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One small voice in the proud tradition of FreeBlogging*
Saturday, March 23, 2002
posted by gbarto at 9:20 PM:
Be sure to read Den Beste on Japan vs. our new problem in the Orient. A carefully crafted piece of the sort for which Den Beste is (or at least should be) becoming known.* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:32 PM:
Last week sometime, on a flight en route to Phoenix, the pilot came on to announce that they were waiting to land but there was a problem with the control tower. The pilot sounded agitated. He then announced that they were going to Tucson instead. Eventually, he again came on to report that he was returning to Phoenix. The problem? Apparently, a fire at the tower.And a freaked out pilot, post 9/11. I haven't heard about this anywhere but I wonder what the new procedures are to deal with what would have been upsetting anyway when tensions are so much higher. In any event, the pilot got his passengers safely to their destination. I'll let you know if I find out anything else, but hadn't heard anything about it and thought I'd mention it.
Btw, this is third-hand info, take it with a grain of salt before launching any investigations.
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posted by gbarto at 5:29 PM:
Sing it, brother!* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:25 PM:
Announcing the Bring Back Joanne Jacobs Fund. Joanne Jacobs had a computer meltdown the other day and with the exception of one post (on her brother's machine, I guess), we haven't heard a peep. So you might drop by and help out with what looks like an expensive repair, if not outright replacement. The TurkeyBlog's been by. Join the trend today. (By the way, my tip jar works too.)* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:30 PM:
Apologies for incoherence; the TurkeyBlog is working on a major headcold. We'll spare you any other Sullivanesque details.* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:28 PM:
If splitting up the INS is a good idea, the same might be said of a few other agencies. This has been discussed with regard to the FAA for years. It's been mentioned with regard to the Department of Energy. I won't make any other immediate proposals in this regard, but I will suggest a way of thinking through the question.The Motley Fool is only one of many to propose the truism that Union Pacific could have been the largest shipping company in the world if they had realized they were in shipping, not trains. We wound up with the same department looking after nuclear power and nuclear stockpiles because of this sort of reasoning; lacking a clear mission, the department became a mess.
The solution is to reconsider the mission of the departments. Defense: Defend our borders and interests. State: Represent our state in the world. Postal service: Deliver mail. The efficacy of these agencies can be questioned, but at least we know what they're supposed to do. The INS, DoE and FAA have sort of bifurcated missions, and the seeming contradictions between, say, promoting air travel and policing its dangers, may challenge the bureaucratic mindset. This is certainly the case with an INS that is in charge of bringing people in and keeping them out. Troubled agencies need to figure out what they do, writ large. If keeping seemingly contradictory missions together makes sense in view of a larger mission (FAA: promotion of air travel necessitates keeping it safe so one agency should tell us flying is safe and keep it that way), the institutional mindset needs to be changed to acknowledge the larger mission; if not, the agency should be split up. The INS is a case of the latter.
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posted by gbarto at 3:14 PM:
Anthrax lab near Kandahar. One more reason we fight.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:26 PM:
INS dissolution? There is talk of splitting the border patrol and immigration services into separate units. FNC says there are enough votes in Congress to do it.This strikes me as a really good idea. The INS as constituted was a bit schizophrenic, responsible for bringing aliens in and getting them out. The two sides sometimes worked together the wrong ways: A few years back, a young French woman I know was expelled for having false information in her visa application. The application listed her as an instructor and the agent said she should have been listed as a professor. The ultimate irony? She had put instructor instead of professor on the advice of a clerk at the INS. Another set of INS agents came up with a great way to show their vigilance in expelling problematic foreigners post 9/11: They started sending letters to 9/11 widows informing that their visas expired with their husbands. Of course Congress deserves some of the blame for that one; they wrote the law and the INS was so injudicious as to enforce it. Still, a change in institutional culture will be necessary to deal with these messes too; so long as bureaucrats can get away with expelling well-intentioned "clients" to pretend vigilance, they will. A message needs to be sent from the top-down that this is not the face a nation of immigrants wants to present to the world.
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posted by gbarto at 1:04 PM:
Biological warfare. A doctor confirms he treated one of the highjackers for cutaneous anthrax.* * *
Friday, March 22, 2002
posted by gbarto at 11:32 PM:
Pakistani update. The danger of catching the end of a newscast: The four Pakistanis weren't in US custody; they just got off a boat they were supposed to stay on and no one said anything. They're still not terrorists yet. Yay INS!* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:25 PM:
The TurkeyBlog thanks Jay Zilber for his mention and for some interesting thoughts to mull. And may we humbly hope to achieve his good fortune.* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:04 PM:
FNC reports four Pakistanis in custody of the INS have disappeared around Norfolk, Virginia. The headline: "They've done it again." But the good news: they were just run of the mill detainees, not terrorists. Good to see the INS is doing better post 9/11.* * *
posted by gbarto at 7:06 PM:
I see Welch beat me to the punch on the "Do Falwell and Robertson represent the right?" question. His thoughts here.* * *
posted by gbarto at 6:15 PM:
Via LGF, this marvelous piece from the Derb.* * *
posted by gbarto at 6:06 PM:
Bulletin: It has now been revealed that in the mid-30s, angry Jewish militants began blowing themselves up in German population centers in an effort to kill German citizens. Said one mother, "I would send all my sons to die if it would wipe the murderous German peoples off the earth." In the typical bombing, ten to twelve Germans would be killed. Eventually, Germany had no choice but to send troops into the old Jewish ghettos, where as many as three or four Jews would sometimes be killed in a single week.Or at least that's what Algeria's ambassador to the UN seems to believe. He's been comparing Israel's homeland defense to Kristallnacht in just the latest sick effort to pretend that the Holocaust was insignificant and that mighty Israel somehow grinds not only Palestinians but also Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran under its mighty heel. Let's say it again: Israel was created to give Jews a safe place to live in part in repentance for the Holocaust. They did not steal the land from Arabs; the West took the land to create a safe haven and gave it to the Jewish people.
