E-Books

My wife and I were early adopters of eBook technology. I had a Gemini Rocket (Five stars) a Franklin something-or-other (1.5 stars) and I now read books on my Palm. The two great things about eBooks are being able to carry a dozen large books on a small device and incredible ease of reading in any light situation.

I can only read paper in very good light but I can read the eBook on a plane or in dim light.

Sony is unveiling a new piece4 of hardware at the CES show next week. Business Week reports:

Back in 2000, a bunch of e-book readers hit the market, only to tank because the technology didn't adequately duplicate the book reading experience. Now, with everyone from Google (NasdaqNM:GOOG - News) to Microsoft (NasdaqNM:MSFT - News) to HarperCollins (NYSE:NWS - News) digitizing books, plus the arrival of slick new display technology, Sony figures the time is right for a handheld e-reader in the U.S.

But while Sony's iPod-like strategy -- seamlessly wedding content to hardware -- has promise, reading books on a digital device still feels nothing like the real thing to most consumers. As such, it will be an uphill battle building a sizable market for e-books, which accounted for an estimated 0.2% of the 944 million books U.S. publishers sold worldwide in 2004. "No one has created a device compelling enough to have mass appeal," says Nick Bogaty, executive director of the International Digital Publishing Forum, an industry group.

The holdup for adoption of this technology is business failure, not any technical hurdle. We loved our eBooks but an eBook costs the same as a Hardcover and could not be shared with another device. I can lend a book out when I'm done, give it away, sell it, donate it to a thrift store, but I have to lend my hardware out to share an eBook. I get zero credit for the printing, inventory and shipping I saved the publisher, the selection is limited. After time, it seems not to be worth it. The exception is public domain material which is available free or cheap (Riza bought Dickens's "Bleak House" for my Palm for two dollars and change).

I wish Sony the best. I really believe in this technology and hope their device is cool. But the deciding factor will be its arrangement with publishers even more than the user experience.

WaPo vs Roggio

Plame Kerfuffle

I could never really get worked up over the whole Valerie Plame outing. Especially with the NSA Intercept, CIA "Con Air" charter flights, the outsourcing of imprisonment to Poland leaks out there in the ether.

But this story, I gotta love.

The Washington couple at the heart of the CIA leak investigation had their cover blown by their small son as they tried to sneak away on vacation on Thursday.

"My daddy's famous, my mommy's a secret spy," declared the 5-year-old of his parents, former diplomat Joe Wilson and retired CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The former spy, who just retired from the agency, and the diplomat have been at the center of a CIA leak scandal that has reached into the White House.

CIA couple outed by 5-year-old son

Ha!

(tip to LGF)

Great Paper, Great Reporting

I do love to beat up the MSM but admit that bloggers could not live without them. Open source media experiments show promise but I feel they will always be wikipedia to the NYTimes's Britannica. Great papers have reach, depth and a seriousness and honesty because the markets demand they uphold their reputations.

The NYTimes sponsors lunatics on its Editorial Page and features very biased reporting on its news page. They also feature Virginia Postrel. A search for "NYTimes" on ThreeSources reveals eight posts where I supplied approbation (still 1:2 vs. opprobrium). But I salute the great papers.

The Chicago Tribune shows itself to be a great paper today. Hardly in the Administration's pocket, the Trib publishes an important editorial today: "Judging the Case for War."

I'm not going to excerpt. The editorial asks and answers the assertion "BUSH LIED!" by combing through the early speeches, enumerating the reasons for going to war, and evaluating each of nine on "What was said." "What we know now," and "the verdict."

It is honest and comes out pretty substantively in the President's favor; I wouldn't have scored much if any more kindly.

I try not to say this, but read the whole thing.

Hat-tips: Taranto and Insty

Serenity, Post XIV

TNR gives "Serenity" a great review for the DVD market.

Sadly, it points out that Serenity only earned $25 million box office. It got clobbered by all the bad films with the big stars. Nothing makes me rethink my dedication to free markets than entertainment -- I can be a real neo-Hamiltonian: make them watch good stuff; make them like it!

But hope is not lost

Still, as Whedon and his "Firefly" cohorts have already shown, there's more than one way to skin a human (and sew him into a nice little Reaver ensemble). Theatrical box-office makes up an ever-shrinking portion of a film's total receipts (now a mere 15 percent, according to Slate's Edward Jay Epstein), with the vast bulk of the revenues coming from DVD sales and rentals on the one hand, and broadcast licensing (pay-per-view, network, and cable) on the other. And while Serenity was never well-positioned for the box office, it should, like "Firefly" before it, make a killing on DVD. (My own exceptionally scientific survey of a couple of local outlets would tend to confirm this: By day two of its release, Serenity had sold out from one and was only available in the less-popular fullscreen version from the other.) Once the movie hits cable, it should be set for life--I envision it running three nights a week on the Sci-Fi Channel for at least the next decade. Will this be enough to ensure a sequel? You can cast your own vote at the local Blockbuster.

Robin Wilcox compares Whedon to Charles Dickens (Whedon is a big fan of the big man). Dickens released novels as weekly serializations. Other novelists looked down at him but the folks loved it.

To be honest, most Firefly fans would like two more "eps" than another movie. Am I lyin'?

Minimum Wage

Here's an idea you don't hear very often.

Good intentions, when guided by error and ignorance, may have undesirable consequences. There is no better example than minimum wage legislation.
It means to raise the wages and improve the living conditions of poor workers but actually condemns many to chronic unemployment. It forcefully raises the costs of unskilled and inexperienced labor and thereby lifts it right out of the labor market. Yet, many politicians who neither own nor manage a business and do not employ such labor never tire of lamenting and deploring low wages and promising to raise the wage minimum by law and regulation.

