35 children killed by bombings in Iraq

According to this Washington Post article, a bill to remove Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban (authored by Indiana representative Mark Souder), has easily passed in the House of Representatives. However, it is probably doomed in the Senate. Some stats pulled from the article:

In favor of removing D.C.'s ban on handguns:

Stat 1: in 1976, the District's city council votes to ban handguns
Stat 2: from 1976 until 2001, the murder rate in D.C. raised 72%
Stat 3: in the same period, the national murder rate dropped 36%


In favor of keeping the ban:

Stat 1: the murder rate in D.C. is at a 20 year low
Stat 2: the murder rate there has fallen 55% since 1994


For both sets of these stats to be true, the murder rate in D.C. must have risen a great deal between 1976 and 1984. Yet, even if D.C.'s murder rate is lower than it has been in the past, it still is frighteningly high, making it one of the most dangerous cities in America.

Proponents of lifting the ban cite several studies that indicate a connection between concealed-carry laws (which allow individuals to legally carry a concealed handgun in public) and lower crime rates. They also say that criminals have ready access to illegal weapons, and that the only people this ban affects are those who want to legally buy a handgun for protection.

My fellow blogger at Sapere aude, Brian Deiwert, has a post up discussing tough new rules on jury duty dodgers. From the article he links to:

LONG BEACH, Calif. - Every month, hundreds of people are summoned to courts across the nation for a public scolding. It's no surprise that only a handful show up -- after all, they are expert at that all-American custom: dodging jury duty.

Fed-up judges from Los Angeles County to New York have responded by redirecting these scofflaws from the jury box to the hot seat. Residents who ignore repeated calls to appear can face fines and, in some places, even jail time.

Daniel has a column on his blog which says that "...the media that covers national politics is reaching a crisis point."

Why? His reasoning is two-fold-- that big media outfits, such as major newspapers and networks, are losing the public trust with a continued liberal bias which they refuse to address, and that new niche media forms, such as blogs, talk radio, and cable news channels are filling this void:

The consumer's desire for news that makes them happy or aggress with their worldview will not be halted. There are too many options out there. Balanced coverage of the news is on its way out and it is largely impart of Big Media's inability to see their own bias a long long time ago.

But Daniel is not the only journalist casting an introspective eye on the media today. Rathergate has caused a glut of Sudden Media Introspection (SMI). Others have their own theories as to the downfall of Big Media. Jeff Taylor, at Reason Express, blames Big Media's downfall, on their inability to do "community journalism."

The blogosphere's success, he claims, is largely due to the lack of editorial selection of stories. The NYTimes' motto "all the news that's fit to print" is emblematic of newspaper editors across the nation that choose the news to print, with very little community input, Taylor argues. The blogosphere, on the other hand, adopts the motto "all the news, all the views, you are free to find what's of interest to you." This is not just journalism catered to a community, it's journalism catered to the individual.

Still other theories abound. The Washington Post's David Broder has a column blaming the decline of journalistic standards on a change in hiring practices at major media outfits-- specifically the hiring of individuals with political backgrounds that have not worked their way up from copy editor, to reporter, to editor. This is lunacy according to Mickey Kaus at Slate.

Finally, one theory is that the blogosphere's community of niche journalism has a natural edge over big media, and that big media's decline is thus inevitable. Lawrence Henry, at the American Spectator, says this natural edge is that mainstream journalists by their nature do not know very much. Sure they cover a particular beat, but they are never really experts. However, turn to the blogosphere, and poof! you have an expert on almost any topic (typography, 1st Amendment free speech, etc.).

Big Media is indeed declining. The true art will be to balance the inherent advantages of the blogosphere's collective knowledge and speed with the traditional media's advantage of separation of unbiased news reporting from editorial. Like most arts, this one will be precarious.

You walk down the street in an urban, or even suburban, area and what do you see? Billboards. They hang on buildings, on signs near roads, on park benches, etc. etc. You get the picture.

With the advent of thin LCD or LED displays, these billboards no longer need be static. They can display multiple ads within a given duration of time and they can display up-to-date information useful to the passerby along with corporate promotion.

