IT'S STILL HALLOWEEN (At least for the next 15 minutes on the West Coast), so how 'bout a nice seance? Peggy Noonan has a memo "from the other side" (the real other side): Paul Wellstone says he's not too happy about how his funeral went...
LONG AWAITED MICROSOFT DECISION DUE OUT TOMORROW AFTERNOON: U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, the federal judge overseeing a remedy in the Microsoft Corp. antitrust case will issue her opinion late tomorrow afternoon, the court said on Thursday. Judge Kollar-Kotelly gave no hint during the remedy hearing this spring how she might rule, according to this Computer World article, which adds:
Although tomorrow's decision probably won't be the end of the Microsoft case, it will be one of its more dramatic turning points in a landmark antitrust case that began in the fall of 1998.Given that it's a Friday afternoon announcement, which are traditionally designed to reduce media coverage (much like the timing of Emory's recent issuance of its report on Michael Bellesiles), I wonder in which direction this will break.Over a period of four months, Judge Kollar-Kotelly heard from a long list of witnesses over what should be done to satisfy the U.S. Court of Appeals decision that Microsoft illegally maintained its operating system monopoly.
Depending on how Kollar-Kotelly rules, either the nonsettling states that refused to go along with a deal between the Department of Justice and Microsoft reached last year, the U.S., or the company itself may appeal tomorrow's ruling.
This remedy phase follows an appeals court decision one year ago this month that rejected a lower court ruling to break up the company but upheld a finding that Microsoft had illegally maintained its monopoly in the operating systems market.
I'm not holding my breath for a quick resolution however: I wrote an article almost exactly one year ago titled "Microsoft Endgame?" for National Review. Glad there's a question mark in the title!
UPDATE: Reuters has more, including a quote from antitrust attorney Steve Axinn, who says:
"She's got to decide if this settlement meets the (public interest) standard, and if not what it would take to meet the standard."Whichever way it goes, Friday's ruling could be the end of the line in the long-running case.
"If she approves the settlement, that's it," said Axinn. On the other hand, any modifications the judge makes to the settlement are unlikely to be overturned on appeal, he said."She has broad discretion here," Axinn said.
READ LILEKS: The whole thing. It's a particularly awesome piece of writing from the best writer in the Blogosphere.
LOOKING FOR POLITICALLY CORRECT HALLOWEEN COSTUMES at the last minute? Susan & Dave Konig have a parents' guide to making the proper choices.
UPDATE: Here's one to avoid. Err, actually, five to avoid...
JAMES TRAFICANT IS OUT TRICK OR TREATING....Be careful--his toupee is haunted!
THE TOP TEN SCARIEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME, as selected by Dawn Olsen of Blogcritics.
I'm particularly fond of choices #10 and #4, myself.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING OSAMA: James Robbins compares Osama bin Laden’s status to the creature in the horror films whom you know is dead...you're sure he is. He's gotta be. But he's back....Or is he? (Be sure to check out the Halloween cartoon Robbins links to at the end of his essay.)
CBS AND MATH: Glenn Reynolds links to two different AP wire reports on protestors at an NRA rally in Tucson featuring Charlton Heston. The AP feed says "three people protested", but the version on the CBS website, which is otherwise the same, raises that number to "a few dozen."
I have no idea which report is accurate, but I wouldn't be too surprised to see that CBS has problems with numbers, since, after all, these were the folks who thought that George W. Bush was President in 1998.
LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN: Nifty little comment, sung to the tune of the Rocky Horror Picture Show song, buried in this LGF post titled Israel Moves Right.
GOTTA LOVE THE RUSSIANS (I know, I never thought I'd say that, either). Check this post on Little Green Footballs out:
Russian security forces are going to bury the terrorists from the Moscow theater siege wrapped in pigskin. Reader J Lichty, who forwarded the story, comments: “Imagine if Israel did this.”The Russians understand the mindset of the Islamic terrorist. Far from being a spiteful symbolic gesture, to the Islamozoids this is a deadly serious form of psychological warfare that strikes at the heart of their delusionary belief system.
ANGRY DEM WALKS OUT OF DEBATE: 3-term incumbent "U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, D-Ind., stormed out of a debate Wednesday after refusing to stay on the same stage with her Republican challenger, Brose McVey."
But hey, at least Carson showed up. Senate candidate Douglas Forrester recently debated an empty chair as his Democratic opponent, Frank Lautenberg, declined to appear against him on New Jersey radio.
BEDS OF THE WORLD: Silflay Hraka explains the latest in global Posturepedics. Complete with weltanschauung and weltanschlauung!
THE ANTIDOTE TO AMTRAK: Riding the Napa Valley Wine Train is my latest article on Blogcritics. Hop onboard today!
YOU DON'T SAY: AP headline: "UN Members Oppose Speedy Iraq Action".
Since the U.N. is the global equivalent of watching paint dry (actually it's worse: when the paint dries, usually something good has been accomplished), at what point does Bush say, "see ya in Baghdad, fellas!" and turn his back on them?
RAPPER "JAM MASTER JAY", MEMBER OF RUN DMC, KILLED IN SHOOTING: AP reports "Publicist Tracy Miller confirmed the death of the 37-year-old rapper, whose real name was Jason Mizell.
"A legal source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the rapper was shot in the head at a recording studio in the New York City borough of Queens. A second person was shot in the ankle and the shooter was at large, the source said."
HERE'S A SHOCKER: AP reports "Minn. Dems OK Mondale for Senate Run".
INTERNET2 UPDATE: Forget HDTV--Internet2 just streamed Super High Definition (SHD) full motion digital imagery in real time from a server in Chicago to a projector in Los Angeles. Canada's Canarie System (the Great White North equivalent of Internet2), has more details.
What's SHD? The Canarie press release describes Super High Definition has having "four times the resolution of HDTV, and 24 times the resolution of standard definition video. Transmission of SHD via network requires sustainable high-speed connectivity of 1 gigabit per second over multiple hops without significant packet loss, delay or jitter.
What's Internet2? Read all about it in my Tech Central Station article from earlier this month.
MATT DRUDGE: On top of the breaking issues that effect society and life as we know it!
PA MUST BE ON LSD TO BLAME CIA: Little Green Footballs reports that "The Palestinian Authority’s official daily says the CIA was behind the Moscow terrorists, as part of a complicated and highly illogical plot to enlist Russia’s support for an attack against Iraq."
