DENNIS MILLER: Conservative (or at least libertarian) hero. Here is are some of riffs from Wednesday's Tonight Show with Jay Leno:
-- “Sean Penn, for instance, is urging restraint. What could we possibly say to Sean to get him on board? If only Saddam Hussein was a paparazzi.” (Penn once punched a photographer.)I always loved Miller when he hosted "Weekend Update" on SNL. He's been the only successful replacement to Chevy Chase's original stint as "anchorman" (27 years ago, when Chase was actually funny). And I guess spending all that time around Al Michaels when the two hosted Monday Night Football really paid off.-- “The only way the French are going in is if we tell them we found truffles in Iraq.”
-- “The French are always reticent to surrender to the wishes of their friends and always more than willing to surrender to the wishes of their enemies.”
He also took on liberals for opposing school vouchers when public schools are a disaster and offered this blast at the ACLU's priorities:
“The ACLU spent this entire holiday season protesting public displays of the nativity scene. Yeah, that's the problem with America right now: Public displays of Christ's birth, that's the problem. It's unbelievable to me. The ACLU will no longer fight for your right to put up a nativity scene, but they'll fight for the right of the local freak who wants to stumble onto the scene and have sex with one of the sheep.”
I THINK YOU MISSED IT, FRANK: "World champion chess computer software program Deep Junior pounced on a glaring error by Garry Kasparov Thursday to draw level with the Russian grandmaster half-way through their six-game match in New York."
(Hal, and Frank Poole, couldn't be reached for comment.)
HERE AT EDDRISCOLL.COM, we try to avoid material that would be of prurient interest. We endeavor, always, to maintain a high level of dignity, and an even, proper tone.
Therefore, we would never offer a link to something as crude, boorish and in poor taste as this cartoon is.
It just wouldn't be our...style. So please don't open the above link (found via Stephen Green) whatever you do.
Thank you.
MORE STUPIDITY BY DAIMLERCHRYSLER: What are these guys thinking??
PHIL OF IT: "CPO Sparkey" of Team Stryker has Phil Donahue's number down cold:
The reason why Phil's new show has done so badly is because the people can see that the "the godfather of talk TV" has no clothes. Bill O'Reilley doesn't pander; he calls people to account for their words, doesn't let them evade questions or go on filibusters to prevent others from talking, and to stop such tactics Bill must interrupt them. This often shocks Pundits et al. of the left who've grown used to being slow-pitched by like-thinking journalists. When I saw Barney Frank red with rage on Bill's show one night, I could imagine him thinking, "You're only supposed to only do this to THEM!" You can call it rude, but I call it compelling TV journalism.In the article by Kluger that Sparkey quotes, he writes, "Donahue is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of conversation: genuine, affable, well mannered and well informed...."Another quote from [Bruce Kluger of USA Today's] hit-piece:
Therein lies the problem: Donahue has not lost one bit of smarts since his heyday. American TV has.That's the problem with so many on the left: they're bigots. They think that most everyone in flyover country is an uneducated rube. Honestly, Phil's tactics are well known, just ask Neal Boortz. Yet, when the people start to see the snake oil salesmen for what they are, it's not the message or the messenger, but the receiver who's at fault for not accepting the message. It's obvious to me, anyway, that such left-leaning pundits really only care about the "right" kind of people.
But Obi-Wan was killed by a stronger version of one his peers, wasn't he? I guess the symbolism holds up: O'Donahue is number one in the cable TV ratings and Phil may be collecting unemployment checks in the not-too-distant future.
KEEPING KIFFIN: The Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers have very wisely given an a new three-year contract to Monte Kiffin, their defensive mastermind.
One of the interesting, and I'm not sure if expected, byproducts of free agency and the salary cap has been the increase of importance in NFL coaches--both head coaches, and their assistants. Once a team reaches the Super Bowl, it's going to be disassembled because teams can't afford to keep their players. So the only consistency is going to come from their coaching staffs.
Very wise of the Bucs not to let Kiffen go.
SMART HOMES FOR BLOGGERS: While we kick politics around every day here, my primary metier (hey, if Nicholson can use it in Chinatown, I can too...) is writing about technology, including home automation and home theater. My review of one of my favorite home automation books, and some suggested additional reading, is now up on on Blogcritics.
UPDATE: In a nice bit of syncronicity, James Lileks' latest Bleat--inspired by a visit to a renovated 1970s shopping mall-- also looks at technology and the future (as well as all the possible futures of the past):
The Mission style was the vanguard of its day, as was the International Style, as was the Mall design of the 70s; they were all a taste of things to come presented for our approval.Exactly.But now we don’t know what the future is supposed to look like.
Ever seen the front of those machines they use to bore subway tunnels? Concentric rings of sharp teeth gobbling and moving, gobbling and moving. That’s the culture we live in now - it consumes today as it bores towards tomorrow, and it’s always fixed on the next six inches it needs to eat. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems as if we stopped looking ten, twenty years ahead, stopped conjuring up these worlds in which everything looked new and improved. If that’s so: why?
Perhaps it’s because the present makes those old visions of the future look infantile and silly. We’re not wearing one-piece jumpsuits and taking meals from a pill-dispensing machines, or flying off to work on jetpacks. We have the stuff that counts. We have computers and communicators; we have a global information network, a space station, robot war machines, cybernetic implants. And we still wear jeans and eat hamburgers, and Elvis had a number one song in Airstrip One last year.
The very idea of the future is undergoing a renovation - it’s not a city on the other side of a wall. The best lesson may be this: there is no wall. In the end the very idea of “The Future” may turn out to be a 20th century conceit, the reason the globe churned itself up fighting one rancid conception of utopia after the other. The future is back to being what it always was: an accumulation of tomorrows, not a wholesale refutation of today.
Now we’re fighting the ultimate futurists: men who concept of the future denies the idea of progress. Their future is a snake biting its tail. Our future: sitting in an early 20th century chair in a mid-century mall connecting to the wireless network with your laptop to make revisions on a project due next summer. It’s not necessarily an inspiring vision; it does not seek to remake mankind and perfect its impurities. It does not promise heaven on earth. But this only means that tens of millions won’t be sacrificed in a lunatic attempt to bring it about.
