwords and pins is not my idea of stress.

Let me put it another way: if your pins and passwords are causing you major stress...count your blessings--your life is in great shape.

JACKSON'S PEOPLE TO BLAME. MuchMusic has this item about Jackson's ongoing feud with Sony:

We all know by now that Michael Jackson is mad at Sony Music for apparently not promoting his album, ‘Invincible’ and for reportedly refusing to release his charity single, ‘What More Can I Give.’ But now, according to The Los Angeles Times it was actually Jackson’s advisors and not Sony who put a halt to the release. Jackson’s people apparently wanted the single shelved after learning that the song’s executive producer, F. Marc Schaffel, had ties to the gay pornography industry, specifically directing and producing a number of films. Obviously this new information contradicts what Jackson has been saying all along and can only hurt the ongoing feud he has with Sony. Jackson’s representatives would not comment on the latest developments but did tell The Times that when they, and Jackson, discovered Schaffel’s background, they immediately ended their association with him.

HAPPY 25th ANNIVERSARY, KEMP-ROTH! Here's an excerpt from the Washington Times' tribute:

The Congressional Budget Office, for example, believed the money supply had nothing whatsoever to do with inflation, and that cutting tax rates would add fuel to it. CBO Director Alice Rivlin said output would fall if tax rates were cut, because workers could work less and still get the same after-tax income.

A commonly held view at the time was that it would either take decades to bring inflation down to tolerable levels or another Great Depression. Arthur Okun of the Brookings Institution reflected the views of most economists when he said in 1977 that the economy would shrink by 10 percent for every 1 percent fall in the inflation rate.

To his credit, Ronald Reagan rejected the conventional view and supported Kemp-Roth, making it his principal campaign issue in 1980. Jimmy Carter, who endorsed the establishment's thinking, rejected tax cuts as inflationary. He said inflation was just due to a lot of bad luck — oil price increases by Arab countries, bad harvests and the like. Mr. Carter never once took responsibility for inflation's rise from 4.9 percent in Gerald Ford's last year to 13.3 percent in 1979 and 12.5 percent in 1980.

Kemp-Roth was considered reckless even by Republicans — George H.W. Bush called it "voodoo economics" and Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, Tennessee Republican, called it a "riverboat gamble." But Mr. Reagan pressed ahead with a tight money policy at the Fed and a sharp reduction in tax rates in 1981. And as he, Mr. Kemp and Mr. Roth knew would happen, the economy not only recovered, but inflation collapsed to about 4 percent throughout the 1980s.

To this day, none of the economists who predicted hyperinflation from the Reagan-Kemp-Roth tax cut have ever acknowledged the gross error of their predictions. They just pretend the whole thing never happened. Yet the 180-degree turnaround in the American economy from the 1970s to the 1980s took place and cannot be denied. Without Jack Kemp and Bill Roth, it might not have happened.

For more on Kemp-Roth, and the supply-siders of the 1970s, check out Jude Wanniski's The Way The World Works, or the out-of-print, but worth searching for The Seven Fat Years by former Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley.

NEW LOOK, SAME STYLE: Libertarian Samizdata has a new look, having moved off Blogger into swank Sekimori-designed digs. Check them out at, and redirect your bookmarks to: www.samizdata.net/blog

THE TRUEST SPORT: JOUSTING WITH STEVE DEN BESTE. The good captain of the USS Clueless discusses WWII, modern era, and aerial dogfights with dragons with his usual eloquence.

(Bonus points if you can guess what the inspiration for the above headline was!)

THE SKY IS FALLING! THE DOW JONES IS PLUMMETING! Larry Kudlow has some reasons to keep the faith:

For those who still hold to the longer-term view of personal finance, which is the key to successful investing, today's market averages look to be nearly 40% undervalued.

For those policy makers among you, a 4% economy could be turned into a 6% economy over the next few years if the government would reliquify the gold price to $350 (or even $400), eliminate the double taxation of dividends, lower the capital gains tax, and accelerate planned income-tax cuts. Add to that the elimination of the steel tariff and a once-and-for-all dead Osama bin Laden, and we'll be sitting pretty.

For those of you who have faith, now's the time to rely on it. Faith defeats the forces of darkness. Faith brings on the forces of good. The stock market has survived tough runs before, and it will do so again.

WANTED: EJUCATER. Reason's Daily Brickbat column has this item today:

A national advertising campaign designed to attract a team of leading education advisers to Manchester, England, to improve the city's schools contained no less than 21 mistakes. One paragraph included the phrase: "If you think you have what it takes to make a significant and lasting impression to Education attainment in one of the Country's most dynamic and forwarding looking authorities...."

AMERICAN TALIBAN LINDH CUTS PLEA BARGAIN, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

THE ULTIMATE JET-SKI:

Cost of water skis: $250.00
Cost of tow cable: $35.00
Rental of F-14 Tomcat and trained Navy pilot: $120,000/hr

Experience of water skiing at mach 2.0? Priceless.

There are some things that money can't buy. For everything else, there's Photoshop. Err, Visa.

BUT WILL KRIS KRISTOFFERSON CO-STAR? MuchMusic says that "still riding the success of ‘Men In Black II’, word has come out that [Will] Smith is in talks to star in the remake of ‘A Star Is Born.’ Smith is considering the project that will be directed by Joel Schumacher."

The first version of A Star Is Born came out in 1937. The remake with Judy Garland and James Mason came out in 1954. The Streisand/Kristofferson rock and roll version was released in 1976. Considering that Hollywood is in California, isn't there an environmental or health law on the books there that says you can only recycle something so many times before it goes stale, or biodegrades, or loses it flavor on the bedpost overnight or something?

ANOTHER ONE GOES FISHIN': James Lileks takes a couple of weeks off from his popular, and stylishly retro-styled style Bleat to finish a book project.

But we're still on the job. And if news breaks out, fear not! We'll put lots of Mercurochrome, Vaseline and hydrogen peroxide on it, not to mention a few Band-Aids with Batman and Star Trek logos on them, just to be on the safe side.

Sgt. Stryker mentions the HIV positive muppet that's going to join the cast of the South African version of Sesame Street this coming television season, and no doubt, eventually, the American version of the show. I can't help but think he's yet another example of Muggeridge's Law in action.

On the other hand, James Taranto describes it as a case of life imitating The Onion (scroll about two thirds down the page for Taranto's comments and links).

SGT STRYKER JOINS THE RUSSIAN NAVY! Err, actually, he reviews the upcoming film K-19: The Widowmaker, starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson (who are both probably glad that George Lucas isn't directing them).

BLOGGER ARCHIVES: I seem to have gotten hit by the dreaded Blogger Archive Bug today. Everything posted after 1:00 p.m. today seemed to be showing up in the archives, so I tried republishing my archives after setting everything posted today to after that time.