I LOVE THIS OPENING PARAGRAPH by Zev Chafets in the NY Daily News:
Here's all you need to know about Saturday's "peace" demonstration near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Al Sharpton was the most moderate, pro-American speaker there.Geez, I don't think so, Al! Incidentally, Chafets makes another good point regarding how toxic the "peace movement" has become near the end of his essay:"We are the real patriots," he told the much-smaller-than-expected crowd. "We are the true face of America."
As a hawk, this should make me happy, but it doesn't. Wartime democracies need a loyal opposition. A large, pro-American peace movement would be a good tool for keeping the government honest as it pursues its (very justified) war against the Islamic Axis.Nice idea, but I'm afraid the idea of "pro-American" largely departed the peace movement around 1967.
FANS OF THE CULT TV SERIES UFO (and we count ourselves as one of them--it was a favorite childhood series), should check out the hip gear available fron The SHADO Store, powered by Cafe Press.
"YOU THINK YOU'RE MICKEY SPILLANE? DO YOU THINK YOU'RE SOME KIND OF F***ING WRITER??" The Guardian reports that "The Pentagon is offering to train journalists in the basics of military combat as part of its contingency planning for media coverage of a possible war with Iraq."
No word yet if Lee Ermey will return to active duty as a D.I. to train the reporters.
T-MOBILE EXPANDING 802.11 HOTSPOTS, according to an email I received from FierceWireless.com:
T-Mobile USA today said it would set up wireless hot spots in airport lounges across the United States. T-Mobile agreed to establish hot spots for American Airlines, Delta, and United in around 100 airport clubs and lounges throughout the U.S. No financial details from the deals were released. T-Mobile has already inked hot spots deals with Borders Group and Starbucks, and plans to offer hot spots in about 2,000 locations in the U.S. by the end of the year.As to what an "802.11 hotspot" is, see our July article in Tech Central Station.
THERE'S AN AIDS CRISIS BREWING IN INDIA, fueled "by an increasingly casual attitude toward sex coupled with a tradition of public silence and reluctance to grasp the issues", according to CNSNews.com.
As probably everybody reading this has already seen, the funeral services for Paul Wellstone ended up as a partisan pep rally yesterday. If you haven't, here's a round up of the coverage.
InstaPundit notes that "The event was too tacky for former pro wrestler Jesse Ventura." (And that's saying something!)
Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg writes:
That is what was so offensive about that rally: It shamelessly used Wellstone's death for partisan advantage while its organizers cynically accused their opponents of doing precisely that. Blaming others for something awful you've done is perhaps the defining attribute of Bill Clinton and his legacy on the Democratic party. Wellstone did many good things out of principle — including work with Jesse Helms, a man he grew to befriend, on human rights in China. But he will now be invoked by Democrats everywhere simply to get out the vote, beat up Republicans, and raise millions of dollars in campaign contributions.Andrew Stuttaford reports that "Rick Kahn, the friend of Paul Wellstone who made what has been seen as an excessively partisan speech at the late senator's memorial service was, apparently, unrepentant afterwards". Kahn was quoted as saying:In short, so long as they hold onto the Senate, the Clinton Democrats — who often found Wellstone's principles inconvenient — will find him more useful dead than alive. They will rewrite the story of his life to fit any cause they choose — much as they have done with other Democratic martyrs like John and Robert Kennedy (a Cold War anti-Communist and the attorney general who personally authorized the bugging of Martin Luther King, respectively). Wellstone's distinctiveness and honesty will melt in a warm pool of mass-marketed nostalgia. And, if Republicans complain, Democrats will simply charge insensitivity and laugh all the way to the bank.
"Can they not one time, just one time, step forward for Paul and honor that friendship? Why can't they do that? One time, for one week. That's what we're asking. That they go out there and say Paul Wellstone did this wonderful work and we need to keep his legacy alive by sending his successor to his seat. "Here's the photo that started it all. In retrospect, it was probably wise of the Wellstone family to tell Dick Cheney that he wasn't welcome at the funeral.
Wellstone's death released a remarkable outpouring of sympathy from both parties. Peggy Noonan's warm, admiring essay is representative of the tone from a wide range of columnists and bloggers.
But Wellstone's awesomely tacky funeral has destroyed much of that bipartisan goodwill. Its ill-will has already caused Orrin Judd to write:
Out of respect for the wishes of the Wellstone family and the Democrat Party we too will abjure decency and treat the Senator's death as a purely partisan matter. In that regard, while we regret the manner of his departure, we would note that on the day he died the prospects for human freedom were improved in America and the world.Expect to see more such writing as the anger from this ill-conceived event festers. Next time, bury Caesar, praise him--and then have the pep rally, the day after.
UPDATE: CNSNews.com is reporting:
The chair of the Minnesota Republican Party is calling on the state's television and radio stations to give the GOP equal time to campaign, given the partisan tone of Tuesday night's memorial for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, who along with his wife and daughter, perished in a plane crash last week.UPDATE: Wellstone's campaign manager now says, "It would probably have been best not to have the election mentioned."
Gee, you think?
IN THE CHURCH OF THE POISONED MIND: Speaking to the New York Daily News, Curtis Hanson, the director of Eminem's first movie, 8 Mile, describes how much trouble he went to build an authentic recreation of the hip-hop club where Marshall Mathers (Eminem's real name) got his start as a rapper:
[Hanson] went to the trouble to make sure it signaled the same "religious" atmosphere as the places where Eminem and his rivals originally performed.Move along, no moral equivalence to see here. You can go about your business. These aren't the droids you're looking for."This was their church," he said during a recent visit to New York. "They got from it what people get from church — a sense of community, spirituality, hope. It became the cornerstone of the direction I gave in finding other locations.
I realize I'm about to sound like a boring old fart, but...rap clubs as churches?? I don't claim to any sort of religious scholar. But gee, I don't recall hearing 12 letter words words built around the letters "M" and "F" in my church--or in weekly school chapel services--growing up.
UPDATE: James Bowman also has some thoughts on the man whom the New York Times recently called "the world’s best rapper".
A FEDEX TRUCK HAS EXPLODED ON A ST LOUIS HIGHWAY: This Fox News article has preliminary details, and not much of those.