But the Arab world will keep talking about Israel, no doubt, while doing their best not to remember that the Palestinians have been ejected from Jordan and just about any other Arab nation where they tried to settle, for the issue is not Israel but finding a scapegoat for the wretched mess their own societies devolved into when shariah was redefined as pre-Islamic, misogynistic, misanthropic tribalism.
You can read the article and more temperate commentary at Little Green Footballs.
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posted by gbarto at 5:28 PM:
Pejmanpundit has a beautiful note on what bloggers and Americans have to do. He wrote, inspired by this Goldberg piece. (via Asparagirl)* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:09 PM:
Did Bob Frolich just accuse Bill Gross of market manipulation? He makes the point that Bill Gross, of Pimco, was in a position to get his questions about GE paper answered. Instead, he issued a press release. Bob notes that when people are nervous are markets, they go to bonds - ie the stuff that Gross sells.Kudlow may have the best answer to the question - bond spreads for GE versus treasury securities have not changed, indicating that GE paper is trusted by the market, even if the stock is tanking. That is, the markets are not questioning GE's ability to service its debt, which implies they believe it has a steady income stream.
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posted by gbarto at 4:41 PM:
Says Benjamin Netanyahu: Unlike Pakistan, Saudi Arabia will not have any attacks on churches. They don't have any. (paraphrase)He also makes about the clearest, most straightforward arguments against Saudi Arabia that I've seen on television to date.
Let's hope he indeed becomes Prime Minister again.
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posted by gbarto at 4:14 PM:
Rabinowitz, who's widely recognized for her reporting on the Massachusetts show trials of the 80s notes that not all accusers will be legit. Obviously, though the point hasn't been much made.I'd suggest that there's enough credible evidence of abuse that the church has a problem, and had best meet it head on. Or its complaints of unfairness will go nowhere, even when legit. Kind of like the complaints about sex abuse 20 years ago.
End TurkeyBlog commentary.
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posted by gbarto at 4:09 PM:
In re the item below, the church isn't helping itself by trying to turn this into an orgy of gay-bashing.* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:07 PM:
Silencing the Catholic church? Dan Henninger says the media is running with the molestation story to discredit a church that disagrees with it on abortion.Rabinowitz says the church brought this on itself.
Rabinowitz is absolutely right; Henninger might have a point.
(seen on CNBC's "Wall Street Journal Editorial Board")
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posted by gbarto at 3:55 PM:
Go tell the government what you think about the SSCA and its newest incarnations here. (via Instapundit)* * *
posted by gbarto at 3:07 PM:
Wow. Sarah Brady packing heat. The scoop's at Instantman.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:58 PM:
Alterman's attack on Sullivan is responded to here.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:21 PM:
Says the WaPo, Mideast Truce Meeting Ends without Agreement. On TV and in the photo at the right, Arafat looks like he's gotten a bad pickle; both parties look like they're waiting outside the principal's office. The body language alone could have written the headline several hours before the announcement. Ditto the fact that Israelis kept dying in the middle of the talks (oh, how un-PC of me, I forgot to mention the deaths of those fine, innocent upstanding suicide bombers). Anyway, I'm glad Cheney won't have to share airspace with the Chairman. In our war on terrorism, we shouldn't seem too obsequiously attentive to the world's second most respectable terrorist (after Gerry Adams, who should have been taken from the White House in chains, not just given the cold shoulder, last week).By the way, while keeping up the charade that peace could be made with Arafat, we did drop into reality long enough to acknowledge the obvious, that groups tied to Arafat are terrorist. Here's the WaPo story. This was mentioned in the excellent article by David Warren that Reynolds linked last night.
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posted by gbarto at 12:10 PM:
Some people think the Cajuns a quaint people. After all, they have strange rituals like the Blessing of the Fleet, written up in today's Washington Post. However, they've got a ways to go. Twenty minutes from my hometown, in Baldwin Michigan, we have the Blessing of the Bikes, an event which sees hundreds of motorcyclists traveling from up to a couple hundred of miles away for the blessings of the local Catholic priest. The festival doesn't, however, have a hundred year old tradition. I'm pretty sure it was started by Father Phil, a merry old gent known for several counties for the good face he puts on the Catholic church (maybe the Boston diocese could contact him for rehabilitation?).* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:01 PM:
AOL is great for everyone. Well, except Time-Warner. The WSJ business section today leads with a note that Time-Warner has dumped AOL and gone back to its own e-mail system. Seems that widely distributed interoffice memos were getting deleted as spam, attachments were getting lost and execs were getting logged off at the most inconvenient moments. Here's a thought: Maybe instead of restoring the old Time-Warner e-mail system for its workers, AOL could have fixed these bugs for its customers. I guess we come second.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:00 PM:
A few days back, Virginia Postrel mentioned European plans to target specific items for tariffs in the U.S. to pay us back for steel tariffs. Postrel said that the plans were clever though she didn't think they'd do much good.Today, Becky Quick, of the Wall Street Journal and CNBC, runs down some of the likely targets. At the top of the list: Harley-Davidson motorcycles - not only are they quintessentially American, they're made in Wisconsin; and the biggie, Tropicana orange juice, made in - I really don't need to say this - Florida.
Interesting note from Quick, though: The Europeans didn't think of this. Clinton hit Louis-Vuitton handbags and other luxury goods three years ago in the midst of the banana wars.
Final note on the steel tariffs: A few lying bastards from the Clinton regime have made loud noises about how their president was a free-trader. Well I was in France when he put tariffs on French steel a few weeks into his first-term, and while Americans don't by and large remember this, I do, having been lectured on the subject at a dozen dinners and cocktail parties in the next month or two. As though I had voted for the guy.