We'll see it that works. In the meantime, here's another fix courtesy of InstaPundit, who recently left Blogger. I'm tempted to do so myself, if these problems continue.

TINY FLICKERS OF SANITY IN ENGLAND: Libertarian Samizdata links to a Daily Telegraph article that reports that a farmer who was accused of shooting intruders at his home has been acquitted. Frederick Hemstock, who had claimed he intended to fire the gun in the air to frighten two intruders, has been cleared of deliberately shooting one of them.

THE BACKFENCE: James Lileks researches temporal anomalies at Target, and canine OS rebooting subroutines, in his column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

"BOYCOTTING THE JUDEN": David Tell of The Weekly Standard looks at Professor Mona Baker, Egyptian native "and professional Jew hater", as she commits to racially cleansing her academic journal, a magazine perfectly titled "Studies in Intercultural Communication". (Tom Wolfe couldn't make this stuff up if he tried. But I wish he would.)

Here's my post from when this item first broke.

THE NUDITY RIDER: The sultry Linda Fiorentino wasn't in MIB II (her character is apparently back at the morgue). But The Smoking Gun Web site has her "nudity rider," a marvelous legal document that describes exactly what parts of her can and can't be shown.

It's an astonishing example of art (ummm) and commerce intersecting in Tinsel Town in ever more strange and mysterious ways. How come none of my contracts are this interesting??

MORE ON THE BIRKENSTOCKED BURKEANS, from the Brothers Judd.

Here's our take, from Friday.

REDUCTION IN UK CIVIL LIBERTIES: Group Captain Lionel Mandrake continues his multi-part series, on the latest insanities from the "more civilized" government across the pond.

Hint: Mandrake says, "It's a quiet Sunday morning and I am already foaming at the mouth."

MEN IN BLACK II: Nina and I saw MIBII on Friday night. If you're among the five people in America who haven't seen it yet, here's my take: the same formula that made the first MIB work helps this film overcome a certain lack of energy and dissipated plot. Lots of funny lines, genuine chemistry between Tommy Lee Jones and his gruff character and Will Smith and his young hot-shot hipster role, nice good girl/bad girl combination of Rosario Dawson (who's a serious cutie) and Lara Flynn Boyle, great gadgets, and SFX.

At 88 minutes, the film is ten minutes shorter than the first MIB, perhaps because the ending was altered in light of 9/11 (the WTC was to play a role in MIB II. But like every Hollywood film released after 9/11, it's gone, as if Winston Smith of 1984's Ministry of Truth were the number one editor in Hollywood). To make up for the reduced length, there is a cute ten minute or so Pixar-style computer animated trailer at the beginning of the film.

If the first film worked for you, the sequel will probably be just acceptable enough for a fun night at the movies. But you're not really not missing all that much if you hold out for it on DVD: even with some amazing special effects, it really does play like Men in Black: The TV Movie.

DORSEY LEVENS SIGNS WITH EAGLES: Levens is the fourth-leading rusher in Green Bay Packers history, but at 32, he's on the tail-end of his career, and was cut for salary cap purposes by the Pack in February. He signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles on Friday, to replace Correll Buckhalter, who will miss the season with a knee injury, and possibly split time with Duce Staley. It doesn't hurt that Eagles coach Andy Reid was an offensive assistant at Green Bay during the first five of Levens' eight seasons with the Packers.

LA VIDEOTAPER--TROUBLED, HOMELESS NADER FAN, according to the L.A. Times. The L.A. Examiner Web site (which is fast becoming a great way to get caught up on L.A. news fast), says the Times' coverage includes these highlights:

Mitchell Crooks moved to LA three years ago to make his fortune as a rave deejay, but ended up occasionally homeless and desperate...After taping the Donovan Jackson head-slam, Crooks sold copies of the video to TV stations for $150 a pop. He’s also a political nut: The Times describes him as a "a Green Party supporter who adores Ralph Nader and hates President Bush"; Hanna said Crooks wouldn’t give CBS a copy because the network "blew" the 2000 presidential election by calling it too early, and told ABC representatives they couldn’t have the tape unless they reinstated Bill Maher’s "Politically Incorrect." His mother Patricia Crooks, who raised Mitchell alone, said his terror of police came from when he had some of his hair yanked out by a guard in juvenile hall.

THE McCAIN MUTINY: Speaking of "conservatives" who've strayed very, very far from the path, John Fund looks at McCain's blocking of Bush's judicial nominees, to champion a liberal Democrat.

PAT HOOKS UP WITH TAKI AND PRODUCES TACKY SOUNDING TAC: Pat Buchanan, with the aid of the deep pockets of Taki Theodoracopulos (or Taki, as he signs his byline), scion to a Greek shipping fortune, is launching a new magazine called The American Conservative, or TAC for short.

Given how alienated Buchanan's more-or-less anti-Semitic (or, to be charitable, anti-Zionist) paleoconservative anti-free trade views have made him, and how removed they are from mainstream conservative thinking, it's tough to see this one succeeding. And not surprisingly, The New Republic and National Review agree.

REDUCTION IN CIVIL LIBERTIES IN THE UK, on Group Captain Mandrake's Weblog.

BLACK MARKET SMOKES UPDATE: Back on Friday, July 5th, we linked to two Reason articles on how the astronomical (and rising!) taxes on cigarettes has created a thriving black market.

Today, AP ran an article on the same subject, titled States Brace for Cigarette Backlash.

Advantage, EdDriscoll.com! (Not to mention Reason.)

ICC IMMUNITY FOR AMERICAN PEACEKEEPERS: The USS Clueless has the European reaction.

IRAQI WEAPONS AT A GLANCE: Estimates of Iraq’s remaining stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, via Little Green Footballs.

LONGEST SERVIVING POLITICAL PRISONER IN CHINA, a Tibetan Scholar, Arrives in U.S.

AP says:

By all accounts China's longest-serving political prisoner, Jigme Sangpo, a primary-school teacher, was first sentenced to three years of "re-education through labour" in 1965, according to the London-based Tibet Information Network, a monitoring group. It cited "reliable reports" as indicating that he also served a 10-year sentence from 1970-1980 for political activities.

Jigme Sangpo was arrested again in September 1983 and sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of "counterrevolutionary incitement and propaganda" for campaigning against Chinese rule in Tibet, according to Kamm.

His sentence was extended twice after that and had been due to expire on Sept. 3, 2011, when he would be in his mid-80s. Prison authorities exempted him from physical labor several years ago because of his age, Kamm said.

EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE IS GEORGE W. BUSH'S FAULT, according to Rich Galen.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Ann Coulter agrees.

SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS: Reuters has a look at Dot-Coms Still Hanging on After the Gold Rush, and find a few.