STANDING ROOM ONLY: Al Sharpton sure can pack 'em in! The caption reads:
"Democratic presidential hopeful Rev. Al Sharpton responds to President Bush's State of the Union address during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2003. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)"Charles may have been the only person in the room, besides Sharpton. No word yet on what he thought of Sharpton's speech.
(Link found via Reason's Hit & Run blog.)
AXIS OF JACKHAMMERS: Sorry for the lack of posting this morning. We've begun some fairly extensive remodeling on the house, and this morning was complete chaos, as big portions of our garage floor, and front and rear sidewalks were jackhammered into oblivion to begin the first phase of work.
Mr. Blandings, I feel for you.
SECURITY AND PATRIOTISM UPDATES: Dave Barry is on the case, explaining what happened to my trousers.
My review of Michael Graham's new book is online at Blogcritics.
TEMPEST IN A DIXIE CUP: Interesting little dust-up created by a pro-Communist site called Counterspin regarding InstaPundit and myself. Here's the Professor's response. Click on over to Counterspin from it, and you'll see our name briefly mentioned, as well as a link to the original InstaPundit post that started everything. Counterspin seems to have confused me with James Lileks, whose thoughts on A.N.S.W.E.R. I was quoting (and clearly labeled as such), which is awesome company to associated with--maybe I can borrow a cup or two of chops from him.
A TALE OF TWO STAR TREKS: Flak Magazine compares Starship Exeter, which was made for $1.98 and a lot of love, to Star Trek: Nemesis, which was budgeted at 70 million dollars. Guess which comes out the winner?
IT'S NOW OR NEVILLE: Rod Dreher links to this New York Times report, and writes, "European intelligence services are finding evidence that Islamic militants throughout the continent are preparing a wave of poison attacks and other assaults on Europe in the event of war with Iraq. This would explain, in part, the reluctance of Europeans to support the coming war. But you have to wonder: do you people really think you can appease these Islamofascist bastards forever?"
DAVE, I'M AFRAID: The San Jose Business Journal says, "Your computer could be killing you"
(Link via Matt Drudge.)
Almost makes you want to take up smoking, instead!
WE'RE GOING IT ALONE IN IRAQ. Just us and...
...over 12 other countries. Patrick Ruffini has the list, which is growing.
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal has assembled quotes by eight of their leaders.
UN inspectors uncover proof of Saddam's nuclear bomb plans, according to the UK Telegraph.
Meanwhile, England's Independent reports that Iraq has admitted possessing four empty chemical warheads in addition to the 11 empty warheads it said had not been disclosed to UN weapons inspectors because of an "oversight".
KEITH RICHARDS IS A MAGNIFICENT BASTARD, according to Dean Esmay.
After reading Esmay's post, I'm very much inclined to agree!
THE ART OF PLAY CALLING IN THE NFL: Good analysis of an underappreciated art by Dan Pompei of the Sporting News.
WHAT HAPPENED TO BUY LOW, SELL HIGH? David Frum writes:
Two years ago, I would have predicted that Social Security reform would take precedence over healthcare, if only because conservative ideas about Social Security were so much more developed than those about health. The collapse of the stock market seems to have changed that – and it now looks as if Social Security is to be shoved off to the indefinite future.He's probably right, but why? How difficult would it be for George W. Bush to look Congress dead in the eye and say:
"We need to get going on this now. The stock market is off its historic highs, which means most stocks are on sale. And as those stocks begin to rise (and they will, if you pass my tax cuts, etc.), those members of the American public who chose to own them in their Social Security plans instead of getting three percent on Treasury Bonds will have that much more of a head start for when they retire."I don't think that's too difficult a concept for most people to get. So why can't a Republican president put his mouth where his money is?
COMPARE AND CONTRAST THESE TWO DRUDGE HEADLINES:
CBS News Post-Speech Poll Gives Bush Major Boost...
Helen, here's a fork; you're done.
UPDATE: James Taranto writes, in Best of the Web Today:
Helen Thomas, American journalism's crazy old aunt in the attic, apparently is quoted in the Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze as saying President Bush "is the worst president in all of American history." We say "apparently" because we haven't actually been able to click through to the link; readers of the Drudge Report seem to have overwhelmed the Breeze's servers. The Wall Street Journal Survey on Presidents, conducted in 2000, found that James Buchanan, who served one term (1857-61) ranked as the worst president in American history. Unfortunately, we're not old enough to remember how Helen Thomas covered his administration.Heh.
STEVEN DEN BESTE IS NOT HAPPY: He's dubbed Bush's speech the "State of the Weasel" address.
UPDATE: Stephen Green begs to differ:
The UN, it sounds to me, can choose either to be a part of the existing coalition, or it can go get screwed -- perhaps at their new HQ in Geneva. (OK, so I read some wishful thinking in there at the end.)We'll see. Let's just say I like Lileks' opinion that this speech is the first of a processional, rather than Den Beste's take, but that could purely be wishful thinking on my part. Check back in two or three weeks--we'll know by then.In any case, I'm more reassured now than I was a week ago, not less.
UPDATE: Steven's feeling better about things, after a night's sleep and a lot of email and thinking.
THE PROCESSION: One more quote from Lileks. I think he's absolutely right that the SOTU speech is is the first of several comming in short succession, with a definite pattern and buildup in mind:
Compared to last year, an underwhelming speech - but the more I think about it the less that bothers me; it’s probably the right speech for the time. Hard bones to gnaw, not fresh meat you can chomp and bolt. This will be seen as the first of four speeches - the SOTU, the Bush/Blair speech, Powell’s UN speech, and Bush’s address from the Oval Office the night the war begins. I think it was written with that procession in mind, which might explain its tenor.