UPDATE: Since posting this, more details have emerged. The story now is that "the fire was the result of a traffic accident caused when the truck driver apparently fell asleep.
[Missouri Director of Homeland Security Tim Daniel] says the truck's fuel tank struck a light pole, causing the fire."
ARE DEMOCRATS AGAINST MEDICAL SAVINGS ACCOUNTS? Shiloh Bucher says yes, and explains why.
PARIS HONORS JIMI HENDRIX, on what would have been his 60th birthday. Group Captain Lionel Mandrake has the details.
A FEDERAL ALTERNATIVE INTERNET? Information Week says that "The Bush administration is exploring the possibility of creating an “interstate communications expressway,” patterned after the interstate highway system, to quicken the exchange of homeland-security information among federal, state, and local governments.
While its details are sketchy, the article does note that the networks could eventually be opened to the public (much like Darpanet eventually became the Internet):
Kentucky CIO Aldona Valicenti said accepting federally endorsed standards wouldn't bother most state CIOs. Though the idea of the network would be to ease the exchange of homeland security information, there's no reason why other types of information couldn't transverse it, even commercial data, he said. Indeed, employing one type of technology to address a wide range of processes is a leitmotif of Bush administration technology managers.Planners of the original interstate highway system during the Cold War years a half-century ago weren't concerned about the movement of goods and civilians--today's primary users--but to facilitate the transport of military equipment and personnel. Today, Cooper notes, drivers may occasionally see a convoy of National Guard trucks carrying weekend warriors crawl along.
IT'S THAT 80'S SHOW, where James Lileks takes you back to the future to the past to future to the past (sorry for the Mobius loop, but it's tough to get used to elections for the Senate where the players include a fossilized Walter Mondale and an ossified Frank Lautenberg):
In doing some research for today’s Mondale column, I reread his speech at the 1984 Democratic convention. Here’s a real time-capsule moment for you:“When we speak of change, the words are Gary Hart's. When we speak of hope, the fire is Jesse Jackson's. When we speak of caring, the spirit is Ted Kennedy's. When we speak of the future, the message is Geraldine Ferraro”Well, at least one out of four didn’t cheat on his wife. What a snapshot of 1984: a time when Gary Hart was the 845th blurry photocopy of JFK to be handed around, when Jesse Jackson was regarded as a bulwark of righteous enlightenment instead of a self-aggrandizing shakedown artist; when Ted Kennedy was a big pickled Care Bear, and Geraldine Ferraro was the future, not a footnote-to-be. I was a hardcore Democrat at the time, and I remember watching the speech and thinking: we are going to lose. We are going to lose 51 states. Puerto Rico will demand statehood just for the chance not to vote for this guy.
YEAGER'S LAST MILITARY FLIGHT: Chuck Yeager made his last flight on Saturday as the pilot of a military fighter this past weekend, going supersonic in an Air Force F-15. The flight brings the 79 year old Yeager's 60-year career flying military aircraft to a close in front of thousands of fans at the open house and air show at Edwards Air Force Base, where his legendary status as a test pilot was born:
Yeager, with Edwards test pilot Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine in the back seat, opened the event by climbing to just over 30,000 feet and impressed the crowd with his infamous sonic boom. Yeager first broke the sound barrier at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in October 1947 when he accelerated his rocket-powered Bell X-1 to the speed of Mach 1.06 and shattered the myth of the sound barrier forever.The actual article contains larger versions of the above photo. See if the name painted on the nose of Yeager's F-15 rings a bell.The crowd hushed as Yeager landed and taxied under an archway of water gushing from two Edwards fire trucks per Air Force tradition. For his final military flight, Yeager was accompanied in the air with longtime friend and colleague retired Maj. Gen. Joe Engle flying his own F-15. The two legendary test pilots have been flying together for decades.
"This is a fun day for us because we get to fly good airplanes and do something we've loved to do for some time," Yeager said.
The general announced earlier this year that 60 years of military flying is long enough.
"Now is a good time," said Yeager. "I've had a heck of good time and very few people get exposed to the things I've been exposed to. I'll keep on flying P-51s and light stuff, but I just feel it's time to quit."
(Thanks to Orrin Judd for sending us the link to the above article.)
MELISA SECKORA, who was one of the first to break the story on Michael Bellesiles, has an excellent summary of his resignation from Emory University, and the events that lead up to it, complete with numerous links.
Is it just me, or is Walter Cronkite not-so-subtely comparing Bush to Hitler when he complains about the military not allowing reporters in to battle?
“[In past conflicts], you wrote it to be the history,” he said. “We have no history now of the Persian Gulf War. We have only what the military reporters wrote and that’s what their bosses told them. That’s not good enough.”OK, maybe it's just me. But he is comparing the military to the Nazis--an analogy that's got to be getting a little worn out these days.Cronkite admitted that in some cases, such as the recent congressional report that outlined the country’s homeland security weaknesses, he wonders whether or not reporting all the facts is in the country’s best interest.
“It seems to me that as citizens, we should get this info so we can shout to Washington, ‘Let’s get this game going,’” he said. “But at the same time, there’s a terrorist cell sitting there saying, ‘That’s how we do it.’”
But for a country’s citizens to be truly free and the government to be held accountable, he said people must have a free press that gathers all the facts.
He said an example of the alternative would be a situation like what he witnessed after WWII, after the Nazi concentration camps were freed. The people who lived in nearby towns cried at the sights of the persecuted Jews and told reporters they had no idea of what was going on behind the walls of the camps.
Many were probably telling the truth, he said, but that did not make them any less responsible.
“They applauded as Hitler closed down the independent newspaper and television stations and only gave them his propaganda,” Cronkite said. “When they did not rise up and say, ‘Give us a free press,’ they became just as guilty.”
UPDATE: ScrappleFace has the inevitable denouement to this story. Of course, Cronkite should have seen it coming from a mile away.
UPDATE: As James Taranto notes, "Ah yes, the Weimar Republic--the Golden Age of Television."
BROADWAY DICK LeBEAU GUARANTEES BENGALS WILL BEAT HOUSTON: No word yet on what Joe Namath thinks about his famous 1969 guarantee of victory being used by the lowly 0-7 Bengals to geek themselves up before playing the 2-5 Texans on Sunday
HEADLINES YOU DON'T SEE EVERYDAY: Rich Lowry asks, "Is milk racist?"