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Thursday, March 21, 2002
posted by gbarto at 10:22 PM:
Just in case you skipped over David Warren's piece on our Middle East plans when you were reading Instapundit, be sure to read the whole thing.* * *
posted by gbarto at 3:12 PM:
Junius is being fascinated with living wage laws and negative income taxes. Two problems: 1) I came to it independantly when I was about twelve. 2) I realized shortly thereafter that what I liked best about it was that I could just sit around doing whatever I pleased and never have to grow up. With the present system I at least have to fiddle with a dissertation to get away with such foolishness.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:06 PM:
Dawson reminds us that it's Bach's birthday. To his list of great works let us add the Partita No. 2 in D minor for violin, perhaps the most magnificent violin composition ever written.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:56 PM:
Here Jay Zilber says so well what I wish I'd managed to say about the Yates' decision.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:40 PM:
Zilber has some serious stuff today. For example, there is this on the revelation that the little boy killed by Israelis last year was probably killed by Palestinians. The incident was ugly in any case, but the Palestinians' celebration of his death (as contrasted, say, with this Hugo poem) settled the issue for me anyway. When you value your children more as symbols than as children, there's something horribly wrong.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:53 PM:
Let us now salute our northern neighbor, another fine member of the Anglosphere. Canada is backing up Israel in the odious UN Human Rights Commission, otherwise known as the Committee to Make Zionism-is-racism the Guiding Principle in Intercourse among Nations. Little Green Footballs has the scoop.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:44 PM:
Amen.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:25 PM:
Ask not for who the bell tolls... it tolls for some poor Fox News reader who takes their grammar too seriously. (see the middle of this post)* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:30 AM:
Layne tells us:...non-techies are reading blogs the same way they read newspapers or watch the news or scan the AP headlines on Yahoo.
Actually, non-techies are reading blogs instead of reading newspapers or watching the news. His point about gatekeepers versus bloggers rings true, except that in a lot of cases the phrasing should be the gatekeepers versus the über-gatekeepers. This blog does it's share of commentary, as does Layne's, as do many. But a major part of the blog is the linkage. The New York Times hires editors to decide what I should read in their pages. But I myself have instapundit, Layne and all those other people on the left to help me decide what stories I need to read. If the NYT does a good job, these fine people may judge them worthy of my time. Ditto the Washington Post (which this blog tends to link), the New York Post and other newspapers (of which the Chronicle is not one).
This is why the journalists are nervous about us. It used to be that you'd made it if you could get an NYT editor to put you in print. Now the audience is national, not local, and you haven't made it unless Reynolds thinks your editor made the right call.
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posted by gbarto at 11:12 AM:
If you scroll down from here, you'll find out that Lileks' comments on Apples almost made Ken Layne want an Apple. Others might feel the same way, but there's a hundred dollar premium. Seems that the cost of memory chips for the Apples is going through the roof, likewise the flat-panel display on the low-end iMac. As a result, the cost of low-end iMacs is going up, but Apple's margins are not following. Meanwhile, I saw a 64MB memory chip for PCs for $15 or $20 the other day. Your computer won't use it. Neither will anyone else's. But it's there and one that will work won't be too much more. So if you're buying an Apple, you'd better get it last week. If you want a PC, meanwhile, a $400 e-machine like the Prof uses is coming soon to a sale flyer near you.* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:01 AM:
New Lileks screed. This time it's the execrable M*chael M**re in his sights.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:05 AM:
Bizarre. Just updated and published my blog, and when I went to see it, it was blank. Anyone else ever had this happen?* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:52 AM:
Nanotechnology. You read it on Reynolds' six months ago. Now it's in the Washington Post!* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:50 AM:
"Campaign finance reform" passes. Ick. Wonder if we'll be allowed to blog fewer than 60 days before an election.* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:49 AM:
More deaths in Israel. Peace talks off. My thoughts on this are pretty much in line with what I've posted before. One point: Are the Israelis still being unreasonable? Or could it be that they now think there's enough evidence that the rest of the world will however grudgingly start to understand that the Palestinians aren't partners in peace; they're opportunists engaged in a longer war to destroy the Jewish people who will negotiate when it fits their aims.* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:46 AM:
The Dangers of Debt. Every time the consumer starts pulling the economy forward, a worrywart economist emerges to warn about high consumer debt. But what if you're a company with one of the largest capitalizations in the world?Today, GE continues to fall after Bill Gross of Pimco, the world's largest bond trading outfit, said he wasn't comfortable with the amount of debt GE was taking on and their failure to explain what for. Is this the end of the Welch effect? The start of an Immelt meltdown? Or has too much been made of a routine bond offering designed to allow an expansion of GE's generally well-managed and highly profitable businesses? GE made a few comments yesterday, but they don't seem to have made it a priority to get their story on the wires or explain why Gross shouldn't be nervous. Which makes me nervous.
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posted by gbarto at 8:39 AM:
Global Crossing fiasco here.* * *
Wednesday, March 20, 2002
posted by gbarto at 11:48 PM:
Explosion at US Embassy in Peru - three days before Bush scheduled to visit. WaPo says as many as 10 dead; Fox News is reporting six. Too depressing? Why not go read about a Terminator Bunny? (scroll up from the link)* * *
posted by gbarto at 10:16 PM:
Gall in Arabic here.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:20 PM:
Maybe he is a bad dude. Mean Brian. Let's keep Stephanie.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:13 PM:
When Samizdata posted this, it seemed to good to be true:"We just got a message from Saddam Hussein. The good news is that he's willing to have his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons counted. The bad news is that he wants Arthur Andersen to do it".But maybe he did say it; this seems to be a solid source. (Nothing against Samizdata; if they found it on my page, I wouldn't expect them to believe it either.)
- George W. Bush (I kid you not!)
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posted by gbarto at 1:44 PM:
Long live the incumbents!
They will now.