We only see very few of these electronic displays, however, because LED/LCDs are quite expensive. An average LED display, for example, costs 500,000 to $800,000 along with the electrical costs to run the display. In fact, leave a large city, and you'll never see an electronic billboard.

Now, with the invention of a technology called magink, everything is going to change. Magink billboards are dynamic like electronic displays, but they are only 1/10 the price and require no constant electricity to run them.

At a relatively low cost of $50,000 to $80,000, magink signs will show up in increasing frequencies in urban centers, and certainly suburban areas as well. So get ready for a new dynamic outdoor advertising world. Stock quotes, news headlines, and so forth will be presented along with a much higher number of ads, in rotation on magink billboards.

Japan has had magink signs for a couple years now. Go there and you'll notice the difference.

The technology is very cool. A layer of this special reactive ink is pressed between two layers of plastic. Small electrical connections are made at the edges of the sign. A one-time burst of the right electrical signal can transform the sign's image to anything desired. Future uses might even include digitally changeable wallpaper, fabric coverings, floors, etc.

Move over 20th century.

Entitled, Celsius 41.11, the film boldly asks: "At what temperature does the brain begin to die?"

Click the photo to watch the trailer...

If you are in need of a good non-fiction, may I suggest Notre Dame Vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan.

The book tells an astonishing true story about a physical brawl that occured between KKK members and ND students back in the '20s on two different days. The KKK, which was at the height of its popularity in Indiana at the time, was holding a rally in South Bend. ND students decided to make a stand against the KKK.

The President of Notre Dame heard about the fight on the first day, and how it turned bloody, and decided to break up the renewed fight on the second day. Acting with violence was not upholding the values of Catholic Notre Dame. The example set helped turn the tide of public opinion against the KKK, and as the book supposedly goes, the KKK was never as strong in Indiana ever again.

From a Reuters article via Unlearning College:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A rare pro-democracy protest in Tehran gained momentum late on Sunday with hundreds of cars pouring onto the streets, blaring horns and provoking an appearance from hardline vigilantes, witnesses said....

A group of volunteer militiamen arrived on motorbikes but there was no sign of any fighting. Hardline vigilantes crushed demonstrations by student activists last summer.

Ultimate success in Iraq is contingent on the presumption that the vast majority of Iraq's citizens will learn the joys of the democracy-capitalism combo. The fact that young Iranians continue to protest for democracy in that nation, despite years of oppression of that type of change, and almost zero chance of those demonstrations having a practical effect, indicates that the thirst for democracy is real in the Middle East. But how significant is it?

The lead from this Financial Times article says it all:

French and German government officials say they will not significantly increase military assistance in Iraq even if John Kerry, the Democratic presidential challenger, is elected on November 2.

Get real, John! Wake up and smell the coffee-- Europe is spineless, paralyzed by their own self-interests. And the Democrats want us to vote for a man this naive about Europe?

"What bothers me slightly, though, about the way the bloggers have almost become like the media Mujahideen, you know. I mean, in a sense it's like everybody feels so chased by them. I mean, look what happened in a sense: CBS had the same kind of campaign for that -- for their Janet Jackson Super Bowl debacle and for their Ronald Reagan miniseries. I mean, it's the third time, in a sense, that CBS management has been completely kind of, you know, harassed." [emphasis added]

- Tina Brown, CNBC

Bloggers are media Mujahideen?! Tina, do you really need to compare us to terrorists? What would you have us do? Bow down to the almighty CBS who does not even verify documents it airs on national TV impeaching the president's character? If this is the quality of journalism that you want us to respect, Tina, then you've got another thing coming.

Big media outlets have gone far too long without a check in society. Now that they have it, everyone benefits.

(Thanks to Dan Ornelas for the quote)

With President Bush pulling ahead of John Kerry in almost every national poll and in an increasing number of battleground states, things are beginning to look bleak for the Democratic challenger.

Thus, the Democrats are beginning to get desperate, it seems. Last week, we had John Kerry spouting off some claim that President Bush would reinstate the draft if reelected-- with absolutely zero proof or even suggestive evidence. Now we have Senator Edward Kennedy saying that a reelected Bush would make our nation more likely to be hit by a nuke.



