Stop lip augmentation, now!

This has been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time. And it was on my mind yesterday thanks to this post and this comment.

So last night, I'm lying on the couch, clicking the remote when I stop at Martha Stewart's version of The Apprentice. Figuring it was just the soporific that I needed, I decided to watch. Then Martha opened her mouth. It was like watching an old Japanese monster movie: I could hear the words, but it appeared as if Martha were saying something else entirely. It was bizarre and unsettling. And unexpected: Her lips look basically normal.



But they'd been altered. It gave me a bit of a turn; I'd had no fair warning. And I'd just been dozing off, too.

So I've had enough. Normally, I'm a live-and-let-live kind of person. If you want to enrich the economy by spending thousands of dollars on plastic surgery, who am I to stop you? But I have to look at you. And I'm tired of seeing freaks with fish lips everywhere I look.

Besides, I'm bored by the whole Plame-gate affair. The Harriet Miers nomination leaves me cold. But this: This is something I can really get behind.

So who's with me?

Jilted by Bush

Andrea Harris reacts to this, merely one of the latest in a long list of conservative carryings on about Bush.

OH GOD SHUT UP. YOU’RE ACTING LIKE BUSH IS YOUR EX-BOYFRIEND. “He’s (sniff sob) not the man I (choke, gasp) thought he was! He only brought me to the dance because (wail) his girlfriend had the measles! I thought he really, really liked me for what I am!” The whole thing makes me want to start an internet rumour that George Bush, instead of being an evangelical Methodist, really worships Gurrodious the Thrice-Hornéd One with monthly midnight sacrifices of goats and human babies. Just to see how many “crunchy cons” totally buy it.

Miscellany

It's coming: The 20 millionth blog.

Do It Yourself: Goldsmithing?

Seeing green: Yoga mats.

Snakes: On a plane. Via David.

Israel dismantles: World peace is achieved.

Bagels in Japan

Apparently, they're all the rage in Tokyo.

Miho Inagi is a former computer programmer turned retailing entrepreneur who is riding Japan’s bagel boom to intense consumer loyalty by adhering to a simple concept — authenticity, as reported by Andrew Morse in The Wall Street Journal. “Unlike some of her competitors, who cater to Japanese tastes by making bagels with toppings like sweet beans,” Miho “makes few concessions to the local palate. She offers eight classic flavors, including plain, poppy, cinnamon-raisin — even ‘everything’ Her toppings are limited, including plain cream cheese, smoked salmon and egg salad.” It’s an unlikely menu in Japan, where bread is expected to be “soft and moist, not hard and crunchy.” But these days bagels are hot in Japan, touted by “local food magazines … as health food.” And Miho’s bagels are the real deal.

I should add that many (I am not among them) consider the cinnamon-raisin bagel to be an abomination. However, I'm sure all right-thinking people can agree that the blueberry bagel is beyond the pale.

Got questions about Tinkerty Tonk?

Submit them here.

Like a (technical) virgin

Kids these days define sex differently. They may also get a little bit pregnant.

Via SondraK.

Fright night

The beautiful people?

The Army's reading list

The U.S. Army Chief of Staff's Professional Reading List:

“The Professional Reading List is a way for leaders at all levels to increase their understanding of our Army’s history, the global strategic context, and the enduring lessons of war. The topics and time periods included in the books on this list are expansive and are intended to broaden each leader’s knowledge and confidence. I challenge all leaders to make a focused, personal commitment to read, reflect, and learn about our profession and our world. Through the exercise of our minds, our Army will grow stronger.”

—Peter J. Schoomaker, Chief of Staff, Army

Via David Adesnik.

Navy blocks commercial email sites

Overseas government computer users can no longer access hotmail, gmail and other commercial accounts.

The block includes access to e-mail services from computers at base libraries and liberty centers that are connected to an official government network.

“This concerns us, because so many of our patrons won’t be able to access their e-mail, and many come to the library to do just that,” said Ciro Giordano, supervisory librarian at Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy.

But access to such services leaves the unclassified government network too susceptible to hackers and computer viruses, said Neal Miller, a senior plans and policy manager with Naval Network Warfare Command in Norfolk, Va.

“By going through some of the commercial Web-based e-mail accounts, it opens up vulnerabilities to government-run networks and presents too high [of a] risk to be acceptable,” Miller said.

Saddam trial: 'The result is irrelevant'

Says Anne Applebaum. What matters is that the truth comes out.

[I]f the court is able to compile a true record of events, if the judges are able to present authentic witnesses, and if tribunal spokesmen are able to communicate their findings to the Iraqi and international press, none of that matters. The fact that the court is starting with a smaller incident, the 1982 massacre of more than 140 Shiite men in the village of Dujail, is a good sign: The investigators do have witnesses, there is documentary evidence, and the story of Dujail is easier to tell than that of more complicated crimes, such as Hussein's genocide campaign against the Kurds or the Shiites of the south. Far from rushing or politicizing the trial, today's hearings will probably be followed by a delay, so more evidence can be gathered.

In the end, it is by the quality of that evidence, and the clarity with which it is conveyed, that this trial should be judged. The result is irrelevant: Quite frankly, it doesn't matter whether Saddam Hussein is drawn and quartered, exiled to Pyongyang, or left to rot in a Baghdad prison. No punishment could make up for the thousands he killed, or for the terror he inflicted on his country.

Xanax: Just in case

So the local news channels were, naturally, all abuzz about today's closing of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnels that may or may not be terror related.

One of the little stories in the wall-to-wall coverage of the incident concerned a woman trapped in a Greyhound Bus that was stopped inside one of the tunnels for over an hour. Her six-year-old daughter did not react well to the delay. This brought to mind another tunnel/bus horror story that I experienced about 10 years ago.

It was one of those hideous August evenings in New York. You know the kind: At least 90 degrees with the humidity sending the heat index into the unbearable-for-humans category. And we were in an unairconditioned bus slowly creeping into the Lincoln Tunnel. Shortly after we made it inside, all hell broke loose. Sirens, cops, ambulances--an accident in the tube--our tube. As the minutes ticked on, all talking stopped. Everyone was just breathing through their mouths, praying to God that we'd start moving soon and get out of this living hell.

And then a woman from the back of the bus ran up to the door and began pleading with the bus driver to let her out. "I've got to get out! I can't take this anymore!!" She began pounding on the door.

It was horrible. Because, of course, she gave voice to what we were all thinking: Am I gonna die of asphyxiation in this godforsaken tunnel? Will I collapse from heat stroke? Will I drown in my own sweat? So on top of the heat, the smog, the horns and sirens there was this twanging as the collective muscles of about 70 people clenched to see what would happen next. Would the driver let her off? Would we all succumb to her madness and start clamoring to be let out? Would a riot ensue?

Thankfully, the bus driver had one of those low, calming voices and he somehow managed to talk the woman down. But she still stood at the front of the bus, grasping a pole and panting until the bus got moving again.

Flash forward to November 2001. I'm on the Garden State Parkway, driving to library school and musing about my upcoming Thanksgiving trip to California when all of a sudden it occurs to me that, once the plane is aloft, I won't be able to get off.

Now, this may sound elementary to you. But I pictured myself wedged into one of those crummy seats in coach between an old drunk and a fat lady, stuck for five hours. And unable to change my mind. Unable to say: Never mind, I'll be staying home this Thanksgiving. And I thought of that woman on the bus. And I thought, "What an ignominious end: To go down, with a planeload of passengers, after having forced the emergency exit open because I had to get off the plane."

And that is why, boys and girls, I always carry Xanax with me. Because you never know when a panic attack will strike.

Librarian porn

A webliography.

Miscellany

Chick magnet: Twin bed.

Unending excitement: A day in the life of a blogger.

Air Force porn: Meeting the needs of the blog consumer.

Personality profile: You'll want to fail this test. Via Chris.

Deep background: Inside Karl Rove's garage.

Enough!

The beatification of Rachel Corrie continues with The Skies are Weeping, a cantata in her honor. Get a load of the patrons of this particular work of art.

The three Rs? No. Social commitment? Yes.

Before you apply for that teaching job, you better make sure you have the right disposition.

When war is worth it

Mark Steyn on UNICEF's new ad campaign.