JOE CAMEL: I'd call the following paragraphs the money quote from James Lileks' coverage of the SOTU, but that would mean I'd miss the ten other money quotes:
Defeating Iraq isn’t the camel’s nose in the tent - it’s the camel’s head in the bed of every other Arab leader.Read the whole thing. (Nice shot of USAF Gen. B. Turgidson, by the way!)Let's say I'm a 44-year old Iraqi man with a two-year old girl and a wife who worked in the Ministry of Justice and came home every day weeping because someone else had been taken away, I would hear this speech and be filled with piercing fear and incandescent hope and the two emotions would wrestle every day until it was over. When you think about it, a postwar Iraq might actually be safer from WMD than New York City. It’ll be over for them.
We’ve no idea when it’ll be over for us.
BETTER THAN A FOOT MASSAGE: Jules and Vincent rap about the UN, and "the little differences" there.
I'll have a Royale--hold the sarin--to go.
VERY WISE OF THE PRESIDENT to place InstaPundit deep within NORAD before the SOTU speech. But don't they have LAN jacks there?
WHILE HE HAD NEVER VOTED REPUBLICAN IN HIS LIFE, Sgt. Stryker explains why he voted for Bush. And he had very, very personal reasons for doing so.
BILL PARCELLS IS PUTTING TOGETHER the blueprint for the Dallas Cowboys.
1986's THE STATE OF THE UNION, when President Reagan spoke of the Challenger disater, as well as the deaths of other great explorers, is remember by Arthur Silber.
SOTU: Want wall-to-wall State of the Union Coverage? Click here for Patrick Ruffini, here for Orrin Judd, and here for Laurence Simon. (I'll add a link to Glenn Reynolds when he's posted his comments.)
As for the Democrats' response, Jonah Goldberg and Stephen Green are in agreement that the Democrats have found, as Jonah writes, the "perfect recipe for minority party status".
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan has posted his comments. In a similar vein to Jonah and Stephen, he writes:
In many ways, this was a Kennedy-like speech, a speech a Democratic president could have made, if the Democratic Party hadn't fallen into such moral and strategic confusion. Self-confident, convinced, as he should be, of the benign nature of America's role in the world, ambitious, and warm, it was a tour de force of big government conservatism, mixed with Cold War liberalism.UPDATE: Blogging newcomer Dennis Rogers agrees with Cosmo's dad, and VodkaMan.
UPDATE: Asparagirl chimes in with a subtle point that Bush made.
WAR AGAINST IRAQ...OR HUSSEIN? Patrick Ruffini, linking to the New York Times' article on Saddam's body count that we linked to on Sunday writes:
A "war against Iraq" seems like a dangerously inappropriate term after reading an account like this. This is a war against Saddam, not against Iraq.It's semantics of course, but I disagree; we're at war with Iraq, simply because Saddam Hussein is Iraq. He controls that nation in toto, just as Hitler controlled the German Reich from 1933 to 1945. And to the extent that the vast majority of armed forces follow their lead, when you're at war with a dictator, you're at war with his country.
Of course, once the dictator is removed from power (one way or another), it's another story.
I'D LINK TO THIS, but then I'd be proving Janeane Garofalo's point.
OFFICIAL "NEWS SOURCE" OF THE AXIS OF WEASELS: Steven Den Beste checks in with "Good old Reuters" and their "Old European" slant on things.
CALIFORNIA DREAMIN': What would it take to replace about one-third of the petroleum used in transportation, (approximately 10% of the total energy demand of the U.S.) with wind powered energy? This article in Tech Central Station says that:
To generate that amount of energy, the wind turbines would have to occupy approximately 210,000 square miles of area. That's 25% more than the size of California (assuming all of California were suitable for wind resource siting, which it is not).Which is why I chuckled when reading that New York Governor George Pataki has "recently joined a growing chorus calling for a renewable future":True, the turbines would be spaced apart so that the wind freely meets the blades, leaving room beyond the footprint of each wind turbine for some limited use. So in a sense, California would not be entirely turbine-towered. But it would not be wilderness, either, owing to power lines, service buildings and roads threading the landscape. Moreover, there would be blade throws, tower topplings, destroyed viewsheds and significant kills of endangered birds such as raptors.
Technology has in the past and will continue to go a long way toward solving the problems faced by society. But such enthusiasm for technology needs to be grounded in scientific reality. And wishing that wind power will soon support thriving modern economies won't make it so.
"Within the next 10 years," Pataki said in his recent State of the State Address, "at least 25 percent of the electricity bought in New York will come from renewable energy resources like solar power, wind power, or fuel cells."The answer my friend...
BARRET ROBBINS UPDATE: Robbins, who was the chief source of the Raider's distractions prior to the Super Bowl, is under a suicide watch, according to this ESPN.com article. ESPN quotes a "source close to the Oakland center" who says that Robbins "was believed to have stopped taking his prescription medication for depression 'some time ago.'"
IT'S REPORT CARD DAY! Small Victory's sources have snuck out a copy of Saddam's report card. Let's just say that Saddam's grades are made lower by his not playing nicely with others...
"JEWISH PRACTICES": Virginia Postrel (recovering from Lasik surgery), highlights a fascinating letter from a reader in Brussels on the long-standing connection between anti-Semitism, anti-free markets and anti-globalization in Germany.
Leave it to 1930s Germany to consider "free gifts" in marketing as "Jewish practices". And to 2003 German protesters, to do this.
THE MUMIA CONNECTION: Why do antiwar contributions go to Mumia Abu-Jamal’s defenders? Byron York explains.
Well, now we know why there are so many "free Mumia" shouts at pro-dictatorship rallies.
Will they protest for this guy's release, as well?
PROTEST THE WAR, EARN EXTRA CREDIT: "An open letter was recently sent out via e-mail to faculty and staff at the University of California, Santa Barbara by supporters of the “Campus Community Peace Group,” co-organized by two UCSB professors.", according to Stanley Kurtz. Kurtz adds:
The letter suggested that professors offer extra credit to students who attend, and write a report, on anti-war events. In effect, these professors want to use grades as bribes to get students to protest the war. If that isn’t an abuse of professorial power for political purposes, what is?Good question.
"DYNASTY? BUCCANEERS AIN'T JOAN COLLINS": Don't look for them to repeat next year, says Rick Gosselin of the Dallas Morning News.