(tip to CF's Policy Blog)

Maybe Kofi Will Buy Me a Car

I posted last week about UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's outburst and refusal to answer a reporter's question.

Said reporter, James Bone, has a guest editorial in the Wall Street Journal today. He covers the outburst -- but more importantly gives the background for what prompted the question.

It was with some amusement that I found myself the target of a decidedly undiplomatic tirade by the U.N. chief at a news conference last week. The usually mild Mr. Annan erupted in an ad hominem attack, calling me "cheeky" and belittling me as an "overgrown schoolboy." Although I have covered the U.N. in minute detail for The Times of London since 1988, and have known Mr. Annan for almost all that time, he suggested I was not a "serious journalist."
[...]
This is where the missing Mercedes comes in. The Mercedes was purchased by Kojo Annan in his father's name four days before the Hotel de Crillon meeting--and about two weeks before Cotecna won the U.N. contract. The use of the U.N. chief's diplomatic status qualified the car for a $6,541 discount on the purchase price and a $14,103 tax exemption when it was imported to his native Ghana.

Mr. Volcker's investigators found a memo on the computer of Mr. Annan's personal assistant asking him to authorize a letter to Mercedes. "Sir, Kojo asked me to send the attached letter re: the car he is trying to purchase under your name. The company is requesting a letter be sent from the U.N. Kojo said it could be signed by anyone from your office. May I ask Lamin to sign it?" the assistant wrote.

Neither Kofi Annan, his aide Lamin Sise, nor his assistant, Wagaye Assebe, can recall what happened, and the original documents have disappeared--but somehow the Mercedes was purchased with the diplomatic discount anyway. Abdoulie Janneh, the U.N. official who arranged the tax exemption in Ghana was recently promoted to U.N. under-secretary-general, in charge of the Economic Commission for Africa.

Amid the clutter of unanswered questions, one query has the virtue of simplicity: Where is the car? I have been asking this for weeks at the U.N.'s daily briefing. It was this question that triggered Kofi Annan's outburst. He clearly wants me to shut up. I'm afraid, Mr. Secretary-General, that would be the wrong thing for me to do. Every schoolboy knows that.

And remember that the anti-war crowd has no better plan for what could have happened than that we would "let Sanctions work." A few more years and I might have gotten a car with the UN discount...

Limones Verdes

I've been in San Antonio Texas since last friday celebrating Christmas, and came across this story in today's San Antonio Express-News.

San Antonio's leading Spanish-language radio station could be forced off the air or face fines over a quirky controversy juxtaposing immigrants and green limes.

A recurring segment started five years ago by KROM-Radio "Estéreo Latino" involves people calling in to report sightings of immigration agents in the city. The station's disc jockeys then alert listeners, particularly undocumented immigrants, to steer clear of the named locations.

No actual mention of federal agents is made — DJs speak of limones verdes, or "green limes," a euphemistic reference to Border Patrol agents, who traditionally don olive-green uniforms and drive green-lined SUVs.

As luck would have it, KROM is operating with an expired license because a Houston-based attorney is gumming up the process.

Stopping in San Antonio in 2000, Joe Ray Blalack read an article in the San Antonio Express-News about KROM's agent-spotting segment. Fuming over what he interpreted as the station's obstruction of the work of federal agents, Blalack wrote the FCC, demanding it deny the license renewal.

Since then, the FCC has received 38 additional citizen complaints against the station, all from outside Texas.

The FCC, which regulates the broadcast industry, declined to comment on the case. The station's renewal application is under review, and there is no timetable for a decision, spokeswoman Rebecca Fisher said.

"It should serve as a stern warning. People can't engage in any activity against our national interest," said Blalack, 69, who also would like a law forcing Spanish-language TV stations to use English subtitles.

You wouldn't want to find yourself alerting criminals to pending busts by the boys in blue. Just because they're wearing government issue olive green doesn't make it any better... or legal.

Cognitive Dissonance

Innocent man jailed!

A DUTCH businessman was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday for helping Saddam Hussein to acquire the chemical weapons that he used to kill thousands of Kurdish civilians in the Iran-Iraq war.

Quite a character this Frans van Anraat was.

Prosecutors accused Van Anraat of delivering more than 1,000 tonnes of thiodiglycol. It can be used to make mustard gas, which causes horrific burns to the lungs and eyes and is often fatal.

He was also accused of importing chemicals to make nerve agents. The prosecution said that the lethal cargo was shipped from America via Belgium and Jordan to Iraq. He also imported other shipments from Japan via Italy.

Van Anraat was first arrested in 1989 in Italy on a US warrant. He then fled to Baghdad where he lived for 14 years under an assumed name. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 he made his way back to the Netherlands, where he was arrested a year ago.

(tip to CQ)

Batman, Begin Again

Here's my Christmas present to JohnGalt: yet another admission that he is right about something.

I rented and re-watched "Batman Begins" this weekend, based on his comments correcting a review I posted a few weeks ago. Upon further review, what I had seen as soppy altruism was misguided.

I'll also revise my positive review upward as well. It's indeed a good movie.

The rest of you, however, are still all wrong! Merry Christmas!

Wanting to Believe

You will remember this story I blogged about earlier in the week.

It rocketed across the Internet a week ago, a startling newspaper report that agents from the US Department of Homeland Security had visited a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth at his New Bedford home simply because he had tried to borrow Mao Tse-Tung's ''Little Red Book" for a history seminar on totalitarian goverments.

The story, first reported in last Saturday's New Bedford Standard-Times, was picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe.

But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.

Well...

But yesterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.

The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student's house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.

Really. It does.

''I feel as if I was lied to, and I have no idea why," said Williams, an associate professor of Islamic history. He said the possibility the government was scrutinizing books borrowed by his students ''disturbed me tremendously."

