From Drudge:
National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) Statement:
The NIAF is distressed by the attempts of some senators and the media (CNN, CBS) to marginalize Judge Samuel Alito's outstanding record, by frequent reference to his Italian heritage and by the use of the nickname, "Scalito."
Appropriately, no one mentioned that Justice Breyer was Jewish or suggested that he was lock-step ideologically with the other Jewish Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it would have been outrageous to do so. We still do not know Justice Robert's ethnicity.
We are justly proud of Justice Alito's Italian heritage and his sterling academic and judicial records as well as his impeccable integrity. However, he should be considered as an individual. In honor of the memory of the just departed Rosa Parks the Senate champions of civil rights should insist that Judge Alito be considered only on his extraordinary merits.
Sincerely,
A. Kenneth Ciongoli
Chairman of the National Italian American Foundation
There more I read about Judge Alito, the more I like him. He's Italian AND Catholic. I mean, I could have Sunday dinner at this guy's house, and I'd fit right in! But I can't say I'm wild about this statement from NIAF; it reminds me too much of something a bunch of politically-correct, cowardly liberals would do.
Obviously, "Scalito" is a merging of "Scalia" and "Alito". Is the Left comparing Alito to Scalia? I would be honored by such a comparison. As I've said before, I would trade minds with Judge Scalia with nary a moment's notice. So when such a comparison is made, conservatives should embrace it. Don't sound like a bunch of lip-biting touchy-feely ponytail boys---come into the room with a bowl of pasta and sauce the next time the press is around. Give them no place to go.
And while we're talking about potentially off-color comments, Drudge also brings us this little gem:
CBSNEWS Chief White House correspondent John Roberts described the President’s selection of Judge Samuel Alito as “sloppy seconds” during today’s press gaggle with White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.
John Roberts: “So, Scott, you said that -- or the President said, repeatedly, that Harriet Miers was the best person for the job. So does that mean that Alito is sloppy seconds, or what?”
Scott McClellan: “Not at all, John.”
Sloppy seconds” is described in the United Kingdom’s A Dictionary of Slang as:
Noun: “A subsequent indulgence in an activity by a second person involving an exchange of bodily fluids. This may involve the sharing of drink, or more often it applies to a sexual nature. E.g. ‘I’m not having sloppy seconds, I want to shag her first.’”
Roberts later apologized for his comments. Thankfully, someone at CBS has some sense of dignity.
...and the honeymoon is now over. Wow.
President Bush put the demands of his far-right political base above Americans’ constitutional rights and legal protections by nominating federal appeals court Judge Samuel Alito to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, said People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas. “Right-wing leaders vetoed Miers because she failed their ideological litmus test. With Judge Alito, President Bush has obediently picked a nominee who passes that test with flying colors.”
You guys need a new play book.
AlThe President has nominated Samuel Alito to serve on the Supreme Court. Since he was on the short list before the Miers nomination, you can expect his honeymoon with the Left to last about .004 microseconds.
Alito has all the qualifications that were lacking in Miers that had so many on both sides of the aisle up in arms. As the President said at the Judge's introduction, Alito has more judicial experience than any nominee in the past 70 years. He graduated from Yale Law, which should make the elitist progressives giddy with anticipation.
I don't know where he stands on anything and I don't need to. But rest assured, now that a qualified candidate is up to bat, the Dems will be wanting to know where he stands on the feminist sacrament, abortion. He should probably call John Roberts for advice---or maybe he should refuse to show up for the process, which is his right under the law. Wouldn't that make a nice steak for the wolves on the Sunday morning shows?
From Drudge yesterday evening:
BROOKS: WHY ARE DEMS SO OVERHEATED?
Sat Oct 29 2005 17:15:12 ET
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did not find evidence to prove that there was a "broad conspiracy to out a covert agent for political gain. He did not find evidence of wide-ranging criminal behavior. He did not even indict the media's ordained villain, Karl Rove," writes David Brooks in Sunday's NY TIMES.
"Leading Democratic politicians filled the air with grand conspiracy theories that would be at home in the John Birch Society."
"Why are these people so compulsively overheated?.. Why do they have to slather on wild, unsupported charges that do little more than make them look unhinged?
Brooks quotes from an essay written 40 years ago by Richard Hofstadter called "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."
Hofstadter argued that sometimes people who are dispossessed, who feel their country has been taken away from them and their kind, develop an angry, suspicious and conspiratorial frame of mind. It is never enough to believe their opponents have committed honest mistakes or have legitimate purposes; they insist on believing in malicious conspiracies.