DATA CREEP: Brian Doherty of Reason asks, "If Gunowners are in a Database with Criminals, Then..."
CONGRESS DECLARES 2003, "The year of the blues".
It usually is, whenever they're in session.
CATS AND DOGS: Steven Den Beste is praising Hans Blix. No, really! Den Beste writes:
Credit where credit is due: the Blix report to the Security Council seems to be reasonably truthful and fair. He didn't try to justify or ignore or cover up the fact that Iraq is not actually wholeheartedly cooperating with the disarmament process, and clearly pointed out the fact that the effort to interview Iraqi scientists had been a bust. He pointed out that the 12,000 page report filed by Iraq was nearly all old material, and that little or none of it applied to the years after 1991. He pointed out that there were substantial stocks of weapons known to still exist when the inspectors left in 1998 which had not been accounted for.In the mid 1980s, Robin Williams used to do a funny routine (back when he really was funny, and before he turned into Mr. Weep-a-Rama in the movies) that because British bobbies were unarmed, all they could do when faced with an armed criminal was to yell "Stop! Or...I'll say 'Stop!', again!"It is not what I had expected, and I am impressed. It seems to be an accurate appraisal of what has happened, and it is equally clear that it shows that Iraq has not actually embraced this as an opportunity to voluntarily disarm, as it was required to do.
* * * In fact, reactions from all over the world were totally predictable. Everyone had already decided what they would say even before Blix and El Baradei made their reports, but with Blix frankly stating that Iraq has not fully cooperated it makes some of those responses seem a bit lame. For instance, Germany's Joschka Fischer stated that "war is no answer" and said that the inspections required more time. I'm told by a friend in Germany that this may well not be Fischer's own opinion, but it doesn't really matter. Germany still opposes war and always will as long as Schroeder is chancellor, unless Germany itself becomes the victim of a major terrorist attack.
The EU--because they are unarmed bobbies, wants to say the same thing to this armed criminal.
Hey France and Germany...it's now or Neville!
YOU DON'T SAY! AP headline: "U.S. Moving Toward Showdown With Iraq"
TERRY TATE, OFFICE LINEBACKER!!! This was one of the better commercials during the Super Bowl yesterday.
James Lileks dubbed it his favorite ad:
One simple idea: huge human meat-anvil is hurled at frail cubicle dweebs, and after he knocks them down he berates them. Hilarious, utterly unconnected to the product, but when it was done I could hear the word REEBOK throbbing in my brain in great loud red letters.Funny, I was just the opposite--I remembered the ad, but couldn't remember what it was selling. Hope Terry won't pummel me into the not-so-frozen tundra of my backyard because of that.
SLOGAN OF THE DAY:
Created by Michael Ubaldi, for his uBlog. Be sure to read the post below it.
(Link via Team Stryker.)
"ALL THAT PUBLICITY IS A PLOT": Joanne Jacobs has lots of fun deconstructing Janeane Garofalo's theory that the media puts anti-war celebrities on the air only "so they can marginalize the movement".
DEAN OF IRONY: George Will writes:
In his speech last week at a Roe v. Wade celebration—a pandering festival attended by all the aspirants—[Howard] Dean said he is running because "I don’t like extremism." Then he said that unless Bush is defeated, "Next thing, girls won’t be able to go to school in America. You watch."C'mon Howard--that line is so 1986!
APOLLO 1: Today is the 36th anniversary of the tragic fire that killed three astronauts, including the second American into space, and the first American to walk in space. Orrin Judd has a contemporaneous news article and a quote from Tom Wolfe.
UPDATE: Rand Simberg has more, including this telling line:
A key difference between this accident and the Challenger catastrophe was that in Apollo, we had a goal and a schedule. Accordingly, we dusted ourselves off, analyzed the problem, addressed it, and kept to the schedule.Maybe this (if it's true) will instill a sense of purpose at NASA for their manned space flights. God knows they need it.With the Shuttle, the political reality was that there was no particular reason to fly Shuttles--no national commitment would be violated, no vital experiments wouldn't be performed, no objects would fall from the sky on our heads, and no elections would be lost, if the Shuttle didn't fly.
So, two and a half years after the Apollo I fire, we landed men on the Moon. Two and a half years after STS 51-L, the fleet was still grounded. It didn't fly again until two years, nine months later.
WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION: Modern art was used as torture during the Spanish civil war:
A Spanish art historian has uncovered what was alleged to be the first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture, with the discovery that mind-bending prison cells were built by anarchist artists 65 years ago during the country's bloody civil war.Too bad this didn't come to light 30 yeard ago. Monty Python could have gotten much mileage out of this article:Bauhaus artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Itten, as well as the surrealist film-maker Luis Bunuel and his friend Salvador Dali, were said to be the inspiration behind a series of secret cells and torture centres built in Barcelona and elsewhere, yesterday's El Pais newspaper reported.
Most were the work of an enthusiastic French anarchist, Alphonse Laurencic, who invented a form of "psychotechnic" torture, according to the research of the historian Jose Milicua.
"Stop, or I'll Mondrian!"
"For years, Spanish scientists had worked for a way to break the impass of their civil war. Finally, they invented...The Killer Kandinsky!"
"Biggles! Hand me...(long dramatic pause)...The Picasso!! Buhwahahaha!!!!"
(Link found via NRO's The Corner.)
ESPN'S JOHN CLAYTON reminds us that the Super Bowl trophy is named after a coach, not a player, something that Al Davis has forgotten--twice.
CHIRAC'S VISION: What the world will look like in 2004, if Bush doesn't liberate Iraq.
THE PERFECT STORM: John Gruden knew so much about his former team and its quarterback "that he designed a perfect game plan that his Tampa Bay Buccaneers used to rout the Oakland Raiders 48-21 in the Super Bowl on Sunday", according to this AP article:
``Jon Gruden was Gannon,'' Bucs defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin said. ``Nobody can be like Gannon like Gruden can. He taught Gannon. He was in Gannon's head.''Peter King adds that he thought Gannon "would play an outstanding game Sunday":Gruden got into Gannon's wheelhouse so much that the NFL's MVP threw a season-high five interceptions, three of which were returned for touchdowns by Tampa Bay's stifling defense.