That's really surprising. There are two possibilities.

1) He was a willing dupe.

2) Click to view...

Good News for Kianna

The WSJ Ed Page reports progress in the FDA:

Cancer victims got some holiday cheer Tuesday when the Food and Drug Administration approved Bayer's Nexavar for the treatment of advanced kidney cancer. Nexavar is the first new treatment for this particularly deadly cancer to be approved in more than a decade. And it's an easily administered pill that produces minimal side effects compared with chemotherapy.

Nexavar also happens to be one of the two promising developmental drugs we highlighted earlier this year in editorials on the plight of Kianna Karnes, who died in March, unable to obtain either of them for treatment. Tuesday's approval by no means makes full amends for that scandal. But it does show that the FDA is finally taking seriously complaints about tardiness, and at least acknowledging the ethical issues involved in giving people placebos (i.e., sugar pills) when testing drugs for terminal disease.

On the rapidity front, the important news is that the Nexavar approval was granted based on a new way of measuring the effectiveness of cancer therapies. Until now, believe it or not, the FDA's cancer division has usually focused on crude mortality statistics when approving new drugs and scoffed at other possible metrics such as tumor shrinkage and improved quality of life. But in conjunction with the American Society of Clinical Oncologists, the FDA has recently decided to recognize "progression-free survival" -- no tumor growth or metastasis, and no death -- as a sufficient clinical benefit.

To put it plainly, the FDA is no longer insisting that we wait around for people to die to get statistics when a drug is obviously working. This should enable faster approval of other drugs in the future. Nexavar, by the way, doubles the length of progression-free survival in advanced kidney cancer.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, Y'ALL!

Trust these guys?

I saw video of this on FOXNews. UN SecGen Kofi Annan is asked a question, becomes petulant and attacks the interrogator.

I tried to imagine an elected official in the US behaving this way. But as a UN official, Annan is --of course -- responsible to no one. Claudia Rosett (who else?) has an article on this latest Annan misstep:

The broad answer is that the U.N. Secretariat, despite all the recent talk of reform, evidently remains a place of secrecy and privilege, run by high officials who don’t mind talking about their global goals and grand legacies, but find it highly irritating to be held to normal standards of good governance or subjected to anything resembling the workings of a free press. And in this particular case, given the ferocity of Annan’s reaction, one has to wonder if there is even more to it.

I don't want to go black-helicopter, but the Democrats still insist that we could/should have/can still do more through the UN. If the organization cannot be fixed, it needs to be discredited so that Americans stop believing that it is an alternative to anything but enforceable parking tickets.

I Might Need a Car

A young man fell asleep at the wheel last week and hit both an RTD bus and my 1999 Subaru. The Subaru is probably reparable, but close enough to totaled that the estimator hinted we could get there if I wanted.

I thought I'd fix the Outback (although a conservative friend asks why I drive "such an Earth-Muffin car"). But that was before I saw this piece in TCS on the Bugatti-Veyron:

The Bugatti-Veyron, which will be formally debuted at the Los Angeles Auto Show, in January, certainly appears to have the steak to match its sizzle. Its wondrously compact V-16 engine displaces 488 cubic inches but, thanks partly to four (yes, folks, four) superchargers, it develops 1001 horsepower. That’s no typo -- one thousand and one horsepower -- enough to slam your head back into the leather headrest when the two-seat coupe accelerates from a standing stop to 62 miles an hour in 2.5 seconds. In normal use, it will burn 1.3 gallons of high test per minute.

Photo credit: RSportsCars.com

UPDATE: Jeremy Clarkson has a review of this car in the Times of London. He has said some hateful things about America, but it is still worth a nine hour flight to Britain just to watch his TV show "TopGear."

From behind the wheel of a Veyron, France is the size of a small coconut. I cannot tell you how fast I crossed it the other day. Because you simply wouldn’t believe me. I also cannot tell you how good this car is. I just don’t have the vocabulary. I just end up stammering and dribbling and talking wide-eyed nonsense. And everyone thinks I’m on drugs.

This car cannot be judged in the same way that we judge other cars. It meets drive-by noise and emission regulations and it can be driven by someone whose only qualification is an ability to reverse round corners and do an emergency stop. So technically it is a car. And yet it just isn’t.

Other cars are small guesthouses on the front at Brighton and the Bugatti is the Burj Al Arab. It makes even the Enzo and the Porsche Carrera GT feel slow and pointless. It is a triumph for lunacy over common sense, a triumph for man over nature and a triumph for Volkswagen over absolutely every other car maker in the world.

Not in MY name!

A couple years ago, I signed a "Not In My Name" petition under the name "Hadda V Shininoz" (as in Rudolph...)

Taranto put me up to it. It was juvenile. I'm not proud. But it did get me on the email list. I don't browse MoveOn.org or read Kos or read The Nation, but my semi-monthly emails from "Not In Our Name Statement of Conscience" keep my ties to the moonbat community alive. I know you can see all of this stuff you want on the net, but I thought I would share my mail today.

You're welcome!

They are raising $50,000 for a war crimes trial, because "These Commission hearings will make a profound difference on today’s political terrain, where all too often Bush’s actions are viewed as blunders, not crimes, and the full scope of his administration’s criminality is obscured. Please contribute immediately and contact your friends to contribute. Mail checks made out to “Not In Our Name” to..."

Dear friends and signers of the Not In Our Name statements of conscience,

Each passing day brings new charges of high crimes committed by the Bush administration and highlights the timeliness and importance of the Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity by the Bush Administration (www.bushcommission.org). They underscore the urgency for our concluding session on January 20-22 at The Riverside Church and Columbia University Law School in New York which can profoundly recast the terms of debate about Bush and his administration throughout society.