U.S. News & World Report's John Leo writes that the left has lost its moral bearings:
Everywhere you turn these days, someone on the left is denouncing President Bush as Hitler, Satan, a terrorist or a tyrannical emperor. A Yale law professor said Bush is "the most dangerous man on Earth." A famous editor referred to Bush as "a lawn jockey" and "Pinocchio."Some of the angry rhetoric flirts with the fringe idea that the United States planned the terrorist attacks. A Purdue professor said "there is no ground to be certain" that America and Israel aren't behind the 9/11 attacks. A Columbia law professor compared 9/11 to the Reichstag fire in Nazi Germany -- Bush is not responsible for 9/11, he said, but he exploited a national disaster to suspend civil liberties, just like Hitler. A Berkeley professor helpfully pointed out that some Indonesian groups think the U.S. planned the Bali bombing.
The rhetoric accurately reflects the current condition of much of the left -- bitter, stymied, alienated, politically impotent, full of loathing for America and the West, and totally unable to address the crisis wrought by 9/11, except to imply (or say) that the U.S. deserved to be attacked.
Nice essay by Tim Cavanaugh on Daniel Pipes' new organization, Campus Watch, in Reason. I particularly liked this idea:
We may in fact need an update of Mike Godwin's Hitler constant, with a corollary that the first person to use the word "McCarthy" in a debate automatically forfeits the point.Good plan.
FOUR KILLED IN GUNFIRE AT U. OF ARIZONA: This AP report identifies the suspect, who took his own life, as "Robert S. Flores, a Gulf War veteran who was apparently flunking out of the nursing program. He apparently committed suicide after the attack, Police Chief Richard Miranda said."
Reason recently had a short piece built around the notion that the psycho Gulf War vet is about to replace the psycho Vietnam vet as a stock Hollywood character. I'm beginning to think they're right.
UPDATE: InstaPundit, back online after a half-day's worth of server outages, makes some great points about why a campus such as U of AZ would be such a tempting target.
GLENN FRAZIER LIKES MONKEYS. He really, really likes them.
That is all.
WILL MONDALE GET THE NOD IN MINNESOTA? Ramesh Ponnuru has some thoughts in National Review Online.
Of course, should Mondale be unable to fulfill his duties, the DNC has a pinch hitter on deck, warming up...
US DIPLOMAT KILLED IN JORDAN. Laurence Foley received eight bullets in "the head, chest and abdomen", according to this AP report, which adds:
While Jordan is officially allied with the United States, anti-American sentiment has been rising with public opposition to a threatened U.S. attack on Iraq, Jordan's eastern neighbor and primary trading partner. The kingdom's 1994 peace treaty with Israel also has made it a target for Muslim militants and terrorist groups.
LEGENDARY PRODUCER/ENGINEER IS DEAD: Tom Dowd, who produced or engineered numerous albums by John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, The Allman Brothers, and Eric Clapton, died on Sunday morning at a nursing home in Aventura after fighting a respiratory disease for two years, his daughter, Dana Dowd, said. He was 77.
Eric Olsen of Blogcritics has more details.
CAN'T GET INTO BLOOMBERG.COM LATELY? It's probably because Microsoft's playing hardball...
MICHAEL KINSELY ONCE FAMOUSLY SAID that major gaffes only occur when a politician speaks the impolitic truth.
Michael Meacher, Britain's environment minister, surely spoke the truth about Britain's Labour Party today. Click on this post by Andrew Stuttaford to read it--it's a classic. (Make sure to click on Stuttaford's link to the Samizdata Weblog for their response to Meacher.)
NAQOYQATSI: Roger Ebert reviews the latest film in the "Qatsi" trilogy by director Godfrey Reggio. Koyaanisqatsi, Reggio's first film, was about man and technology and was largely filmed in the US. its sequel, Powaqqatsi was about technology's influence on the third world. Naqoyqatsi, the concluding film in the trilogy, is about man, technology and war.
Ebert writes:
The thinking behind these films is deep but not profound. They're ritualistic grief at what man has done to the planet. "The logical flaw," as I pointed out in my review of "Powaqqatsi," is that "Reggio's images of beauty are always found in a world entirely without man--without even the Hopi Indians. Reggio seems to think that man himself is some kind of virus infecting the planet--that we would enjoy the earth more, in other words, if we weren't here."Or as I recently wrote about Koyaanisqatsi for Blogcritics:
Running 87 minutes without a stitch of dialogue, Koyaanisqatsi nonetheless carries a powerful emotional message. Of course, what that message is depends on what the viewer wants to take away from the film. I think it's a safe bet that Godfrey Reggio, the director of Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi believes, more or less, in most of the standard shibboleths of the environmental left: man is bad, technology is bad, nature is best left pristine, etc. Kill 'em all: let Gaia sort it out.As far as this latest film, Ebert writes:
Although "Naqoyqatsi" has been some 10 years in the making, it takes on an especially somber coloration after 9/11. Images of marching troops, missiles, bomb explosions and human misery are intercut with trademarks (the Enron trademark flashes past), politicians and huddled masses, and we understand that war is now our way of life. But hasn't war always been a fact of life for mankind? We are led to the uncomfortable conclusion that to bring peace to the planet, we should leave it.Of course. The far fringes of the environmental left really would be much happier if the planet was vacated. Of course, so few of them are willing to put their money where their mouths are, and check out early in an effort to speed the process up.
Reggio, with the dramatic music of Philip Glass underscoring them, creates awesome images, and I do plan to see Naqoyqatsi if it makes its way out to San Jose. But to take their underlying message seriously is dangerous--not to mention deadly.
EMMITT SMITH JUST BROKE WALTER PAYTON'S NFL RUSHING RECORD.
The Cowboys will probably have a fairly mediocre season, but it's great to see Smith pull this off.
BACK TO THE FUTURE: AP says that Walter Mondale (yes, that Walter Mondale) has emerged as the front runner to replace Paul Wellstone.
TABLET PCs: In case you haven't noticed already, Microsoft lately is really pushing tablet PCs as The Next Big Thing. David Strom of Internet Week looks at the tablets' pluses and minuses.