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posted by gbarto at 12:52 PM:
Coming soon to a firehouse near you: Forced unionization. Sens. Daschle and Kennedy know the nation won't stand if anyone has a badge or fireman's helmet and doesn't pay union dues for the privilege. National Review has the story here. I don't know how much credibility it has, but a nice note to your House rep would reinforce the idea that such a bill is a bad idea.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:31 PM:
Natalie Solent writes about hassling with bureaucrats and lackeys and a manager's explanation for why lackeys behave like lackeys. There's one problem. Our manager (chief clerk was his title) says that the head teller should have helped resolve Natalie's problem. Ah, but the teller before her did not say, "Let me go get the head teller and we'll get this straightened out." She just left Natalie standing there with nothing to do but go home.The chief clerk who wrote in is no doubt polite, courteous and always ready to intercede in any matter where he can help. But many managers aren't. Some even intimidate their charges into mouthing lines about policy and offending customers if the alternative is approaching them.
If there is a higher authority to appeal to, he or she should be readily available and work to create an atmosphere where employees understand that it is not only acceptable but necessary to disturb "the boss" if that's what it takes to make a customer happy.
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posted by gbarto at 12:07 PM:
BMY @ 41, down 7. 3:05 p.m. In case anyone wondered.* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:12 AM:
Why the mystified educrats just can't get an understanding with the rest of us. See Joan Jacobs for an account of how an obnoxious administrator considers his perogatives as principal more important than the lives of student.* * *
posted by gbarto at 10:25 AM:
Bristol-Myers stuff here.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:59 AM:
Advisor to Italian Labor Minister killed. It seems he wanted to change the laws to make it easier to fire people. The unions weren't happy. Some speculate they were very unhappy indeed, particularly since the same thing happened to the last high-ranking labor official to propose a similar law.Quick quiz people: What's the least reliable job in America? Put on your funny hat if you said McDonald's. But... where's the easiest place to get a job in America. Ta-da! It's McDonald's again. These observations are not a proof, but they are a reminder that sometimes the easier out the door, the easier in. Europe has failed to understand that employers don't want to commit to hiring someone if they're essentially stuck forever was they've done so. Of course the unions represent people who already have jobs. Guess they like a steady base better than prospects for growth.
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posted by gbarto at 9:48 AM:
Others hit Dowd when she's down. The Turkey Blog will note that today she has a column that's pretty much on target.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:40 AM:
Poor Dana Milbank. He doesn't have anything to cover. When will Bush realize that he hasn't earned his pay if Dana doesn't have fodder for a front-pager?* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:38 AM:
BMY down 16% forty minutes after (finally) opening. (See three posts down.)* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:37 AM:
Is the Senate going to subpoena Ridge's crayonbox? Surely no one thinks he's done more than pick out our warning colors.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:30 AM:
Maybe the guy in Georgia was ahead of his time. WaPo says the latest thing is burial in a natural setting.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:29 AM:
More on the Israel bus bombing. It's nice to see that the post put "kills" in its headline, as opposed to the passive dying Israelis so often engage in when these things happen. Maybe the next headline will even note that the "Bus explosion" was actually a bombing (though the article summary is properly direct about the matter).* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:25 AM:
Bristol-Myers stuff here.* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:18 AM:
Bristol-Myers stuff here.* * *
posted by gbarto at 8:54 AM:
Instapundit highlights thoughts from Brink Lindsey on trade, then hits the nail on the head:This, of course, is why it's a bad idea to give the government discretion over foreign trade matters. It's irresistible to play domestic politics with them.
More succinctly: Free and unrestrained trade is the best policy.
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Tuesday, March 19, 2002
posted by gbarto at 11:53 PM:
Oh yes, another bus bombing in Israel. If this keeps up, Yassir won't get his meeting. But don't you worry, by tomorrow they'll have concluded this is all Israel's fault. (article via LGF)* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:30 PM:
The civilized French. TurkeyBlog harasses the French as much as anyone else. However, after the umpteenth time that I saw the suicide bomber's mom on Fox, I thought of Hugo's poem, "Memory of the Night of the 4th" (of December, 1852). The contrast between the weeping of Hugo and his camarades as they attend to a grandmother who has just lost her grandson and the seeming celebration of suicide bombers and the child victims they have claimed reminds that even the heirs of the French Revolution had a greater regard for life than the intifadah, one reason we're frustrated by the French but stupefied by the Palestinians (or at least I am).I've posted a free-verse English translation here. A few liberties have been taken; hopefully purists will forgive.
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posted by gbarto at 11:22 PM:
Hugo pages updated. Two more bits of poetry translated into English here. (The ones not marked "English translation" are in the original French)* * *
posted by gbarto at 9:00 PM:
If you need something to do, you might go check out the always delightful Rabbit.* * *
posted by gbarto at 7:26 PM:
Approximate transcription:Forrest Sawyer: Are you concerned that the recovery and the spending are all pretty much consumers?
Marci Rossel: Well, Forrest, ya see, the U.S. economy is a whole lot of people buying and selling goods and services.
As opposed to all those fine government-managed economies whose scientific planning just can't seem to compete with Joe Sixpack buying things he doesn't need because he wants to. Rossel also made the point that trade deficits are good: they mean we can afford to buy more stuff from overseas.
Two points: 1) those flipping through the channels ought give a listen if they see Rossel on CNBC. She calls things almost as well as Kudlow.
2) we ought to make note of the vigor of this economy and celebrate the fact that freedom in our decisions helps this country triumph in so much. Too many other nations haven't figured out that their citizens aren't something to be managed; they're what makes things work or fail to begin with.
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posted by gbarto at 6:52 PM:
Duh. On Hardball, Congressman Gerry Nadler is highly upset that the Air Force is still patrolling around D.C. but not New York. Why, he asks, would we protect D.C. but NY?Could it be because our elected representatives, including the boneheaded Nadler, assemble in Washington to form this funny thing called our government? And that nobody really wants to see what happens if that government goes poof and somebody in a mountain in Colorado comes on TV to say, "I'm in charge now"?
I appreciate that New York has a big population. The same goes for LA, the Bay Area and Chicago. But when your country's at war, you protect first and foremost the people who make sure that we have civilian democratic rule. However pathetic they may be.