Are their actions “mistakes” born of “faulty intelligence” and legitimate responses to real threats -- or are they crimes against humanity consciously committed?

There is a moral imperative to make this determination and this cannot happen without $50,000 to assemble and present the witnesses (including Iraqis) and documentary evidence that will make the case.

In the face of daily exposures of grave crimes -- from torture, rendition and illegal detentions; to escalating bombings, the use of white phosphorous, the destruction of whole cities, and ongoing torture in Iraq; to the destruction and abandonment of New Orleans; and now to illegal spying in the U.S. -- the Bush response has been more lies, more threats, and more arrogant declarations that it will continue to wage war, torture, and spy as it sees fit. Meanwhile, no effective opposition has been mounted to these intolerable outrages through official or government channels.

This extreme situation demands that we work -- and donate! -- so the Commission can fully realize it’s aim to compel a national debate on whether the administration of George W. Bush actually is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The basic budget for this final session is $50,000, not counting the video and printing of the reports. So we need your immediate help. We are not bashful about asking for money, because we know, as you also know, that money is what it takes to make a serious impact in society.

To see the visual impact of the first session of the Commission’s hearings, go to www.deepdishtv.org/bushcommission for a 12 min video. This video is also available in DVD format as a fundraiser for the Commission for $25.

These Commission hearings will make a profound difference on today’s political terrain, where all too often Bush’s actions are viewed as blunders, not crimes, and the full scope of his administration’s criminality is obscured. Please contribute immediately and contact your friends to contribute. Mail checks made out to “Not In Our Name” to Not In Out Name, 305 West Broadway, #199, New York, NY 10013. Or contribute on line right now at www.nion.us/NSOC/sign.htm.

Berkeley Square -- Banned In Iran!

The madness continues in Iran. The government will now choose music for its lucky subjects, increasing their decency substantially. The WSJ Ed Page says in "The Non-Music Man:

Now the Islamic Republic has taken another bold step on the road to Year Zero, this time by banning Western music. Tehran commuters, who in recent years have grown accustomed to listening to Eric Clapton or Kenny G., will now have to put up with whatever Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council deem "decent." Don't expect "Crosstown Traffic" or "Baby You Can Ride My Car" to make the list.

Iranians have been here before, as have other victims of dictatorship. Ayatollah Khomeini banned all forms of music after the 1979 revolution, but the rules were gradually relaxed after his death. In the Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge, music was banned along with all other expressions of art and culture, and hundreds of musicians were murdered. The Nazis extolled the music of Wagner, yet they famously tore down the statue of the Jewish-born Felix Mendelssohn in front of the Leipzig Gewandhaus.

I confess I had hoped for a fast domino-effect revolution after Iraq was liberated. I take full responsibility for that mistake but still hold that we will have to support an internal revolution if tacitly and covertly.

Sadly, the opposition party deals with this by contriving arguments about Valerie Plame, faux-outrage over NSA eavesdropping, and filibustering renewal of the Patriot Act.

UPDATE: TCS has a good column with more specifics.

Steady growth

Well, they have tinkered a little more with the 3Q GDP numbers and revised inflation up a little, but the +4.1% figure is still amazing in light of the hurricanes. The chart looks pretty good: stable growth since let's see, what happened in 2003 that frequently spurs economic growth? The Wall Street Journal: The Commerce Department said Wednesday that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic growth, expanded at a seasonally adjusted 4.1% annual rate in July through September. The report was the government's third and final reading on the economy's performance in the third quarter. The revised growth rate was lower than the earlier estimated 4.3%, a figure issued a month ago, but better than the second quarter's 3.3% rate and first quarter's 3.8%. It was the strongest quarterly gain in GDP since the first three months of 2004, when GDP rose at a 4.3% rate.

Constitutional Usurpers

Give thanks this holiday season for Jeff Goldstein's Protein Wisdom.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) expresses his rage at the Bush administration’s pretensions to monarchical power to a sales associate at his local Footlocker store
Feingold: “I mean, you seem like a nice ordinary Joe. Would you want that cowboy doofus and his NSA goons unilaterally deciding to listen in on your phone conversations? Because the fact is, the president cannot make up authority and legislative power when it isn’t there. He’s President. He’s not King George Bush."*

Footlocker sales clerk: “Of course he isn’t. A King might presume to tell us when it’s okay to, say, exercise our First Amendment rights to political speech—including how we can spend our money, and how close to elections we can broadcast arguments like the one you just made.”

Footlocker sales clerk:: “And sorry, sir, but as I already told you once, I don’t care who you say you are. I still can’t let you try on the Pumas without any socks.”

Economic Development

Via Jay Nordlinger, here is an incredible story in the Memphis Business Journal. A Tennessee National Guardsman bringing entrepreneurship to Iraq.

His business dream represents a big dose of Tennessee entrepreneur spirit transplanted to the Middle East by Wayne Culbreath.

Culbreath was working in the realm of economic development when, two years ago, his National Guard combat unit was activated and sent to Iraq. For five months he was stationed at Forward Operating Base Cobra, east of Baghdad and 20 miles from the border with Iran.

An Army captain, Culbreath commanded a unit that spent most of its time finding and disposing of improvised explosive devices, typically a couple of artillery shells wired to detonate with a trigger.

"We found that a lot of the guys who planted the bombs weren't foreign fighters," he says. "Most of them were getting $60 to shoot at Americans, and they were only doing it to feed their families."

That led to a new initiative: American style, grass roots economic development.

But the article discusses a long-term reliance on centralized command and control. People wait for Baghdad to fix the electrical grid rather than envisioning a private solution.