Why would Unicef show such an implausible form of Smurficide ? Well, whether intentionally or not, they are evoking the war that most of their audience - in Belgium and beyond - is opposed to: the Iraq war, where the invader did indeed have an air force. That's how the average Western "progressive" still conceives of warfare, as something the big bullying Pentagon does to weak victims.

But this week is a week to remember that there are worse things than war that "affect the lives of children". If I were Papa Smurf, I wouldn't want Baby Smurf to grow up in Saddam's Iraq. I don't mean just because we'd be the beleaguered minority of Smurfistan, to be gassed and shovelled into mass graves.

Even if we were part of Saddam's own approved class living in the Smurfi Triangle, it's still a life permanently fixed between terror and resignation, in which all a parent's hopes for his children are subordinate to the whims of a psycho state.

That Iraq is gone now - not because of Unicef and the other transnational institutions that confer respectability on dictatorships, but because America, Britain and a few others were prepared to go to war.

Anyway, I thought someone had killed off the Smurfs years ago.

Who would Jesus bomb?

This seems to have become the latest trope of the antiwar left. It's hilarious cuz you know Jesus didn't go around killing people. And those warmongers sure are hypocrites. Or maybe they're too stoopid to know that their so-called savior advocated turning the other cheek. Anyway, we sure showed them. Hoist with their own petard. Yada, yada, yada.

Have these people ever even met any Christians? It reminds me of mythical stories I heard as a kid in which a Jew goes to some little hick town, reveals his religion and the local yokels ask to see his horns. Only now the hicks are the oh-so sophisticated members of the ruling elite.

Maybe Morgan Spurlock can do a documentary in which a couple from Manhattan, or a pair of academics, moves in with an evangelical Christian family in the deep south for 30 days. They could observe their interesting mores and folkways. Maybe even see the whole family speaking in tongues. Probably happens every day before breakfast.

Daddy, I wanna be a suicide bomber

Geez, Abu, you "help" other parents' kids fulfill that goal. Why not your own? Bet he'd look adorable wrapped in that explosives belt.

Top 100 novels

Time's top 100 novels in English since 1923.

I've only read about 40 of the selections so I have some work to do. Or not. I've never been able to get into Bellow, for example, but that's just me. Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie are also authors whose books I've put down almost as soon as I picked them up. For the record, I prefer Decline and Fall or Scoop to Brideshead or Handful of Dust. But I can't argue with Lucky Jim, one of my all-time favorites.

How about you? What would you put on the list? And what would you take off?

Don't be messing with us librarians

We are a very determined lot. And we have a lot of time on our hands.

Via Marc.

Not a bug, but a feature

I find it difficult to get too worked up about Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize. To me, it seems obvious that the most anti-American author the committee could find would be a lock for the prize. Besides, Chrisopher Hitchens (subscription req'd) does such a splendid job of skewering Pinter--and the Nobel committee--anything I could add would be overkill.

Mr. Pinter's work, according to the clumsily-phrased Nobel citation, "uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms." Let us agree that his early plays -- he has not produced anything worth noticing since the 1960s -- do indeed show an uneasy relationship between the banal and the evil. But let me offer you a stave from a poem he wrote in January 2003, titled "God Bless America": "Here they go again,/ The Yanks in their armored parade/ Chanting their ballads of joy/ As they gallop across the big world/ Praising America's God."

This, and other verses like it, were awarded the Wilfred Owen prize by a group of English judges. When re-reading Owen on "the pity of war," I invariably find that it is difficult to do so without tears. When scanning Mr. Pinter on the same subject, I cannot get to the end without the temptation either to laugh out loud or to throw up. The sheer puerility of the stuff is precisely a combination of banality with evil: a preference for dictatorship larded with obscenity and fatuity. (And scrawled, I might add, by a man who helped found the International Committee for the Defense of Slobodan Milosevic.) One has had more enlightenment, and been exposed to more wit, from the walls of public lavatories, such as those featured so morbidly in Pinter's early effort "The Caretaker."

The Nobel committee allowed Borges and Nabokov to go to their graves unrecognized, while choosing writers who it is difficult to remember without wincing. Last year's selection, of a mediocre Austrian Stalinist named Elfriede Jellinek, caused a few winces even in Stockholm. And Dario Fo? What can one possibly say -- except that the theater of the absurd is apparently always on the road. Jose Saramago can certainly write -- just as Frau Jellinek can certainly not -- but one is compelled to suspect that without his staunch post-1989 membership of the unusually degenerated Portuguese Communist Party he would not have been considered. As with the Peace Prize, the award of the laureateship for literature has come to approximate the value of a resolution of the U.N. Special Committee on Human Rights. The occasional exceptions -- I would want to instance Sir Vidia Naipaul in spite of his own toxic political views -- only throw the general sinister mediocrity into sharper relief.

Here's a list of the Nobel laureates for literature.

Miscellany

How low can you go? Time and Newsweek try to outdo each other.

Behold: "The official hairstyle of Rikers Island."

Wine boxes: Photo gallery, via Radar.

Madonna dearest: The material girl on child rearing.

With a trowel: Miers flatters Bush.

Those were the days

White supremacist rallies aren't the way they used to be. Lenslinger reminisces.

I remember my first couple of Klan Rallies (who doesn’t?). I was still in my early twenties when the video-camera I’d starting carrying on my shoulder dragged me through a long, hot summer of KKK events. I attended several, there in part because I was fascinated by such acutely bent thinking but mostly because I worked weekends back then and the local inbreds-in-bed sheets favored marching on Saturdays. Most that I went too were relatively quiet affairs, just ten to fifteen hillbillies waving flags and looking silly as they sauntered and strutted down the deserted streets of some Downeast downtown. Most of the spectators wore blue helmets with face-shields, the rest hid behind oversized fancy-cams.

Twofer?

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security advisor (Nuff said?), was full of dire predictions about Reagan's foreign policy in 1981. All the more reason not to take too seriously his recent rant about Bush's foreign policy.

Quoth Brzezinski in 1981:

If present trends continue, American foreign policy is likely to be in a state of general crisis by the spring of 1982. What makes matters potentially even worse is that this could coincide with a serious economic downturn, causing the global position of the United States to be placed in jeopardy. There is urgent need for President Reagan to take serious stock of the unfolding situation, so that the needed responses, both substantive and procedural, can be generated.

Stingy Canadians

Tucker Carlson on Canada's pledge of $20 million CDN to Pakistan for earthquake relief.

Nothing to be proud of, especially for a country whose leading export is self-righteousness. The next time I hear a Canadian describe the United Sates as vulgar, selfish, jingoistic, and morally inferior — and it won't be long — I may have to make the obvious point: "But wait. Aren't you the nation that spent more on sled dog feed than on starving Pakistani earthquake victims?" I hate to be mean, but it's true.

And then there's the Iraqi constitution

Hammorabi:

Over all how nice it is to be free and vote then calculate like the other civilized nations and not 99.999% yes for one person or one family under the barbaric dictatorship regimes.

Remember the purple fingers? In those halcyon days, the MSM actually spent about 24 hours of the news cycle showing the brave Iraqis leaving the polls, fingers held aloft. Now, not so much.

Not having paid too much attention to the news over the past week or so, my reentry into the world began in the Phoenix airport where I saw CNN breathlessly reporting on sabotage to the Iraqi electrical grid, with much (hopeful?) speculation as to how this would (negatively) affect the election. The next day, I glanced at a few headlines and caught some of the news as I ran around doing performing errands. Not too much on the election. Sunday, I missed the news altogether. Today there's just more grudging reports: "A hard road ahead," etc.

Sigh.

Barbara Wawa and the Prince

Hilarious.

You'd think the Israelis

Would be the last people on earth to embrace the notion of stability in the Middle East at any price. So why the demurral about a US ultimatum to Syria?

Israel's preference, the official made clear, is that the Syrian regime be coerced into abandoning its support for terrorism in Iraq and against Israel, rather than it toppling outright. Even a new relatively pro-Western regime in Syria, similar to Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, might be problematic for Israel as it would invite pressure to "prop him up" by entering into negotiations over the Golan Heights.

In any case, our ability to make demands upon Syria is another reason to be optimistic about the war.