In Thursday's practice, Gruden even took over as quarterback on the scout team and ran several plays.
``The film illustrates that I did complete two or three passes. I was very intimidating under center,'' Gruden joked after the game, surrounded by his wife and three young boys.
Gannon was hot going into the Super Bowl. Reigning MVP. Great run in the playoffs. And the way he was abused by the Bucs defense showed just how special the Tampa Bay unit was, and is. Gannon's first 10 drives:No wonder Warren Sapp looked like he was beaming enough to light up San Diego, as he pulled an enormous full corona out of its wrapper at the end of his press conference.1. Seven plays, 14 yards, field goal.I found it laughable listening to the Raiders after the game passing off the incredible dominance of the Bucs defense as their own deficiency. "It wasn't their speed," said Callahan. "It was us not executing."2. Three plays, one yard, punt.
3. Three plays, six yards, punt.
4. Three plays, eight yards, interception.
5. Three plays, 11 yards, interception.
6. Three plays, minus-one yard, punt.
7. Six plays, 19 yards, punt.
8. Three plays, four yards, halftime.
9. Three plays, eight yards, punt.
10. Two plays, eight yards, interception.
Score after 10 Oakland possessions: Tampa Bay 34, Oakland 3.
"I'm not going to pay their defense any lip service," said Porter, the Raiders wideout. "It wasn't their defense. It was us not executing."
Attention Raiders: You didn't execute because that defense kicked your rear ends. It's a pretty simple thing. And now, it's a defense for the ages.
IS CANADA COMING ON BOARD? This post by Charles Johnson certainly seems to indicate that.
I DIDN'T WATCH THE SUPER BOWL IN HDTV (I replaced the HDTV tuner in my den with an UltimateTV PVR a couple of years ago), so I don't know the game looked in high-def, but this article says it was pretty good. And it "was so much more technically advanced and esthetically pleasing than its first HDTV Super Bowl in 2000, it was almost like comparing black and white TV to color."
Too bad the game was such a blowout, however.
Oliver Willis has coverage of some of the highlights, however...
OLIVER WILLIS IS FOOTBALL BLOGGING: Click on over for regular updates during the Super Bowl.
We've got about 15 people scheduled to show up (with about seven here already), so don't expect many updates until later.
SOUNDS LIKE MATERIAL BREACH TO ME: Hans Blix is about to issue his report on Iraq. Check out the opening two paragraphs from this AP article:
Iraq's arms declaration is incomplete, its scientists aren't cooperating with inspections and Baghdad is obstructing the use of a U-2 plane which could be helpful in the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.And then there's paragraphs one, two, four and five of the UN resolution regarding Iraq, all of which Iraq is in violation of.After two months on the job, the chief weapons inspectors, who will issue their current assessments to the Security Council on Monday at 10:30 a.m. EST, can't confirm claims by the Bush administration that Iraq is rearming. Inspectors still don't know what happened to Iraq's stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons or how much time they have left to find the answers.
It's going to be a fascinating State of the Union speech on Tuesday...
UPDATE: Colin Powell, the most dovish member of the administration said today that "he has lost faith in the inspectors' ability to conduct a definitive search for banned weapons programs", according to this AP article.
The New York Times runs the numbers, but doesn't bother to provide a total at the end. However, if amount of dead from both sides during the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s are included (and of course, it's entirely possible that both sides inflated those numbers), then the number of dead is easily in the seven figures.
The author of this piece speaks disparagingly of Hussein's Stalinist techniques, including his use of "handlers" to control foreign journalists. We tried to contact Walter Duranty for a rebuttal, but he couldn't be reached.
(Sorry to carp. I'm just happy to see the Times onboard with denouncing Hussein.)
"BACK AND TO THE LEFT"--Oliver Stone's new movie is his ultimate conspiratorial fantasy, as he tries to make Fidel Castro look like a good guy. Here's Page Six of the New York Post:
OLIVER Stone has earned the wrath of many Cuban-Americans by cozying up to Fidel Castro to make "Commandante," his flattering documentary about the communist dictator. Stone, who lobbed softball questions to Castro and let him come off as a witty charmer, seemed to be gloating at Sundance. "It is amazing," said one moviegoer. "He sits there and announces that Fidel could at any time say 'cut,' and redo any scene that he didn't think was flattering. The whole movie consisted of Fidel doing p.r. for himself, tossing out jokes and avoiding any questions that would make him admit to any sort of torture or cruelty." The highlight of the documentary is a scene where Stone expresses amazement that the tyrant had "never seen a psychiatrist." Stone asks Castro several times about the possibility of his seeing a shrink. Castro finally puts his head in his hands and sighs loudly.For more on film directors and and their love for left-wing dictators, click here. And here.
GOIN' HOME: ESPN is reporting that Raiders head coach Bill Callahan put Barret Robbins, his Pro Bowl, All Pro center, on a plane back to Oakland, because he missed virtually all of yesterday's practice. As the announcers on ESPN said, Callahan wants to make a statement that no one player is bigger than the game.
It will be interesting to see how the distraction of Robbins' actions, and how Callahan adjusted to it, will affect the game today.
Here's an earlier report, from ESPN's Web site, written before Robbins was sent home.
THE MAJORITY OF ESPN'S "PANEL OF EXPERTS" are saying the Bucs will win the game.
NOT A GOOD WEEK FOR CARTOONISTS: Bill Mauldin passed away, in addition of course, to Al Hirschfeld. Flak Magazine has a memoriam to the great World War II artist.