"The paranoid spokesman," Hofstadter wrote, "sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms -- he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization." Because his opponents are so evil, the conspiracy monger is never content with anything but their total destruction."
Brooks summarizes: "So some Democrats were not content with Libby's indictment, but had to stretch, distort and exaggerate. The tragic thing is that at the exact moment when the Republican Party is staggering under the weight of its own mistakes, the Democratic Party's loudest voices are in the grip of passions that render them untrustworthy."
Developing...
Well, that would certainly explain a lot.
I haven't talked much about the Plame CIA leak case because it's a fairly complicated matter and most of the people I talk to don't know enough about it to discuss it intelligently. They either think that the White House did nothing wrong (which may not be the case) or that Bush is once again up to something (some people always say this regardless of context. Look back at some of the comments on this blog). In the end, I will be very surprised if anyone sees the inside of a jail cell or is even found guilty of revealing classified information. There is even some question as to whether or not Valerie Plame's employment status actually WAS considered classified. Her husband definitely told people what she did for a living and she put her job title on at least one public form. She was not an agent posted overseas; she worked in the US. The revelation of her agent status in no way threatened her safety or the safety of those around her.
If her status actually was classified, you then have to think about why. As those of you who have had a security clearance in the military can attest, anything even remotely sensitive is stamped "CLASSIFIED". I even owned one of the rubber stamps because every page of our notes in Nuclear Power school had to be marked. "Classified" is the lowest secrecy level in government. While revealing classified information is, indeed, a crime, the sentence involved will be determined by the seriousness of the damage incurred by the leak. However, hampering a federal investigation is another matter---let's hope everyone's been honest.
Regardless of the outcome, this will damage the President. There are enough people out there who don't pay attention to the facts (or don't fully comprehend what they read, something I've run into here) that, sooner or later, someone's going to throw out a comparison to Watergate. I'm setting my watch.
Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to be on the Supreme Court. We will probably never know if she did this of her own volition or if it was thrust upon her, but it hardly matters. For better or worse, the President was losing his own party on this, so it was doubtful that she would've won approval anyway.
It will be interesting to see what happens now. Will GW nominate a true conservative with a solid judicial record, or someone the Dems are more likely to go for? I guess it comes down to how big a fight he is willing to start. As I said before, he should nominate a conservative and stand by him or her, fighting all the way. Make the Democrats show how lowdown they can be when they don't get their way. The President has nothing to lose by doing this and it will certainly help his party next year and in 2008.
But he has disappointed me before. We'll see.
Those of you who are long-time readers of this blog know that I am no big fan of Wal-Mart, mainly because I consider some of their tactics with suppliers to be underhanded and predatory. But they are a business and what they do is legal. They are also the largest employer in the US after the federal government. The NY Times ran an article today discussing some internal company memos which show senior executives trying to cut healthcare and labor costs by various means:
"...also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive."
If you have a moment, please read the entire article.
Health insurance is a sore spot with most people, and understandably so. If you end up in the hospital and you are uninsured, you will likely be paying the bills for the rest of you life. It was not always this way, but lawyers and liberals have helped take the competition out of healthcare to the point where we will soon live in a nation where more money goes towards healthcare than housing.
I believe that most people in this country have grown to believe that healthcare coverage is not only a benefit, but is actually an entitlement that your employer should have to provide. Nothing could be further from the truth, but this perception has been so often repeated that even otherwise clear-thinking people consider every company that does not offer health insurance to be somehow ripping off employees.
Businesses are in business to make money, not provide you or me with a job. We are employed because we help the company make money. The company is not a charity and it owes us nothing over and above what we agreed to when we were hired. This is capitalism---it may be flawed, but it's the system we have. Go to Canada or England and tell me if socialized medicine is better.
As I sit here, I know that someone will post a comment in which the poster says, "But you've never had a sick child or spouse." You're right. But all children are expensive when it comes to their healthcare; therefore, your career must center around affordable healthcare. That may mean taking jobs that are not to your liking. If your employer does not provide health benefits, then you have the right to leave and find an employer who does. Emotional appeals and platitudes, while stirring to people with short attention spans, do not change the facts.
The 2,000th member of the military to die in Iraq was named George Alexander. He was 34 and from Texas. I don't know anything about Staff Sgt. Alexander---he may have been married with children or a bachelor. No matter what, his death will undoubtedly leave someone incomplete for the rest of his or her life.