The fact that such an ultimatum could be credibly put forward is a measure of where things stand in the war against militant Islamism and the tempo of the transformation of the Middle East.
The Syrian regime has come under increasing pressure, not just by the demise of other radical regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya's well-timed capitulation, but from the tightening investigation of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, the recent "suicide" of the Syrian interior minister, and from President George Bush's recent speech reviving his own doctrine of regime change.

In other words, what is significant is not so much the ultimatum itself, but that circumstances have been created that could make accepting it attractive.

Indeed, for all the talk about fighting and winning the current global war, little attention is paid to how progress is to be measured and what key tasks must be accomplished. It is not, of course, a conventional war with fronts where armies meet and battles are clearly won or lost. This war, by contrast, should be measured in the number of terror-supporting regimes that are either replaced or are forced out of the terror (and nuclear weapons) business.

Beheadings and Islam

Beheadings have a long and storied tradition throughout human history, writes Theodore Dalrymple. But radical Islamists are the only modern practioners of this particular form of execution.

But is beheading Islamic? Clearly it is not uniquely so, or it would have been unknown elsewhere, which is certainly very far from the case. Nevertheless, in the modern world at least, beheading seems to be largely the prerogative of people acting in the name of Islam. This is a sociological fact, whatever the doctrinal justification for it. But is beheading permitted or enjoined or forbidden by true Islam?

Someone unversed in classical Arabic is, of course, dependent on translations, but translations of the very same verse of the Koran that is relevant to the question vary so much that it is impossible to be sure what the verse really means. Some say that the verse means only that the neck of an enemy may be struck, and that this by no means entails that he may be killed; others that his throat can be cut, à la Theo van Gogh, but that he cannot be decapitated; others again that beheading is permitted, but only under the strictest juridical control, and that freelance beheading is certainly not permitted in Islam. It seems to me that a scholar could devote a lifetime to the question, and not come up with a definitive answer.

But the very terms of the debate are the most significant thing about it, and demonstrate the lack of, as well as the burning need for, an Islamic Enlightenment. For the assumption behind the debate is that the answer to the question, “Can people taken more or less at random, who are however members of a class or nation perceived to be an enemy of Islam, rightly be beheaded?” is to be found somewhere in the Koran or the Hadith, and nowhere else. Original thought is unnecessary, since the answer to every question has already been given, if only we are diligent enough to find it in irreproachable texts. If the Koran or the Hadith says that such beheading is right, it is right; if it says it is wrong, it is wrong. If Mohammed says we can cut off people’s heads whenever we choose, then we can; if he doesn’t, then we can’t. Compared with this, even the most literal-minded Bible fundamentalist in the West lives, de facto at least, like the child of Voltaire, for even such a fundamentalist probably wouldn’t dare justify decapitation as a policy by reference to David and Goliath. And if by any chance he did, he would rightly be laughed at by his fellow citizens.

Reentering the blogosphere: Miers edition

I've been out of the loop for a while, so I'm playing catch up with the news. But really, it's like I never left. Take Harriet Miers. Please.

Conservatives still hate the Miers nomination. They suspect that she won't be an advocate for originalism. And now word has it that she may be a moron.

Miers is an evangelical Christian who may vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which may be a bad thing for her confirmation. And President Bush's emphasizing her religious bonafides probably did more harm than good, which is why he may be changing his strategy with regard to pushing her nomination.

I think that about sums it up.

Exposure or control?

The battle over Google Print.

Where does Google get the books in its search? Most, so far, are sent in by publishers who want to be noticed. But Google last year also began slowly adding to its database scans of some of the largest university libraries in the world (here is an example). That's the main controversy and also the main attraction. There is a lot of really great and valuable stuff in college libraries, but it is hard and time-consuming to find. Professors are not usually excitable creatures, but I have personally heard squeals at the prospect of full-text searching our libraries. That book searches are great for users and researchers is a no-brainer.

The big question is whether they are good for authors. Many of my friends who are authors are, to be sure, initially very suspicious. "It's not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied" says Nick Taylor, president of the Author's Guild. Taylor isn't suggesting that book search engines are necessarily bad for authors. His objection is that Googleprint has deprived authors of their control—their right to decide whether to be in a book search in the first place. The author knows best, the argument goes, and she should be the one who makes all the decisions. If exposure serves the authors' interest, she can agree to be on Google—otherwise, forget it.

Personally, I'm in favor of exposure. But then I'm a blogger and write for free--not that I'd spurn money, it just hasn't been offered.

Here be RINOs

Politechnical hosts this week's RINO sightings. Check it out.

Honey, I'm home

Back from San Francisco and San Luis Obispo, where I was put to work pouring wine. Wine was also consumed. Not much sightseeing, though we took my 4-year-old nephew to the Exploratorium, which is housed in the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, a very picturesque spot.

Regular posting will resume tomorrow.

In defense of egoistical architect

The following is the expanded comment I started to write in answer to this blog' post, but realised I have more to say than comment section will allow me. I would love to hear opinions of the audience on the subject (if there are anybody reading this, of course).


I understand your overall concept, but in this particular case, I'm afraid, you failed to build a convincing argument. Your fallacies:

1. You assume Wiki (which, by definition, is not objective, not a voice of informed consensus) is an unquestionable authority in assigning F.L.Wright as a prototype for Howard Roark; I tend to believe Rand herself who denied that. Would you take her word about inspiration for other characters in the novel or prefer various rumors and speculations? A week ago I took an architectural walking tour around the city (NY) with an expert on E.J Kahn, a very sucessful Art deco architect in whose office Rand worked for 6 months, doing research for the book; it's been said details of E.J.Kahn's biography found their place in the novel. But nobody, as far as I heard, equates him and Guy Prescott, f.ex. or other architecs in the novel: the character is obviously not a photographic portrait of a specific person. I hope we agree on that. Than why do you chose to follow misconception of some critic about Roark and don't trust Rand herself? There was no real Roark, as far as I'm concerned. It's a fictional character, a fantasy of the ideal.

2. Your premise of F.Khan being the real-life antagonist-to Roark-innovator, who without much fanfare single-handedly, from scratch, turned construction industry upside-down, is simply not true. He didn't invented clean modern (as in Modernism), honesty in construction style of contemporary skyscrapers, Bauhaus school in general and Mies van der Rohe in particular did - and they too didn't come to an empty place. What's more, it's incorrect to use him for comparison at all, since he was not an architect, but a structural engineer, his job was different form an architect's. Sear's tower architect was Bruce Graham, from SOM , who built J. Hancock's tower as well, not Dr.F.Khan.

3. But the most fundamental error of all is that you mistake egoIsm for egoTism, and then posit the question Rand already answered, in that famous Roark' court speech in the novel. In certain sense, these 2 categories are opposite. Egotist uses product of others' labor for his own benefit. Egoist creates to realise his outstanding abilities - abilities he's fully aware of, benefiting everybody around him in the process. Only egoist pushes history forward. He is not arrogant, he's simply excellent in his field, and he doesn't let false dependance theories, bowing to social niceties or PR "humanistic" platitudes (as that Khan's quote you liked so much) interfere with his expertise. He innovates because he loves himself as creator. It doesn't follow, however, that I mistake a commonly known figure of "starchitect" with this ideal.
That's the answer to your question. No mystic forces at work.

I'm sorry to say, now that I've came across the topic I know a thing or two about and found your construction falling apart under scrutiny, I have my doubts about the rest of the alphabet series.To my deepest regret.

Bush: An Explanation for the Pauses & Blinks

Possibly too close to the truth. I hope everyone sees the humor in it.

Iraqi Elections - Good News So Far

From Reuters

The Inspiring & the Pathetic

Inspiring

• Amir Taheri (Arab News via Benador Associates)
• More Amir Taheri
• Victor David Hanson (NRO via Benador Associates)

Pathetic

• TomKitten

Miscellany

-Realising the waters are still murky to make any valuable predictions on the exact form the newly-born democracy in Iraq will take, I find it usefull to look at other countries with similar experience and composition as real-life lab experiments. Countries of Central Asia, in my opinion, are good models: heavily Islamic, often with skewed to single-industry economies, de-jure socialist ideology and de-facto tribal society in their past. Good place to find informed and reasonable portrait of the region, as well as plenty of further linkage on the blogroll, is Registan led by main contributors Nathan Hamm and Laurence Jarvik, among others.