On Wednesday, James Lileks wrote:
Nowadays, if you point out that someone’s a Communist, you might well be accused of - dum dum DUMMMM - McCarthyism. The term has morphed from its original meaning. It no longer means falsely accusing someone of being a Communist. It now includes correctly identifying someone as a Communist, or ascribing a taint to someone because they don’t reject the Communists in their midst. (I’ll admit there’s a significant difference between the two.)Yesterday's New York Times, has finally gotten around to reporting on A.N.S.W.E.R.'s communist ties, almost a week after several other publications on both sides of the aisle did. The Times' article has these lines, printed without comment or dissent by the reporter who wrote the article:
In an interview today, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a spokeswoman for Answer, said questions raised about the group's role were "classic McCarthy-era Red-baiting."In reply, Glenn Reynolds writes:"When you select out the Socialists or Marxists," she said, "the point is to demonize and divide and diminish a massive, growing movement."
It's not McCarthyite to call people who are communists, communists. Communists, as devoted followers of murderous totalitarianism, deserve to be called to account every bit as much as their Nazi colleagues. And in the 21st century, they can hardly pretend to be ignorant of their ideology's true nature.But they're always ready to use the "M" word at a moment's notice, thus, as Lileks writes, perverting both its meaning, and the events in America during the 1950s.
1/29/02 UPDATE: For those clicking in from Counterspin, here's Glenn Reynolds' response to his post, which I'm pretty much in agreement on.
By the way, Counterspin seems to have confused me with James Lileks, whose comments I posted above, along with Glenn's. But that's OK--Lileks' chops as a writer are so great, that I'm more than happy to be confused with him!
WHO'S GOING TO THE NFL HALL OF FAME THIS YEAR? Click here and find out!
LOOKING FOR AN EXCITING VACATION GETAWAY? Why not consider Mordor. Thousands of people already have!
(If that's too expensive a destination, you could always visit the nice children at Hogwarts.)
(Link found via William Whittle.)
CURSE OF THE FOUL MOUTH: The Wall Street Journal says "Bad language used to be associated with the lower classes--hence the term 'vulgarity.':
But it is now an affectation of celebrities and macho corporate go-getters. Even sailors and peasants watched their language around ladies and children, but now family gatherings at the ballpark must endure obscenities from neighboring fans. Women are swearing the same blue streak as men, and young children don't seem to have their mouths washed out with soap. A recent Washington Post op-ed lamented the common experience of finding oneself in a subway car "filled with cursing students."It would be easy to say that in this time of impending war, that vulgarity is even silly to worry about. And yet, somehow, our fathers and grandfathers got through two world wars and the Depression without (at least publically) sounding like they were "sailors and peasants".
James Lileks an excellent Bleat on this very subject a few months ago.
THOUSAND WORDS DEPARTMENT: Hilarious photo of pro-dictatorship protestors found by H.D. Miller on his Travelling Shoes blog.
"WHICH DO YOU CHOOSE, THE HARD OR SOFT OPTION?"*: Andrew Sullivan is on Raines patrol tonight.
* Why yes, I did just quote The Pet Shop Boys; "West End Girls" was one of my guilty pleasure songs in the 1980s.
BLOGCRITICS UPDATE: I just re-posted my thoughts on William Whittle's recent essay on Jimmy Stewart there.
UPDATE: It's drawing some interesting comments...
TAKE THAT ARIANNA! John Merline reports that from 1990 to 2001:
Sales of cars - a category of autos that excludes SUVs, minivans and pickups - have been falling steadily for decades. They dropped 10% between 1990 and 2001, according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which keeps track of this for the federal government. Worst hit in recent years have been subcompact cars. They saw sales cut in half in the past decade.Gee, people in big, heavy cars are safer in a crash? Whoda thunk it!
Sales of SUVs, meanwhile, climbed an eye-popping 312%* * * Despite all this, overall fuel economy of all the passenger vehicles on the road actually climbed 6.6% between 1990 and 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration. And the highway fatality rate dropped 27.4%.
HAWK BITES WEASELS: James Taranto writes that "France and Germany's unexpectedly strong pro-Saddam tilt has had at least one salutary effect, the Washington Post reports: It's turned Secretary of State Colin Powell into a hawk."
Given the number of American allies who have come onboard, Taranto says, "So it's France and Germany, standing alone against the world and in defense of Saddam Hussein. Somebody should have warned Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder of the dangers of unilateralism."
What can you expect? The countries that make up old Europe always act like cowboys.
MY TAKE ON FRANCE: What can you say about a country whose president is "in complete solidarity" with French farmworkers who destroyed a McDonald's restaurant, but not in complete solidarity with removing a vicious, lying, mass-murdering dictator?
As Jonah Goldberg wrote a couple of years ago:
An anti-U.S. activist and author named José Bové is a French folk hero because he led a goon squad of angry farmers in dismantling a local McDonald's with crowbars. An angry judge gave Bové a whopping 20 days in jail. Politicians bravely denounce the company. Jacques Chirac, the French president, recently declared, "I am in complete solidarity with France's farm-workers, and I detest McDonald's food."Of course, you can say the exact same thing about the American far left, who thinks of nothing of suggesting that a McDonald's be blown up, or killing policemen, and destroying US government property, but who actively prevent helping the truly opressed: the people of Iraq.But anti-Americanism only partly accounts for the phenomenon. For example, protesters will often attack a Mickey D's even if the U.S. embassy is more convenient. When Breton separatists wanted to send a signal to Paris last month, they blew up a McDonald's, killing a 28-year-old breakfast-shift leader. (It was a mixed signal, to be sure, because McDonald's is even less popular in Paris than in Brittany.)
THE OTHER PARAGRAPHS: "CPO Sparkey" of Team Stryker analyzes paragraphs one, two and four of the resolution against Iraq. We looked at paragraph five earlier today.
As Sparkey writes:
If the rule of law is to mean anything, then it must be enforced. Governments that pass laws that they can't or don't intend to enforce simply encourages - not deters - more crime. Those of you who seek UN approval and mandate remember this. Remember the way the UN is behaving here. Passing laws and resolutions that it really doesn't have the will to enforce except on those who are most likely to obey them anyway.
AXIS OF WEASELS ROUNDUP: A double-barreled dose of fun-filled French bashing, as Stephen Green and Jonah Goldberg pile-on. Meanwhile, conservatives increase pressure on DaimlerChrysler, and Steven Den Beste says, "I think there really must be something wrong with the water in Europe".