Lastly, it shows yet again that our troops are not slack-jawed yokels from the ghettos and rural outposts. They are bright and talented professionals -- I thank my lucky stars for each of them.

Psychiatric Christmas

John Derbyshire posts these on The Corner:

Schizophrenia --- Do You Hear What I Hear?

Multiple Personality Disorder --- We Three Queens Disoriented Are

Dementia --- I Think I'll Be Home For Christmas

Narcissistic --- Hark The Herald Angels Sing About Me

Manic --- Deck The Hall and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and Fire Hydrants and.........

Paranoid --- Santa Claus Is Coming To Get Me

Borderline Personality Disorder --- Thoughts Of Roasting On An Open Fire

Personality Disorder --- You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder --- Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

ADHD -- Hark the herald angels sing ba-rum-pa-pum-pum in the little town of Bethlehem up on the housetop in a winter wonderland one foggy Christmas Eve hey how bout them Bears no I don't want to switch to Sprint but thank you for shopping at K-Mart.

Dumb Lawyers

Heh.

Four white men fired by the Philadelphia School District have won a racial-discrimination lawsuit, and a federal jury awarded them nearly $3 million in damages.

After Friday's verdict, Carl E. Singley, a prominent African American lawyer who represented the school district, exchanged words with some members of the all-white jury as they rode a courthouse elevator. He called them "crackers," four jurors said in interviews.

That went over real well with the judge.

Within 30 minutes, U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle 3d brought Singley and five of the seven jurors in the case back into his courtroom. Singley, a former Temple Law School dean, promptly apologized.

"What I did and said was inappropriate," Singley said, according to a transcript. "I should not have disrespected you, and I do apologize."

(tip to GrassrootsPa)

Modern Art

In case you needed any more proof that "modern art" is a racket and a monkey could do it.

A GERMAN art expert was fooled into believing a painting done by a chimpanzee was the work of a master.

The director of the State Art Museum of Moritzburg in Saxony-Anhalt, Katja Schneider, suggested the painting was by the Guggenheim Prize-winning artist Ernst Wilhelm Nay.

"It looks like an Ernst Wilhelm Nay. He was famous for using such blotches of colour," Dr Schneider confidently asserted.

My 3 year old daughter's finger painting also makes extensive use of blotches of color. I'm framing it all for sale to suckers.

"I did think it looked a bit rushed," she told Bild newspaper.

For what it's worth, I'm not an art basher. My favorite artist is probably Andrew Wyeth. Though no one would confuse his work with modern art.

(tip to The Steel Deal)

Economics and Pricing

Nick Shultz at TCS (That would be the new, improved TCS) has an interview with Tim Hartford, author of The Underground Economist. Lots of cogent thought on organic food, fair-trade coffee, the environmental impact of tariffs -- man, what else do you need?

A Chill Wind

The Little Red Book draws out Homeland Security in Massachusetts.

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book."

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

Besides that, am I to seriously believe that a major university does not have a copy of Mao's Little Red Book? He couldn't ask a professor for his copy or the local college socialists?

I'm afraid I might be forced to throw the "bullshit flag" on this one.

Two Words

New JibJab

Car Break-in

Depending on your perspective, it's heartwarming Christmas tale.

Imagine getting off the train after work and finding a $15,000 diamond ring in your car.

A Westborough, Mass., man says that’s what happened to him.

It seems the ring was left in his unlocked car by a total stranger, heartbroken over a lost love.

The ring came in a box topped with a white bow. A note with it read: “Merry Christmas. Thank you for leaving your car door unlocked. Instead of stealing your car I gave you a present. Hopefully this will land in the hands of someone you love, for my love is gone now.”

DNC Christmas List

(hat tip to Club For Growth Blog)

Four-year old ambush

A friend of ThreeSources emails a link:

A hero's welcome at preschool

Just one day after an emotional reunion with her husband and two young daughters after a year in Iraq and Kuwait, Army Reserve Maj. Denise Wurzbach was doing what she'd done every weekday before being sent overseas: taking her oldest daughter to preschool.

But unbeknownst to the major, her arrival at 10 a.m. yesterday would be marked by a chilled, squirmy but determined band of children outside the Goddard School in Blue Bell.

Each was armed - with a piece of cardboard painted with a letter that together spelled "Welcome Home Major Wurzbach."

When the major's vehicle pulled up, the 38-year-old Whitpain Township servicewoman leaped out with her 4-year-old daughter, Maggie.
Maggie's classmates broke into a cheer, and her mother broke into a huge smile, waved and said: "Thank you. Wow!... It's good to be here. It's good to be home."

Aeronautic Schadenfreude

The Weekly Standard's Daily Standard website carries an interesting description of the Airbus - Boeing rivalry that's well worth a read.

The column is very Boeing-biased but so am I. James Thayer points out that Boeing has pulled back into a dominant position against its European rival by better predicting airline trends, specifically the emergence of point-to-point over hub-and-spoke; better technology, with fuel efficient composites; and what this software guy would call "legacy support:" Boeing planes don't need new airports to land in.

I see, unsurprisingly, parallels to EU and US economics. I'll admit I was surprised to see the A-380 take-off so well as it were. The monster jet is like the monster governments that build it. Everybody will go the same place at the same time (and they won't mind waiting an hour to deplane...)

The Boeing Dreamliner is more American in spirit. It's lighter, goes farther, is more-fuel efficient, and more comfortable than competitors' and legacy planes. Companies and countries all around the world are choosing the Dreamliner over the A-380. Let's hope they see the parallel and choose American freedom.

Critics Come Around?