Update: This just in! Not only will our nation be nuked, our children be drafted into the army, but now if Bush gets re-elected he's going to impoverish our dairy farmers. Thanks to the Dems, I know to be scared.

George Weigel, at Catholics for Bush, has an excellent essay on why Catholics are no longer a voting bastion for the Democratic party. Non-Catholic Christians, read on, because this is relevant to you as well. Power quotes:

Millions of Catholics are going to vote for George W. Bush - and millions of Catholics are, frankly, appalled at the thought of their fellow-Catholic, John Kerry, as President of the United States - because of two dramatic changes in ideas and institutions over the past four decades. Catholic social doctrine has changed; so has the Democratic Party. In those changes lie the deeper reasons for my vote for George Bush, and the votes of millions of other Catholics across the country...

John Paul II has also developed the Church's social doctrine by teaching that abortion, euthanasia, and the range of questions raised by the new biotechnologies are, in fact, social justice issues. Addressing the life issues is a crucial part of the Church's social doctrine. In Evangelium Vitae, which completes Centesimus Annus, the Holy Father insisted that when grave moral evils - "wrongs" - are legally defined as "rights," the entire democratic project is threatened. A democracy that arrogates to itself the power to declare entire classes of human beings - the unborn, the radically handicapped, the elderly - outside the boundaries of common concern and protection is a democracy at war with itself (a point Lincoln made a century and a half ago, in his 1858 "house divided" speech).

Thus, in the developed Catholic view of things, not all issues are equal. Some issues must weigh more heavily on the conscience of a president, a legislator, or a voter. Indeed, the life issues are of such gravity that opposition to the requirements of natural justice on these questions (which is also opposition to the Church's settled teaching) seriously damages a Catholic's communion with the Church...

Like many of my fellow-Catholic Bush voters, I was genetically a Democrat, having grown up in an environment where "Catholic" and "Democrat" were synonymous. Have we changed? Perhaps. But the party into which we were born, so to speak, has changed far more dramatically than we have. And that is why some of us have left it, while others regularly vote for Republicans...

Remember the old charge that the McGovern Democrats were the party of "acid, amnesty, and abortion"? What was the most enduring of the three? It was the abortion license, a lethal infection that has thoroughly corrupted the moral fabric of the Democratic Party. As the Democrats have become ever more intransigently the party of abortion-on-demand...

Which is to say that the Democratic Party has become the party of freedom understood as personal willfulness - the party of the imperial autonomous Self. Which is to say, further, that the Democrats have become the party that rejects the teaching of Centesimus Annus and Evangelium Vitae....

Thanks to just bein' Frank for the link to this essay.


P.S. If you have not read Pope John Paul II's encyclicals: Laborem Exercens, Centesimus Annus, and Evangelium Vitae; do so-- promptly. They are not easy to read, but do not let the Latin titles scare you away. Find a good website that excerpts the documents and summarizes them. Heck, I'll find one for you.

And to non-Catholics, do not think for a moment that these documents are Catholic-centric, or that their messages are not relevant to non-Catholics. The Pope discusses issues therein that touch on every facet of society and the interplay between civil society and personal dignity. The manner in which the Catholic Church has been changed by these teachings mirrors, in many ways, how the Protestant churches are evolving in America as well.

I've started looking at Drudge again. Not a lot... yet. I better cut him off now, or I'll be hooked on that drivel again. And just think, it all started with me just wanting to see a hurricane track, which I knew he keeps on his site.

"Sometimes you have to lose yourself, to find anything."

-original unknown to me

"You know? The golden rule... He who has the gold makes the rules."

-They Live (a movie)

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Roosevelt

[I got this quote from a fellow IU law student's blog, Confessions of an Exhausted Mind. I recommend it.]

According to this Washington Times article, a poll of American Indians reveals that 90% do not find the Washington Redskins name to be offensive.

I do not think that any sports team should use an offensive name, but I also recognize that a balance between sensitivity and over political correctness must be struck. The problem is that often times we substitute our judgment over what might be offensive to a group for the reality of the matter.