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Glenn Reynolds writes, "If I were Scott Ott, I'd be saying "Buwahahaha!" Something he wrote on his computer yesterday is giving French and German diplomats heartburn today. If that's not the American Dream come true, I don't know what is."
COLD COMFORT: Nick Schulz asks, does a frigid January mean the threat of global warming is over?
PARAGRAPH FIVE PAYS OFF: Way back on November 9th, we mentioned "the seldom discussed Paragraph Five of our resolution regarding Iraq", and linked to this post by Bryan Preston, who wrote:
there is some quiet self-satisfaction among the Brits and Americans that paragraph 5 -- the silver bullet -- went through with little fuss. This says the inspectors must have "immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted and private access to all officials and other persons" and that the inspectors "may at their discretion conduct interviews inside or outside of Iraq, may facilitate the travel of those interviewed and family members outside Iraq." This means an open ticket to the West for all the best brains in Iraqi who would like to leave. It is also the guarantee that Iraq can be declared in material breach if access to any designated scientist, technician, official or civilian is denied. And the CIA and Britain's SIS have drawn up a very long list.Check out the first two paragraphs of this AP article:
As Iraq awaits a key report by chief U.N. arms inspectors, a senior Iraqi official says Baghdad is still unable to meet a key U.N. demand — persuade Iraqi scientists to submit to private interviews with U.N. arms controllers.Add that to the previous chemical weapons discovery, and the subject of this article--that Iraq refuses U-2 overflights to assist the inspectors--and the evidence keeps mounting.In New York, deputy U.S. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz charged that Iraq had threatened to kill its scientists if they cooperated with U.N. weapons inspectors.
The Super Bowl should be fun, but Bush's State of the Union address is going to be the real must-see TV next week.
NO MEDIA BIAS TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: From an AP report on the Super Bowl:
Gone from the site of the NFL's biggest game are the armored military trucks and camouflaged soldiers that gave last year's game such a chilling feel.Unless you're Al Qaeda, why would--especially just a few months after 9/11--American soldiers and their vehicles give you "a chilling feel" at a football game?
THIS IS YOUR BRAIN. THIS IS YOUR BRAIN BOOTING UP. This is Jasper's brain booting up. Any questions?
STANDING ATHWART HILLARY, YELLING "STOP!": 15 years before Hillary Clinton wrote It Takes a Village, Ronald Reagan, with great foresight, wrote his review:
"...it rests on the assumption that your kids belong to the state. If we buy that assumption then it is for the state -- not for parents, the community, the religious institutions or teachers -- to decide who shall have what values and who shall do what work, when, where and how in our society. That assumption isn't a new one. The Nazis thought it was a great idea."--Ronald Reagan in Human Events, February 1979.
MAN BITES MARX DEPARTMENT: Remember those mirror sites I linked to on Tuesday? "Mean Mr. Mustard" has entered Berkeley's version of them.
(Link found via Joanne Jacob.)
LET SHARPTON BE SHARPTON, says Rod Dreher.
By the way, it is amazing, Reichstag-like timing, that Al's headquarters burned down the day after he announced his run for the presidency. Marinus van der Lubbe, call your office!
In other news, Cynthia McKinney may be the Green Party's candidate for presidency in 2004. No, really!
UPDATE: "This marks the second time Sharpton’s office has been destroyed by fire. About eight years ago, his office on 125th Street also burned, coincidentally as he ran for U.S. Senate."
BUG CHASER UPDATE: When Matt Drudge originally posted about the Rolling Stone "Bug Chaser" article, which claimed that "25% of New HIV Cases in USA are Men Who Sought Out Virus", my first take was:
I have no doubt that there's a certain percentage of whom this is true. (It's a sick world out there.) But 25 percent? Seems awfully steep to me.Looks like I'm not the only one who's disputing those numbers.
NEVER CRITICIZE CHRYSLER! Back on Saturday, I posted this. Today, while my wife and I were driving to San Francisco for a couple of appointments, our Dodge Intrepid ran over a nail (or something) while turning off Highway 80 and got a flat. Coincidence?
Of course. But it's damn annoying, nonetheless. Nothing like changing a tire on Pine Street at 2:00 in the afternoon.
But for us, it's important to remember why we're fighting Saddam. The answer is September 11. Those who want to find some specific evidentiary link between al Qaeda and Saddam don't begin to fathom what war is. It is not the pursuit of one distinct goal after another, depending on the exigencies of international law or diplomacy. That's called foreign policy. War, in contrast, is the attempt to destroy an enemy. The enemy is Islamist terrorism and its state sponsors. Strategically, the overthrow of the Saddam regime is absolutely central to this objective. It will deal another psychological blow to the reactionaries who want to ratchet Islam back a few more centuries and wage war on the free societies of the West. It will remove one huge and obvious source of weapons of mass destruction potentially available to the enemy. It will provide a military base from which to continue the war against al Qaeda and its enablers across the Middle East, specifically in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. And it will reassert the global hegemony of the United States and its Anglosphere allies. That's why we fight. It isn't a pre-emptive war. It's a reactive war - against what was done to this country throughout the 1990s, culminating on that awful September day. We are fighting to honor the memory of the dead and to defeat a brutal enemy that would inflict even more carnage if they possibly could. And we fight to defend the principles of a liberal international order, principles that the United States and the United States alone has long been responsible for upholding. Our loneliness in this struggle should not therefore be a cause for concern. It is, in fact, a sign, once again, that we are on the right path.Perfectly stated.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE, in the New York Times on "Why We Know Iraq Is Lying". Rice says, "Iraq is still treating inspections as a game. It should know that time is running out."
Read the whole thing, which Andrew Sullivan calls "Condi's Home Run".
He's right.
FUN IN THE DESERT: My article on America's other rocket program is up on Tech Central Station.
For some additional photos, check out the first draft of the article, which originally appeared shortly after this site went online.
THE SPIRIT OF '73: Tim Cavanaugh of Reason reports on an ugly nostalgia that's sweeping the globe.
For my take on the 1970s--or at least its politics--click here.