DARPA DRONES: The US Air Force shows off robot planes of the future.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, a scale model of a Japanese supersonic jetliner crashed into the Australian desert Saturday and exploded shortly after it was launched Sunday on the back of a booster rocket. It was designed to test the concepts behind a Concorde-style passenger aircraft.

Meanwhile, UPI says that Russia has lost track of an experimental space vehicle.

C-SPAN SUPERSTAR: Patrick Ruffini looks at Brian Lamb.

For well over a decade, I've loved watching Lamb on Booknotes. I've been introduced to many fine books--and their authors--from that show.

NFL DYNASTIES A THING OF THE PAST? Kevin Holtsberry, on his Pigskin football blog, links to an article by ESPN.com's Gregg Garber that says "NFL Dynasties Are No Longer Possible." Holtsberry says, "Let's agree for the sake of argument that this is true. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? If you have an opinion leave a comment, post an answer, send me an email, etc. I will post the results and/or links and then post my response."

My take? It's a bad thing. I grew up loving the dynasties of the 1970s--the Cowboys, Steelers, and Raiders, and reading up on the dynasties of the past (the Packers of the '60s, the Giants of the '50s. The Colts of the '50s and '60s). Dynasties brought a consistency to the league, and a certain amount of expectation. And when someone new arrived on the block to challenge those dynasties (the Oilers in the late 1970s, the Niners in the early 1980s), it made it fun to watch.

To my mind football is about consistency, teamwork and planning. And a rollercoaster league where a team is 4-12 the year before and goes the Super Bowl this year has something waaaaay out of whack.

Rod Dreher has a fun article in National Review Online called "Birkenstocked Burkeans--Confessions of a granola conservative."

As someone who shares some cultural interests that might be considered a bit err, liberal by some (modern art and architecture, cool jazz from the 1950s and '60s, rock music, Philip Glass, and Stanley Kubrick), but whose politics are libertarian/Conservative/classical liberal, etc., I really enjoyed this piece. And judging by the responses that Dreher has posted in NRO's Corner Weblog, apparently, so have a lot other people.

Admittedly, a lot of these interests stem from my college days, when I was apolitical, naive, uninformed (hell, unformed!) but I'm not going to jettison them now, simply because I enjoy them. (But no Granola please. I'm allergic to nuts for one thing, and quite frankly, I'd rather have the crisp shrimp in mustard sauce at The Four Seasons.

Its funny--when I was a 20-something doing financial planning and investment advising in the South Jersey, people who didn't know me thought I was the token liberal. And now that I'm in California, I'm the token Ike-fan whose appearance is seemingly stuck in the 1950s (if not earlier).

Go figure.

UPDATE: In case the Bobos reference in the above title flies over your head, check out these review of David Brooks' Bobos in Paradise by Orrin Judd and Robet Locke. And then go buy a copy today--it's a fun read about a significant new class in America.

HEY, NO KIDDING: the safety board and the Transportation Department released a report saying that Transportation Deaths Rose in 2001.

Terrorists slamming passenger aircraft into buildings will tend to do that.

THE RUSSIANS HAVE LANDED!! And they've brought 2 million barrels of crude oil with them.

MORE ON THE PLEDGE: Instapundit.com has links to an interesting new development in the case. Orrin Judd also weighs in with very apropos Tawana Brawley reference.

CITIZEN DVD: Back in November, I wrote about the then-recent DVD of Citzen Kane for Spintech, with an emphasis of the film's sociological impact, both then and now.

The Digital Bits has recently posted their review, with an emphasis on the content of the discs. Bottom line: Every movie buff needs this DVD in their collection.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN MUCH WORSE: Little Green Footballs says that "according to new calculations by a Swarthmore College physics professor, the hijacked jets came very close to toppling the World Trade Center Towers on impact."

WHY ISN'T PRESIDENT BUSH IN FAVOR OF ARMING PILOTS? Reason wants to know. Their article includes this stinging line: "As one conservative wag put it, while pilots fighting back is verboten, 'allowing them to be stabbed in the back with box cutters seems to be okay.'"

Ouch.

BLACKS AND JEWS: Howard Fienberg of Kesher Talk has an update on the Congressional Black Caucus, their support of anti-Israeli terrorists, and the political flak they're receiving from it.

ACTIVISTS PLAYED ROLE IN FOREST FIRES, says the US Forest Service.

TORONTO IS FILTHY, and in the midst of a rancorous garbage strike, according Erynn Dineen-Porter of the Breakfast of Champions blog.

RECENTLY DEPARTED GIANTS: Roger Ebert has essays on John Frankenheimer and Rod Steiger.

END GAME: Roger D. Carstens, an Army Special Forces officer at Fort Bragg, N.C., has some thoughts on what happens next between the US and Iraq.

Meanwhile, Arnaud de Borchgrave, UPI's Editor-at-Large, has some thoughts about Saddam Hussein's war plan. While I don't doubt that Saddam could have some truly nasty aces up his sleeves, pant legs, and I don't-want-to-know-where-else, it sounds like de Borchgrave has really fallen for Saddam's bluster and bull_ _ _t.

STOP THE SUBWOOFERS! (My wife, who never ceases to embarrass me, has asked that I print this on my weblog. This is her pet cause du jour...)

Dear Concerned and Responsible members of the Blogosphere,

I am calling on you to use the power of the Blogosphere, such as it may be, to start a totally inaccurate, completely unsubstantiated, and just plain made up out of thin air, rumor.

Why, you may ask, am I asking responsible people to do this? Well, it is for a good cause. And if you hear me out, I think you’ll agree.

I have come up with a way to stop young men (and it is mostly younger men who do this) from playing their car stereos with the subwoofers turned all the way up. I would like to start the rumor that the vibration caused by sitting in a confined space, like a car, with the subwoofer blaring, causes, after a period of time, sudden and irreparable impotence in men.

There is one thing that everyone young man wants more than having the loudest subwoofer on the block. So, as they say – “when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds follow.” The fear of impotence is strong enough that even an unsubstantiated rumor that these vibrations might cause it is enough to start a trend of behavior modification.

In fact, the terror of failing hydraulics may be so great that this rumor might even become a self-fulfilling prophesy, which could be very amusing to think about. After all, impotence is one of those things that can be caused by worrying about getting it.

I know you are all thinking…. but what can I do? I agree overactive subwoofers are a blight on my neighborhood. But no one who rides around with their subwoofer turned all the way up reads my weblog. Well, that’s where the challenge is. Think of it as an experiment in the power of the Blog – how do you reach the unwashed masses? And while you’re at it, how do you explain the difference between sterility and impotence?

My guess is that there is at least some minimal crossover between the Blogosphere and SubwooferWorld, and that if you will all just put your blogging noses to the grindstone, and your blogging shoulders to the wheel, that collectively we can start this rumor and give it legs.