For instance, my gut feeling is that 'redskin' would be offensive. But apparently I'm wrong. So the issue of changing the name should drop.

It's real according to this Internet Deprivation Study by Yahoo.

Cut off their connection to the Web and people have moments of "withdrawal and feelings of loss, frustration, and disconnectedness" according to a report released Wednesday by Yahoo. Dubbed -- and we're not making this up -- the Internet Deprivation Study, the Yahoo-sponsored research tried to get a group of consumers to give stay offline, then report back. Nearly half couldn't take the Web-less world for more than two weeks, and the median time participants could go without logging on was a measly five days.

Hat tip to Josh Claybourn for this story. He says he's not surprised by the results, based on his observations of peers during times of internet outage. I'm not either. When the internet went out at Notre Dame people went a little batty until they figured out something else to do with themselves.

P.S. With devices like the Sinulator (see post below), it's no wonder people are going through withdrawal ;-)

'Teledildonics', a term coined by Wired sex columnist Gina Lynn, is a relatively new form of virtual sex using devices such as the Sinulator, which "...lets you connect a sex toy to your computer so that other people can control it for you over the internet."

And the most...ummm... interesting feature of the Sinulator is one in which one individual's motions with a particular Sinulator device sends signals to the other person's device that reciprocate the first person's actions. You do the math.

In the interests of retaining some degree of decorum, I'll refrain from going into detail. Read the article.

The conventional wisdom, according to the mainstream media (you know, the same people who brought you Rather-gate), is yes.

Kerry touts the fact that, through some mysterious unknown back channels of international intrigue, if he were elected President, our current and former allies would be more amenable to aiding us in the war on terror. Unfortunately, in what is, I am sure, a frequent pattern of events in his campaign, Kerry says one thing, and does another.

Consider his response to the visit of Prime Minister Allawi to Washington yesterday, not half an hour after his joint press conference with President Bush:

"The prime minister and the president are here obviously to put their best face on the policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, the reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story,''

Well, Senator, I don't know how politicians generally treat visiting heads of state in France, or Massachutsetts, but in D.C., it is generally bad form to insult them by claiming they are lying about the situation in their home country, without any facts to back your allegations.

Here you have Prime Minister Allawi, who was nearly assassinated by Saddam Hussein's henchmen for his opposition to tyranny, who currently faces almost daily death threats by Muslim extremists and Saddam loyalists, being told by Kerry that liberating Iraq was "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time." Here you have Allawi, a man of courage and optimism, being told by Kerry that his nation is doomed to failure, and that U.S. should abandon the nascent Iraqi democracy in less than four years.

I wouldn't exactly characterize Kerry's actions as supportive of a key ally. In fact, he probably gave more aid and comfort to the North Vietnamese during his post-war testimony to the Senate.

Kerry denigrates the other allies that stood with us in Iraq, Britain, Australia, and Italy, as a "coalition of the bribed and coerced". Are we to believe that, if elected, these nations will respond politely to rhetoric like this? Will Kerry's pleas for help resonate with such countries who are bleeding alongside us, when he daily ridicules them as being "incapable"?

Speaking of allies, for a more detailed and better written argument on this point, I refer you to Charles Krauthammer's column for today. I think you'll have to agree that he raises issues with the conventional "wisdom" that will make Kerry's head spin like, well, like his positions on everything else.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45794-2004Sep23.html

The Washington Post decided not to run this week's episode of The Boondocks and ran an an old sequence instead. I guess they thought it was too controversial.




Just make sure you read this entire weeks Boondocks. Not just the one I'm posting.

I think it'd be a great idea.

Seeing all those reporters running around that gorgeous new museum gave rise to an obvious question: Hey, why don't we journalists have our own museum on the Mall?

True, back in the '90s, the Newseum opened in Virginia to celebrate the media, and now it's moving to a new location "next to" the Mall. But being next to the Mall is like having your star next to the Walk of Fame. The Newseum isn't even part of the Smithsonian.

He speaks the truth, for once.