It is gong to be more difficult for war critics after the elections yesterday. Tucker Carlson last night defended the achievements against Air America's Rachel Maddow. (I plan to write a letter today pointing out that the Carlson-attacks-the-war-from-the-right vs. Maddow-attacks-the-war-from-the-left is getting tiresome). Carlson had to admit that this was a big deal, though he quoted a private email from The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash that any good outcome will be an accident, in spite of not because of the administration's efforts (friends like these, huh?). But a defense from critics all the same.

Today, The New Republic has a web article from Lawrence Kaplan teased as "Again and again, we have been wrongly assured that Iraq was turning a corner. But yesterday, it may have actually happened."

Contrary to prevailing wisdom, Washington's political strategy in Iraq has always made more sense than its military strategy. In its essentials, the logic of the former was straightforward: Induce the Sunnis to surrender violence in favor of political participation and create a broad-based, cross-sectarian coalition that can govern Iraq effectively. Although yesterday's elections hardly guarantee that outcome, they do amount to its necessary precondition. Whether the aim can actually be achieved is up to the Iraqis.

In this regard, yesterday offered reason to hope. Having now moved beyond the mechanics of democracy--that is, the process of choosing leaders--Iraqis may also begin to move beyond a zero-sum brand of politics and toward the sort of compromises essential to a broader conception of democracy.
[...]
If a stable democracy emerges, it will not be a perfect one. But, then again, Washington isn't chasing an idealism so pure it defeats its own ends in Iraq. Quite the contrary: Today, at least, it seems like the United States knew what it was doing all along. Savor the moment.

Sour Grapes

Talk about not moving on.

About 100 campaign vets gathered at Finn McCool's bar in D.C. to hear him. In a short speech, Kerry praised Dems who were working on Senate and House campaigns, and then said, according to one listener: "If we take back the House, there's a solid case to bring articles of impeachment against this president." Another listener heard a slight variation: "If we win back the House, I think we have a pretty solid case to bring articles of impeachment against this President." Kerry then quickly added, according to several in the audience, "Don't tell anyone I said that."

Perhaps the Dems aren't so sure about it?

Bullish on Iraq

Larry Kudlow posts an optimistic look at Iraq today. It's wild eyed, it's rosy -- and I can't find one place where I think that it's wrong.

Let’s be perfectly clear. This wasn’t any ordinary step, not by a long shot. What the world witnessed today was a historic moment. A moment where fifteen million Iraqis—the very same people who suffered for years under the tyrannical dictatorship of Saddam Hussein since Jimmy Carter was in office—boldly walked to the polls with their children and cast their ballots for a first full-term parliament.
[...]
Sooner rather than later, our brave troops will be returning home to America’s shores. They will have participated in one of the grandest campaigns in all of history. Much like the courageous, battle hardened GIs returning from World War II, these young men and women will one day be able to tell their grandchildren that they helped change history for the better. Duty called and they not only answered, they delivered.

On Patience

Two great thoughts on how fast the Iraqis are establishing a representative government.

1. Bobby Eberle from GOPusa.com wonders what today's naysayers would think of a ten-year interim Constitution like our Articles of Confederation:

It took America ten years to get things right, and we still have to fight to stay true to the Constitution’s meanings. Iraq has been at it less than three years. The progress can only be described as remarkable.

You'd think we might be as generous with Middle Eastern Democracy as Cornhusker fans are with Big Red.

Purple Fingers

Bill Roggio writes that he's watching Iraqis vote in droves:

I’m in the town of Barwana, one of the three Triad cities which include Haqlaniyah and Haditha. The poll site sits right where Zarqawi’s terrorists executed residents for not conforming to al-Qaeda’s perverse brand of Islamic law. It’s currently 8:20 am Iraqi time, and turnout is heavy so far, with several hundred voters showing up. The polls opened at 7:00 am and the first handful arrived minutes afterward. There is a steady line of voters waiting to vote.

Thanks to all the brave men and women who wear our nation's uniform who have made this possible. And I salute the Iraqis for their personal courage in voting.

Another great day, whether the MSM think so or not.

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal (news pages, not my right-wing crazies) reports that polls were kept open an extra hour to accomodate high tirnout. Better than St. Louis.

Socialism At Bay

Milton Friedman was interviewed by the Washington Times recently.

An excerpt.

As for our economy, "the best laws we could pass would be to cut taxes and cut government spending and leave more money in the economy." Still, Mr. Friedman cautions against taking economic freedom for granted. "Public opinion is free market" but government still plays a more intrusive role in our lives.

"This is a great country. We've been able to hold socialism back and keep it at bay, but we haven't defeated it," he said.

Men At Work

Tim Blair has long been on my list of daily reads.

Lately he's been covering the Australian race riots, and he shares this exchange between Prime Minister Howard and a "reporter."

Reporter: "Do you think anything the Government said over the last few years has set the tone for the actions on the weekend?"

PM: "Which Government?"

Reporter: "Your Government."

PM: "My Government?"

Reporter: “Yes.”

PM: "Certainly not. What do you have in mind?"

Reporter: "Your position on Iraq."

PM: "My position on Iraq?"

Reporter: "Do you think that’s had any influence on people feeling alienated?"

PM: "My position on Iraq? You’ve got to be joking."

More Please

On the eve of Iraq's election, Iraqi citizen Betty Dawisha:

“Anybody who doesn’t appreciate what America has done and President Bush, let them go to hell.”

Don't forget, December 12th through 15th are Purple Finger for Freedom Days, but tomorrow the polling places are open.

Officially, you're supposed to ink the index finger, but I suspect that Ms Dawisha would have inked her middle finger if that were an option.

Senator McCarthy & Campaign Finance

I steal reprint a WSJ Editorial in full.

Clean Gene's Other Legacy

Eugene McCarthy's death Saturday at age 89 has offered antiwar liberals an opportunity to relive the glory days of 1968, when then-Senator McCarthy embarrassed President Lyndon B. Johnson out of the race with an insurgent run on an anti-Vietnam line.