To jump start things, I have created a modest license place holder that says, simply “subwoofers cause impotence.” They can be purchased at the Stop Road Noise Store at Cafe Press. The rest I leave to you. Won't you please help? A little mention in your Blog could bring so much peace and quiet to your neighborhood.

(I can't believe I let her talk me into posting this. Say, I wonder if the French Foreign Legion will accept humiliated ex-bloggers...)

LAW SUITS WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE: So, Sony and Tommy Mottola decide to sue Michael Jackson for slander. Since Mottola was slandered in his profession, he doesn’t even have to prove actual damages (says my wife the lawyer). So it would be sufficient to say that being called racists in a business with that many black artists would, on its face, "tend directly to injure him in respect to his office, profession, trade or business, either by imputing to him general disqualification in those respects which the office or other occupation peculiarly requires, or by imputing something with reference to his office, profession, trade, or business that has a natural tendency to lessen its profits." In non-legalese, Sony and Mottola have a good case.

Then Jackson’s attorneys come up with the only defense possible--the "who would believe anything Michael Jackson says anyway" defense. OK, it’s not on the books yet, but more than one slander action has been defending on the lines that the statements were pure hyperbole and not meant to be taken seriously. So why not a "who would believe anything Michael Jackson says anyway" defense?

Either way – the lawsuit is a winner. Either Sony wins and that’s probably a good thing, considering Sony is the successor to Columbia Records, who brought the music of Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, Cab Calloway, Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Lester Young, George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham, Wynton Marsalis, Kenny Barron, etc., etc., into our homes. Or Jackson is forced to admit he’s become a laughing stock. Either way the public is served.

JIVING WITH THE JACKSON TWO: Jonah Goldberg's latest syndicated column in The Washington Times takes on the Jackson Two: Jesse and Michael. Here are a couple of excerpts:

The first Jackson, the Rev. Jesse Jackson spoke at the 93rd annual meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People this week. He called President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft "the most threatening combination" to civil rights in his lifetime.

Now, Jackson was born in 1941. In the last 61 years we've seen some daunting combinations: Hitler and Tojo, Captain and Tennille, Darth Vader and the Emperor - oh wait, that Star Wars stuff happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, long before Jackson was born.

I know, I know: I'm deliberately misinterpreting Jackson's point. He was talking about African-Americans and the threats they face here at home. But, you know what? That assertion is batty too. George Wallace and J. Edgar Hoover formed a pretty daunting combo. So did Bull Connor and his dogs.

Meanwhile, the tag team of Bush and Ashcroft have done exactly nothing to threaten African-Americans - unless of course you think fighting terrorism, appointing blacks to the highest levels of government and letting Ted Kennedy write the administration's education policy is somehow the same thing as siccing German shepherds on black kids in Selma.

* * * While it's tempting to be outraged by the cynicism of the Jackson Two, the more appropriate response is relief. You see, such desperation is a clear indication that the battle for civil rights has been won. These tired has-beens have to imagine transgressions because there are no real ones to complain about. It's sad for them, but happy news for the society as a whole.

In the words of the immortal Gary Cooper, yup.

HOUSE OKs BILL TO ARM PILOTS: But...

Despite the strong House support, prospects in the Senate were not good for the legislation. Besides the White House, those opposing it include Ernest Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat who heads the Senate Commerce Committee.

REVIVING THE TECH SECTOR: Jeffrey A. Eisenach says its the key to reviving the economy as a whole--and I tend to agree with him.

Eisenach is right to be a big proponent of broadband in his article. I just finished a reasonably detailed article on PVRs for Home Automation magazine. Both Sonicblue (aka ReplayTV) and TiVo have big plans to allow their broadband-enabled PVRs to download (and possibly upload as well) movies, TV shows, rock videos, self-published Wayne's World-type shows, etc., via a broadband connection. But it's all down to getting broadband in as many homes as possible. And that won't happen without a consistent regulatory policy set in place by people who get the technology, what it can do, and what it will lead to.

ORRIN JUDD INTRODUCES MAUREEN DOWD TO "THE RED STATES", on the Brothers Judd Blog.

IT HAD TO HAPPEN SOONER OR LATER: The Onion says that the Death Star is adding a day care center.

BLOGGER ARCHIVES: While Blogger Pro doesn't seem affected (at the moment), regular Blogger archives are royally screwed up. I haven't been able to link to specific posts of GC Mandrake or the Brothers Judd, or most of the Blogger-based, err bloggers all week.
Anybody have any idea when this will be resolved?

PASS THE DUCHIE, MANDRAKE: Group Captain Lionel Mandrake reports on the plans by the English government to reclassify cannabis (we call it maize--err, marijuana), as "a less dangerous drug to free-up police resources to fight hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine".

While I'm not one to light up spliffs of the chronic (a little reggae and rap lingo cross-pollination there, to pretend that I'm hip), for fear of getting hooked on Teletubby reruns, I do think that freedom also includes the freedom to do questionable (not to mention stupid) things, so long as you don't hurt others.

UPDATE: NRO's Andrew Stuttaford also weighs in.

CLASSROOM CRIMINALS: Joanne Jacobs has several examples of why it's damn-near impossible for a teacher to get fired, even if he's sued, or found guilty on criminal charges!

YOU WILL BELIEVE A CHEESE-EATING SURRENDER MONKEY CAN FLY: An Air France pilot arbitrarily declares Palestine a state over his plane's intercom.

(Link found via Jonah Goldberg on NRO's The Corner. Jonah, with a little help from Groundskeeper Willie, launched the "cheese-eating surrender monkey" epithet on the Internet.)

LET THE INVESTIGTIONS BEGIN: LA. Policeman "Jack Dunphy" on Police Brutality on National Review Online.

GNUTELLA DEVELOPER COMMITS SUICIDE, according to this Reuters article. (Gnutella is a Napster-style file sharing system, incidentally.)

WHAT ARE YOUR CHILDREN LEARNING IN SCHOOL THESE DAYS? A California school gets sued over Islamic drills after September 11th.

HOW'D YOU LIKE TO DISCOVER AN ORIGINAL MICHELANGELO? This fellow apparently did.

CRYING WOLF: Al-Qaeda member says bin Laden's alive and well.

Obviously, if he is alive (and I doubt it, and so does Steve Den Beste, incidentally), then some fresh video would help their case. These boys have cried wolf about 100 times too many.

TURKEY'S NEBULOUS OUTLOOK: Analysis from The Washington Times.

SGT. STRYKER CHANNELS GENERAL SAVAGE: Film at 11.

FIRST DIAMOND DAVE, NOW THE MRS: E! Online says that Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli have split up:

The couple is requesting "their family's privacy be respected at this time" and refused to divulge any further details, including whether a divorce was in the works or who would retain custody of their 11-year-old son, Wolfgang.