I also didn't know the 1,999th soldier to die in Iraq, or the 589th. You probably didn't know them, either. But their deaths were no less tragic than Alexander's. You may think that I am stating the obvious, but this logic is not clear to those who oppose the war and have been waiting for this moment so at to make an even louder statement. Cindy Sheehan is going to tie herself to the White House fence.
Marking a soldier's death as some kind of milestone is a perverse cheapening of the lives of the men and women who serve in our military. It's as if the anti-war crowd has been waiting and hoping for a number with more meaning, something that will get more airtime on the evening news. What of the family of the 1998th fallen soldier? Does that comfort them? Michael Moore and his ilk claim to support the troops, but acknowledging these milestones is more like using their deaths as some sort of sick score card from which they determine how their side is winning.
Liberals and other anti-war types learned the lessons of Vietnam very, very well. They now know not to say anything bad about the troops in harm's way, for that is the easiest way to lose the support of the average American. The sad truth is that these people have no respect for the military, for you can not both "support the troops" and fail to support their actions. The best way to support them is to hope they have wise leadership and that they receive all the resources they need to complete the mission as soon as possible.
The problem with that position is that by taking it, the war protesters would be putting themselves in the same camp as the President; we can't have that, can we? So we see that their "support" for the troops is nothing of kind---they are just using their memory as a means to an end.
Al Franken, possibly the unfunniest funny man in the history of civilization, was on with Letterman Friday evening. Here's part of what he said:
"And so basically, what it looks like is going to happen is that Libby and Karl Rove are going to be executed” because “outing a CIA agent is treason,” left-wing author and radio talk show host Al Franken asserted Friday night, to audience laughter, on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman. Franken qualified his hard-edged satire: "Yeah. And I don't know how I feel about it because I'm basically against the death penalty, but they are going to be executed it looks like." Franken later suggested that President Bush is at risk of receiving the same punishment, since Karl Rove likely told him what he did, but he added a caveat: “I think, by the way, that we should never ever, ever, ever execute a sitting President."
(Entire article here)
Now THAT's humor. No wonder Franken is such a giant in his field. Haven't his movies made, like, a billion dollars or something?
Actually, no. Other than his time on Saturday Night Live (in which he had writers making him appear funny), everything Franken has done has lost money, including his latest crapfest, Air Amerika. Does this guy live under a star? Or does he have pictures of high-placed people in compromising positions?
If you could be executed for being an asshat who has overstayed his welcome on the planet, Al Franken would long ago have had his head mounted on a spike and put on display as a warning to other wannabe funny political pundits.
UPDATE: You will note that this post has quite a few comments posted to it. This blog was linked on a blog that was linked at the Drudge Report, so you know the rest. Please take a minute and read the comments----this is what the Left in America is all about. Hate. Name-calling. Mindless accusations.
And, for the record, ALL comments get posted here. I have to manually approve non-registered people to cut out the comment spam. Of course, I wouldn't expect someone of such depth and intelligence to understand that.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Cindy Sheehan, the military mother who made her son's death in Iraq a rallying point for the anti-war movement, plans to tie herself to the White House fence to protest the milestone of 2,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq.
Even though it won't happen, I wish they would just ignore her for about two weeks. Then let's see how committed she is.
A co-worker of mine told me a story last week, something that has stuck with me. He said that when he and his wife take their young daughter to the doctor, they always tell her to say thank you, even after a shot. They want her to understand that even though the shot may cause a moment of pain, the doctor or nurse is doing it so she can remain healthy.
If only everyone raised their children that way. As I write this, I am reminded of how many times I overheard my parents complain that "we couldn't get away with that stuff when we were kids" in reference to dress, speech, music and, often, behavior. Even then, I imagined my grandparents saying the same thing a generation earlier, and their parents before that, and on and on. So maybe I'm just continuing the trend, but I can not help but think that the behavior of teens and young adults (13-22) is worse than what I remember when I was that age. For the record, I am 34, so my teenage years were in the 80's---not so very long ago.
Most of my exposure to people (outside of family members) in this age range is limited to retail exchanges or large public venues. It's not that anyone is rude, although I see that from time to time. It's as if the teenager behind the counter is completely disinterested in his surroundings, as if he is bored with his existence. More often than not, I get a "huh?" when I ask a question, as if I've woken him up in the middle of the night instead of asking him to point me to the restroom.
There are exceptions. I will occasionally run into a young adult who is courteous and speaks in clear, coherent sentences. So here's my question: is this type of teen rare, or have you also noticed a certain decline in civility? Or was I the same way when I was their age and I just don't remember it? What were you like as a teenager? What made you "grow up" (assuming you did)?
