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Saturday, July 05, 2003
posted by gbarto at 5:21 PM:
Short plug: lyricsstyle.com seems to offer good clean text, easily cut and pasted. If you're looking for lyrics, you know this because google loves it. But just in case you didn't...* * *
posted by gbarto at 5:18 PM:
16 dead at a concert in Moscow after two women blew themselves up. Probably Chechen. Certainly terrorists.7 dead after explosion at graduation ceremony for Iraqi police officers.
Disturbing if it's Chechens for their cause has a certain justice to it. But pursuing it in this manner does not and their cause risks becoming an outlaw cause for the world, not just Russia, if they don't change their approach.
Which leaves the question: Why are still talking to Hamas?
Back tonight.
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posted by gbarto at 1:56 AM:
Natalie Solent notes I was a bit overly optimistic in quipping that while Berlusconi was in trouble for typecasting a German EU deputy as a kapo it was okay to typecast Bush as a cowboy. Notes Natalie, Bush has been caricatured as worse by Europe with nary a peep.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:52 AM:
Common Sense and Wonder offers the Declaration of Independence. But you should really visit the whole site for a top-notch Declaration sourcebook spread over several posts.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:40 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Colonna arrested in Corsica, Transferred to Paris. The Corsican separatist topped most-wanted lists for his murder of a prefect.
Le Figaro: Yvan Colonna arrested in South-Corsica.
Libé: Yvan Colonna, man who meets his downfall.
Ouest-France: Raid Puts End To Life On Lam for Yvan Colonna.
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Friday, July 04, 2003
posted by gbarto at 6:42 PM:
Back later tonight for the French news, etc. Until then,HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!
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posted by gbarto at 6:39 PM:
Liberia's Taylor Agrees to Step DownBut says int'l forces must come first
Curious, huh? We're being slammed as colonialists for being in Iraq and slammed as heartless and or indifferent for not being in Liberia.
Since we're maligned no matter what we do, we may as well do what serves our purposes.
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posted by gbarto at 6:37 PM:
Religion of peace, etc. updateAttack Kills 30 at Pakistan Mosque
Death toll varies, with some reports putting it as high as 47
No definitive info, but it's suspected that this was done by Sunni elements targeting the Shiite minority. Said minority took to the streets to torch or destroy everything in sight.
There's also this:
'We Will Not Surrender'
Al Jazeera airs purported new Saddam audiotape; person claiming to be deposed Iraqi leader says he is alive, well, among Iraqis and promises more attacks on Americans
They may not surrender, but if they attempt enough visibility to actually run the country, they'll be quite thoroughly squashed. The US should drop the business of analyzing the tape and announce that Saddam is dead and/or gone and that even if he's alive, he's too weak to come out of hiding. Progressively nasty taunting should ensue until Saddam's name is mud or Saddam himself is.
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posted by gbarto at 6:31 PM:
Close Call for Sandra Day O'ConnorStage collapses at ceremony, narrowly missing Supreme Court justice
They're portraying this as an accident, but there's a rumor Antonin Scalia was seen peeling off in a rental car minutes afterward.
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posted by gbarto at 1:18 AM:
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!
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posted by gbarto at 1:13 AM:
Den Beste has a lovely essay on animation and the comics.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:41 AM:
Cicero has a good question about the newest muddles emerging from the priest molestation scandal.* * *
posted by gbarto at 12:31 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Middle-East Truce Threatened by Terrorism. Israeli forces killed an Al-Aqsa member and that group says a retaliatory strike is coming in the next 24 hours.
Le Figaro: Berlusconi Renders the Italian Presidency Fragile. Lousy translation, but fully accurate. The story: Italy holds the presidency of the European Union right now but Italian PM Berlusconi's comments about a German deputy being perfect to play head of a Nazi prison camp have left both him and his office greatly diminished.
Libération: Liberty, Equality, Secularism?. The President of the French Republic says that different religions and religious factions must not be allowed to destroy national cohesion and unity.
Ouest-France: Results Day for the Bac. If all our teenagers got back their SATs and ACTs the same day and most felt as though their lives depended on how they did, you'd know about 1/10th of what it means to be a French person on this day, or so I gather from my reading and my time in France alike.
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Thursday, July 03, 2003
posted by gbarto at 6:21 AM:
Escalator Mishap Injures 20Stairs suddenly accelerate after Coors Field Colorado Rockies game
Probably not the best time for the one about the escalator stalling at the mall, leaving 20 blondes stranded.