The two tied the knot on April 11, 1981, when both were at the height of their popularity--she the cute youngest daughter Barbara Cooper on One Day at a Time, he the guitar whiz behind one of rock's most popular bands.

And, pretty much ever since, tabloids have been writing the post-mortem on the Van Halen-Bertinelli union.

WARD KIMBALL, PIONEERING DISNEY ANIMATOR DIED TODAY AT AGE 88. Orrin Judd has the story.

REQUIRED READING: At the risk of sounding like Stephen Green, aka VodkaPundit (not a bad blogger to sound like, actually!), this excellent essay by Victor Davis Hanson on the Saudis is today's required reading.

HATING WHITEY: Jesse Jackson and Julian Bond attack Bush and Ashcroft, the Brothers Judd fight back.

Meanwhile, Rod Dhrerer says that "even Al Sharpton, who stuck by Tawana Brawley through thick and thin, has disassociated himself from [Michael] Jackson's bizarre racial charges against Sony music chief Tommy Mottola. When Rev. Al, who never saw a get-whitey cause he couldn't attach himself to, turns tail and runs the other way, you know you're as isolated as isolated can be."

Defending Michael Jackson and fighting against school choice. This is the apparent state of the civil rights movement today.

HAVE YOUR CAKE: Stocks, bonds, and what to invest in right now, from Tech Central Station's James Glassman.

For a savvy long term investor, with just a little emotional fortitude, this really is a good time to buy. As Glassman says, "the stock market does not fall very much -- despite the way it seems today. Since 1938, the S&P has declined, after dividends, in only two out of 60 overlapping five-year periods -- just 3 percent of the time. The S&P hasn't dropped in any of the 62 overlapping 10-year periods since 1931."

ROD STEIGER DIES AT AGE 78. See this Yahoo! News article for details.

DON CORNELIUS, YOU'VE GOT COMPETITION! Janet Reno Makes 'Dance Party' Reality.

(Insert any one of a number of jokes here.)

I wonder what Rockin' Mel Slirrup would say about this?

MAD MAX AND CROCODILE DUNDEE, CALL YOUR LAWYERS: Reason magazine says that Australia is outlawing fun. Who’s next?

GROUP CAPTAIN MANDRAKE MOVES TO L.A.! Well, not really, but he does have two articles on the latest misadventures of the L.A. Police.

Jack Webb must be turning over in the grave over their latest escapades.

PRIME REAL ESTATE: Patrick Ruffini has a map of that great new, extremely unplanned community...Bloggerville!

I'm not sure where we're located, but I hope it's as far away from Chomskyville as possible!

GEEK HEAVEN, PART II: Nuts and Volts' July 2002 Issue has my latest bi-monthly "Micro Memories" column. This month is on the Apple I. Far cruder appearing than its successor, the Apple I was based on a PC that Steve Wozniak designed in 1975 when he couldn't afford an Altair 8800.

Buy lots of copies today! (But save a few pennies for the August Poptronics and the Atari article.)

HUSBAND KILLINGS: The hot new trend in Iran, where divorce is (basically) not an option for women, but bigamy is for men. Little Green Footballs has the story.

SORRY FOR THE LACK OF POSTING TODAY--doing transcribing and prep work for a couple articles due later this week. Hopefully things will return to normal tomorrow.

GEEK HEAVEN: I had a double barreled dose of vintage technology today--I received an advance copy of the August 2002 issue of Poptronics, which has my article about the rise and fall and rise again (sort of), of the Atari 2600, complete with quotes from an interview I did early this year with Nolan Bushnell, the man who started it all. (Special thanks to my wife Nina, who served with Nolan on the board of a Silicon Valley start-up in the late '90s, for arranging an introduction, and to Best Electronics, who allowed me to photograph several pieces of vintage Atari hardware and software from their inventory.)

I wasted many, many hours with an Atari 2600--when I wasn't using the Altair 8800 at school, or the Radio Shack at home TRS-80 in my teens, so it was fun to finally put that hard-won (cough, cough, snort, chuckle) knowledge and experience to use!

The second half of today's geek-a-pooloza came from my interview with the man who installed Stanley Kubrick's first home computers (he wrote the script to Full Metal Jacket on them).

I'd like to think I'm a reasonably rational person. But I've had periods of drinking entire buckets of Kubrick Kool-Aide. And while I try to keep my inner Kubrick-geekhood well submerged, this was a chance to wallow in it.

I know he's not for all tastes, but as anyone who knows me well will tell you, I was, and still am, a huge Stanley Kubrick fan, ever since college, when I would raid the library (and nearby libraries) for books, magazine articles and newspaper clippings about Kubrick. I've probably since acquired about 30 books related to him, and far too many articles as well. (Not to mention having bought most of his films on VHS, laser disc and DVD.) Kubrick had an incredible ability to layer an incredible amount of information and subtext in his films, and was arguably the director of post World War II American film in the twentieth Century. Star Wars would be inconceivable without Kubrick's pioneering efforts on 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So it was lots of fun earlier today when I spent a half hour interviewing Alan Bowker for an upcoming article. Bowker was an engineer with Dolby in the late 1970s, who helped install Stanley Kubrick's first home computer . Lots of Kubrick stories, very much in keeping with the profile of Kubrick by Michael Herr.

So, Ataris and Stanley Kubrick's first PCs. Not a bad way to start the week!

THE GEORGE LUCAS / NORMA DESMOND CONNECTION REVEALED, in Spintech.

GULF WAR II: Stephen Green, aka VodkaPundit, has some predictions about what to expect--and what not to expect.

THE DEHUMANIZING APOLOGISTS: Paul Palubicki (aka the blogger formally known as the blogger formally known as Sgt. Stryker) is really on a roll, now that he's set-up shop in California. Read this, and then scroll down to read the posts under it. Lots of good new stuff.

THIS IS THE GREATEST USE OF TECHNOLOGY SINCE MAN LANDED ON THE MOON.

ANDREW SULLIVAN has some background on Hesham Hadyat, the terrorist (why mince words?) who killed two people at the El Al terminal at LAX on the Fourth of July.

And Glenn Reynolds links to a report that Hadayet met with an Osama bin Laden deputy "in 1995 and again in 1998".

UPDATE: Matt Welch and Ken Layne's LA Examiner Web site is all over this story. Start here, and then scroll down. And by the time you read this, scroll up as well--they'll probably have more details.

THE CO-DESIGNER OF THE BOEING 747 DIED on July 2nd, at age 80, according to this UPI article.

DO WE UNDERSTAND THEIR HATE? Both Sgt. Stryker and Group Captain Mandrake have written about the folks who hate us. Mandrake says:

I am utterly convinced that, in order for the US to lead a successful fight against terror, there is one question they must ask themselves, and fully understand the answer to:

Do they understand why some people/nations/groups might hate them so much that they want to carry out attacks like that of September 11th?