Going to the airport is, for me, a constant reminder of September 11, 2001. Unless you are a frequent air passenger, it probably is for you as well. I was reminded again last night when I went to pick up Kelli from her trip to Orlando. And since I got there about 20 minutes early, I had plenty of time to consider the scene.
Standiford Field (Louisville International Airport to those who keep living the lie) has a ‘Y’-shaped terminal. The two arms of the Y contain all the gates. The stem contains the waiting area and the security area. Thus, everyone waiting for a loved one to come off the plane has to stand/sit (chairs are sometime in short supply) in an area never intended for that purpose. There are 33 gates in the airport, so that one waiting area can become very crowded. But you get to see every teary reunion, every uncomfortable moment between men who dare not hug each other and every harried business traveler trying to put on his Bluetooth headphone.
There is a certain sterility to it all. The runways cannot be seen from the waiting area, so there is no way to watch that special flight approaching from the taxiway. Like you, I have many fond memories of watching from the gate windows as the plane carrying my family or friends docked at the mobile walkway thing (very technical, I am). Even as an adult, it excited me. I was on the other side of glass quite a few times as well. I remember coming home on leave during Christmas in 1990. As the plane pulled up, I looked up to the terminal windows. I could see my dad and my oldest brother. Next to them was a young man, maybe 13, with his hands on the window and his nose stuck on the glass. I couldn’t make out the details of his face, but he was standing very close to my brother. It wasn’t until I entered the terminal that I realized the “kid” was my 5’2” 90-year old grandfather pressing his face to the glass.
Children growing up today will never know what they are missing. They will be fine, but the changing experience of welcoming someone home is one of the many small things that have changed in our world since that Tuesday morning. We are unavoidably less open now, and we are all poorer for it.
From the Washington Post (HT: Hugh Hewitt):
Air America, the liberal talk network carried on WWRC-AM (1260), went from bad to nonexistent. After WWRC recorded a mere fraction of a rating point in the spring with syndicated shows from the likes of lefty talkers Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo and Stephanie Miller, Arbitron couldn't detect a measurable listenership for the station this time around.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
MADRID, Spain - A judge has issued an international arrest warrant for three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq war, killing a Spanish journalist and a Ukrainian cameraman, a court official said Wednesday.
(Entire article)
When I read this story earlier today, I realized that I had forgotten the incident. For those of you who aren't into reading the articles I link to here, allow me to summarize. During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a group of journalists were staying in a Baghdad hotel. A US tank crew believed they were taking fire from the hotel and fired back with the tank's main gun, doing considerable damage to the building and killing a Spanish reporter and his Ukranian camera man.
He said he issued the arrest order because of a lack of judicial cooperation from the United States regarding the case.
The United States military does not turn over evidence or anything else to foreign governments so they can prosecute our soldiers. Do you realize the precedent that would be set if they did? The fact that the Spanish judicial system expected their requests to be taken seriously is laughable. A tank crew defended themselves IN A WAR ZONE and two civilians (reporters who knew they were in a war zone) died. It was a regretable incident, but hardly unusual. These two men did not live in Iraq; they went there to cover the war. They went into the danger, not away from it.
This ridiculous farce is just one more log on the bonfire that is Old Europe. This is what happens when socialism and other "enlightened" modes of thought begin to sink into the minds of a populace. As I mentioned several days ago, I believe many liberals look at an end result and make their judgement, ignoring what came before. This prosecution is a case in point: one of our citizens is dead, we must find the people responsible and punish them. The fact that this happened during a war does not seem to have any bearing on the matter.
The Spanish and other European citizens who see this sort of thing as a good idea are the same kind of people who think treaties prevent wars and save the environment. How long after Hurrican Katrina hit did it take London newspapers to blame it all on the President's refusal to sign the Kyoto agreement? About two days. More troubling is the fact that people actually believe this crud.
Europe is on its way to becoming a Muslim enclave where democracy will be a distant memory. It will happen despite all the love and tolerance and welfare money poured out by the socialist machine. No treaty will prevent it. And when that day comes, who will the nations of Old Europe turn to?
Kim Jong-Il, that wacky madman in charge of North Korea, wants to invest in a multi-national film production. Kim is a huge movie, buff; he went so far as to have a South Korean defector and his wife kidnapped so they could make films in North Korea. But his tastes in movies seems a little...eclectic:
He loves "The Godfather," James Bond flicks, the "Friday the 13th" series, Daffy Duck cartoons, and anything with Elizabeth Taylor.