If we had the resources to protect the rest, that would be delightful. But as scary as the WTC act was, it can't compare to the Clancy scenario wherein all the people who run the military, the federal agencies and all the rest disappear and we have to take it for granted that the people who say they're in charge now are supposed to be.
For the Heinlein fans out there (I'm one), I'd add that his survivalist rhetoric works well if there's no government, à la Farnham's Freehold. But if there's half a government, libertarians could find themselves fighting a war on two fronts.
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posted by gbarto at 5:34 PM:
I'd like to thank Bjørn Stærk for putting me in his permanent links. Bjørn was one of the first people I read after 9/11 hit and he has been providing excellent commentary since the day his page started.Visitors to this site will notice a little poem in the upper right hand corner that is similar to the poem in the left column of his page. You can read about them here if you're curious.
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posted by gbarto at 5:23 PM:
Coming to America. Our Declaration does not say, "All Americans are created equal." It says, "All men are created equal." (The Turkey Blog is going to assume this to mean mankind and eschew all debate on the sexist nature of the phrasing.) The US was founded on universal principles: being an American does not give us rights; it gives us the good fortune to live in a system where the rights that all human beings should enjoy are protected to the point of being enshrined in our founding documents.Others do not enjoy the happy circumstance of being born American. Pro-immigration groups will say, "Let them in." Anti-immigration groups will say, "Keep them out." But unless we are prepared to rewrite our founding documents, we must at least admit of the the humanity of those who are not born American. So what do we do with this?
Twelve children were among the more than 60 illegal entrants involved in the two truck rollovers that sent dozens to Tucson's hospitals Thursday and Friday.
The rest of the article is here. The rollovers posed a real problem because Tucson's hospitals are already going bankrupt, and handling all these illegals who can't pay isn't helping.
If that's not enough, are we prepared to question the dedication of this man who died after three days walking across the desert.
The Turkey Blog notes (one more jab at the INS) that while Mohammed Atta can get into flight school, these people are going back - in body bags in two cases. Maybe a better way is in order. (The Turkey Blog suggests relaxing the rules on employing illegals and then expediting the paperwork for illegals who can produce a pay stub.)
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posted by gbarto at 4:40 PM:
Does the Dreaded Purple Master have anything to do with this?see picture here
Actually, it's the proposed gateway to the city of Tucson. You can read about it here.
And here's the predictable outraged editorial in the local paper.
(Update: Thanks to DPM for the link)
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posted by gbarto at 3:23 PM:
This is interesting. Bill Kristol on Fox News is telling Brit Hume that the latest demands made by Cheney about conditions for meeting with Arafat show that Bush's press conference comments last week were meant for Arab consumption - to keep them on board for the war - and didn't really mean anything for U.S. policy. Hard to say, but Cheney hasn't rushed to shake Arafat's had, which has to be seen as progress for those (of us) who favor Israel in this conflict.* * *
posted by gbarto at 3:10 PM:
Ai miei tempi chi sapeva il tedesco no si laureava più. Passava la vita a sapere il tedesco.
In my time, those who knew German never graduated. They spent their lives knowing German.
-Umberto Eco (my translation)
In my time, those who knew German never graduated. They spent their lives knowing German.
-Umberto Eco (my translation)
Is this now the case for French?
Virginia Postrel is lamenting that she studied French instead of Spanish. I know what she means. With an MA in French and a dissertation on Victor Hugo half written, I find myself publishing ribald excerpts from Rabelais while other people have real jobs.
In all seriousness, French remains a useful language, offering access to France, the Québecois culture and a wealth of Enlightenment literature. It even gives you access to the poetry of Victor Hugo. Some translations do exist, but like this one or this one, they can't begin to compare to the original.
If that's not enough, you can also read the commentary of Emmanuelle Richard. (via Postrel, via Layne)
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posted by gbarto at 12:46 PM:
Viropharma. Last night I saw a post indicating Viropharma's cold remedy would be rejected by the FDA, but it took till now for the official word to creep across the Reuters wire. I guess the Blogosphere wins the race.I agree with the poster that so long as the drug is safe, individuals ought to be able to decide whether it's efficacious enough to bother with.
Update: The FDA has given its reasons, notably that the drug messes up the menstrual cycles of women on contraceptives, and it only shortens a cold for around 1-2 days. And it requires taking the drug within 24 hours of the appearance of symptoms and staying on it 3 times a day for five days. A pain in the neck, yes. Something that should be up to the consumer, also yes. If nothing else, it might keep Viropharma in business long enough to refine their work.
If I can find the post again, I'll pass it along. If you think you're the one who made it, write me at turkey@gbarto.com.
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posted by gbarto at 12:31 PM:
HPC? Carli Fiorina has just announced that based on preliminary vote totals, the Hewlett-Packard - Compaq merger will go through. Walter Hewlett says it's too close to call.Beyond the HP vote, CPQ votes tomorrow. Nobody has contemplated the possibility that CPQ will vote nay. Unlikely, but it would certainly serve to remind that you should never take anything for granted.
Whether the merger will prove a success I don't know. However, the opponents of the merger failed to make a good case for why HP should go it alone. Walter Hewlett's idea of making HP a printer services unit may provide a nice solid income stream for his foundation, but most HP investors are looking for growth, a point made by Holman Jenkins in the WSJ on numerous occasions. (Incidentally, how is Epson doing now that they only make printers?)
With profit margins declining, many have questioned the value of the small PC market. But the internet and a lot of software and dot-com dreams are going to go away if everybody decides making home PCs isn't worth the trouble. The bottom line is that if a good home PC isn't available, Hewlett-Packard isn't going to sell many of its printers either. Just as HP makes printers so it can sell ink, it's going to have to sell computers to sell the printers to sell the ink (in the house that Jack built?). We can't all use Dells.