"My first reaction when a friend asked about the Dan Rather memo flap was to ponder whether anyone learned anything from the mess I got myself into. Nobody knows the value of credibility better than I do. I'd give up the book royalties if I could get my credibility and career back.

"All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome."

-George Orwell

Now let the open blogging commence.

So said Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi in a speech before Congress today.

He continued:

"The insurgency in Iraq is destructive but small, and it has not and will never resonate with the Iraqi people." ...

"Today, we are better off, you are better off, the world is better off without Saddam Hussein." ...

"Your decision to go into Iraq was not an easy one, but it was the right one."

It's no secret that China sensors the media and the internet. But apparently, Google News has decided to be a "partner in crime" in that nation.

According to this article, Google News China removes links to articles, which it knows are blocked by the Chinese government.

At first glance, this doesn't seem like a big deal. The articles are blocked, why link them, right?

Well, the only thing worse than being blocked from information, is not knowing that you are being blocked from information.

Google's actions enable just that.

On Wednesday, Swaggart said he has jokingly used the expression "killing someone and telling God he died" thousands of times, about all sorts of people. He said the expression is figurative and not meant to harm.

"It's a humorous statement that doesn't mean anything. You can't lie to God -- it's ridiculous," Swaggart told The Associated Press. "If it's an insult, I certainly didn't think it was, but if they are offended, then I certainly offer an apology." [SF Gate article]

That is the weakest excuse I have ever heard. An apology never should be prefaced with an "if." Furthermore, if Jimmy's version of a joke is saying he's going to kill someone, then his sense of humor is seriously lacking, at best, and dishonest at worst.

Well, heck, at least he didn't break down crying and scream out "I am so sorry. I have sinned!" like he did after his extra-marriatal affair several years ago.

Campaign Finance Reform has been around for what-- about a year now? So, has it been a success?

Ummm, no. Clearly not.

The goal of CFR was to limit the effects of money on political campaigns. But all it has done has diverted the money elsewhere-- just as its opponents said would happen.

Before CFR individuals and corporations could funnel tons of money into the respective political parties, which then would use that money to support their candidates or oppose the other candidates. This soft money could be of unclear origins, but the use of that money was pretty darn clear.

Contrast this with the current state of things. Now, the origin of the money is still unclear, but so is the use of it. The "offenders" are the 527s. Groups like MoveOn.org and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack one of the candidates or the other, under the guise of being an interest group rather than a political attack dog. They are less accountable, because they are not technically in one party or the other.

So, what has Congress considered doing? Limiting 527s. If they do this, they'll be committing the same mistake twice; the money will just be diverted elsewhere again, probably further underground.

The best solution would be to eliminate Campaign Finance Reform, as it was enacted by Congress. Keep all provisions of disclosure and openness, but eliminate these new restrictions on who can donate to whom and when.

The effects of money on the political elections cannot be limited. So the goal of any reform should merely be openness and equal opportunity. If every organization has equal opportunity to donate and campaign, then the money will aggregate in the direction of the most political support, or in a split nation, it will aggregate nearly equally.

This is as "fair" as we're gonna get.

Cat Stevens deported from the U.S.

Peace activist and singer/songwriter Cat Stevens is being deported from the US after being denied entry because his name appeared on a security "watch list"...

But authorities have given no indication why the Muslim convert - now known as Yusaf Islam - has been barred from the country.

Excuse me for laughing at this story, but I really can't help it. The lyrics from "Peace Train" keep flowing through my head: "Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train / Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again" ... that's right, take him straight to his home in Britain.

As promised, I have a reporter on the ground in China. Here's what Chris Ptak has learned regarding China's new leader: (via e-mail)

Seeing as my Chinese is still limited to "I want that one," and "thank you good sir", it would be difficult for me to conduct any worthwhile interviews on this subject, especially since I asked one of my classes about the new president yesterday, and not a single student knew that the change had even taken place. Keep in mind they are all juniors at a university with 20,000 students. I was shocked when I discovered the extent of their political ignorance, but I spoke to another group of older students later in the day and began to understand why my college students might care more about the upcoming elections in the US than they do about their own government.