Wow. Why is it that tyrannical dictators are always basket cases? For the record, Kim, how about feeding your people first, then worrying about the film industry?
Asshat.
Well, it finally happened: my podcast is using more bandwidth than I can really afford. Those of you who listen regularly may have noticed that the audio quality is much better than it used to be. This is partly due to a new mic, but it's mainly due to a higher quality upload. Of course, the better the audio, the larger the file=more bandwidth.
With this in mind, I have added a donation button on the left hand side of the Matt's Today in History site. If you listen to the podcast and you enjoy, please give a buck or two if you can. The money will go solely to pay for bandwidth for the show. I don't want to go back to crappy audio or no podcast at all.
Thanks.
Kelli is out town until Thursday evening, so I am in this old house alone. We are beginning to pack for our move, so things are far from neat and orderly. Our two cats seem sad, as if they sense my loneliness or are dealing with their own.
It's at times like this I realize how lost I would be without my wife. I don't mean lost like a little boy lost in the woods, but lost as in hunting for direction. I feel as if I'm at my best when she's around; she makes me want to be a better person.
Hurry home.
If I could take a first-time visitor to the United States to only one place, it would be a Wal-Mart on a Saturday or Sunday. For better or worse, our visitor would see as broad a cross-section of our society as can be seen in one location. I have my own problems with Wal-Mart, but I do find myself there from time to time. If what I see there is any indication of the state of our nation, we have much to worry about.
I'm not going to make this post into a slam on country music, trailer parks and mullets. In the big scheme of life, none of those things matter. More importantly, what I see in Wal-Mart (and any public place that attracts large, diverse crowds) is an ever-pervasive cluelessness. You've seen it, too: the lady who stands in the middle of an aisle and blocks traffic while she decides what brand of frozen pizza to buy; the mother who yells at her child across three crowded rows of shoppers; the loud, obnoxious punk on his cell phone, trying to convince the world that he has purpose.
Whenever I see displays such as these, I am shocked that people can be so oblivious to the world around them. Shouldn't you be a little too modest to yell about your ex-husband's child support payments while you shop for shoes with your girlfriends? Why is your little boy so far away from you that you have to imitate a loudspeaker in order to get his attention? What kind of example are you setting?
If people can be this clueless in public, I have to wonder what their private lives are like. What's more, I have to wonder if they vote and, if they do, how they are able to tear themselves away from their lives to care about something larger than what's on TV tonight. It almost makes me think that large segments of our society are running on auto-pilot. National debt? Never heard of it. Social Security? "They'll" fix it. Healthcare? We have Medicaid, don't we? Oh, wait...'Survivor' is on in five minutes.
The people in our society who have made a difference are those who rose above their circumstances and served a cause greater than themselves. Sure, we remember the railroad tycoons of the 19th century as crooks, but we also know that they brought the nation together in a way it had never been before. We may see men as Douglas MacArthur as arrogant, but we also know that he helped a proud nation (Japan) become a thriving democracy.
Are there still Carnagies and MacArthurs out there amongst us? Yes. But I don't know if we're still the kind of society that would appreciate these people who are willing to tackle problems that require concentration and sacrifice. Hell, it doesn't seem to me like we're the kind of nation that's even courteous to cashiers and waiters.
Do you know what the title of this post refers to? No? Oh, do I have a tale for you!
My Uncle Gus is dying. This news is not new to my family, but a short conversation about it earlier this evening brought everything rushing back with a sense of urgency. He has two sons who each have two sons. He also has six living siblings (My Uncle Tony died in 2000), so at least he is not alone as the days tick by.
Most of us will leave to see both of our parents depart this planet. My parents have both been around for seven decades or more, so I know their time is growing short. If they are bothered by this, they do not talk about it; as my dad is fond of saying, you can only do your best and then let the chips fall where they may. My mother’s faith in an afterlife (or at least in the Church) is unshakeable, a trait I envy. With the exception of some aches and pains, they are both healthy. Maybe they’ll outlive me.
I have passed the point in life in which one seeks the approval of parents. Nonetheless, I do have a tremendous amount of respect for their opinions, especially my father’s. My mother seems to be a little more preoccupied with a defense of her decisions whereas dad will gladly tell you the things he should’ve done differently. There is comfort in their presence, and it’s not just a vestige of childhood. They do not offer apologies for their lives, for they can show five children as examples that they at least did a few things right.