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posted by gbarto at 12:06 AM:
A good article in the LAT! It's about arsenic, it's by Elizabeth Shogren and it's here. (via Kausfiles)* * *
Monday, March 18, 2002
posted by gbarto at 7:45 PM:
If there are Little Green Footballs, why not a Dreaded Purple Master? I suppose I shall have to look at archives to find the source of the name; in the meantime, here's a gripe about CSS.The Turkey Blog arrogantly uses CSS for typestyles, but it's still using good old HTML for the table layout. As for DPM's reminiscing over the use of Notepad, most of gbarto.com was created using Notepad and most changes are made in an online HTML editor built into our webhost. The one exception is the Hugo pages, which are made with FrontPage Express, since their design is pretty simple. And while we're on the Hugo pages, I'll note that a translation of our excerpt from Nox (the opening poem from Les Châtiments) is forthcoming.
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posted by gbarto at 6:59 PM:
In the Journal today, Thomas Weber's column addresses the Napsterization of Hollywood. Weber's advice to the studios: Adapt to the new technologies and look for a new selling model; you don't want to end up making mortal enemies of your customers like the music industry did.Hollywood needs to find ways to reward consumers, not punish them. It can do that by offering incentives for using technology and services that respect copyrights.
It shouldn't be tough to find the right carrots. Consumers like choice, and they like convenience.
Turkey Blog is in complete agreement. For a long time I bought my CDs at record stores, just like I was supposed to. Then I waited for two months for an unusual CD, only to be told by the local Tower Records that they simply hadn't heard anything from their supplier about my order. That night, I went to Napster, found my songs and a whole bunch more. If the publisher had had the stuff online at a price compensating for the fact I was using my own time, hard-drive, CD-burner and CD (and wasn't getting the fancy booklet and case), I would have clicked in with Amazon or whatever service they used. But my choices were to wait and see if the distributor would bother to fill my order in another month or download the thing for free. The record companies had their shot. They blew it.
Publishers have a right to their copyrights, and I would gladly have paid, but when an indolent industry doesn't even want to make their wares available for you to buy except at their own convenience, they're asking for a Napster to come along. If the movie industry doesn't learn from the music industry's experience, I expect the same thing will happen to them.
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posted by gbarto at 6:20 PM:
If you're down to the Turkey Blog, you've probably already read them, but just in case, check out these excellent posts from USS Clueless here and here.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:50 PM:
Amen to this Mark Steyn column (via LGF). Steyn reminds that big government didn't do so well on 9/11, and still has some work to do. My question: How long will it be before an anti-union GOP candidate finds the nerve to drop the patter about our devoted federal workers and rant about how the guy who approved Mohammed Atta's visa was reassigned, not fired, thanks to the power of the Democrats' best buds, Gerry McEntee and the AFSCME union?* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:34 PM:
And here's what the famous Dr. Weevil has to say about the EU.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:13 PM:
Margaret Thatcher and the EU. In her new book, Lady Thatcher argues that Great Britain should begin taking steps to withdraw from the European Union. The idea is an eminently sensible one. The EU was not created to serve England's interests, and it hasn't.For those who forget, the EU's forerunners, notably the EC, were created to force France and Germany into a strong enough alliance that they'd stop fighting with each other and despoiling the continent in the process. Economic cooperation was not the original aim of the EU; it was a means to an end, just one more way to make sure that France and Germany would be hurting themselves if they hurt the other.
The EU today is not so much a vehicle of peace as a device for making war by other means. Brussels issues edicts, but the real battle is over whether the French or the German conception of society will come to dominate a continent that is now being conquered by bureaucrats rather than soldiers. In other words, the fighting hasn't stopped, only the terrain has changed. Smaller countries will join in with the victor (and the vainquished) because their only viable trading partners are these two, the second and third largest economies in the area (Britain was still first the last time I looked, while Ireland was the most productive).
England, however, is not a second-tier country reliant on France or Germany's table scraps for survival; it's an economic powerhouse to which continental money flees if it can't sneak unnoticed into Switzerland or Luxembourg. Money flees to England because it is free - or at least freer - of the onerous regulations, the idiotic micromanagement and the fanciful social planning that provokes delusions of grandeur among an unelected elite in Brussels.
The choice for England is clear: succumb to rule from Belgium - by the French or Germans, depending - or maintain its freedom from the France whose yoke it through off long ago and the Germany that it fought back less than sixty years ago. It would be a shame for the Brits to sign away what they've fought so hard to preserve. The Baroness' arguments should carry the day.
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posted by gbarto at 12:04 PM:
Brava to Lady Thatcher for calling for EU withdrawal. The Turkey Blog will comment a little later today. (via Instapundit)* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:53 AM:
He's baaaaaaack! (via Instapundit)* * *
posted by gbarto at 11:39 AM:
Les Guignols d'info! The Wall Street Journal today fronts French criticism of the Americanization of Vivendi Universal SA chairman Jean-Marie Messier. Their lead anecdote:A satirical puppet show on French TV called "Les Guignols" recently showed a skit of Jean-Marie Messier... in his New York office bantering with a fellow Frenchman. Asked whether he was homesick, Mr. Messier replied in broken French: "Yeah, New York can get you down sometimes. I want to go back home - to Los Angeles."
Americans may know the news puppets from the Genesis video "Land of Confusion," but in France they aren't just entertainment. While I haven't seen recent surveys, when I was in France for a cultural studies seminar on French journalism a few years back the Guignols had higher credibility ratings than most major news broadcasts. And with good reason.
In 1993 - during my first visit to France - the Socialists were routed in parliamentary elections. The Guignols got a good share of the blame, inasmuch as they and Le Canard enchaîné, France's best scandal sheet for politics, were pushing corruption allegations that most of the media had been soft-pedaling. When the former Prime Minister, Pierre Bérégovoy committed suicide in the midst of a scandal over a multi-million dollar interest free loan (not good for a Socialist), the Guignols and Le Canard again received most of the blame. Les Guignols were blasted in press conferences and the odd legislator even argued that "something must be done" about the Guignols and their barbed attacks on public figures.