In my experience (both personal and by watching their media coverage of it), many Americans don't even think of that as a valid question, and certainly not one they should be considering.

I think reading about this fellow, as well as the father of much of this insanity, Sayyid Qutb (bin Laden's original inspiration--read the article linked to by my post) answers a number of questions about why they hate us.

The real question is, what do we do about it? Sure, we can invade Iraq and other large swatches of the Middle East, and know that we have a 99.9% chance of either winning, or turning whichever country we invade into what one reporter once described as "a self-lighting parking lot" (which of course, is victory, only far messier.)

But assuming we don't rely on the latter option, then what? Do we really have the nerve (and we'll need a lot of it) to commit to the same scale of political re-education that we applied to the belligerent nations of Japan and Germany after World War II? Because otherwise, all we've done is achieve a temporary victory. A good one--one that benefits the people of whichever country or countries we liberate, but a temporary victory nonetheless.

Was it the Powell Doctrine which said don't attack without having an exit plan? I hope Bush has one in mind, otherwise, our war on terror will be one of those "wars on" wars that never ends.

UPDATE: While I was writing this, Sgt. Stryker has also responded to Group Captain Mandrake's response to his original post. (Sgt. Rock and General Ripper remain sadly unresponsive, however.)

THE MAN BEHIND BATMAN: Mark Evanier has written several interesting articles about Bob Kane, who's name not coincidentally, rhymes with Bruce Wayne.

(Batman was my childhood comic book hero. Much cooler than Superman. And a much better businessman than Spider-Man.)

ISRAELI WHILE ACADEMIC: The Telegraph says that a British academic has sparked worldwide protests after sacking two scholars from her highly respected international journals because they are Israeli:

Mona Baker, a professor at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), admitted yesterday that she had dismissed Dr Miriam Shlesinger and Prof Gideon Toury because of their nationality.

Despite a storm of complaints raised by her action, Prof Baker stood by her decision, telling The Telegraph: "I deplore the Israeli state. Miriam knew that was how I felt and that they would have to go because of the current situation."

Prof Baker asked Dr Shlesinger and Prof Toury to resign from the boards of two academic journals she owns, after signing a website petition last month calling for academics to boycott Israel. When they refused to resign she sacked them.

UPDATE: InstaPundit links to some good material related to this story, which in turn leads to this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. Way to go, MLK!

FAVORABLE LOANS GIVEN TO CONGRESSMAN Jim Moran (D-Va.) while he was backing a finance industry bill, according to this Washington Post article.

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT MAKES ITS FIRST CHARGES, eschewing Middle Eastern criminals for Middle Earth war crimes. (Found via NRO's The Corner blog.)

SHOOTING THE FLAG: Little Green Footballs has a photo of Palestinians opening fire at an American flag at the funeral for Jihad Amerin, the Gaza leader of Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

Which isn't very surprising, in light of their cheering on 9/11.

And they expect US sympathy for their cause....why?

"TOO ETHICAL TO REPORT THE NEWS". Joanne Jacobs says:

The Chicago Tribune didn't run photos of Chicago firefighters working at Ground Zero because their photog was wearing a borrowed "CFD" T-shirt.

If that makes zero sense, read her post, which does makes sense, even if the Trib's position doesn't.

Jacobs calls it "prissy". I agree.

THE DRUDGE BUBBLEGUM LIGHT IS UP appropriately, for this story, as Drudge's headline is a riot:

MICHAEL JACKSON GOES WILD: CHARGES SONY HEAD CALLED ARTIST 'NIGGER'; SAYS INDUSTRY RACIST

Ahh, that would the same industry that put millions upon millions in Jackson's pocket, which allowed him to buy the rights to the Beatles' song catalog, which put millions upon millions more into his pocket, which he blew big chunks of on endless rounds of plastic surgery, hyperbarbic oxygen tanks, and defending himself in court on pedophile charges.

Yup, sounds like racism to me.

UPDATE, Drudge has added a link to this Washington Post article, which contains these astonishing quotes from Jackson: "If you fight for me, you're fighting for all black people, dead and alive," and "We have to put a stop to this incredible injustice."

Sorry if your record isn't selling Michael, because you destroyed your career, but racism isn't the problem. However, it will be fun watching you further self-destruct and implode.

John Frankenheimer died today, at age 72, according to the Washington Post.

Frankenheimer was a director trained during the golden-age of television in the 1950s, who reached his peak in the mid-1960s with the slam-bang combination of The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds, arguably the acting highpoints of Frank Sinatra and Rock Hudson, respectively. And Ronin, with Robert DeNiro, from 1998, was a pretty good late-period Frankenheimer picture.

But I suspect The Manchurian Candidate will be his signature film--what a combination of action, science fiction, paranoia and Sinatra. Because of its Cold War theme, United Artists was leary about producing it, until JFK gave Sinatra his blessings ("Great! Who's going to play the Red Queen?" is what Sinatra quoted Kennedy as saying when he told him he was thinking of starring in the movie), but what an eerie foreshadowing of JFK's assignation it turned out to be, which is why it sat on the shelf from late 1964 until its stunning rerelease in the late 1980s.

I had the pleasure of seeing The Manchurian Candidate during its initial rerelease at the Ritz in Philadelphia. Its audacity and crisp black and white cinematography put the vast majority of the then-current films to shame. And watching it today on DVD is further proof of just how dumbed-down most of today's Hollywood films remain.

UPDATE: Here's an AP article with more details about Frankenheimer's life, which also mentions his drinking problem of the 1970s, apparently as a result of witnessing Robert Kennedy's assignation. Kennedy was staying at Frankenheimer's house, and Frankenheimer drove him to the Ambassador Hotel the night he was killed in 1968.

GUNMEN KILL AFGHANISTAN'S VP: Here's the AP story.

JULY 4th TERRORISM UPDATE: Group Captain Mandrake links to a story that should be getting more press coverage, and isn't, about a possible surface to air missile that exploded close to an El Al jet. Meanwhile, Glenn Reynolds, that prodigal blogger, is back on the block with a post on the FBI's equivocation about how to label the shooter at LAX. And also check out the link below to Steve Den Beste's post on security at LAX--and America in general.

UPDATE: The Professor says Al Qaeda's "six-pack of whupass is already out of the fridge".

HE'S BACK! The man, the myth, the InstaPundit has returned from underwater adventure in the Grand Caymans!

THE BEST BOSSES A PLAYER CAN HAVE IN THE NFL: Dan Pompei of The Sporting News has quite an interesting list.

THE FOURTH OF JULY SHOOTING AT LAX--some thoughts from Steve Den Beste.