First, we have to keep in mind that this is a one-party system. While Hu was not exactly Jiang's first choice to succeed him, it's not as if a new party is taking over. The same communists that ran things under Mr. Jiang are still in charge- they just have a new figurehead. So it should come as no surprise that even my more mature students (all of whom are intelligent enough to have been selected to be sent to get MBAs in the United States, and some of whom work for the government) do not believe that Hu's new title is going to change anything. Also, we have to keep in mind that Hu has been the political leader of China for a few years now. It is only a military leadership role into which he is now stepping.

That said, my students expressed some excitement about the change. This is the first bloodless transition of China's leadership since the Communists came to power in 1949. China, after 5000 years of continuous rule by emperor, is not used to seeing its leadership retire. This is the first time a leader has stepped down before his death forced the issue. Also, Hu is young and has already demonstrated an excellent ability to represent China on the world stage. Still, in a country of an estimated 1.6 billion people, half of which are third-world peasants, I do not believe that a transition of military leadership between two identically-minded spokesmen at the top of the most extensive bureaucracy in human history is going to represent any significant change to the people of China. I will let you know if I learn anything new.

Rush Limbaugh, from a transcript on his website:

Go into any journalism school out there, folks. Walk down the hall. First year, second year, third year, doesn't matter. Grab a student, any student, male, female, gay, straight, bi, transvestite, doesn't matter. Ask 'em why they're there, and eventually, if you stick with 'em long enough what you'll hear them say is, 'Because I want to make the world a better place. I want to correct the social injustices of the world!' To which we say, 'Well, then you're in the wrong profession. Go get elected and get yourself either on the staff of some politician or become a politician or become an officeholder. That's where policy gets made and changed. You're just supposed to stand on the corner and tell people who aren't there what happened. That's all you're supposed to do.' [emphasis added]

Rush is right when it comes to reporters. When a reporter spins the facts by interjecting opinion or when a reporter or an editor chooses to publish certain facts and not others to create a slant, they are practicing bias. If they are doing this, then they are not practicing journalism, they are not "standing on the corner and tell[ing] people who aren't there what happened." And yes, this bias often arises out of a journalist's zeal to make an impact on the world. Some rightly worry that the days of a non-partisan press might be over.

But Rush is incorrect when he says that reporters are in the wrong profession to make the world a better place. While a reporter is not in a position to create policy that feeds the hungry in Africa, he or she is in a position to show that people are starving in Africa and that help is needed. While a reporter is not a government official, he or she is in a position to show when a government official is lying to the public. Has Rathergate given Rush Limbaugh an excuse to forget about Watergate?

Journalists must realize that their craft is completely reliant on their credibility-- their believability. Bias and insufficient fact-checking, whether by editors or by reporters, destroys this credibility. Now the reporter writing the story about starving African children must worry whether his or her story is even fully believed.

So, when pressters like Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and Dan Rather distort the facts in order to try to change the world, they undermine the very value of journalism which enables it to do so.

George Orwell once wrote that, "Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness." Perhaps the same should be said of many journalists today: 'Journalists can only be able to impact the world when they do not assume that the object of their profession is world changing.'

George Will is in tip-top shape in this Washington Post column about the situation in Iraq. Money quotes:

Sounding like Mark Twain mischievously insisting that Wagner's music is better than it sounds, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who is not known for drollery, says events in Iraq are better than they seem. Speaking Sunday on ABC's "This Week," Allawi said the insurgency is "still raging" but that is a good sign -- a sign that "it's not getting stronger, it's getting more desperate." ...

After listening to Allawi, Sens. Richard Lugar and Joe Biden, who have struggled to be supportive of U.S. policy, were studies in decorous exasperation. "He [Allawi] has to put his game face on," said Biden, a former football player in Delaware. Lugar said the Iraqi elections scheduled for January "may not be perfect, but they're going to happen." ...