In 2002, the Guignols are still at it and no one is spared. Jean-Marie Messier may be chairman of Vivendi - owner of Canal +, which produces the Guignols - but that doesn't mean that even he is exempt from their criticism, no doubt further affirming their independence and reminding the French that if you want trustworthy information it's best to scorn the puppets of the ruling elite and listen to some real puppets.
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Sunday, March 17, 2002
posted by gbarto at 7:26 PM:
In confirming the Wilde quote (3 posts down) I found this gem from Borges here:if i had my life to live over, i'd try to make more mistakes next time. i would relax, i would limber up, i would be crazier than i've been on this trip. i know very few things i'd take seriously any more. i'd certainly be less hygenic... i would take more chances, i would take more trips, i would scale more mountains, i would swim more rivers, and i would watch more sunsets... i would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. if i had it to do all over again - but you see, i don't.
Borges said it with the words above; Wilde summarized it thus: Life is too important to be taken seriously.
Men after my own heart.
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posted by gbarto at 7:15 PM:
Our friends, the Saudis. LGF has this note on the Saudis refusal to let us use their bases to attack Iraq. I think it's time to telegraph that the U.S. has agreed with the Saudis on how great Iraq is and that we have therefore given Saddam the greenlight for the "annexation" of Riyadh. Then we'll see how they feel about U.S. troops in the Gulf.* * *
posted by gbarto at 6:25 PM:
Take it away Doc.In which the mighty Dr. Weevil explains to Nick Denton that Republicans are for justice too.
Should anyone care to know, the Turkey Blog also opposes restrictions on textile imports from Pakistan. Jobs for Pakistanis, cool. Cheap clothing for us, even better.
The Turkey Blog is also on record as opposing injustice, even if he votes Republican sometimes.
The Turkey Blog admits freely that people can support or oppose free trade, taxes, even the war, and still be of good faith in their intentions. Will Denton admit the same, or does he have to impugn the integrity of so many of his confreres in the blogging world to make up for being wrong most of the time? (But right on trade, we'll say it again)
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posted by gbarto at 5:36 PM:
An excellent commentary from USS Clueless on how Medicare's unwillingness to pay a fair price is leaving seniors without doctors.A secondary point that Steven doesn't hit is that the rest of us are already paying for this mess.
I come from a small town where once upon a time the doctor charged those he knew to be poor a lot less than his regular fees. No government program or anything. Then they tightened Medicare and Medicaid regulations and he stopped. It was during an economic downturn, our local factories had laid off a lot of people, and the doctor, trying to help out, was letting a lot of people out the door with payments of five and ten dollars, just enough that they wouldn't have to think of themselves as charity cases. He got audited for billing Medicaid more per procedure than he charged paying customers.
After that, he showed the people how to get Medicaid. Problem solved for those who qualified. Too bad for those on the edge. And too bad for a nice old country doctor who didn't need a government program to be encouraged to help those in need.
Today, a big part of your hospital bill is determined by how much extra they'll have to charge to recoup losses on Medicare/Medicaid patients. Between making up losses and covering the costs of observing regulations that are tighter for government-sponsored patients than the ordinary schmo with his own insurance, the doctors and hospitals often have had to raise rates on the rest of us for years. Which leads to a secondary question. What does this mean for the pols who think selling Medicaid policies for a reduced rate is the key to helping the uninsured?
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posted by gbarto at 5:03 PM:
From Electrolite:"They lied to you. The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came."
(--Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose)
Shall we call this the dark side of being too much of a thinker? And from a great book, too.
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posted by gbarto at 4:52 PM:
Interesting piece on faith, miracles and divine interventions from Benjamin Kepple.* * *
posted by gbarto at 4:02 PM:
Mind over What Matters had this general essay on thinkers versus feelers. The Turkey Blog asks, "Since when did we have to choose between heart and head?"Zilber divides the world into thinkers and feelers, but in so doing he oversimplifies and misses the mark on one point:
Thinkers will dabble in "touchy-feely" activities -- not to enjoy them, but to try to understand why they are so compelling to their opposites -- or at least to keep their Feeler spouses happy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in this quote Zilber places himself in a superior position with regard to others. The last time I checked, this was pride, an oh so human failing. This brings to mind a thought from Robert Heinlein:
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.
Altruism is the feeler's self-deception. He thinks himself good, caring and just and fancies his motivations unimpeachable. We know this is ridiculous.
But the thinker is no better. Rationality is the thinker's self-deception. He thinks himself thoughtful, wise and detached, and fancies his thinking unclouded. He thinks that he responds to reason alone, as though we could burst from our frail human forms to become something we are not - and should not be. Any truly rational person would know better.
The wisest of the wise recognize that we have both heart and head, that both of them help and constrain us, and that we would do best to figure out what each is for so that we might make the best use of it. An awareness of human frailties allows us to delight in our humanity - if you need to "play along" with touchy-feely activities, you'd best get in touch with your insecurities about being thought anything other than a thinker. An appreciation of human frailties allows us to savor the emotions brought forth by tragedy - and then to expunge them in the future. Allows us to know life's pleasures and share and re-create them.
At bottom, the heart lets us know joy, happiness, angst, sadness. It lets us see the part of life that defies equations. But it is also there so that when our frail minds see something on the drawing board that we can't disprove, we'll still know whether it's right or wrong, good or evil.
At bottom, the mind is the heart's servant. It helps us chart a course to the things that bring happiness and joy, while avoiding the things that cause angst and sadness. After all, what's the good of knowing you're right if you still feel miserable? The only good, of course, is satisfaction, which puts the brain right back in service of the heart. The mind is also there so that when we get too worked up over something, we can realize that we're going overboard (though this is also to avoid the unhappy emotions that come with the consequences of overacting).
Heart and mind are the two essences of humanity. Shut off either system and you have a less than complete human - either an overwrought imbecile or - to use Wilde's phrase - someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. So don't disdain feeling. Feel it. Savor it. Enjoy it. But be smart about it.