Any blondes reading this post may be assured that it doesn't refer to you.
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posted by gbarto at 6:18 AM:
This is noted in the French news, but here's an English link for you:Berlusconi's Nazi 'Joke' Falls Flat
'Kapo' comment rips Schroeder
He suggested a certain German deputy would be great playing camp commander in a Nazi war film.
Interestingly, stereotyping is considered acceptable if you're typecasting Bush as a cowboy.
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posted by gbarto at 4:28 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: The Assembly Votes In the Retirement Reform Package. Notwithstanding the fuss, the protests, etc, it passed on first reading.
Also, Silvio Berlusconi Creates Incident At European Parliament. He is prime minister of Italy, which currently heads the EU, and he suggested while visiting that a German deputy of the European Parliament was well-suited for playing the head of a Nazi prison camp in a movie.
Le Figaro: Cold Spell between Rome and Berlin. Berlusconi does say he'll be phoning to talk to Chancellor Schroeder to discuss the thing.
Libération: Europe Does Not Welcome Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO).
Ouest-France: The left offended, Raffarin stoic, as the Retirement Reform Package gets passed despite the left's efforts.
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Wednesday, July 02, 2003
posted by gbarto at 3:39 PM:
Good Cavuto piece on not digging up the dead, specifically JFK Jr. and his wife. I tend to agree. We should have better things to do with our time than fasten on, for example, an ex-president's children, whether living or dead.* * *
posted by gbarto at 3:18 PM:
At Least Four Killed in Fireworks BlastTractor-trailer explodes in fireball at beach park near Fort Myers, Fla.
Explosion Levels Two Del. Homes
About 10 injured in Wilmington blast; crews work to shut off gas, electricity
The second story is terribly sad and we send our sympathies. The first is still under review, as we haven't decided whether to label it "senseless tragedy" or "news of the idiotic." Fireworks, like most things designed to go boom, go boom sooner or later. One prefers that it be later but if they aren't handled properly and under the proper conditions, such a happy state of affairs doesn't always obtain. It is not yet known why the fireworks in the trailer started going off, just that it's hard to stop when something like that starts. Was it a case of careless unloading; was it too hot; or was there an imperfectly made firework just waiting to go bing! The repercussions are serious in any case: one doesn't like to argue one ships a safe product and can't help the potentially negligeant incompetence of the delivery people; nor does one like to claim that they make a great product and deliver it well and the occasional death is the price you pay for an inherently unstable amusement. If it was a defective rocket, however, one must vacillate between horror and gratitude: imagine if the truck had blown in rush hour traffic.
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posted by gbarto at 2:47 PM:
With apologies...The other day I happened to pick up a poetry notebook - a journal of sorts with suggestions on themes, versecraft, etc. It seemed to me just the thing for getting in shape when my writing was going from bad to verse ([drumroll] Thank you, folks. I'll be here all week...) Finding myself altogether too sleepy to achieve anything suggestive of coherence, I felt this morning a perfect opportunity to toss down a few lines. A study of the modern poets, particularly those in English faculties, convinces me this is common practice.
One of the exercises suggests turning to a favorite poem or poet for inspiration and, more importantly, for models to imitate or build upon. The book did not say whether to choose a living poet and risk a defamation lawsuit or pick someone who's gone to the beyond and risk offending the memory of the dead, but since the latter carries smaller risk for incarceration, this was the path I chose.
I apologize for harranguing the noble readers of this humble little blog with bad verse, but in these days of intellectual (and all other sorts!) exhibitionism, those who maintain what we once called me-zines can hardly be called upon to serve as models in restraint when even models of propriety such as Sec. Rumsfeld have their names appear on collections of verse.
What does the poem mean? Nothing. And it isn't a poem. It's verse. The former is the product of an artist, a superior soul who can turn his manifest competence in a craft toward the creation of something beautiful and meaningful in an associated medium. The latter is the result of versecraft - form rather than function. Until I can find a loftier way of saying, "Free markets and democratic capitalism maximize both wealth and social equity while creating the only socio-economic context in which man can be truly free," I shall confine my most deeply felt sentiments to prose. My verse, at this point, goes in the direction the form takes it in much the way a beginning carpenter will make a set of shelves after bunging up what were supposed to be the doors of a curio cabinet. If, therefore, you are offended, or even touched, by the sentiment of the poem, you may trust that you found it in your own heart. But do write and let me know; I'd be most curious.