I've tested a few tablet PCs--both at CES, and Candlestick Park, when 3Com had the naming rights, and briefly had the stadium running 802.11, and was leasing wireless Hitachi tablet PCs in the luxury suites during 49ers games. Near term, I'm pretty skeptical of tablets achieving real success, but my opinion may be tainted after watching Internet appliances hyped to gills, only to see them quickly fail, a couple of years ago.
DOUBLE YOUR FUN: There were actually two attacks on the Internet on Monday, according to Internet Week.
PAGING DR. ORWELL: Take a gander at the 1984-style propaganda posters the Metropolitan Police are putting up around London.
"YOU GOTTA DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO", Bill Clinton told Bob Dole when he complained about the demagogic Medicare ads that helped defeat him. Robert Bartley says that the election ethics of Clinton's party are little changed.
Left-wing bigotry is on the rise, according to Andrew Sullivan:
When a black public person like Harry Belafonte calls another African-American a slave to white masters, you see what I mean. When defenders of feminism call someone who files a sexual harassment lawsuit "trailer-trash," you get the picture. When a gay man can write a column asserting that another man is a "nasty faggot," it's hard to think of how much lower the discourse can get. When liberals denigrate the president as a "boy" or as a "sissy," to quote Maureen Dowd, homophobia doesn't lurk far behind.When you resort to the examples that Sullivan gives above, it says to me that you're losing the argument; you've relinquished your role as moral leader, and you've got to crank up the noise--and the hate--to compensate.I remember a brief interaction I had with one Barbra Streisand long, long ago when the Paula Jones suit had just been filed. I asked Ms. Streisand what she thought of the suit. "Oh, she's just a little kurva," she replied, referring to Jones. That's a yiddish expression for "whore." Charming.
Again, the simple test here is the following: If a conservative had used these expressions, would it have been denounced by liberals? The answer, obviously, is yes. Imagine if George Will had called Colin Powell a "house slave." Imagine if Pat Buchanan had called Barney Frank a "nasty faggot." Imagine if Trent Lott had called Hillary Clinton a whore. Do you think they'd be invited on "Larry King Live" to further elaborate on their comments?
Winners don't stoop to that kind of language.
WILL IT HAPPEN THIS WEEKEND? Emmitt Smith is closing in on Walter Payton's all-time rushing record.
He'd love to get it this Sunday in Dallas, and the porous Seattle Seahawks defense just might (reluctantly) oblige him.
RUSSIAN FORCES CONTROL THEATER, according to this AP report. The Russians used sleeping gas in their daring pre-dawn raid, but unfortunately, Reuters reports 130 dead, but no word yet on how that breaks down between hostages and terrorists.
Fortunately, the networks were right on top of this story, every step of the way.
NEW PINK FLOYD DVDs COMING NEXT YEAR, according to The Digital Bits Web site, which had these interesting Floydian slips today:
We've got some GOOD news for you Pink Floyd fans. Roger Waters' manager, Mark Fenwick, had confirmed that Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii - The Director's Cut is being prepped for DVD release in March 2003. Not only that, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is going to be released on DVD-Audio on 3/3/03 in honor of its 30th anniversary! We're still waiting for an update on Pulse, so we'll let you know if we hear anything.Sounds like it should be a good year for Floyd fans in 2003. Now if we could only get Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour reunited, or at least talk Gilmour into getting the rest of the gang back together for a tour...
New evidence has come to light that an ex-US President, at the height of a long protracted war against a totalatarian regime which had killed millions of innocent lives, asked that regime to influence the election of the extremely popular President who had previously defeated him:
Even when he was out of office, Herbert Hoover still tried bitterly to encourage Berlin to do damage to his enemies during an election. As von Ribbontrop recounts, in January 1944 the former president dropped by his residence for a private meeting. Hoover was concerned about Roosevelt's potential for a fourth term, and went on to explain that Berlin would be better off with someone else in the White House. If Roosevelt won, he warned, "There would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on poison gas, as long as Roosevelt remained in power."Of course, the above never actually happened (although it would make a great Robert Harris thriller). However, according to an article by Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, something very similar did happen--at least twice--with Jimmy Carter and our Cold War enemies, the Soviet Union:
On repeated occasions, according to numerous Soviet accounts, Carter encouraged Moscow to influence American politics for his benefit or for the detriment of his enemies. Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin recounts in his memoirs how, in the waning days of the 1980 campaign, the Carter White House dispatched Armand Hammer to the Soviet embassy. Explaining to the Soviet Ambassador that Carter was "clearly alarmed" at the prospect of losing to Reagan, Hammer asked for help: Could the Kremlin expand Jewish emigration to bolster Carter's standing in the polls? "Carter won't forget that service if he is elected," Hammer told Dobrynin.If the above is true, imagine if Hoover really did go the Nazis--or Nixon to the Soviets, to try to swing an election?According to Georgii Kornienko, first deputy foreign minister at the time, something similar took place in 1976, when Carter sent Averell Harriman to Moscow. Harriman sought to assure the Soviets that Carter would be easier to deal with than Ford, clearly inviting Moscow to do what it could through public diplomacy to help his campaign.
Even when he was out of office, Carter still tried bitterly to encourage Moscow to do damage to his enemies during an election. As Dobrynin recounts, in January 1984 the former president dropped by his residence for a private meeting. Carter was concerned about Reagan's defense build-up and went on to explain that Moscow would be better off with someone else in the White House. If Reagan won, he warned, "There would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan remained in power."
While Carter's commitment to the principles of democracy, peace, and human rights is genuine, he has failed to grasp that good intentions are not enough. A commitment to championing human rights is no substitute for enacting policies that actually secure them — nor should it be an excuse for trying to manipulate an American election.
(Link found via Dean Esmay, who also links to a very interesting post by John Weidner on the same subject.)
WILL ALAN PAGE REPLACE PAUL WELLSTONE? Orrin Judd's sources are tracking who will be the next Democratic candidate for senator from Minnesota, and say that Page (a Hall of Fame lineman from the Vikings' glory years with Budd Grant and Fran Tarkenton) and Walter Mondale's son Ted are the frontrunners.
RICHARD HARRIS DIED TODAY AT AGE 72: The 72-year-old actor had been receiving treatment for Hodgkin's Disease at University College Hospital in London, where he was pronounced dead at 7:00 p.m.