We hate to interrupt the self-reverie, but it's worth noting that Gene McCarthy's achievement in driving his own party's sitting President out the primary campaign is unlikely to be repeated any time soon. And the reason is campaign-finance reform.

McCarthy took pleasure in being a maverick politician; he endorsed Ronald Reagan in 1980 because, he said, "anyone would be better" than Jimmy Carter. And party mavericks are just the sort of people that party machines love to keep down, or out. McCarthy himself could never have mounted his last-ditch campaign against Johnson without the backing of industrialist Stewart Mott and banker Jack Dreyfus. But it was not self-interest that motivated McCarthy's long opposition to campaign-finance reform. It was, rather, the conviction that restricting the supply of money would do more to entrench party establishments than it would to "take the money out of politics."

The money will always be there, because politics will always cost money. Restricting the channels through which money can flow into politics does not "keep it clean." It merely empowers the gatekeepers.

The irony of campaign-finance reform is that in the name of reducing financial contributions from the rich and powerful, it has made candidates far more likely to be either rich or powerful. A genuine believer in free speech, Gene McCarthy understood what too many of his fellow liberals have forgotten.

Perspective

Mike Farrell aka BJ Honeycutt on the Schwartzenegger clemency denial.

"The governor's 96-hour wait to give an answer was a cowardly act and was tortuous," said former "M A S H" star Mike Farrell, a death penalty opponent. "I would suggest that had he the courage of his convictions he could have gone over to San Quentin and met with Stanley Williams himself and made a determination rather than letting his staff legal adviser write this garbage."

• Williams, at gunpoint, ordered [Store Clerk] Owens to "lay down, mother f*****." Williams then chambered a round into the shotgun. Williams then fired the round into the security monitor. Williams then chambered a second round and fired the round into Owens' back as he lay face down on the floor of the storage room. Williams then fired again into Owens' back. (TT 2162).


• Williams, using his shotgun, killed seventy-six year old Yen-I Yang; Williams also killed Yang's wife, sixty-three year old Tsai-Shai Yang; lastly, Williams killed Yang's daughter, forty-three year old Yee-Chen Lin. Williams then removed the currency from the cash register and fled the location

Does Mr Williams, clearly a coward, deserve any better?

For the sake of argument, I'll say the Governor tortured Mr Williams. Does Stanley Williams deserve better?

For what it's worth, if the Governor had not acted, the lethal injection would have been given tonight anyway. It was neither cowardly nor tortuous. The only instances of cowardly and tortuous behaviour are of the guilty. Shooting the unarmed might rate as such.

Polling Iraqis

I find polls interesting, but really more for in the meta-news sense. On a slow news day, it's always easy to commission a poll for something.
Example.

An ABC News poll in Iraq, conducted with Time magazine and other media partners, includes some remarkable results: Despite the daily violence there, most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead.

Surprising levels of optimism prevail in Iraq with living conditions improved, security more a national worry than a local one, and expectations for the future high.

RINO Slaying

So which Republican Senator voted with John Kerry 70% of the time? Which Republican senator voted against the average Republican senator more often than anyone else?

Arlen Specter? No.

Olympia Snowe? No.

Which Republican Senator did not vote for George Bush in 2004?

Lincoln Chafee? Yes.

The same Lincoln Chafee that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is defending against a tax-cutting, spending cutting fiscal conservative Steve Laffey.

“They claimed that they weren’t interested in defending Lincoln Chafee,” says Laffey. “But they talked about party building and suggested that I run for lieutenant governor. In Rhode Island, the job of lieutenant governor is to ride a bicycle around the state and wait for the governor to die. I wasn’t persuaded. And now these ‘party builders’ are spending thousands to defeat me, a Republican.”

First, it wouldn’t be much of a loss if a new Democrat Senator were elected, as he would vote much the same as Chafee does now. Second, it is unlikely this loss would result in tipping control of the Senate back to the Democrats — though that, too, can’t be ruled out. If Republicans lose so many seats that the Rhode Island race is crucial, Chafee would probably lose too. Third, it is a risk worth taking because of who Laffey is. There are too many politicians, in the bad sense of the word, in the Senate. Laffey will shake up Washington. He is a true outsider who comes to the nation’s Capitol to put an end to business as usual.

Update: Pat Toomey, President of Club for Growth, and himself a RINO slayer, opines in the Wall Street Journal.

Serenity

I just pre-ordered Serenity (Widescreen) on Amazon. It will be released on December 20 and it is already #4 in DVD! I'd say there's hope for a sequel.

Long live the long tail!

Day By Day

Here is the article that the comic is referring to.

Voter Identification

YoungPhillyPolitics has an interesting twist on PA House Bill 1318 that would change voter eligibility requirements.

Among other things, HB1318 would require one form of photo identification and would make released felons in-eligible to vote.

Here's the twist...

This is basically a version of what Southern states tried to do in the 1930s. [states run by Southern Democrats? -ed.] The ID requirement was understood then explicitly as being a way of keeping poor people and black people - all of whom were Democrats [well... maybe those blacks were Republican -ed.]- from voting. Poor people didn't have cars, so they didn't have driver's licenses, so they were the ones turned away. [Maybe true then, but total red herring today. You can get a non-drivers ID -ed.

Insofar as felonies go - this is totally also a race thing. The whole system is racist: the incarceration rate for black people is way higher than for equivalent crimes committed by whites. Regardless of your take on this, if you serve your time, I think you should be able to reengage with society.

I basically see this as Republicans gearing up for the Senatorial campaign in 2006. We all know how much Karl Rove and friends want to protect Santorum - this smacks of some awful national-Republican-party move to try to keep Philly and Pittsburgh from going to the polls.