Here is John Kerry's dilemma: What, if anything, can he say about this?... Most of Kerry's dilemmas are of his making -- his dreamy belief that even with a war raging he could campaign on domestic issues; his Jackson Pollock canvas of positions on the war. But now his dilemma is that in U.S. politics, optimism is mandatory, even -- no, especially -- when it is dubious. Everybody has a game face on. Too bad this is not a game...

When Allawi addresses a joint session of Congress Thursday, he will stand where British Prime Minister Tony Blair stood in July 2003 to proclaim that it is a "myth" that American and British "attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" -- a myth that "freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law" are Western rather than universal values. Allawi will not say anything less plausible to an audience that is sadder, and perhaps wiser, than it was 14 months ago. [emphasis added throughout]

Gary Varvel, The Indianapolis Star's editorial cartoonist, is a man whose work I've grown up with and grown to enjoy over my lifetime. It's works like this that show his brilliance at interweaving humor and astute political commentary:

Professor Eugene Volokh is in a little debate on the matter (good reading)

Andrew Sullivan has chimed in, and he's got a link to the broadcast. Fast forward to the 36 min. mark, and you'll see that the transcript is right on.

Janet Jackson's boob gets shown on network TV and the nation flips. Television "evangelist" Jimmy Swaggart threatens to kill gay men who look at him funny, and it does not even make the mainstream media:

"I'm trying to find the correct name for it ... this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men. ... I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died."

Now aren't we glad we have blogs out there to report stuff like this.

...and his name is Hu Jintao. Replacing Jiang Zemin, who resigned at the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee meeting, Hu Jintao's rise to power marks the first completely orderly transfer of power in that nation's communist history.

According to this AP article, Jintao's policies are thought to be nearly identical to those of Zemin.

However, I would like to know a bit more about the guy and the Chinese people's impressions of him. Luckily, I have a reporter on the ground in China (you know who you are) and I'll try to get a report from him.

According to this Washington Post article CBS also is going to say that it was misled on the Bush national guard memos.

Note to CBS: it's too late! Your mistake was not properly verifying the documents in the first place, and your credibility as a trustworthy news source is in the toilet. Saying you were 'misled' is a piss poor attempt to make it sound as if you are not responsible for the veracity of the news you report, and that is bunk.

Dan Rather should not be the only resignation to come from this. Mary Mapes, the producer of "60 Minutes II" should also be given the boot.

Update: Dan also said "I am sorry" in regards to what has happened. LAME! Sorry, Dan, but an apology isn't gonna cut it babe.

Something tells me that Andrew Sullivan has received a lot of negative response on his recent turn against President Bush on the topic of Iraq. In this post (scroll down a bit), he softens his stance:

What I worry about is a country that re-elects a president on the basis of denial about Iraq, and then turns on him with a vengeance when things get far worse.

But what evidence do you have, Andrew, that the President or the populace is in denial over Iraq? I would not mistake patience and resolve for denial.

Often times in life, a story that breaks, and is publicized initially, is not the most significant story that arises.

Exempli gratia. CBS breaks a "factual" story about President Bush's national guard service. Then, the blogosphere breaks the next morph of the story: the documents CBS used for their piece were probable fakes.

Only after 2-3 additional days did the mainstream media pick up the CBS forgery story. The final morph that came out of the story is also by far the most significant to America: a network of independent journalists, editorialists, and plain old internet diarists wearing their pajamas was able to fact check a major media source and disrobe the notion of big media snobbery.

Some officials at CBS, antique columnists in Kansas City, and legacy journalists elsewhere tore apart bloggers, saying that their level of fact-checking and outreach is and always will be inferior to the big media.

And yes, while this holds true most of the time for any one blogger, it does not hold true for the blogosphere as a whole. And this is the point that the legacies were missing. I say "were" because after this story many now realize the truth. And that truth is: the immense resources of the internet, combined with an expert blogger on almost every topic, combined with push-button blog publishing, creates an incredibly effective fact-checking mechanism.

The conclusion is powerful: blogging is a tour de force-- the biggest thing to happen to the media since the invention of the television camera. And that, my friends, is the real story.

GO Irish!