-Should China start stimulating domestic demand instead of relying on exports to America? Jane Galt comments.

-Each of these 2 posts from neighboring O blogs on my bookmarks, Outer life and Odious and Peculiar, are written by peace-loving, reasonable, patient man...
-Is Nobel Prize heading the way of United Nations? Looks like familiar pattern, put together by this Samizdata post

-It's Maggie's birthday (and, accidentally, my mother's. Happy birthday, mom!). To Mark Steyn, for overview.

-If you, like me, always wanted to hear Mr. Lileks speak, rejoyce! First Bleatcast is on and it is about (spoilers alert!) Chopping off heads of drug addicts in Metropolitan Museum of Classical Music!

Set America Free! (Oil Independence for Energy Security)

Energy Security isn't about securing our energy supply but rather having an energy policy that doesn't further imperil our NATIONAL security (by funnelling more petrodollars to Madrassas).

We are fighting a war against terror and paying for both sides of the war.

500 mpg with hybrid flex-fuel cars
- Zakaria
-Friedman (Geo-Green Strategy)
Gettin' Organized
-A blueprint
-Set America Free: Institute for the Analysis of Global Security

This isn't pie-in-the-sky dreams like fuel-cell technology and doesn't require another "Manhattan Project" to accomplish.

Did Anybody Important Hear This?

Vaccinate the kids!

Mediocrity as TBR approach to work

Harriet Miers nomination continues to draw much commentary, in the blogosphere and tree-wasting media. Having no connection to law, lawyers or government, I don’t consider myself sufficiently informed to form valuble opinion. However, this somewhat tangential take on the issue interested me.

It is one thing to say, as W. Kristol does, that Ms. Miers is not qualified for the job for the reasons of her unfamiliarity with the subject of Constitutional Law, and the other – to assume her working in Corporate Law indicates lack of talent. First, I don’t see how a career in private business is proof of someone’s mediocrity; it’s definitely not self-evident. Second, as expressed in the linked opinions Ms. Young cites in her post, if we go on that unsubstantiated assumption and decide it’s a given, why consider mediocrity necessarily a bad thing? After all, brilliant people are noticeable only on a much more numerous background of mediocre minds, so may be it’s time to give voice to a non-intellectual, a “common sense” person.

I started to pay attention to this discussion because arguments pro and contra mediocrity have wider implications than the topic at hand.

As someone who grew up in a socialist state, I was raised on the idea of superiority of the collective intellect (read: masses of average brains) vs. an individual, however brilliant. Politicians, from the union functionary to the heads of state, proudly declared their average abilities: usually undergraduate education, no professional achievements of any meaningful kind, certainly no post-graduate degrees (or purely decorative ones). Intellectuals were used for utilitarian purposes but frowned upon. In proper illustration to Ayn Rand’s Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think, we’ve seen how efficient and prosperous this system turned out to be. Sadly, this mindset isn’t exactly dead in the country formerly known as Soviet Union, if only by the example of its leader, whose highest rank in the KGB (which is equivalent of professional activity in his case) was Lieutenant Colonel,a mid-level bureaucrat, in the hierarchy of spies.

I see a connection here with Technically Beyond Reproach theory, by Seth Godin, whose excellent blog I found thanks to equally excellent Alice in Texas.

As he says, abundance means that you spend a lot of time imagining how you will overdeliver. TBR means you start from the beginning making sure that the work you do will either meet spec or you’ll have a really good excuse.

It is annoying enough to have our highest officials in government whose talents don’t include brilliant intellect. Common agreement is that this handicap is compensated by layers of brilliant experts surrounding the administrator. Don’t we have to start worrying when experts’ mediocrity is proclaimed to be desirable?

A bit of a Smorgasbord

Hope Springs Eternal - The Iraqi constitution may yet see the light of day.

Zawahiri's main goals against Israel have nothing to do with Palestinian national self determination. Not surprising, but still amazing that he stated it this away. Clearly this document was for internal consumption.

Whenever someone goes on about Iraq as a diversion from our war on terrorism.... (a must read from Fouad Ajami)

More on Ajami (vs. Edward Said)

On a lighter (more pathetic) note: Madonna and the 29 Rabbis

Greetings TinkertyTonk Readers!

Thanks to Rachel for letting me borrow her forum. Hope you find the links of interest.

Charging RINO

The regular feature is up, hosted by Scott at Environmental Republican

Lavish food for thought, as always.

A-f****ing-Rod

Stinking A-Rod and his lousy MVP: 0 for 4. Hits into a double play in the Ninth. Bats .143 in the post-season. Stinking A-Rod. Not fit to wipe Jeter's shoes.

I will return to my vacation, now.

OpenHouseNewYork, day 2

I am filled with gratitude to the world. I now believe in small miracles – and my luck.

Remember the Sunday Art Deco tour I couldn’t get in since it was reservation-only and it was filled 2 weeks ago? I asked to put me on a waiting list, already long at that point, and left my home phone number for contact, almost without hope.

Saturday came and went: no phone call. So in the evening I decided on plan B: I'll visit only two more sites, New Amsterdam and Victory theaters on Broadway; tours available at 11:00 and 12:00, so I could enjoy some languishing in bed to feel like Sunday morning.

8:40 am the phone rang into my dreams and Glen from Art Deco Society offered a spot on the tour; he will even hold the group of 25 people for 20 min so I can join them - was it incredibly kind of him or what?
I was out the door, biting a banana, in 15. Normally it would take me 45 min to get to Midtown from my Brooklyn home, but it is Sunday and MTA is unpredictable on weekends. As it was, my express train suddenly went local after Canal, without announcement, and than there was “power problem ahead”, so I’ve arrived to 45th and Broadway 7 min after extended time. No one holding familiar OHNY brochure was in sight, only bewildered-looking tourists with their money belts and maps.

I sighed, turned and started to cross the street. And saw a group of people coming towards me, led by a guy waving binder titled Ely Jacques Kahn above his head!

I couldn’t believe it. I never win the lottery (except one time in H.S. when my prize was an art album). If I’m in your car there is 90% chance the cop will choose you among similarly speeding motorists to write a ticket. When I’m in the post office line the clerk will put a sign” closed for lunch” when my turn comes. You get the picture.

The tour was super fantastic and it lasted way over 2 advertised hours, hurray!
We visited more than a dozen beautiful Kahn buildings (and some of the lobbies), their architectural features explained in simple terms, by erudite and passionate guide, Frederick Cookinham; I learned a lot of New York history along the way, and even joined 2 other sightseers and Fred for lunch afterwards.

And here I discovered something else: Mr. Cookinham is a huge Ayn Rand fan; so huge he created a whole separate tour series, “Ayn Rand’s New York”, and he always has subscribers for it (in this pinky-red city!), despite Time Out NY advertising it as tour through fascist diva' sites. (huh?!)
Having read Fountainhead for the first time a couple of months ago, I fell in love with Rand. These tours are taylor-made for me, I just casually stumbled upon unbelievable treasure!


Has Fortune turned her wheel?

Pictures follow-up

Here’re the places I visited today, on a whim, with no planning in advance.

A penthouse in Murray Hill, used as an office by film editor. Smug owner was there, picking up dates (chicks come to you, man!) and supervising computer-chained slaves in the back room. Beautiful view of surrounding skyscrapers, from the inside and the roof deck. (“Do you know they filmed Alias here?”). 2 hideous orange sofas on polished concrete floor; pretentious, already outdated 2 years after completion and boooooring!


Totally cool façade of Gershwin hotel on 27th street (pictured on the left), on my way to the designated OHNY site, Prince George Hotel Ballroom. That’s where batteries in my camera kissed me good bye, so there are no pictures to show you, kids! The polychromed ceiling was gorgeous, however, and humongous unrestored fireplace, and the gallery with layers of previous treatment exposed.


Austrian Cultural Forum is much more impressive outside than within. I appreciate the elegant technical solutions to the challenges of the NY codes and site conditions that architect came up with, and the view is truly spectacular, but bland (and blond) interiors left me completely indifferent.


Arsenal in the Central Park, offices of the Park Commissioner. Amusing contrast of typical government offices with beautiful old “garden folly” building.