My biggest fear is that, upon their leaving us, my siblings and I may discover that mom and dad were the glue that held our family together. I’d like to think that’s not the case, but I know people for whom that fear was not unfounded---once their parents were out of the picture, the kids all went their own way. Part of me always thinks, “Not us”, but I have thought that before and been disappointed.
Time will tell. I can only play the hand to the best of my ability and then let the chips fall where they may.
I have heaped high praise on Apple products here and I will undoubtedly do so in the future. They are a forward-thinking company that utilizes smart design coupled with a proven, revamped OS. In modern times (since 1997) the company has been led by one of its founders, proving that sometimes even the old hands can think outside the box.
Not everyone thinks so highly of Apple. In his Slate column from yesterday, Jack Shafer descends on the “Apple Polishers”, those members of the media who, according to Shafer, never have a bad word for any new product from Cupertino. To be fair, those people do exist. Some Apple fanboys border on cultish behavior, but I dare say that these people are not the mainstream of Mac users. But in his eagerness to make the exception into the norm, Shafer fires off some zingers:
“Apple manipulates several narratives to continue to make its products interesting fodder for journalists. One is the never-ending story of mad genius Steve Jobs, who would be great copy if he were only the night manager of a Domino's pizza joint. The next is Apple's perpetual role as scrappy underdog—reporters love cheerleading for the underdog without ever pausing to explore why it isn't the overdog. (This is why the Brooklyn Dodgers will always rate higher in the minds of writers than the superior New York Yankees.) Apple incites fanaticism about its products via ad campaigns and evangelist outreach programs designed to make its customers feel as though they're part of a privileged and enlightened elite. One unnamed loser at Slate says today's V-iPod news made her want to rush out and buy one, even though she already owns two iPods, one of which she bought three weeks ago.”
He also enjoys rehashing some of Apple’s less than stellar products from the past:
“If the press corps possessed any institutional memory, it would recall the introduction of the Apple III+, the Lisa, the Macintosh Portable, the Mac TV, the Newton, the Apple G4 Cube, and eWorld. All were greeted with great press fanfare before falling off the edge of the world. Hell, all the press corps really needs to put Apple products in perspective is a few short-term memory neurons focused on the fanfare visited upon recent, mediocre iPod releases. Only a year ago the company received excited press notices when it introduced the iPod Photo, now acknowledged to be a failed product. I searched Nexis to find a mention of the iPod Photo in the hundreds of V-iPod newspaper stories from today and found only one. Of the wildly heralded but totally average iPod Shuffle, released in January 2005, I found only two.”
As many of you know, Slate was begun, in part, with a flood of cash from Microsoft, a fact that Shafer freely admits in the interest of full disclosure. But now, in the name of fairness, I would like to also provide a list of stinkers from Gates and Co.:
1. Microsoft Bob: this was a product intended to ride on top of Windows and make the interface easier to use. It did little but bog down already overworked machines with inane graphics. According to rumor, Gates’ wife, Melinda, was the project manager.
2. Windows ME: ME was Windows 98 with a facelift and more problems than you can shake a stick at. Everyone I know who works on Windows-based PCs cringes at the thought of this hastily-devised revenue stream, which was intended to fill the retail gap between 98 and XP.
3. General Bloat: Some of you are going to disagree, but every desktop version of Windows I have ever used (from 3.1 to XP) has required a faster machine than the previous generation. Most users of OSX actually find Tiger to be FASTER than previous itinerations.
4. General Insecurity: Microsoft apologists will loudly proclaim that there are so many viruses geared towards Windows because it is the dominate desktop OS. According to this reasoning, the MAC OS escapes a similar fate because of its “obscurity”. I call BS. On a Mac, you must have administrator privileges to do something nefarious; on a Windows box, you are the administrator by default. This will change with Windows Vista, but why did it take 10 years to make security a default setting?
Microsoft does some things very well (Windows Server 2003, for example) and Apple handles some things very poorly (the iPod battery mess, for example). But even with a tiny market share, Apple is a consistent market leader in software innovation and hardware design. Yes, they have tied their hardware to their OS, but that is their choice; Microsoft could’ve gone that route instead of signing a deal with IBM in 1981.
The bottom line is that I have become increasingly annoyed by people who fire on a successful company or individual simply because they are successful. It is Apple’s day in the sun. Jobs and crew are helping to redefine how we listen to music and watch TV. And even if you don’t own a Mac or an iPod, you will benefit from the doors being opened.