THE PENTAGON PAPERS, 2002-STYLE: Little Green Footballs wants to know if the recent New York Times article publishing US secrets about the invasion of Iraq was a real leak, or a plant, designed to (a) scare the hell out of Saddam Hussein, (b) make him guard his left, while we attack his right or (c) both. Check the comments, also.

THE AMERICAN SCHINDLER: Insight magazine has an article called Harry Bingham: Profile in Courage.

WEEKEND READING: Need a good book this weekend? Check out Patrick Ruffini's Fourth of July reading list.

DICTIONARY BIAS: Sidney Goldberg (AKA, Jonah's dad) weighs in, via The Wall Street Journal. Here's a sample:

Castro is clearly not squeamish about using rhetoric straight out of the Marxist-Leninist handbook, or ruling Cuba the same way. And yet the imperialist bourgeoisie seems to be squeamish about labeling Castro for what he is. The latest edition of Webster's New World College Dictionary calls him merely: "Cuban revolutionary leader, prime minister and president." Sounds rather impressive--you can almost see it on the résumé for a MacArthur genius award. But is Castro a dictator? Apparently not enough of one to define him as such.

This is not the only instance of labeling-hesitation in Webster's New World--at least when the "leader" in question belongs to the "revolutionary" left. The dictionary can call Hitler the "Nazi dictator of Germany" but Stalin merely the "Soviet premier, general secretary of the Communist party of the U.S.S.R." Mussolini is an "Italian dictator," but Tito is "Yugoslav Communist Party leader, prime minister and president of Yugoslavia." Franco is "dictator of Spain" and Salazar "prime minister and dictator of Portugal," but Mao Tse-tung is "Chinese Communist leader, chairman of the People's Republic of China and of its Communist Party."

And Lenin? "Russian leader of the Communist revolution of 1917, premier of the U.S.S.R." This seems especially unfair, since Lenin's writings openly urged the deadly ruthlessness with which he ruled. Still, a good bourgeois dictionary must not go too far.

BLACK MARKET SMOKES: Reason has two articles on how astronomical cigarette taxes have created a thriving black market in New York and London.

TATTOOS, GROCERY STORES AND ADAM SANDLER: They all make appearances in James Lilek's Thursday Bleat.

TED WILLIAMS DIED TODAY AT AGE 83. ESPN Classic's Web site says, 'There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived'. (And a helluva pilot, too: he was John Glenn's wingman in the Korean War.)

WHO WERE THE NFL'S OFFSEASON WINNERS? Rick Kamla has some thoughts, on Yahoo Sports.

LOTS OF GOOD STUFF OVER AT USS Clueless, if you need a serious post-Fourth blogging fix.

TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.: This is probably old news to everybody reading this Weblog, but two (hopefully) unrelated incidents occurred today in Los Angles, including three dead in L.A. Airport shooting and 4 Die in Plane Crash Near L.A..

Back in early May, we ran this story from Wired News, called "Judas Unmasked?". Today's Washington Times has an article on how the Search for Frank's betrayer has been reopened.

Happy Fourth of July!
(Company is coming over, so don't expect much posting today. Thank God, so far, it's been a peaceful Fourth in the US.)

YOU WILL BELIEVE A FLAG CAN FLY: Human Events has an article about a gigantic US flag-shaped hot air balloon:

Beyond the awe-inspiring visual aspect of this project, the DiLiberos’ aim is to educate their audience as well. They pass out pocket editions of the Constitution to crowds at balloon rallies and other events, hoping to help Americans better understand their country.

"We live in an age where, sadly, students learn very little about the Constitution and even fewer have an understanding of the mindset of the framers. . . [Many students] have no idea why the 1st Amendment set America apart as a nation or why the document as a whole became the envy of the world and the reason that democracy has spread throughout the past two centuries," said Mrs. DiLibero, explaining why the couple wants to pass out as many copies of the Constitution as they can—at least 50,000.

ADVANTAGE: EDDRISCOLL.COM! July 3rd Drudge Report headline: Princeton bioethicist argues Christianity hurts animals...

July 1st EdDriscoll.com post: PETER SINGER UPDATE: The infamous Princeton Professor says that Christianity is harmful to animals.

I don't beat the biggies (Matt, Glenn, etc.) to the punch very often, but it's fun when it happens!

TEN GREAT REASONS TO CELEBRATE THE FOURTH OF JULY, courtesy of Dinesh D´Souza. Here's an excerpt:

(1) America provides an amazingly good life for the ordinary guy: Rich people live well everywhere. But what distinguishes America is that it provides an incomparably high standard of living for the "common man." We now live in a country where construction workers regularly pay $4 for a nonfat latte, where maids drive nice cars, and where plumbers take their families on vacation to Europe.

Indeed newcomers to the United States are struck by the amenities enjoyed by "poor" people in the United States. This fact was dramatized in the 1980s when CBS television broadcast a documentary, "People Like Us," which was intended to show the miseries of the poor during an ongoing recession. The Soviet Union also broadcast the documentary, with a view to embarrassing the Reagan administration. But by the testimony of former Soviet leaders, it had the opposite effect. Ordinary people across the Soviet Union saw that the poorest Americans have TV sets, microwave ovens and cars. They arrived at the same perception that I witnessed in an acquaintance of mine from Bombay who has been unsuccessfully trying to move to the United States. I asked him, "Why are you so eager to come to America?" He replied, "I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat."

(2) America offers more opportunity and social mobility than any other country, including the countries of Europe: America is the only country that has created a population of "self-made tycoons." Only in America could Pierre Omidyar, whose parents are Iranian and who grew up in Paris, have started a company like eBay. Only in America could Vinod Khosla, the son of an Indian army officer, become a leading venture capitalist, the shaper of the technology industry and a billionaire to boot. Admittedly tycoons are not typical, but no country has created a better ladder than America for people to ascend from modest circumstances to success.

This is a wonderful article. Do yourself a favor, and read the whole thing.

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S STEPSON ARRESTED IN MIAMI. Naturally, he was in Florida to attend a flight training seminar.

ENGLISH IDIOCY: Margaret Thatcher statue decapitated, UK proposes compulsory ID cards.

Both links via the Drudge Report.

RESEARCHERS PROBE RESEARCHERS WITH TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS. Reuters says "Researchers Probe Shyness and Internet Link".

Meanwhile, Group Captain Mandrake gives Reuters his award for the week's corniest headline.

THE 4-3 DEFENSE AND OUR NATION'S ECONOMIC HEALTH: One area where the Steelers could have competition is in their defense, as Sports Illustrated says several teams will be copying their 3-4 alignment.

By the way, somebody should do a comparison between weak economies and the 3-4. When was the 3-4 defense last prominent? During the dreadful 1970s. During the next twenty years, the awesome power of the 4-3 defense paralleled the steamrolling stock market set in motion by Ronald Reagan and Paul Volcker.