As well as the face of the park ranger giving the lecture (little green people do exist!), opposite one of the Greek gods (Apollo?) who inexplicably descended into the audience










Lobby of the Chrysler building – words fail me. Magnificent, all I can say. Fragment of ceiling mural pictured on the left.





Walk along 5th avenue, in the 50’s, produced other views as well:





Yyyyaawn. Tomorrow – to the theaters. Or wherever else my fancy will sweep me. See’ya!

Nosyparking in New York

Those of you who always wanted not only come to New York but get behind the scenes of its theaters, churches, private apartments and architects’ studios, even Masonic and Hindu temples, power stations and fireboats, this weekend present a perfect opportunity.
Annual Open House New York opens city’s doors for you for the third time.

Last 2 years I’ve planned the weekend way in advance; busied myself with reservations where required, checked viewing schedules and anticipated transport time loss. I have vivid memories of places I visited: Brooklyn Army Terminal, with its surreal inner rail yard, High Bridge Tower’s cast iron steps, pre-opening tour of deceptively named Jazz at Lincoln Center (located now at Time Warner at Columbus Circle), with all the mechanics of 3 stages exposed; others, with personal little anecdotes attached. Of course, it took a week to recover, but it was worth it.

For this year’s Open House I decided to see only the sites new to the program. I had the best of intentions: stick to the few rare treasures and stop running like crazy hare between Harlem and Park Slope.

It all went to the drain. Literally. To the street storm drains, under incessant rain that continues knocking into my skylight as I’m writing this, in my favorite pyjamas and having warmed myself up with a sizable portion of glintwein.

To start with, I got to work on interesting and challenging project in the office that required all my attention. Luckily, because when I wasn’t thinking of work, my mind was occupied with relative meaning of words like “bickering”, “nice” and “complain” – not my words but nevertheless worth pondering the mystery of their usage by various people.

Excuses, excuses, I know. Nevertheless, that’s how it happened that I did NOT make reservation to the MTA substation on 53rd Street. And Waldorf Astoria. And MOMA Conservation Department. And a tour with Kahn Architecture expert. And all of it was full! No exceptions allowed! If anybody among you, my [theoretically existing} readers did go to these highly desirable locations, please please tell me what did you see there and what were your thoughts. You know, the curiosity might kill me.

So, I floated with the stream. As it always happens, unexpected wonders appeared. Surprise finds, not listed in the OHNYprogram shined their wet facades. People provided excitement, too.

I'll post some of the pictures in the next post, with captions. Forgive me my clumsyness with graphics alignment, I'm not yet familiar with Blogger' ways of operation.

California here I come

I'm off. Well, I'm still finishing up my laundry and I have some last-minute errands to run--one involves hot wax--but I'm basically off for a week in sunny California.

While I'm away, I've arranged for frequent commenter Tatyana to take over as guestblogger. Treat her well. Tell all your friends. Comment frequently. I had asked someone else to guestblog as well, but he appears to be MIA.

Have a good week.

Miscellany

World record sought: Pumping gas.

Before you get killed: To do list.

Mother of Satan? Or star of David?

100 to watch: Misspelled words, via Chai-rista.

Cartoons: Then and now.

Hue: insiders tip [usual disclaimers apply]

On Thursday night I’ve attended a typical NY event, an Awards party.

With summer’s end, social life of NY interior design and architecture community picks up. In the city with 3 hi-rise buildings devoted entirely to big names in goods and materials for the trade, besides numerous small players scattered elsewhere, the beginning of season means receptions and parties. Fall - time to promote a new line, to remind of their existence to specifiers and, simply, snub the competition.

Benjamin Moore Paints is no small player. For many decades the company is considered to be industry standard for quality paints. With 16 million colors available, it is a giant that construction and manufacturing industries depend on.

And here's is an example of what I take to be market forces in action; those of you well-versed in economics and social studies might find my example simplistic. However, what I applaud to, regardless of much talk and theories on its inefficiency, capitalism, pushed by market forces, still works, for our mutual benefit.

BM’s close competition, Sherwin Williams, greatly expanded their market in the last few years. They provide seminars for designers, their new colorways are gorgeous, binders well-organized, their formulations reliable. Not that BM didn’t do all that, but they slowed down, got too sleepy on their laurel bed of industry leader and competition started to close the gap behind them. Recently BM underwent complete transformation. Interior perturbations, rumors of which I’m not authorized to disclose, resulted in new color selection system, catalogs, improved website (where they offer to download BM palette to CAD-users for free, ensuring automatic BM paints selection) – and introduction of new Industry Award.

Thursday's party program included

• Runway of Color Future


• Hue Awards in 5 categories, including Life Achievement


• Pre-party cocktails, followed by dinner and dessert during runway show.

Now, I consider color my special passion and skill among other professional duties. I’ve done a few projects where colors work well together, and more often than not they were BM colors. But as much as I would love to participate (as if I'd stand a chance against David Rockwell!) I have to follow the policy of the firm I work for, and the policy is – no competition entries. What can I say? Well, I can say plenty but I’ll better put on my professional poker face and you’ll hear not a squeak escaping my mouth.

And so it happened that I entered the hall today as a guest only. High level of the event became apparent at the doors, by abundance of stocky neckless guys with phone/mike on one ear, 3 consecutive list checkers and cascades of polished minerals sparkling on deceptively modest ladies’ outfits. Celebrities shined among mortals. Champaign flowed, BBQ beef skewers and shrimps in lemon mayonnaise made rounds. I’ve met a few acquaintances, among them a design school classmate who turned out working for one of the Award recipients, Jamie Drake, circulated, chatted, even introduced myself to Ivan Chermyaeff, renown graphic designer/ muralist behind an amazing Oceanarium I saw in Lisbon recently.

The acceptance speeches beat Academy's big time; may be because architects do not succumb to fallacy of mistaking their achievements for those of God Almighty's.
Mr. Drake dressed for the ocasion, in purply pink taylor suit and a tie he said he tried to incorporate all BM colors in but fell short 32; I can testify to the god-honest truth of this statement.
Others were not less entertaining, but I was a bit distracted by cameramen blowing on their "burned" fingers in front of our table, and couldn't exactly follow. [Rachel, I finally wore my tango shoes].

The runway was a great success. Dancers - or should I call them models? – presented, through their extremely sparse costumes (and diverse personal tones) the new BM marketing slogan: SKIN.

Displayed amount of which, in parenthesis, in conjunction with 3 flutes of Champaign produced very pleasing effect. Especially I lovedlovedloved trim Mediterranean gazelle in headdress of peacock feathers and a chocolate bomb-boy with moss-sequined torso in miniscule rose-beige Lycra ..er..mini-undergarment. You heard me.

Now, attention, shoppers: the climax of the evening, these will be new color trends for the year 2007, as announced by Benjamin Moore Color Technology director.

Human skin
I’m given summarizing brochure, which offers the following sentence “Living in our skin…is to find DNA of being true to ourselves”. Hmmm, never mind. All you need to know, in this category, is that neutralized palette of red-based and cosmetics-influenced skin color tones is IN, as well as “baby-soft, finely lined and deeply wrinkled” textures.

Nature’s skin
As I’m told by my wise brochure, “the Earth is crust”. So it breaks into a spectrum of vivid organic neutrals with names like “Edgewood rocks”, “Amethyst sky”, and “”Polished Slate”.

Cultural skin
Expressed by the image of densely tattooed with Goth graffiti, moderately pierced young lady, culture in BM terms translates into colors of fine appliqués, silk, etching and knits. Countries quoted are (very, very important!): China, Russia, India, Estonia and Latino. (er, “Latino”? where’s this country, again? Oh, don’t be such a party pooper)
We’re talking deep saturated tones and spiced organic brights, with texture of regional crafts.

Industrial skin
I am advised by my indispensable brochure (and I quote) that “cushioned floors resonate with sound and memorize impressions when tread upon”. Debatable statement, I’m afraid. Let’s try another: “Medicine and aerospace behold the future of technological skins”.
Which means achromatic gray metallic, in amorphic/ gel / silicone textures.

So, ladies of all genders and aerospace/medicine professionals, there we go and here we are. Or will be. We’ll see, in 2007.