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posted by gbarto at 3:05 PM:
Speaking of Natalie, she recommends a look at Mind over What Matters, specifically this piece and this one. Be sure to read her excellent response to both posts. Below, the Turkey Blog's comments:Since the Turkey Blog has shown itself to be rabidly pro-Israel and at times just a bit obssessive about the Israel question, we'll start there.
The Turkey Blog was deeply disturbed, not to say apoplectic, when Bush failed to take a solid stand in Israel's favor the other day. However, I don't think Bush was being a feeler rather than a thinker when he made his statements. Sullivan, quoted in the piece, is more on the mark in asserting that the move "had James Baker written all over it," though he's still not all the way there.
Before we get to Bush, let's rip James Baker so we have our contrast in place. Baker is widely remembered for helping assemble the Gulf War coalition. He should be remembered for the U.S.'s idiotic diplomatic missteps, which let Iraq think that the hullaballoo that followed the Kuwaiti invasion wasn't going to ensue. Specifically, Baker conveyed, through April Glaspie, that the U.S. had no immediate interest in the Kuwait-Iraq border. One can see him hitching up his britches and thinking, "hee hee, I'm callin' the shots with the big boys now!" Baker confused realpolitik - acting pragmatically for your interests, even if doing so makes you seem heartless, callous or unprincipled - with being a tough guy - doing something that makes you seem heartless, callous or unprincipled so you can impress yourself or others with your power. Baker is much more all-hat, no-cattle than Bush.
Bush, like his old man, is frustrated that the Israel question is mucking up his plans for the Middle East. But I don't think he is showing callous indifference - which Bush I surely showed - so much as he is wishing that Israel would make it easier for him to make its case. Like Baker, Bush is saying things he really shouldn't in a tough guy manner. And sometimes he's saying the wrong things in an effort to drive events. But he isn't doing so to show that he's tough; he's doing so in order to effect a situation on the ground where he can maneuver more comfortably.
What happened this morning gives a scenario more in line with what the administration is comfortable with - Israel pulling back and Arafat failing to prevent violence - because it makes it harder to pose moral equivalency. This morning's events cast the Palestinian cause in a distinctly different light from the beleaguered people we hear so much about. In this different light - as agressors - they've made it easier for the U.S. to go to skeptics in Europe and elsewhere and reasonably ask what Israel is supposed to do. Considering that the U.S. is acting in a manner not unsimilar to Israel's - and with a much smaller threat to its continued existence - Bush should know better than to lay demands on Israel. But I don't think his statements show callous indifference to Israel or that Bush is crying for the Palestinians. Instead, they show that he is trying to think of a way to smoothe Israel's course without messing up our own. If only he'd picked a better way.
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posted by gbarto at 2:32 PM:
TurkeyBlog offers heartfelt thanks to Natalie Solent for linking him and reaffirms his recommendation for her blog.* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:15 PM:
Instapundit is at once snide and on the mark in this posting. The fact of the matter is that in dealing with mental illness, even the pros don't really know what to do with certain situations. The reader, I think, explained it well. But it's true that those on the outside can't get past a million contradictions that are simple facts of life for the mentally ill, whether they make sense or not.I would say of Russel Yates that he should have done more, should have been more alert to what was happening. But between society's reaction to mental illness and the helplessness that comes in trying to reason or act reasonably with respect to someone for whom reason is, at the moment, abstract to unreal is not an easy challenge to meet.
In the murkier area of borderline personality disorder, there has emerged a diagnosis of non-borderline personality disorder. The somewhat misleading name refers to a condition whereby you manifest the symptoms of BP not because you have it but from the trauma of dealing with someone who does and getting sucked into the mindset. It seems to me that a similar phenomenon could happen with other mental illnesses: Dealing with a depressive leaves you so depressed you take on the same attitudes; dealing with somebody given to sudden mood shifts leaves you on edge too, etc. It seems to me that this probably happened to Russel Yates.
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posted by gbarto at 2:02 PM:
On the Fox News special on the Yates' case last night, they brought Susan Smith into the discussion. Smith, you'll recall, reported that she had been carjacked and her children were gone. As it turned out, she had pushed her car into a lake and watched them drown.Smith, like Yates, got life, not the death penalty, and again one of the reasons was mental trauma. In Smith's case, she had been molested by her stepfather, which was quite a shocking revelation since he wasn't even a priest.
I only bring this up because, as the USS Clueless has noted, some on the right have been trying to link pedophilia and homosexuality and this would seem to indicate that it ain't so.
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posted by gbarto at 1:53 PM:
Pakistan has shown itself to be a strong supporter of the U.S., and its role in helping with the war on terrorism must be saluted. However, given the extremism through much of the Arab world, it was not able to prevent an attack on a church which killed five, including two Americans.For those wringing their hands over whether the West is properly appreciating or respecting these other societies, remember this: They're killing us when and where they can. Acting all Fisky isn't go to stop that. Only concrete action to deal with those who would kill us will.
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posted by gbarto at 1:41 PM:
From the hopes of yesterday to violence today.A Palestinian official says that the weakening of Arafat's apparatus has reduced the Palestinians' motivation to end the bloodshed. On the other side, the spate of suicide bombing has reduced Israel's interest in finding peace.
I may be misreading, but it sounds like the Palestinians are indicating they can't control the violence - including, apparently, violence by groups directly tied to Arafat's security forces. This makes the proposed peace deal what? Land for nothing?
The problem in Israel is not that they have encroached on the West Bank. It is that the majority of Israel's neighbors do not believe it has a right to exist, as Saudi backtracking last week further reinforces.
The U.S. needs to realize that supporting Israel, not undercutting it, is the only way to truly expand our reach in the region. Unless we defend Israel's right to exist, the other Arab states will know that funding the Wahabi, menacing Israel and being a problem for the United States is the best way to deal with us. The message must be sent loud and clear that the U.S. is not involved in the Middle East so that the Saudis and others have someone who can kowtow to them, but so that we can advance our interests. Telling the Saudis and others to take a hike, because we're not changing our approach to Israel, would send that message loud and clear.
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