Michael Kelly nails A.N.S.W.E.R., and the folks who blindly march with it:
There is, increasingly, much that happens in the world that the [New York] Times feels its readers should be sheltered from knowing. The marches in Washington and San Francisco were chiefly sponsored, as was last October's antiwar march in Washington, by a group the Times chose to call in its only passing reference "the activist group International Answer."Read the whole thing.International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) is a front group for the communist Workers World Party. The Workers World Party is, literally, a Stalinist organization. It rose out of a split within the old Socialist Workers Party over the Soviet Union's 1956 invasion of Hungary -- the breakaway Workers World Party was all for the invasion. International ANSWER today unquestioningly supports any despotic regime that lays any claim to socialism, or simply to anti-Americanism. It supported the butchers of Beijing after the slaughter of Tiananmen Square. It supports Saddam Hussein and his Baathist torture-state. It supports the last official Stalinist state, North Korea, in the mass starvation of its citizens. It supported Slobodan Milosevic after the massacre at Srebrenica. It supports the mullahs of Iran, and the narco-gangsters of Colombia and the bus-bombers of Hamas.
This is whom the left now marches with. The left marches with the Stalinists. The left marches with those who would maintain in power the leading oppressors of humanity in the world. It marches with, stands with and cheers on people like the speaker at the Washington rally who declared that "the real terrorists have always been the United Snakes of America." It marches with people like the former Black Panther Charles Baron, who said in Washington, "if you're looking for an axis of evil then look in the belly of this beast."
IN MEMORIAM: Wonderful tribute to Al Hirschfeld by Andy Ross in Flak Magazine:
Hirschfeld served as a historian, marking moments of a culture immersed in and enthralled by entertainment. Cataloguing the 20th century, Hirschfeld showed the world the faces of an aging art form. Live performance, with its caked makeup and exhausting hoofing, has no existence beyond the moment it shares with its audience. Without celluloid or videotape, all theater had to make it immortal was Hirschfeld.Great descriptions of Hirschfeld's deceptively/masterfully simple style as well
HOW A CHINESE DOT.COM BECAME THE DARLING OF THE NASDAQ: According to this Reuters article, Sohu.com has risen 800 percent in six months.
MY KIND OF SNEAK PREVIEW: Hopefully the real thing will be employed very shortly.
(Found via Tim Blair.)
DRUDGE HEADLINE: "25% of New HIV Cases in USA are Men Who Sought Out Virus".
I have no doubt that there's a certain percentage of whom this is true. (It's a sick world out there.) But 25 percent? Seems awfully steep to me.
THE SADDAM HUSSEIN/GODFATHER II CONNECTION REVEALED.
But what does G.D. Spradlin think about this?
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: Earlier today, Glenn Reynolds posted about an Instapundit mirror site.
Well, if you're blog is listed on Glenn's blogroll, there's a very good chance you've got one too!
Unbelievable!
UPDATE: Silly me--here's the URL of the creation page. I didn't realize that any and all sites could be mirrored.
INSERT FOOT INTO MOUTH DEPARTMENT: I'm sure, looking back in the almost one year that this blog has been in existence, you can find more than a few turns of phrases that we wish we could take back (that may have just been one of them). But did Howie Kurtz really intend to say this, as found by James Taranto on The Journal's "Best of the Web Today"?
"If colleges don't consider race at all, some of them would end up looking like the Republican side of the House. (Number of blacks: zero.)" Does Kurtz really think no blacks can meet the standards of certain colleges?Taranto also has this one by Hillary--who I expect to put her foot in her mouth from time to time:
"Yes, we want to be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. But what makes up character? If we don't take race as part of our character, then we are kidding ourselves."--Hillary Clinton at a Martin Luther King Day ceremony, quoted in today's New York Sun.I think Kurtz was simply trying to be clever and reached too far. But I'm sure Hillary believes exactly what she said above.
As Taranto said, "Oh well, it was only a dream".
UPDATE: Pejman Yousefzadeh has some additional thoughts on Hillary's speech.
LIFE IMITATES THE ONION DEPARTMENT: Charles Johnson writes:
Oh man. If the news keeps getting weirder, we’re going to have to start labeling items with big PARODY / NOT A PARODY signs.But this is.Today Iraq promised to help the UN inspectors, by forming Iraqi teams to hunt for their own banned weapons.
By the way, this is NOT A PARODY.
And so is this... I think.
IS NPR PART OF THE VAST RIGHT-WING MEDIA CONSPIRACY? Err, no. But Orrin Judd--with an assist from Ann Coulter--analyzes who makes up its largest group of listeners.
"ISN'T THAT ILLEGAL"? Andrew Sullivan on race and the newsroom.
"A RERUN OF A BAD MOVIE": President Bush says:
"This business about more time, how much time do we need to see clearly that he's not disarming?" Bush told reporters after meeting with economists to tout his tax-cutting plan.Of course, one reason that some "allies" are so reluctant is that they may have contributed to Iraq's arms buildup.* * * "It appears to be a rerun of a bad movie. He is delaying. He is deceiving. He is asking for time. He's playing hide and seek with inspectors. One thing for sure is, he's not disarming," Bush said. "So the United States of America, in the name of peace, will insist that he does disarm and we will keep pressure" on Iraq."In a flash of impatience, Bush said of reluctant allies, "Surely our friends have learned lessons from the past."
In other Iraq news, inspectors may have discovered Saddam's ongoing nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter is rumored to have booked recording sessions with Pete Townshend.
UPDATE: Steven Den Beste does a little supposing about what happens if after we're victorous in Iraq, we announce German and French complicity in helping Iraq build WMDs.
William Whittle begins a long essay on the current state of Hollywood celebrities and the anti-war/pro-dictatorship positions of today's Hollywood by describing his chance encounter with Jimmy Stewart in the late 1980s.
Let's flashback even further to about 1966. Compare the apathy and arrogance of today's celebrities with this photo of Stewart, a brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve, at about age 58, looking like God in a flight suit, walking away from a B-52F, after a mission over North Vietnam.
I have no idea how many flights Stewart made over Nam--but even if it was just