Update:
Fri. What did I tell you about capitalism? I just got an e-mail invitation from Sherwin Williams, for their presentation, on Oct 27, of the New Color Trends of 2006. What a brave little soldier, SW, is!

Maybe the Coalition of the Chillin' had it wrong

Mark Levin says the filibuster deal may indirectly have lead to the Miers nomination.

The fact is that this Gang of 14 moderates, led by Senator John McCain, did make it much more difficult for the president to win an ideological battle over a Supreme Court nominee. The Democrats did, in fact, send warnings that they were prepared to filibuster the second nominee. And under such circumstances, the president would have needed 60 votes to confirm his candidate, not 51.

Lest we forget, Majority Leader Bill Frist and the overwhelming majority of his Republican colleagues were poised to defeat the unprecedented and frequently used (or threatened) filibuster tactics that had been unleashed against President Bush by the Democrats to weaken his appointment power. The big media editorialized against it. George Will wrote at length (albeit unpersuasively) against it (see here and my response to him here). And Bill Kristol's favorite presidential candidate in 2000, John McCain, the leader of the Gang of 14, was all over the media making clear he would torpedo such an effort. And that's exactly what he did. This in no way excuses the president's blunder in choosing Miers. But the ideological confrontation with the likes of Senator Charles Schumer and the Democrat left that many of us believe is essential, including Will and Kristol, was made much more difficult thanks to the likes of McCain and the unwillingness to change the rule before any Supreme Court vacancy arose. This president has been poorly served by his Republican "allies" in this regard. Bush is the first president who has had to deal with an assault of this kind on his constitutional authority. And unless and until the filibuster rule is changed, a liberal minority in the Senate will have the upper hand.

Food for thought. But I'm still chilling.

Curry rock

Meet the H1Bees, a group of Indian tech workers who produced their own concept album based on their experiences as immigrants.

On the surface, they were not unlike many others who have left India over the past decade on the H-1B visa, a guest worker program for highly skilled professionals. They wore glasses and mustaches and collared shirts. They could exterminate Y2K bugs and code Java and link Unix.

But as they toiled in cubicles, they dreamed of banging on keyboards of a different sort, of a world where C-sharp is just a musical note, not computer code.

And then their worlds became one.

"H1Bees," an album recorded in a Gaithersburg basement-turned-studio, will be released today, its music a mix of Indian and Western beats with lyrics exploring the high-tech immigrant's experience in the United States. The troupe remains unnamed, giving composer Srikanth Devarajan top billing and referring to the remaining artists as "playback singers," which is customary on many Indian albums.

Listen to a sample here.

'Shave your head'

Togo government says high school girls spend too much time doing their hair; not enough time studying.

Schools blame the distraction of fashion for girls' low academic record.

"They must know how to organise themselves and use their time in order to succeed in their studies instead of wasting their time - three hours, sometimes days - with their hair," said Madame Olympio, a teacher at Lycee Nyekonakpoe in the capital, Lome.

"Girls' success rates are lower than boys," she said.

Pupils from both junior and senior schools have been affected by the schools' ruling and hairdressers in the capital have been doing swift business since Monday morning.

Real life has intruded

And I must attend to it. Back later tonight.

Steyn has a hunch

That Miers will be a more reliable conservative than her predecessor.

Where do I stand? To be honest, I haven’t a clue. A vacancy comes up on the Supreme Court and for a month or so every columnist is expected to be an expert on the jurisprudence of a couple of dozen legal types he’d never previously heard of. I had some chit-chat on the nominations a few weeks back with National Review’s Kate O’Beirne and the former solicitor-general (and rejected Supreme Court nominee) Robert Bork. I did my best to keep my end up. There were two Ediths being touted as nominees back in the summer — one Edith was regarded as sound, the other as wobbly — and I pretended I was on top of which one was which, though right now I have absolutely no recollection. Judge Bork knew his lawyers, obviously, but I’m not sure how many of the rest of us do. ‘I like that black woman,’ said the guy who came to change the antifreeze in my heating pipes on Tuesday. He meant Janice Rogers Brown: strong conservative, but black and female and thus less easily Borkable by the Senate Democrats. But ‘I like that black woman’ is not necessarily any less expert than most of the commentary in this field.

...

For what it’s worth, my sense is that Harriet Miers will be, case by case, a more reliable vote against leftist judicial activism than her mercurial predecessor, Sandra Day O’Connor. Why do I say this? Well, she’s a strong supporter of the right to bear arms. The great Second Amendment expert Dave Kopel says you have to go back to Louis Brandeis 90 years ago to find a Supreme Court justice whose pre-nomination writings extol gun rights as fulsomely as Miss Miers. According to an old boyfriend, Judge Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court, she packs heat — a Smith & Wesson .45 — which I can say with certainty the other lady justice, the far-left Ruth Bader Ginsberg, never has. She is also very opposed to abortion, and a generous contributor to pro-life groups.

In other words, what seems to be emerging is a woman Bush responds to as a fellow cultural conservative and evangelical conservative (she’s a born-again Christian) rather than as a judicial conservative — a label Judge Bork dislikes, preferring quite correctly that we distinguish judges not as conservative or liberal but as either originalists or judicial activists. I find it hard to discuss Harriet Miers seriously in those terms, but on balance she seems likely to vote the right way for whatever reasons. She’s thus another representative of Bush and Karl Rove’s belief in incrementalism — that the Republican majority can be made a permanent feature of the landscape if you build it one small brick at a time. Miss Miers is, at best, such a brick, at a time when conservatives were hoping Bush would drop a huge granite block on the court. But, given that she started out as a Democrat and has been on the receiving end of the partisan attacks on the administration for five years, she seems less likely than any detached effete legal scholar to be prone to the remorseless drift to the Left that happens to Republican Supreme Court nominees.

What he said.

My style

Classic Siren

Your style is so gorgeously glamorous and seductively sirenesque that you could step into any era and rule the red-carpet runway—or anywhere else for that matter. Whether you’re harking back to the Hollywood golden years or slinking onto the scene donning a more modern glam-slam style, you always turn heads. Ever ready for your close-up, you can easily quiet a crowded room with your entrances. But that’s only half the reason you go the designer-gown distance. The other half is pure personal pleasure because those sumptuous fabrics and cuts make you feel so darned sexy.

What's your red carpet style?

Saudis block blogger.com

No reason given.

Reporters Without Borders today called on the Internet Services Unit (ISU), the agency that manages Web filtering in Saudi Arabia, to explain why the weblog creation and hosting service blogger.com has been made inaccessible since 3 October, preventing Saudi bloggers from updating their blogs.

“Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that censors the Internet the most, but blog services had not until now been affected by the ISU’s filters,” the press freedom organisation said. “The complete blocking of blogger.com, which is one of the biggest blog tools on the market, is extremely worrying. Only China had so far used such an extreme measure to censor the Internet.”

Via Big Pharoah.

UPDATE: Flickr has also been blocked.

Division series scorecard

Who bloggers are rooting for.

Bicycles can be bad for your health

If you're a man.

You have a right to the Internet

If you live in San Francisco.

Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco and first runner up in the 2001 Upperclass Twit of the Year Contest has declared access to the internet a “Fundamental Right”, equal to none other than your rights to speak freely without fear of reprisal from your government, your right to practice of any religion (or not) you choose (or not) and your right to keep an bear arms.

He is in the process of attempting to set up free Wi-Fi service throughout the Shity by the Bay, and I have no doubt that as the subject starts getting bogged down in debate that he will begin blasting any and all who oppose it as friends ‘Big Phone’ and Big Cable’ who currently GASP charge people for their services after said companies have invested in the infrastructure to yield these services.

Where's the fun?

Forget Harriet Miers says Michael Weiss. If President Bush wants to nominate a crony to the Supreme Court, Weiss has just the man for the job.

Where's the fun gone in this administration? I couldn't keep my eyes open through Roberts' confirmation hearing, but this seemed cleverly designed, a toddler tub-sloshing Act One in preparation for the Ancient Mariner's thundering Borkerific tempest of Act Two, which I was all but expecting to have to pay-per-view on C-SPAN. Now is this all we get? I certainly hope not. John Paul Stevens is looking a little anemic these days. Dubya, aim for the bleachers. Are you ready? Three words: Karl fucking Rove. He doesn't even have a college degree, let alone a JD. And he's already made tender doughboy love to one grand jury, you really think a pud like Schumer's going to faze him? Come on. It'll drive 'em wild.