Clearly, for the sake of the nation's economic health, the NFL owes it to us to outlaw the 3-4!

STEELERS HAVE SCHEDULE ON THEIR SIDE THIS SEASON: John Clayton of ESPN.com says the Steelers are a great team with an easy schedule--which could take them all the way to San Diego:

the schedule could favor a Super Bowl matchup of the Steelers and the Bucs, with the Packers also knocking on the door. Why the Steelers? Their strength-of-schedule is the second easiest at 110-130 behind the Texans at 113-143. Only five times do they face teams with winning records in 2001, so the key is getting through early games against the Patriots and Raiders.

Naturally, there is no guarantee that teams that were bad last year would be bad this year. And vice versa. But assuming teams don't improve dramatically, the Steelers have an edge. The Ravens are two of those games against winning teams, and the salary cap forced them to break up their roster. The Bucs are the only other team with a winning record that the Steelers face.

SACRAMENTO VERSUS BELTWAY DRIVERS: Paul Palubicki contrasts and compares.

PIGSKIN: Kevin Holtsberry, already a very good blogger on political and news issues, has added Pigskin - a football blog, to his site.

Here's his preview of the 2002 season.

Nice to see someone else covering the NFL in blog land!

NEA FINED 800,000 FOR MISAPPROPRIATING UNION DUES, according to this FoxNews.com story.

UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Joanne Jacobs has some thoughts on this.

THE NEXT SCHOOL CHOICE BATTLEGROUND? California, according to this article on CNSnews.com.

CELEBRATE THE FOURTH TO "STICK IT TO THE TERRORISTS", says Michael Bloomberg.

I like it!

PUTTING THE DRIFT IN MIDRIFF: Is there a more appropriate critic than Joe Bob Briggs to review Cher's Madison Square Garden concert?

THE MINETA PLAN TO FIGHT TERRORISM: UPI reports on an 80-year-old woman strip-searched at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan, after her knee replacement set off metal detectors.

A NEST OF BURGLARS: John Derbyshire uses Rudyard Kipling's poem, "Recessional", written at the height of England's power in 1897, to remind us to avoid a similar fate for America.

A NATION ON THE BRINK: Michael Ledeen writes on Iran on National Review Online.

E.T., PHONE GLENN: The InstaPundit makes a case for alien communications on Tech Central Station, while he searches for alien life under warm tropical waters.

BAIT AND SWITCH: California Democrats against democracy, on Tech Central Station.

LINK TO ME, BABY! I just updated the Frequently Asked Questions page to include a question on linking to this site, and a copy of the mini-banner that Group Captain Mandrake helped me to design, and is now on his blog, as well as The Brothers Judd's blog. Feel free to use it, along with our URL, to link back to this site. (And drop me an email--always nice knowing who's linking to you!)

ANOTHER GREAT BASSIST DIES: Jazz bassist and Bebop pioneer Ray Brown, at age 75.

TOUGH LOVE: Steve Den Beste gives us a bracing, slap-in-the-face-dose of reality when it comes to AIDS and Africa. How bracing? Here's one paragraph:

I honestly think that at this point nothing at all can prevent a catastrophe in sub-Saharan Africa. It's gone too far. This patient can no longer be saved; all we can do is to watch him die.

Read the rest, and then weep for the nightmare of the current AIDS epidemic in Africa--and what's to come.

WHEN A SUICIDE BOMBER FAILS: Suzanne Fields writes an amazing study of one suicide bomber who had a change of heart.

GOLDBERG SAYS GORE'S A GONER. But it's going to be a long couple of years (or less, if he loses in the primaries) while the Al meltdown occurs in slow motion.

By the way, sorry for the lack of posting today--I spent much of the afternoon helping my wife move into her new office.

ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE, PART 27,632: Joanne Jacobs links to an article that says that in order to punish a young man for an affair with a woman of higher status, a tribal jury in Pakistan ordered the gang-rape of his 18-year-old sister.

And yes, you just read that correctly. As Jacobs says, "can a society this barbaric really survive in the 21st century?"

ARAFAT'S ORGANIZATION THREATENING TO ATTACK U.S. TARGETS--VodkaPundit has the links.

MORE INFO ON THE JET COLLISON OVER GERMANY, via the Drudge Report.

PHIL THE SYPHILIS SORE: Michelle Malkin finds more California insanity.

THE INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME: What to give that representative of Mobutu Sese Soko the next time he emails you for investment advice.

(Found via Joanne Jacobs.)

YOUR TAX INCREASE IS IN THE MAIL: Grover Norquist on the U.S. Postal Service on National Review Online.

NRO's home page calls it the "snail-mail tax". I like that!

Did you know it was an offensive word? Neither did I. But it's being banned by Washington State government. Protein Wisdom has the link, buried in their rather pithy take on the situation.

THE PINK PISTOLS: As National Review says, "They’re here, they’re queer, and they’re armed."

Interesting to note (obligatory local angle comment), that they were essentially born in San Jose:

Pink Pistols borrowed its name from the headline of a March 13, 2000 Salon magazine article by Jonathan Rauch, an openly libertarian columnist for the National Journal who happens to be gay. He urged armed self-defense as an antidote to anti-gay violence. He dramatically illustrated this matter with the case of Tom Palmer, a Washington-based think-tank scholar. Palmer and a male friend were in a rough section of San Jose, California when a gang of 20 hoodlums started taunting them.

"Hey, you f***ing faggots!" one yelled. "When we're done with you, they'll never find your bodies." Palmer and his pal ran for their lives, with the thugs in hot pursuit. Palmer pulled a semi-automatic handgun from his backpack. He stood and waved it beneath a street light. His tormentors swiftly retreated.

"There's no question in my mind," Palmer said, "that my friend and I would have been at least very seriously beaten, and maybe killed."

THANKS--Patrick Ruffini has permalinked me. Stop by his site today!

WE'VE HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE: William Pace, head of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, says:

The start of the court's jurisdiction signals the beginning of "the greatest institution of peace ever created,"

League of Nations, anyone? UN? Kellogg-Briand?

UPDATE: Little Green Footballs has additional links, including Robert Kagan in the Washington Post, which is a must-read.

"FIRE ROADS" IN FORESTS BANNED BY CLINTON, according to this article in Human Events.

PETER SINGER UPDATE: The infamous Princeton Professor says that Christianity is harmful to animals.

I wouldn't take Singer too seriously, however (unless I was a parent with a son or daughter attending Princeton, of course). While most of us like our animals as pets or as dinner, Singer believes we should have a more...intimate...relationship with our furry friends.

You know, I loved my dog, who passed away last year at the age of 16 and a half. But needless to say, not in the Singerian way.

Defining deviancy down, anyone?

UPDATE: What would Singer think about this?