Wow. I just read a review of my podcast done by a guy named Jim. His summary? "I haven't made my mind up about this one yet."
Well, at least he didn't hate it...not that it matters, I guess. I only have about 500 subscribers, so it's not like my 'cast is putting food on the table. When it stops being fun, I'll stop doing it.
I wasn’t going to bring this up, but I have some humorous thoughts that are too good to pass up. As some of you know, I have been attending Weight Watchers meetings at work for the past six weeks. I haven’t weighed in for two weeks due to our vacation, but I have lost 20-something pounds. I’m not telling you that because I expect praise; I just want you to know that I’m serious about it.
I have been overweight for most of my life. I’m 34 and I know that, if I don’t get things under control, I will not live to be old. I’m not trying to be overdramatic, but have you ever seen a really obese man over 70? Maybe you have, but they probably have diabetes and/or heart problems. I do not want to spend my old age in and out of the hospital.
The funny part of all this comes when people begin to notice that I’ve lost weight. My fellow Watchers are pretty open about it since we’re all in this together (I’m the only male in the group, so I’m sort of the group’s “pet”---I know, I know), but the other people I work with don’t know what to do if they haven’t seen me in a while. I notice that people will look me up and down and then not say anything, which normally would make me think that my pants are unzipped. I want to say, “20 pounds or so”, but that would be a little pompous, I think.
Today, I finally ran into someone outside of the WW group who was completely honest. I was leaving our mailroom when someone who I don’t see very often passed me in the hallway:
“You losin’ weight?”
“Yes. I’ve lost about 20 pounds.”
“Damn, chil’, you look good!”
Why, yes…yes, I do. ;-)
Honestly, though, comments like that make the hard days better and the good days wonderful. I cannot comment on behalf of the women I know (since women tend to be VERY self-conscious about their weight), but if you know a guy who is losing weight, don’t be afraid to ask him about it and compliment him if he has been successful.
Wednesday is the fifth anniversary of the attack on the USS Cole. Of course, my podcast covered this tonight. If you get a minute visit my alternate site and take a listen. Pay special attention to the Clinton quote.
I met an aid worker today. She was in her 20's and used the term "homeless" in describing herself. She meant that in the best way; she has been overseas for several years and is now staying with family members until the next journey. I guess the more accurate thing to say is that she does not have her own place.
We began talking about places we had visited. Since I've never left the western hemisphere, my experience is somewhat limited. But I told Ms. Worker that I wanted to visit Italy and Israel among other places. She told me that she has spent time in Florence and that she lived in Israel for two years. What she didn't say was where she had lived in Israel.
She asked me why I wanted to visit Israel. I started to say that I wanted to see it before the Muslims pushed all the Jews into the sea, but I sensed something more in her question. I told her, truthfully, that any place that contains one city so central to three of the world's major religions must be a very special place. Her response? "Israel is an odd place."
She then proceeded to tell me that she worked with the Palestinians since they have a constant need for housing. The need is kept constant, she explained, because the Israeli Army is always knocking down people's homes and making them homeless. She offered no more commentary than that: Jews come and knock down Palestinians' homes, so people are homeless. But her tone said everything.
I started to ask they reasoning behind razing people's homes, but I didn't want to get into a political debate. But she displayed a surprising sense of ignorance about the political realities in Israel. More often than not, the Israeli Army knocks down homes when they take sniper fire from them or when they are the homes of homicide bombers. Is it a good policy? Maybe not, but it is not without a certain degree of logic.
But, then again, I'm the untraveled guy and she's actually lived there. So who's naive? Is it too much to assign reasoning to an act, or should I just look at the resulting homelessness and declare that a bad thing has been done? If that is the way to look at things, isn't any conflict inherently evil, even if an ultimate good comes from it?
I understand now, maybe more than I did before today, how liberals/socialists arrive at their opinions. If you look at one moment of an event, it is very possible to render a harsh judgement on it. For example, you can look at the bombing of Hiroshima in the moment that thousands of innocents died. Or, as I like to do, you can look at the preceding years of death and realize how much suffering mankind avoided by using those weapons.
But, yet, thousands of innocents still died, just as innocents in Palestine die (and innocents in Israel as well). Can there be goodness or justice in that?
Maybe I'm thinking about this too much.
This is my promo from 11 October 2005. This is for those of you wishing to use my promo in your own podcast. Thank you.