President Hillary, the TV show

Naomi Wolf seems to believe that Commander-in-Chief will play a pivotal role in influencing Americans to vote for Hillary Clinton for president in 2008.

Television and film, as the real Republicans know, is where political change takes place and political momentum solidified. That is why Bush has been the consummate photo-op president. (Let's not forget Glenn Close played "President" Harrison Ford's right-hand woman in Air Force One, four years before Condoleezza Rice was made secretary of state.) Finally we have a show that can acclimatise Americans to a woman in power before Hillary and her juggernaut, the Democratic National Congress, who are far less sure-footed about image-making on all its levels, have to change hearts and minds. For a party dogged with a Macbeth-like curse since the Clinton era, this seems like a karmic payload, and not a moment too soon.

I suppose Wolf thinks her fellow Americans are too stupid to grasp the notion of a woman running the country until we see it on TV. Geez, if it weren't for Geena Davis, I'd never have considered such a new-fangled notion. What'll they think of next?

Besides, as Scott Burgess points out, Americans are all too comfortable with the notion of President Hillary.

In her Guardian article, Ms. Wolf seems to imply that, were it not for a TV show "that can acclimatise Americans to a woman in power" (this just after a sole, parenthetical mention of Condoleezza Rice), a Clinton candidacy would be doomed by the inability of the unacclimatised to accept a female President. In her eagerness to credit the TV show with an unlikely importance (it "... could change US politics for ever", as the subhead hyperbolically puts it), she paints herself as out of touch with current political reality - in fact, a May poll found a majority "likely" to vote for Sen. Clinton, even before being instructed to by the producers of Commander-in-Chief. And a more recent poll indicated that 79% of Americans "felt comfortable with a female president".

Miscellany

Pighooey: PC stupidity.

Rapture: The transformative power of art.

Just plain wrong: Uggs and short skirts.

Mullets: Including subspecies.

Harriet Miers Doppleganger: Poll.

This is an abomination

Unauthorized Reproduction Bill introduced in Indiana.

Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant "by means other than sexual intercourse."

According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother throu gh assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a "petition for parentage" in their local county probate court.

Only women who are married will be considered for the "gestational certificate" that must be presented to any doctor who facilitates the pregnancy. Further, the "gestational certificate" will only be given to married couples that successfully complete the same screening process currently required by law of adoptive parents.

...

"We did want to address the issue of whether or not the law should allow single people to be parents. Studies have shown that a child raised by both parents - a mother and a father - do better. So, we do want to have laws that protect the children," [Senator Patricia Miller] explained.

Via Protein Wisdom.

Tower of Babel

Via Warren Bell: Lost in Translation:

What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between 5 different languages? The authors of the Systran translation software probably never intended this application of their program. As of September 2003, translation software is almost good enough to turn grammatically correct, slang-free text from one language into grammatically incorrect, barely readable approximations in another. But the software is not equipped for 10 consecutive translations of the same piece of text. The resulting half-English, half-foreign, and totally non sequitur response bears almost no resemblance to the original. Remember the old game of "Telephone"? Something is lost, and sometimes something is gained.

Original English Text:
A great many people think they are thinking when they are actually rearranging their prejudices.

Translated to French:
Un grand beaucoup de gens pense qu'elles pensent quand elles réarrangent réellement leurs préjudices.

Translated back to English:
Large much of people thinks that they think when they rearrange really their damages.

Translated to German:
Groß viel von den Leuten denkt, daß sie denken, wann sie wirklich ihre Beschädigungen umordnen.

Translated back to English:
Largely much of the people thinks that they think, when they really rearrange their damages.

Translated to Italian:
In gran parte gran parte della gente pensa che pensino, quando realmente riorganizzano i loro danni.

Translated back to English:
In great part great part of people thinks that they think, when they really reorganize their damages.

Translated to Portuguese:
Na parte grande a parte grande dos povos pensa de que pensam, quando reorganize realmente seus danos.

Translated back to English:
About the great part the great part of the peoples thinks of that they think, when reorganizes really its damages.

Translated to Spanish:
De la mayor parte la mayor parte de la gente piensa en ésa que ella piensa, cuando reorganiza realmente sus daños.

Translated back to English:
Of most most of people it thinks about which she thinks, when she reorganizes really its damages.

Carnival of the Vanities

Volume 159 is up at Technogypsy. Explore the best the blogosphere has to offer.

If you're not fat now

You will be soon.

[R]esearchers studied data gathered from 4,000 white adults over 30 years. Participants were between the ages of 30 and 59 at the start, and were examined every four years. By the end of the study, more than 1 in 3 had become obese.

The findings, published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, show obesity may be a greater problem than indicated by studies that look at a cross-section of the population at one point in time. Those so-called “snapshots” of obesity have found about 6 in 10 are overweight and about 1 in 3 are obese, Vasan said.

The findings also re-emphasize that people must continually watch their weight, Vasan said.

Damn our aging metabolisms.

Via Instapundit.

I'm willin'

After all, I was a member of the first coalition, why not the second?

Managing the Harvard brand

Malcolm Gladwell on Ivy admissions policies.

In 1905, Harvard College adopted the College Entrance Examination Board tests as the principal basis for admission, which meant that virtually any academically gifted high-school senior who could afford a private college had a straightforward shot at attending. By 1908, the freshman class was seven per cent Jewish, nine per cent Catholic, and forty-five per cent from public schools, an astonishing transformation for a school that historically had been the preserve of the New England boarding-school complex known in the admissions world as St. Grottlesex.

As the sociologist Jerome Karabel writes in “The Chosen” (Houghton Mifflin; $28), his remarkable history of the admissions process at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, that meritocratic spirit soon led to a crisis. The enrollment of Jews began to rise dramatically.By 1922, they made up more than a fifth of Harvard’s freshman class. The administration and alumni were up in arms. Jews were thought to be sickly and grasping, grade-grubbing and insular. They displaced the sons of wealthy Wasp alumni, which did not bode well for fund-raising. A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the school: “The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate . . . because they drive away the Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also.”

...

The admissions office at Harvard became much more interested in the details of an applicant’s personal life. Lowell told his admissions officers to elicit information about the “character” of candidates from “persons who know the applicants well,” and so the letter of reference became mandatory. Harvard started asking applicants to provide a photograph. Candidates had to write personal essays, demonstrating their aptitude for leadership, and list their extracurricular activities. “Starting in the fall of 1922,” Karabel writes, “applicants were required to answer questions on ‘Race and Color,’ ‘Religious Preference,’ ‘Maiden Name of Mother,’ ‘Birthplace of Father,’ and ‘What change, if any, has been made since birth in your own name or that of your father? (Explain fully).’ ”

At Princeton, emissaries were sent to the major boarding schools, with instructions to rate potential candidates on a scale of 1 to 4, where 1 was “very desirable and apparently exceptional material from every point of view” and 4 was “undesirable from the point of view of character, and, therefore, to be excluded no matter what the results of the entrance examinations might be.” The personal interview became a key component of admissions in order, Karabel writes, “to ensure that ‘undesirables’ were identified and to assess important but subtle indicators of background and breeding such as speech, dress, deportment and physical appearance.” By 1933, the end of Lowell’s term, the percentage of Jews at Harvard was back down to fifteen per cent.

If this new admissions system seems familiar, that’s because it is essentially the same system that the Ivy League uses to this day. According to Karabel, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton didn’t abandon the elevation of character once the Jewish crisis passed. They institutionalized it.

Another tradition going to the dogs

The Gurgling Cod laments the debased nature of sporting wagers between politicians.

If I ran the zoo, I would throw the publicists out on their bony asses, and propose a much steelier all-burrito bet: The notorious Guapo from El Pelon, against the infamous southside staple steak burrito from Maravilla. That would tell us something about our leaders. Irregardless, here's hoping Mitt gets a chance to choke on that cheesecake. Go Red Sox!

Unfair sentencing

The story of a man and a camel.

First principles: A dialogue

So what are your top political concerns? I've been asked by aTypical Joe
for my top 10--in order--as part of a meme begun by Dan at Searchlight Crusade.