In any case, I have at least bothered about the versecraft, which is more than you can say about most people who have Masters degrees and do this sort of thing. It's always delightful how they renounce stifling conventions before publishing a grocery list that reminds them of when they went shopping with mother. Milton did the same thing, vis-à-vis rhyme, for the Paradise Lost, but somehow I put more stock by him than the creators of blather like
Potato salad,I am sad to say that there is actually a poem in existence that I am parodying - to the extent such poems can be parodied, anyway. But here's my real effort, and may whatever ghosts afflicted Coleridge forgive it:
hot dog buns,
hot dogs,
hamburgers,
buns for them too...
and so I lead the quiet life of desperation
of the oppressed
in George W. Bush's America
as the Fourth of July approaches
(should I have capitalized that?)
Too Much Coleridge, Not Enough Sleep
or
Delusional Meditations of the Lyrically Challenged
On the morrow I shall seek
A newer Xanadu;
Of caves of Ice I do not speak
But castles carved in morning dew:
What man has wrought can be,
There is no doubt, quite fine.
And yet our industry
Prefers to make things we can see
Since the unseen is divine.
What's the special atom
That makes the dew drop shine?
Where's that special photon
That makes it gleam so fine?
As I one day walked through a field,
I chanced to see a drop of dew
Whose delicate form would not yield
To any tool we could wield
To understand its blue.
So I thought on its azure glimmer,
While the breeze made it to shimmer,
And the blade of grass where it sat began to twitch,
Making both flow through time and space and through light.
The dew drop's blue shifted and in the switch
I espied a rainbow to my delight.
A dew drop on a blade of grass
In this moment I saw there.
The dew was lovely on the blade
As the sunlight on it played
Taking away all my care.
This moment shall I retrieve -
It's joy and majesty -
And nevermore then must I grieve,
But needs must I only believe
In its simple verity.
I will now relate my tale
Will tell a world I have known
And all who hear shall stare, agog,
And wonder, was he in a fog?
These words can't be his own!
Give it the name of God; call it physical law -
A miracle either way sure to inspire awe.
Looking at the rainbow, I closed my eyes, was small,
With my reduced perspective, finally I saw all:
I danced inside a spinning atom
And turned into a probability;
I chatted with lonely photon
On why it chose to be.
And all the world around me
Was sparkling energy.
And no more was there must or should
As I thought on what I'd be;
Everything was simply could
And I knew what I would be!
Roaming round my dew drop,
I saw crystals sparkle as ne'er before;
Watched a proton spin, then stop!
Could this be known to Planck or Bohr?
And till the looming sunlight scattered us,
We of the dew drop danced and sang -
In carefully made routines -
Physical laws? Oh, beans! -
'Tis a lovely dance once you get the hang!
So sing, my friends, a song of glory!
For God made us not with a toss of the dice;
We've all got our parts in this little story
Of dew drops and caverns of ice.
And Life! - Forget not Life!
The world's a living creation!
So no need to feel large or small;
Perspective is nil; all's part of all;
And size a figment of imagination.
The smallest part of the universe
Is a miracle about to unfold;
The biggest part of the universe
Just a story waiting to be told;
And so I feel, though it may seem perverse,
With such a wonder to behold:
I do not want to know the lesson
Of the wonders that I saw,
But just to meld with it, gazing on,
Rapt with wonder and with awe.
post scriptum
... And all who read may say, "Oh dear!"
Or "Goodness me, that's not quite clear!...
"The whole thing's rather steep!"
And yet these lines have truth to tell,
Though I confess it's hidden well,
When one writes poesy in one's sleep!
7/2/2003
* * *
posted by gbarto at 2:00 AM:
Marcus is following up on the Campaign Compatibility test. I think he is on to something when he notes that the test is much better at distinguishing libertarians and conservatives than picking out the socio-con element that separates conservative Republicans from "centrist" Democrats. This clearly represents a place where the test creators bias shape things. But it also provides those who for whatever reason are unsure of Bush to readily locate alternatives. Has the test creator some special design in this?In any event, I found the test interesting, but having corresponded from time to time with Marcus as well as regularly reading his blog, I'll vouch that anything that gives him high compatibility with John Kerry, never mind something less than total disgust at Sharpton, has bugs to be worked out. Do not send him missives addressed to the "Kerry-loving, so-called conservative" or the like, please!
What is interesting, I think, is that we both scored 100% for Bush. It's funny: Clinton spent eight years trying to be all things to all people but Bush has just stumbled into being the last, best (well, okay, only) hope for conservatives and libertarians alike.
* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:43 AM:
Amen! A Dog's Life wonders why Europe is more affronted at Italy leading the EU than Libya leading the UN Human Rights Commission.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:37 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: Polemics between Raffarin and Socialists. Says the conservative (by French standards) Prime Minister, France remains in a sort of "purgatory because there are still socialists..."
Le Figaro: Americans targeted in Iraq.
Libération: The government signs, the strikers persist. And if Raffarin, Fillon and Sarkozy have a brain between them they're readying talking points on how the government tried to accomodate but the unions spoiled everyone's summer holiday to prove their importance.
Ouest-France: Tombées de la nuit in Rennes [, my old stomping grounds,] canceled due to strikes. The bracketed part, of course, wasn't in the original.
* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:25 AM:
Train Falls Off Bridge in IndiaAt least 18 dead after cars fall onto fishmarket and parked taxis below
Wow. Another one where the train was diverted but they just couldn't get it stopped or in a better place to go. And the passengers, trapped in the traincars, knew something was up if not what. Horrible.
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Tuesday, July 01, 2003
posted by gbarto at 12:40 AM:
For the record:Bill Wreaks Havoc on Gulf Coast
Tropical storm knocks out power in at least 200,000 homes and businesses, spins off tornado that injures four; Louisiana declares statewide emergency, shuts floodgates protecting Big Easy
Kinda makes our earthquakes seem not sooooo bad.
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posted by gbarto at 12:35 AM:
French news headlines:Le Monde: M. Aillagon up against anger of strikers. That's the French culture minister, by the way; he remains convinced a happy ending can come.
Le Figaro: The Fifteen (the EU) on the defensive against Berlusconi.
Libé: Europe under threat of Berlusconi.
* * *
Monday, June 30, 2003
posted by gbarto at 2:06 AM:
Hudock's been trolling for good reading at Common Sense and Wonder. I particularly like the linked PJ O'Rourke but the posts above and below also should get a look. And the whole blog.* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:58 AM:
Pretend the red stuff was published Sunday morning about 2 a.m. Blogger's pretending it wasn't published at all as the Blogger Archive Bug persists. Presumably they'll fix it as soon as they're done writing the press releases about the Google purchase not changing Blogger. Indeed not.Why some people shouldn't be allowed to have digital cameras...
Just got one the other day and have posted what are hopefully unusual or interesting pictures of the sky as seen in a ride from San Francisco down to San Jose. They're here at gbarto.com/sfsky. My favorite sits atop this blog and has been named "Moon before mountains."
Den Beste here and here on why biomass will not replace coal or oil in the foreseeable future. Answer: It's a pain to collect, a pain to prepare and has relatively lower energy yield. And it's spread all over the place instead of being concentrated in deposits like oil, natural gas and coal. Question for the day: How much pollution would be created by the transport vehicles shuttling in biomass from all over as opposed to hydrocarbons sent by pipeline or rail along established shipping channels?
If the Ouest-France post below mystifies, they both rhyme with "hitting".
French news headline:
Le Monde: Condoleeza Rice Works For Peace in Palestine. The post below lets you know where that stands.
Ouest-France: Festivals Threatened. Strikers plan to block highways leading to popular tourist destinations, thus minimizing the danger that the faltering system for which they're fighting will be able to generate the resources to survive. There's an expression about one's own soup but I can never decide in these cases if it should start sp- or sh- so I'll let the reader fill it in.
Truce Declaration Delayed
Palestinian militias will not jointly announce a three-month suspension of attacks Sunday as expected due to disagreements over the language of the final declaration
Now, no doubt, the war will be on to see who can come up with the first plausible excuse for why Israel should still go whole hog and why it's Israel's fault Hamas can't bring itself to renounce Jew-slaughter as its favorite sport.
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posted by gbarto at 1:53 AM:
We're really in "All hail blogger mode!" I'm manually reinserting this because idiot blogger has buried it between Saturday night and Sunday morning and put it in the archives for neither. So I guess it's true: Google or no, same old blogger.All hail blogger! This is coming to you from notepad for later posting. If it ends with blogger mentioned alongside foul epithets, you'll know I had to add the html and post manually.