PAYING FOR THE WAR: Larry Kudlow says the US economy can afford it.
HERE'S SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO. Jonah Goldberg writes:
If it hasn't happened already, we can expect that someone on the Cynthia McKinney/Nation of Islam fringe will soon be declaring that Johnny Muhammad is a Lee Harvey Oswald-style dupe whom the Bushes set up to further distract the country from the elections and to paint black Muslims in a bad light. After all, the guy does have three names, which is the only essential ingredient for a murky, government-backed assassin, right?Goldberg also has some thoughts on the upcoming election, especially in light of Paul Wellstone's death in a plane crash today.
SHOULD THE US GO IT ALONE IN IRAQ, under current UN resolutions and without further UN deliberation? the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed piece today authored by former NSC General Counsel Paul Stevens, analyzing United States authority to continue military action against Iraq under current UN resolutions. While it's only available to subscribers of the Journal, earlier this month, the Federalist Society released a white paper on the same topic, also authored by Stevens.
NAME CHANGE: Along with regime change, Sidney Goldberg (Jonah's dad) suggests it could give Iraq (and Iran) a fresh start--and I agree.
MY HOW TIMES CHANGE: Eric Olsen notes "Stupid Celebrity Tricks" in a once patriotic Hollywood.
Check out these paragraphs from the CNN article on Iraq expelling foreign journalists:
Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, said the planned expulsion is "a draconian measure that will sharply curtail the world's knowledge about what is happening in Iraq." Jordan said CNN stands by Arraf and all of CNN's Iraq reporting as "accurate, fair, and forthright."If half of the things reported in the New Republic story we linked to last week on how Iraq manipulates its coverage are true, how on earth can Jordan say that with a straight face? (Insert obligatory Orwell reference of your choice here.)
And then there's this one:
Jordan dismissed as "absurd" Iraqi government allegations that CNN is a U.S. government propaganda service. Jordan added that "while CNN remains committed to reporting to the extent possible from Iraq, CNN will not compromise its journalistic principles in exchange for CNN access to any country."Ted Turner must be laughing his butt off over anyone thinking that CNN is a U.S. government propaganda service.
SADDAM HUSSEIN IS EXPELLING ALL FOREIGN JOURNALISTS: Joanne Jacobs suggests that "this is a great opportunity for CNN and others to stand up for their integrity by leaving Baghdad and refusing to return under Saddam's terms".
Think they'll do it? Me neither.
HERE COMES THE SPIN regarding the muslim sniper angle, says Charles Johnson.
(Incidentally, sorry for the lack of coverage on the sniper, especially after manning the Blogosphere's late shift early this morning. I'm trying to wrap up an article today. InstaPundit and LGF have tons of coverage and links today. But you probably knew that already.)
IS HOCKEY THE KILLER APP FOR BROADBAND? The National Hockey League says that 76 percent of the 12 million monthly visitors to NHL.com log on from a broadband connection.
THE CLEAR WINNER: U.S. Senate candidate Douglas Forrester debated last night against an empty chair on a New Jersey radio station, as his Democratic opponent, Frank Lautenberg, declined to appear.
No word yet if Wilson, that volleyball-cum-thespian from Cast Away will enter the race as a last minute third party candidate.
MORE ON THE SNIPER: AP has a photo of the suspect, and more details, while Stephen Green says that the sniper's situation is the direct opposite of the IRA's in the early 1980s.
UPDATE: AP says that two men were arrested early Thursday in connection with the serial sniper attacks. They were found inside a car at a rest stop off I-70 in Federick County, Md., at 3:19 a.m., according to Larry Scott, an agent for the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Arms.
UPDATE: I just turned Fox News on, before calling it a night. They're saying that a rifle (possibly the rifle) was apparently found in the car.
SADDAM RECALLS CHILDREN OF HIS ENVOYS: Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has ordered all his diplomats posted abroad to send their children back to Iraq, according to a U.S. intelligence report.
It would be nice to see a few of the diplomats defect, rather than let their children serve as human shields and bargaining chips for the hopefully soon-to-be-living-the-rest-of-his-short-a**-life-in-agonizing-pain-tyrant here. (With apologies to Ving Rhames and Quentin Tarantino.)
STIRRED, NOT SHAKEN: VodkaPundit reviews The Thin Man, a film released almost immediately after Prohibition ended, and starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, several half gallons of Tanqueray, and a couple of fifths of Noilly Pratt.
Oh, and Asta, too!
By the way, for more on The Thin Man, and its place in Martini history, be sure to check out Barnaby Conrad's The Martini: An Illustrated History of an American Classic, a terrific look at the great American cocktail, and how to make them.
McZEPPELIN! A 25-foot-high inflatable Ronald McDonald is at Large in South Wales.
Sounds like a whale of a Filet of Fish story to me...
LOUD EXPLOSION HEARD AT MOSCOW THEATER: AP says "It was not clear whether the explosion was inside the theater or outside".
SNIPER WARRANTS ISSUED: Little Green Footballs and InstaPundit have a roundup of the details.
THE NIGHTLY LILEKS LINK: In the middle of a stomach flu of apparently pan-galactic proportions, James Lileks still has the energy to describe what makes the DC sniper so different from 9/11:
We don’t dress up our children in dynamite belts - and they think this makes us weak. We shield our children from death, not marinate them in its bloody juices, and they think this means we lack conviction. Morons. Come after our children, and you don’t know what you’re in for. You heard the part about awakening a sleeping giant? The sleeping giantess is the one you want to look out for, because she’ll tear off your head and lactate down your throat. Do not mess with American moms.Here's the key difference:If it is Islamic terrorism, it will be delightful to watch the root-causers explain this one. They could get away with writing off 9/11 as karmic justice, because it was so large, so theatrical, so massively calamitous that it instantly took on symbolic meaning. And symbols are always up for grabs. But shooting a dozen people at random is something the mind grasps and understands at once.
everyone has stood in the open pumping gas, watching the numbers race, hoping we can hold it under twenty bucks, waving to the kid strapped in the backseat, wondering when the gas station started playing oldies through the loudspeaker - jesus, “My Eyes Adored You?” Haven’t heard that one in -The sad thing he's right. But it may be sometime before "the root causers" get up enough nerve to actually say it in public.[crack]
[/life]
This even the stupidest root-causer gets. But I doubt they’ll admit it. They’ll have to draw a direct link between American foreign policy and some poor guy getting his head opened up at a 7-11. It will require meta-meta-meta thinking so elaborate, so vaporous, so consumed with the sins of the West that they’ll look like someone pissing off the parapets of the tallest building in Cloud-Cuckoo Land.