So now my big things are on the table. I'm not hiding my agenda. Put yours on the table too, and even if we cannot come to an agreement, it may be obvious why, and we may get along better because of it.

Joe adds:

I'm always running around here telling folks that I'm going to make a Democrat out of them ...I blog to engage in dialogue, to exercise my mind, to deepen my thinking on any particular thing. I appreciate this invite.

I'm a less-is-more kind of girl, so I don't have 10 big things. I really only have one: The War on Terror.

I was for the war on terror before President Bush was, before the first bomb hit the World Trade Center. To my mind, we've been at war since the storming of the US Embassy in Iran in 1979. We just didn't know it yet.

And our half-hearted, half-assed response to that act of war began a pattern that was repeated under Reagan when terrorists killed 241 Marines in Beirut and the United States withdrew its forces. Clinton's response to Osama bin Laden's assorted depradations against the US gave more aid and comfort to the enemy as it bolstered their belief that the US was weak and unwilling to fight. As far as I'm concerned, our response to these attacks led inexorably to the attacks of September 11.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, I should add that both Joe and Dan list the war as their number one priority, too. But I'm more sanguine than Joe about the outcome, thanks mostly to the blogging of people like Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail, Michael Yon and Wretchard at the Belmont Club, whose reporting of events is both dispassionate and knowledgeable. Unlike the hysterical and negative reporting of the mainstream media, which focuses on the suicide bomb of the day and little else.

Let me also add that if, after 9/11, George Bush had decided to bomb Afghanistan to Kingdom Come and plow the land with salt, I probably would have supported that, too, as I believed it was necessary to show the terrorists and the world that we were not going to tolerate attacks on US soil under any circumstances. But Bush had another, better, idea: Establish democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq because democratic peoples are far less likely to engage in war for war's sake: Their people won't permit it.

So the war is my number one concern. I have other political concerns, which I'll address in subsequent posts, but next to the war they look like small potatoes: We can argue nonstop about judicial appointments or energy policy or the role of government but those concerns are pretty much beside the point if we as a society don't survive.

Palestine: The official record

British perfidy on partition. A remarkable document for two reasons. The first:

[It] proves the falsity of the common perception that the creation of Israel was a project of Western colonialism. The Nation shows that during the half year prior to the all-out Arab invasion on 15 May, Britain incited, micro-managed and did public relations work for a campaign of Arab troop infiltration and terror. And this at a time when Britain was responsible for security in its Palestine Mandate territory.

The second: It was compiled by The Nation.

The Nation’s memorandum reminds us, moreover, that there was a time when the left shared this sense of outrage. Who would have foretold, when the Nation wrote this memorandum in 1948, that within sixty years the left would be playing the part that the British had played then.

A day in the life

Of the AirForceFamily. Just reading about it makes me want to take a nap.

Miscellany

Fish tales: Another Krugman whopper.

Heliotherapy: Not for the faint of heart.

For men: Jack's Chick Monitor.

Life at sea: With song.

Bullet points: Negative connotations.

A suggestion for Harriet Miers

Women of a certain age should refrain from drawing black lines around their eyes. This may save you the embarrassment of indignities such as this. Or this. Leave the eyeliner on the upper lid alone.

I'm just saying.

Iran or Islam?

No contest, according to poll. F14Pilot:

Grandson of the founder of mullacracy in Iran, Seyyed Hassan Khomeini, criticized the battle between secularism and backwardness, saying the original religious movement in Iran has been endangered. He added that secularism is pursuing separation of religion from politics and some are promoting an emotional religion based on backwardness and superstitions to withstand secularism.

As opposed to the enlightened religion now being practiced there, I suppose.

Aren't we reaching for straws?

When we start asking people who have dated Harriet Miers what kind of judge she'll be?

Who's next? Her pedicurist? The guy who changes her oil?

What does her dental hygienist say? Does Harriet floss? Cause, frankly, I'm in the pro-floss camp. I'm not certain I can support a nominee who would be willing to trust the health of her teeth and gums to a toothbrush alone.

Farewell Trench Coat Guy

I've had a soft spot for Trench Coat Guy ever since he first appeared as the Sprint spokesperson--not, I hasten to add, so soft a spot that I've ever actually subscribed to Sprint's services. He had such a perfect deadpan delivery. Lately, though, I had begun to worry about what would happen to the actor who plays him when Sprint decided to ditch him. That time has come.

Trench Coat Guy gave a fresh face to an otherwise faceless, multibillion-dollar telecommunications behemoth (and helped make it successful enough to buy another faceless telecommunications behemoth). He was all about underselling. Trench Coat Guy never pushed, never grated, never tried to get you to take the premium plan. He just laid it all out in that unemotional way, as if it was common sense.

Trench Coat Guy solved cell phone problems in a way that suggested Sprint knew there was more to life than solving cell phone problems. His commercials were offbeat mini-sitcoms that disarmed the viewer with their gentle absurdity and mocking self-awareness.

Brian Baker, the actor, seems confident that he can rise above typecasting and go on to future success. But I wonder: You never saw Mr. Whipple after Charmin flushed him.

Celtic clodhopping and American middlebrows

Amusing, if condescending review of Lord of the Dance's Michael Flatley's latest endeavor, Celtic Tiger.

Flatley meshes perfectly with American middlebrow culture in that he has no sense of irony whatsoever. This is most notable in Flatley's patriotism. "It seems to be really cool to run down America right now, to get down on America," he told me. "I'm so opposite of that." And yet Flatley is not an American exceptionalist, nor even an Irish one. His is more of a free-range patriotism—a "hooray for everybody!" approach common to Montessori kindergartens. In Celtic Tiger, Viking hordes commingle with Irish peasants. The Brits have their vile moments but are allowed a lusty chorus of "Rule Britannia." Flatley honors Irish independence then declares his unwavering love for America. Oddly, for a show called Celtic Tiger, the finale has Flatley clad in red, white, and blue and performing "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy." Last month, during previews in England, Flatley says he was terrified the British audience might react sourly. He wound up doing five encores. It is highly possible that, amid the burst of pan-nationalism, the British did not realize they were the heavies.

The author, Bryan Curtis, makes several references to "American middlebrow culture," all of them patronizing. As a card-carrying member of that establishment, let me state for the record that I'd stake my sense of irony against anyone's.

The woman's seat

On the Supreme Court goes to Harriet Miers, whoever that is. I guess we'll find out.

UPDATE: Steve Robbo the Llamabutcher has seen her somewhere before.

RINO sightings

And aliens--and horses--at the Stratasphere.

Truman Capote: Odds and ends

Capote, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as the author, opened on Friday, Truman Capote's birthday.

Here's a tribute to Capote. Here's a look at In Cold Blood, Capote's "non-fiction novel," the writing of which serves as inspiration for the new movie.

Capote was lifelong friends with Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird. He is rumored to have been the inspiration for the character of Dill in Lee's book. There are also rumors that he wrote or ghosted much of To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee accompanied Capote to Kansas to help him research In Cold Blood.

Breakfast at Tiffany's is the other work for which Capote is best known. Capote is thought to have written the part of Holly Golightly for Marilyn Monroe, which makes more sense--to me, at least--when you read the original work. Instead, Audrey Hepburn was cast; the main characters were airbrushed and the result is a wishy washy movie that really doesn't do justice to Capote's work, though it was (and is) a huge success:

Hepburn's turn as the beautiful, sad Golightly has become one of the most iconic performances in film history. Filmgoers had never seen this precise mixture of grace, pulchritude and vulnerability. Even if the screenplay didn't, Hepburn captured the book's Holly, a brittle beauty whose faux-sophistication just barely masks the scarred country girl beneath. The image of the slight Audrey with her cigarette holder, oversized sunglasses and most of all, the little black dress (which hasn't gone out of style since) has transcended film to become a cultural totem of 1960s America.

Yes!!!

Yanks are headed to the playoffs. More here.

James Dean died here

Slide show. Don't miss the tatoos.

Miscellany

World's biggest biceps: Must be seen to be believed. Via TheDamnBlog.

Grilled cheese: An experiment.

Quantity v. quality: Orgasms. And lions. And pigs.

No Texas looting: Here's why.

Employee orientation: John Roberts.