Item:
Calif. Gov. Davis Faces Recall Fight
Democrat's opponents gathering signatures and support for his ousting
I'm really torn on this. On the one hand, I would love to see Gray Davis get the axe. On the other hand... then what? We stand at the same place we were for the 2002 elections. Gray Davis is a governor against whom the case could be made by wilted asparagus. There are rotting artichokes better suited to the office. And yet, the California GOP managed to field a candidate who could not leap these extremely low hurdles.
The elements of the Republican party most jubilant about Gray's troubles now had best check their hubris until they've a victory in hand. While Davis probably would not withstand a recall election, there is still no credible Republican to replace him. The lead GOP challenger is a guy named Issa who also happens to be the one financing the recall effort. Predictably, a hit piece appeared in the Merc'y News and elsewhere suggesting that his enthusiasm for gun rights is matched by excessive enthusiasm for guns and a few run-ins with the law that you'd rather not write home about. While the pieces didn't really draw blood, they constitute 90% of what is known about Issa outside his own district. Up here in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area (I was in SF a few days a week ago) there is chatter about what a cad Davis is but I've yet to hear the name of a single challenger escape anyone's lips in casual conversation.
Truth be told, the GOP would be best served if this issue merely clouded the waters for Democrats. If it gets to a vote, they're going to have to get a plausible candidate and agenda together on short notice and history shows they couldn't even manage it with a couple year's lead time and a fixed date last time out. The problem is that conservatives are fascinated by the idea of a new conservative governor in the Reagan mold but they have no idea what that means. The last election might as well have been called after - in a 24 hour period - the Simon campaign went from supporting health care benefits for gay partners as a reasonable thing that Simon's own company had offered for years to frothing at the mouth against them when the conservatives who had got him the nomination shrieked. The flip from mushy capitulation to moderates to resolute capitulation to conservatives revealed a candidate whose vacuity made Gray Davis look like the picture of constancy and sobriety. Now the conservatives are going to have to decide where they're going. A lot of moderate Republicans are understandably peeved that the conservatives effectively joined worried Davis campaign staffers in sinking the relatively popular LA mayor Richard Riordan and they aren't going to be eager to give the right wing another shot when all they could scrape up last time was Bill Simon, a well-meaning businessman who plainly had no business in the dirty business of a statewide California race. If conservatives don't want to wind up spending some time in the wilderness as punishment for their overreach, they'd best cool it with the recall talk and devote the next two years to fielding a candidate and crafting an agenda satisfactory to more than their own wishful thinking. I am not registered to vote in California. If I were, my signature would appear on a recall petition. But I would sign with an enormous amount of trepidation, for as right as Davis' removal is, unless the GOP leadership shows itself to be immensely more intelligent than it has appeared of late it may simply serve as the set-up for a Democrat campaign against a GOP whose sole idea is no Gray Davis at any cost. Such an approach is as bankrupt as the anyone-but-Bush campaign run by far left Democrats on the national level and just as apt to fail.
* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:35 AM:
I see that for all their wizardry, the fine folks at blogger still can't decide whether to exclude early Sunday morning posts from the next week's archives or the previous week's. Their solution: drop them from both. I'm trying to manipulate it into reinstating a few.Update: Now it's insisting on trying to publish over and over but is not. If you're reading this, it finally settled down and behaved.
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posted by gbarto at 1:21 AM:
Marcus links a survey to decide what presidential candidate you're most likely to support, presumably so you can follow up with research before voting. Here's the TurkeyBlog scoring:1. Bush, George W. - US President (100%)
2. Libertarian Candidate (98%)
3. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (52%)
4. Lieberman Senator Joe CT - Democrat (51%)
5. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (50%)
6. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (48%)
7. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (42%)
8. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH - Democrat (39%)
9. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO - Democrat (34%)
10. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (32%)
11. Graham, Senator Bob, FL - Democrat (13%)
12. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol IL - Democrat (7%)
13. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (-10%)
I suppose it did a pretty good job. But I found it striking how strong an affinity was suggested between Marcus and several prominent Democrats and wonder if the difference rests in my essentially libertarian outlook - for which Bush, notwithstanding his flaws, is the only realistic candidate - versus Marcus' conservative outlook which may view government power in different terms.
* * *
posted by gbarto at 1:01 AM:
French news headlines:Libé: Storm clouds over summer festivals. That's a figurative reference to union threats to interfere or outright blockade them.
In the same vein, Le Figaro: Rotten Summer for Festivals.
Ouest-France: Strikers destabilize festivals.
Le Monde: Israel-Palestine: A conditional truce.
* * *
French Elections, 1st round
Second round special page
Second Round Results Map
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