I think they’re up to the job.
CLEVELAND BROWNS OWNER DIES: Al Lerner was 69. "Lerner underwent surgery in May 2001, reportedly to remove a brain tumor. In June, he said he had been in and out of the hospital during the past year", according to this AP report.
Lerner was one of the 1998 recipients of the Horatio Alger Award--and I'd say he personified it:
The son of an immigrant candy shop owner, Lerner was a tough-minded kid, whose first job selling furniture paid him $75 a week.He saved enough to enter a deal to purchase a Cleveland apartment building. His real estate empire grew, and he went on to acquire banking interests in Baltimore.
In 1991, he spun off the MBNA Credit Corp. from debt-ridden MNC Financial in Maryland with a stock offering that raised $995 million. He ended up with a 10 percent stake in MBNA and became its chief executive.
Lerner also was chairman of Town & Country Trust, a Baltimore-based real estate investment trust that owns and manages residential properties.
His friend and business partner, Peter B. Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance Corp., once described Lerner as ``the Michael Jordan'' of the investment business.
LINE OF THE DAY (as posted in a music forum): "Chief Moose is expected to emerge from HQ at any moment and make a statement. If he sees his shadow, it means six more weeks of investigating."
CORRUPTION CORRUPTS: Jonah Goldberg dissects Lord Acton's famous aphorism (no, that not a male follicular fashion worn by Don Cornelius), "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men":
Now, it's obviously true that Acton, an eminent 19th-century liberal, had an abiding problem with powerful men who let their power go to their heads — but that's not really what he was talking about. He was talking about the tendency of people to say, "But Hitler built the autobahn," or "Think of all the good things Bill Clinton did," or "Remember that Nixon created the EPA." He wasn't necessarily offering as a rule of thumb that as you get more powerful you get more corrupt. Rather, he was saying that as you get more powerful the standard you are held to by historians must be more, not less, exacting. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that, but that's an argument for another day.Interesting essay, and well worth checking out.Today, the "power corrupts" syllogism has — like so many other things — been translated into a credo of personal morality. It insists that power makes you a bad person — i.e., self-aggrandizing, cruel, megalomaniacal, blind to all moral distinctions, and so on. And that just isn't true. If it were, history would simply be the story of bad powerful men. And, while there most certainly were plenty of bad powerful men, there was also, for instance, George Washington. He might have become a king if he'd wanted, but he chose not to. He could have stayed president for life, but he chose not to. And, as NR's Richard Brookhiser has chronicled, Washington remained a decent man, courteous to a fault in fact, as he grew in influence and power. Likewise, Abraham Lincoln — at whom certain libertarians love to throw the Acton quote — may have suspended habeas corpus, but the evidence seems fairly lacking that he was a corrupt man or that he grew more corrupt as he grew more powerful. Last I checked, Jimmy Carter didn't become noticeably more praetorian for having had the arsenal of democracy at his disposal.
THE BIRD OF PREY: No it's not the latest technology from the Romulan Empire--it's the latest aircraft from Boeing--and sleek and stealthy to boot.
NOTE: BLOW DRY BEFORE PLAYING. Check out David Letterman's Record Collection. Of course, these comments by Dave (or his crack team of writers) sum it all up best:
Meow meow creepy meow meow meow cat with partial mastery of the English language meow meow rabies meow demonic possession meow meow meow trolley roadkill meow.I think once you've said that, you've said it all.
UPDATE: Political (and WWF) wonks take note: there's a surprise appearance by Jesse Ventura in there, singing his 1984 solo classic, "The Body Rules". Perhaps Governor Ventura will resume his singing career, now that his time in politics appears to be winding down.
TERRORISTS SEIZE MOSCOW THEATER, up to 1000 taken hostage, but "children and Muslim members of the audience have been reportedly released", according to this BBC News article. The suspects claim to be Chechen rebels, apparently led by a nephew of Chechen warlord Arbi Barayev.
UPDATE: InstaPundit has more, including how this could alter Russia's opposition to our attacking Iraq.
POSSIBLE SIGN OF AIRLINE SANITY: USA Today says that passengers may soon be able to use their cell phones. At least two companies, AirCell and Verizon Airfone, are developing technology to let passengers use their cell phones without disrupting airplane electronics or ground cellular service.
Of course, "soon" is a relative term: don't expect to see such service until 2004, according to the article.
CUBA LIBRE: The U.S. is quietly working for regime change in Cuba, too, according to The Brothers Judd.
(We'll make a very large pitcher of these when Castro finally falls.)
RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL MAY BE ON AN AEROFLOT PLANE AT JFK, according to this story in the Rocky Mountain News. The FBI "ordered to keep its distance from the passenger terminals", and is only letting passengers off in small groups.
UPDATE: False alarm, fortunately.
IS AGE AN ISSUE IN NJ SENATE RACE? It should be--it's certainly been raised as an issue (JFK--too young? Reagan--too old?) in numerous presidential campaigns.
WEASEL WORDS: MSNBC backs out from calling Little Green Footballs racist and hateful. Or do they? That's the beauty of weasel words, as Mark Steyn illustrates in his letter to MSNBC in support of LGF.
Of course, there's another byproduct of all of this: quite frankly, I had never heard of MSNBC's Weblog coverage before their attempt to slander LGF. Now they're all over InstaPundit, LGF, and other blogs that I read. Of course, with this kind of gutless reporting, I doubt I'll be going back to them very often.
UPDATE: For some background on Charles Johnson, the man behind LGF, check out this post by Eric Olsen on Blogcritics.
ANOTHER UPDATE: ScrappleFace reports that other bloggers have been begging MSNBC, "smear me, too!"
STRONG EARTHQUAKE RATTLES ALASKA: 6.2 is the preliminary magnitude.
MICROSOFT OFFICE 2003: Take a sneak peek.