The lawyer for two condemned Kentucky inmates is challenging their executions on 8th Amendment grounds. With supporting evidence from the state medical examiner's autopsy of the last executed prisoner, the lawyer is arguing his clients would be tortured to death.
At issue is the three-drug cocktail used for execution. The first drug, a fast-acting, short-lived barbituate called sodium thiopental (C11H17N2NaO2S for all you science nerds), renders the person unconscious. The second drug, pancuronium bromide (C35H60Br2N2O4), paralyzes the person, and the third drug, potassium chloride (KCl), stops the heart. The problem in the previous execution, in 1999, was the barbituate failed to do its job. Pancuronium bromide only paralyzes muscle tissue; the nervous system remains unaffected. The medical examiner concluded that while the inmate was paralyzed and appeared calm and serene, he was conscious and could feel himself being suffocated to death. (Click on the link for more in-depth analysis of the legal argument and the nuts and bolts of why this happened; go to ChemFinder.com if you want to learn more about these drugs.)
It doesn't matter where one stands on the issue of execution; this is barbary. Ironically, Kentucky proscribes the use of pancuronium bromide for euthanizing animals! The 8th Amendment was specifically designed to prevent shit like this from happening. Well-meaning people can disagree, even over something as contentious as capital punishment, but even proponents should lead the charge to put this method of execution where it belongs: in the De Sade collection, not in the prison system.

Irish will play down to their competition but will still win in a squeaker over Michiagn's Sucky University, 17-14. As for my convention analysis, I promise next week (pesky school and running). Irish Men's XC scores 19 pts to win the National Catholic Invitational (15 is perfect), I felt like donkey balls but still ran a 25:29 for 8k (5 sec PR, 40 sec PR on the ND course). Next up: ND Invite, October 1st.

Apparently inspired by Bart Simpson, some pranksters at Heathrow Airport got the PA to say some pretty crass things by posing as taxi drivers. Among the newly arrived passengers: Malexa Krost and Makollig Jesvahted. Thanks to The Edge for pointing this out.

On a side note, The Simpsons is the funniest show that has aired during my lifetime. Any other geeks out there, the Sprinfield Nuclear Power Plant is the best Simpsons site I've found. Now, the fictitious patrons of Moe's bar:
Al Coholic
Oliver Clothesoff
I.P. Freely
Jaques Strap
Seymour Butz
Homer Sexual
Mike Rotch
I'm a stupid moron with an ugly face and big butt and my butt smells and I like to kiss my own butt (no joke!)
Hugh Jass
Bea O'Problem
Amanda Huggenkiss
Ivana Tinkle
Anita Bath
Maya Buttreeks
Wayland Smithers (again, no joke)
Eura Snotball
Ollie Tabooger
Heywood U. Cuddleme
Elvis Jagger Abdul-Jabbar

In the first month that I've spent in DC, I've had almost zero interest in local DC politics, but that all changed on Tuesday when former mayor and crack smoker, Marion Barry won the Democratic nomination for the 8th Ward. Excited about his victory, Barry said that one of his first legislative proposals would be to guarantee a summer job to all those between the ages of 14 and 22 who wanted a job. With proposals like that, I wonder if Barry has given up his crack habit.

All kidding aside, Barry was one of three individuals to beat an incumbent on city council and a consequence of that is that Major League Baseball might finally get its head of its ass and announce where the Expos will be playing because those three candidates oppose using tax dollars to fund the building of a new baseball stadium in downtown DC. Hence, getting the tax dollars needed to finance such a project will become more difficult when these three individuals will likely take office in January. I hope Major League Baseball doesn't screw this up because it would be a shame to see a large market like DC without a baseball team.

Keeping up with my DC theme, every day when I get off the Metro for work I see these individuals handing out pamphlets, and I'm always confused when I see them because their name is a contradiction. But maybe I'm wrong, you make the call.

Don't like jury duty? No need to fear. According to a judge in New York, drinking alcohol, smoking pot or snorting cocaine is perfectly legal during jury deliberations.

Now to some sad news, for those of you familiar with the Notre Dame bar scene, Boat Club, a popular haven for underage drinkers will likely be forced to close after the Indiana Alcohol and Tobacco Commissio