The US Navy is considering a new class of destroyer, the DD(X). This whiz-bang piece of technology will have guns capable of firing over great distances, a hull that is almost invisible to radar, a crew of only 110 and room for all sorts of Buck Rogers-style weapons once they’re developed (like rail guns). Oh, and one more thing…the ships will cost at least $3 billion a piece.
This is a whole lotta money for an escort ship. I don’t know enough about the program to have a personal opinion about it other than to say that a submarine could do just about everything they want this ship to do. There are, however, many people who watch this kind of development with great interest, and some of those people sent letters to the Weekly Standard’s online edition last week. Normally, I would glance over the letters and not give it a second thought. After all, every new defense program has its share of detractors. But the first letter of the bunch reminded me that, in many ways, time does little to change the way people think.
You can read the entire letter, but in short the man writing it asserts that re-commissioning two Iowa-class battleships would do the job of the entire DD(X) class better and for less money. According to him, the DD(X) is a fragile, vulnerable, expensive ship that no one (including the Marines, who may one day rely on it for fire support) wants. The old iron from World War Two can still pass muster with giant 16-inch barrels, so why not use it?
Maybe the man has an argument; I really can’t say. But I do know one thing: the same argument was made before, during and after the First World War, about a new type of ship. It was seen as fragile, expensive to operate and no one near the top of the naval ranks wanted one. This new type of ship would have to be protected during battle like eggs in a basket. There was no need for them because, after all, battleships could do this nation’s bidding on the high seas much more effectively than the new deathtraps.
What were the new ships the old admirals were complaining about? They were called aircraft carriers. Without them, the Japanese would have won the Second World War in the Pacific.
Just something to think about the next time something new-fangled seems like a waste of time and resources.
Today is our seventh wedding anniversary. I don't know where or what I'd be without my wife. Every man should be so lucky.
President Bush is trying to reassure the conservative base of his party that Harriet Miers will be a "good, conservative judge." Of this, I have little doubt. Everything I have read about Miers points in that direction.
But I believe the President is missing the point here. This nomination was his opportunity to appoint someone who is not only a conservative, but someone with judicial experience as well. And why not? GW certainly has nothing to lose by doing what he promised to do. In fact, he could make the Dems in the Senate look like idiots in the process (not a difficult thing to do even under the worst of circumstances)if they pushed a filibuster.
So why has he appointed Miers? I believe that he wanted someone with so clean a record that the Senate could not help but approve her. But what will be gained? Respect from the other side of the aisle? A hug from Teddy K.?
The President will most likely get one more chance to nominate someone between now and 2008. It is my hope that his next appointment will be someone worth fighting over.
We rolled in about 90 minutes ago. While we certainly had a nice trip, I'm glad to be back home...well, the place that will be home for about 36 more days. More on Sunday.
Kelli and I are off again in the morning; this time, we're driving to Virginia to visit my brother and his family. There will probably be no posting for the rest of the week and definitely no podcasts. At this point, there are fewer than 50 faithful readers of this blog (but over 500 subscribers to the podcast), so I think Western civilization will survive.
There is,however, some news that I must impart before I leave. Kelli and I are closing on a house on November 15th, just six weeks from today. The house belonged to a couple we know and I have admired it for years. When they decided to move, we were the first people they called.
The home is, as best I can tell from the records, about 100 years old. It has all the things you would expect from a home of that age: wide front porch, hardwood floors, small bedrooms, etc. It has been meticulously maintained, so I hope it will be some time before we need to worry about the roof, furnace, etc.
I was never excited about home ownership until this opportunity came along. We are buying a little piece of the world, something that we could very well have for the rest of our lives. People do it every day in this country (especially with interest rates at or near all-time lows), but I feel an immense sense of satisfaction, as if, at 34, I'm actually a full-fledged adult. Silly, I know.
Be well, keep us in your thoughts as we drive cross-country, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
We're home from our long weekend in Tejas; a good time was had by all. I'm out of the loop news-wise, so please give me until the morning to sort everything out.
For now, it looks as if Texas has contributed a new Supreme Court nominee to the fold. On first glance, it would appear that Harriet Miers has no judicial experience. While it is not necessary to be a judge in order to serve on the Supreme Court, I can't image the Senate approving anyone who has not. Yes, there is historical precedent, but not in modern times.
There may be a better explanation forthcoming, but I can't quite understand the President's thinking with this nomination. Surely there are qualified judges who would make better nominees.
UPDATE: As Tony mentioned below, I was mistaken when I said that no modern Supreme Court justice lacked judicial experience before his appointment to the bench. In fact, 40% of the justices ever appointed to the SC had never been judges before.