VIVA ESPANIA: James Taranto, in the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web Today section writes:
"The Spanish government has cancelled a state banquet in honour of President Mohammed Khatami of Iran after Tehran insisted that he would not sit down to a meal with wine on the table," London's Daily Telegraph reports. Khatami had said that for religious reasons he would not eat at a table where alcohol was served. A Spanish Foreign Ministry spokesman says Madrid canceled the dinner to ensure that "the Spanish custom of drinking wine with meals was not dishonored."
ATTACK ON INTERNET CALLED LARGEST EVER: The Washington Post says "The heart of the Internet sustained its largest and most sophisticated attack ever, starting late Monday, according to officials at key online backbone organizations". The attack lasted for about an hour. "FBI officials would not speculate on who might have planned or carried out the attack."
WOODY'S MOM WAS RIGHT: "Brooklyn is not expanding!" she said in Annie Hall. Neither is the universe, apparently.
In any case, Dr. Flicker's advice to Woody Allen (or "Alvy Singer" as he was known in Annie Hall) is empirically correct: it's not going to happen "for billions of years yet, Alvy. And we've gotta try to enjoy ourselves while we're here!"
MONTANA SENATOR JUMPS BACK INTO CANDIDACY after homophobic smears from his opponent's campaign. I have no idea what Mike Tayler's chances are, but I think jumping back in is a pretty smart move--he can now through all of the smears back in his opponent's face and use them against him. And using a "I'm standing up for what's right" approach has got to work better than being replaced with a surrogate candidate.
Interesting observation by Patrick Ruffini:
Today's Democratic Party can best be understood as the product of an uneasy marriage between post-modernism and anti-modernism. This is a combination you see frequently in university environments that pride themselves for being on the cutting edge of society — but nonetheless favor medieval juntas in Baghdad, Havana, and Ramallah while finding fault with modern democracies like the United States and Israel. Some of our hippest Americans are liberal Democrats, and yet, if you look closely, the party has spent the last few elections campaigning on a very old Depression-era ideology. It's no coincidence that the two characters in that outrageous DNC Social Security cartoon were, on the one hand, a cool dude clad in jump suit and shades, and on the other hand, a doting grandma.And speaking of medieval juntas, here's an essay we found via Charles Johnson that begins with the following provocative statement: "the ideas of Benito Mussolini, the founder of Fascism, are remarkably similar to the ideas of modern-day Western Leftists".
THE POLITICIZATION OF PUBLIC SCHOOL: It's the first half of James Lileks' Bleat today. Nina and I don't have kids, but I really pity those parents who have to send their kids to public schools and have to deal with the crap that Lileks describes. What an incredible brainwashing they have to come--and it will probably only get worse.
The worst case of brainwashing I can remember from high school was my senior year history professor who taught us that Eleanor Roosevelt was "if not pretty a handsome looking woman...", FDR single-handedly beat the Depression, and that Harry Truman was one of our smartest presidents.
Can you say...biased?
But that sounds like an episode of Rush Limbaugh compared to what Lileks' daughter will face when she runs headlong into the Minneapolis School System:
I suspect that the educational establishment regards the insertion of these issues at every available opportunity to be part of their mission; far from wondering what the Million Mom March has to do with a class on establishing sleep schedules, they see these issues as indistinguishable from basic parenting skills. A good parent teaches ABCs; a good parent marches for peace; a good parent realizes the importance of five-point restraint carseats; a good parent subscribes to the MMM position on guns. The personal is the political, after all. And oh-so vice versa.Good luck kids (and parents): you'll need it.Still, I bit my tongue. In some peculiar way, I felt as if bringing this matter up in the group would be as inappropriate as the materials themselves. Then, looking through the new handouts, I saw a thick sheaf titled EARTH PLEDGE.
“I pledge allegiance to our Earth,On the back, a note from author Patricia Hauser:
(the planet on which we live).
And to fresh air, pure water, healthy dirt,
life-giving plants and all the animals!
One Earth - four oceans - seven continents -
thousands of lakes and rivers!
And I accept my duty to be an honorable
citizen of this Earth, with respect and
consciousness towards all.”“This Pledge, written to the rhythm of the Pledge of Allegiance, was originally composed to develop and enhance planetary consciousness in the hearts and minds of the wonderful second and third graders in my class.
“At our daily ‘Morning Meeting,’ the Class ‘President’ of the week reads the Earth Pledge with each line being repeated by the entire class. . . . Whenever global events are brought up in class, someone volunteers to locate the continent and country in which the event is occurring. This begins the expansion process and realization that we, on Mother Earth, are all in this together and what each one of us does makes a difference.”
“Printed on recycled paper.”
US REFINES PLAN FOR WAR IN CITIES: Given that over the past year, the Bush administration has run enough fakes, misdirections and gadget plays to make Tom Landry blush (were he alive), I'd take this article with a grain of salt, but it's an interesting look at how urban combat has developed since World War II.
WHY ON EARTH IS PAUL VOLCKER (one of our heroes for his inflation destroying efforts as head of the Federal Reserve Board in the early 1980s) campaigning on behalf of England joining the Euro??
NFL ROUNDUP:Cris Carter ends retirement, joins Dolphins; Quincy Carter benched as Dallas QB; Rams cornerback Aeneas Williams will miss the rest of the season after surgery; and Packer QB Brett Favre won't need surgery on his sprained left knee, and the Packers are optimistic he won't miss any games. That and more bite-sized NFL nuggets are contained in this AP article.
For more on Carter's benching, check out this Dallas Morning News story.
LAW OF THE LEFT: Let me see if I understand how things work: is it that anything you say that attacks Israel specifically, or Jews in general is fine, and not considered hate speech? But anything you say that points out how dangerous the murderous extremes of radical Islam is, can be labeled hateful?
Just checking. (Incidentally, I think Charles Johnson does one helluva job with his Little Green Footballs site. It's my first stop for Middle Eastern links.)
"THE BUFFALO SIX" were indicted today on charges of supporting terrorism by training at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan.
No word yet on what this fellow thinks of the verdict.
MAHMAHMAHMY SHARONA! Did you know that Sharona Alperin, the woman who inspired the Knack's monster hit single in the early 1980s, has her own Web site at www.mysharona.com, with a cool Flash intro (guess what the background music is)?
Neither did I, but now I do. And now you do too.
(Spotted on the Internet Movie Database's homepage.)