Similiar laws have cropped up in other states over the last few years (including Mississippi) and I feel that this is a national-party directive.

I can't wait to hear the analysis on the new electronic voting machines that counties are required to use.

In any case, our Republic is only as good as the system which installs it. If we can remove more doubt from the operation of the electoral system it's a good thing(tm).

Fiddling About Iran

Two columns out there today about the growing Iranian problem, and the world's reaction to it.

First, Dennis Prager writing about the religious left.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Jewish religious left's convention was how clearly it revealed the supremacy of leftist concerns over Jewish ones. History will record that a month after the Islamic Republic of Iran called for the annihilation of the Jewish state, 5,000 Reform Jews passed resolutions calling for District of Columbia voting rights and "workers' rights" but none about a call for what would amount to another Holocaust or about Islamic anti-Semitism generally, the greatest eruption of Jew-hatred since Nazism. History will likewise also note that two years after the United States made war on a bloodthirsty tyrant who paid the families of murderers of Jews $25,000 each, Reform Judaism passed a resolution condemning that war.

We assume, as Neville Chamberlain, Lord Halifax and other civilized men did 70 years ago, that these [Iranian] chaps may be a little excitable, but come on, old boy, they can't possibly mean it, can they? Wrong. They mean it but they can't quite do it yet. Like Hitler, when they can do it, they will -- or at the very least the weedy diplo-speak tells them they can force the world into big concessions on the fear that they can.

Here's a case of a nation on the verge of going nuclear that has made very clear and explicit threats about the absolute and complete destruction of a free, soveriegn nation. The response from those that can exact a change? "[These comments] further underscore our concerns about the regime," or even worse (and more vapid), Iran's comments are part of "a consistent pattern of rhetoric that is both hostile and out of touch with values that the rest of us in the international community live by."

The only other option left in the debate is that I find myself (and the other pro-Israel, conservative types) in the "chicken little" category. We're doomed! But nothing is really going to happen.

If only...

Update: Hugh Hewitt writes on plan for Iran...

It would be far better for the world to act together to strike at Iran, and if the world will not agree, than the West, and if not the West, a coalition of the willing.

The worst situation will be for Israel to have to do what all the world knows must be done.

It is a terrible task that cannot be postponed much longer.

1971 Redux

You may recalll the kerfuffle caused by 2004 Presidential Candidate and Junior Senator from Massachusetts John Kerry's statement last sunday of CBS's Face the Nation.

"There is no reason ... that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the ... of ... the historical customs, religious customs."

David Wade, Kerry's communications director, responded promptly after we spoke.

Mr. Wade's e-mail message attempted to summarize the information in the four attachments. It also referenced an accusation by the virulent anti-American scold the International Committee of the Red Cross, which demands terrorists be treated as prisoners of war.

Three attachments were very old newspaper stories from The Sun of Baltimore (June 18, 2003), The New York Times (Aug. 7, 2003) and The Washington Post (Jan. 23, 2005). The fourth, a U.S. Institute of Peace report, stated that even creating a profile of the "insurgents" is "a daunting task."

The Sun story states "someone or something" struck a retired Iraqi high school teacher who walked into the street and died, and "Just who or what caused his death is a mystery." Then the story all but blames our soldiers.

The Times wrote that "The American military ... has decided to limit the scope of its raids in Iraq after receiving warnings from Iraqi leaders that the raids were alienating the public." That was just a few months after the invasion.

The Post article "is the story of how the U.S. military made an enemy of one man during a 20-minute encounter" -- a man who hates Jews and felt so violated when his stash of girlie magazines was discovered that he started to slap his own mother.

The column is called "Genghis John Rides Again," if you were curious.

Joe-mentum

Drudge links to two articles about Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman's "trouble" within the Democrat Party.

NY Times

Much of the open criticism has been from liberal groups and House members. But his comments have also rankled Democrats in the Senate. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, phoned Mr. Lieberman this week to express concerns with his views, Mr. Reid's aide said.

"Senator Reid has a lot of respect for Senator Lieberman," said Jim Manley, a Reid spokesman. "But he feels that Senator Lieberman's position on Iraq is at odds with many Americans."

An aide to another leading Democratic senator who insisted on anonymity said the feelings toward Mr. Lieberman could be summed up as, "The American people want to hold George Bush accountable for the failed policy in Iraq, and Senator Lieberman doesn't."

Mr. Lieberman, who remains immensely popular in his home state, is aware of the hornet's nest he has stirred.

"Some Democrats said I was being a traitor," he said in an interview on Friday, adding that he was not surprised by the reaction, "given the depth of feeling about the war."

Liberal political groups, including Democracy for America and MoveOn.org, are considering ways to retaliate, including backing a challenge to Lieberman in next year's Democratic primary. Former senator and Connecticut governor Lowell P. Weicker Jr., an opponent of the war, has vowed to run as an independent, absent a strong Democratic or Republican challenge to Lieberman.

The administration, on the other hand, can't stop gushing over Lieberman. Vice President Cheney called him "a fine U.S. senator," and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman contrasted him with his "retreat and defeat" Democratic colleagues.

Am I the only one who thinks that the Senator better serves the country by staying a Democrat? He's like the fox in the henhouse. Senator Lieberman, by staying true to principles, is disrupting the whole gestalt over at the DNC.

By being where he is, he serves as a great gauge for just how far left the rest of the Defeaticrat party has gone. Without him and Senator Zell Miller, the Democrats would not be much different than the Greens... hell... the Socialist Party too.

The party that once included Ronald Reagan lost him because of their leftward drift. Might this party of Dean and MoveOn repeat history this time with Joe?