For or against, just tell us the truth
Ann nails the Demos yet again on their two-faced approach to war with Saddam:
"After voting in favor of the war with Iraq right before the November elections, Sen. Hillary Clinton never had another kind word to say for the war. Just a few weeks ago, Sen. Clinton gave an interview on Irish TV in which she said she opposed precipitous action against Iraq. She said Bush should give the U.N. weapons inspectors more time. "Hillary did not object to precipitous action against Iraq when her husband bombed it on the day of his scheduled impeachment. President Clinton attacked Saddam Hussein without first asking approval from the United Nations, the U.S. Congress or even France. But now we have a president who wants to attack Iraq for purposes of national security rather than his own personal interests, and Hillary thinks he's being rash. President Bush has gotten a war resolution from Congress, yet another U.N. Security Council resolution, and we've been talking about this war for 14 months. But he's being precipitous. "When Clinton bombed Iraq to delay his impeachment, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was ablaze with war fever. Daschle said: 'This is a time to send Saddam Hussein as clear a message as we know how to send that we will not tolerate the broken promises and the tremendous acceleration of development of weapons that we've seen time and time again in Iraq.' Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said of the impeachment bombing: 'Month after month, we have given Iraq chance after chance to move from confrontation to cooperation, and we have explored and exhausted every diplomatic action. We will see now whether force can persuade Iraq's misguided leaders to reverse course and to accept at long last the need to abide by the rule of law and the will of the world.' "Now here we are, more than four years later, Saddam still hasn't complied with U.N. resolutions, and America has been attacked by Islamic crazies--and these same Democrats think Bush is acting impulsively. Democrats are always hawks in the off-season. They're all for war, provided it has nothing to do with America's security."
Look at my incredibly massive ego!
Jerry Jerk, er, Jones, has released the NFL's all-time leading rusher from the Dallas Cowboys. Players take note: this is how Jerry rewards your (well-paid) service to his organization. After 13 years, 3 Super Bowl wins, and the rushing title, Emmitt is now out in the cold. The only reason Jones kept Smith around for the 2002 season was so Number 22 would break the league rushing record in a Cowboys uniform; again, glorification for Jones' ego. In case you haven't guessed, I'm not a Cowboys fan, and have not been since we moved to Dallas. I remain, however, an Emmitt Smith fan, and I hope he gets what he wants: a shot at another Super Bowl as a team's number-one back. Everyone in Dallas will be in tears that Jerry let Emmitt go, but they'll spin it as simply a financial matter, that Smith is costing the team too much money. Jerry has long hinted that he doesn't think Emmitt has what it takes any more to be a number-one running back. Gee, Jerry, maybe if Emmitt had an offensive line that could block elderly grandmothers, much less Pro Bowl linebackers, that would've helped the past three seasons. And a quarterback that could throw accurately and consistently wouldn't hurt either.
This is just wrong
You know, go ahead and protest potential war with Saddam Hussein's regime. But when you take it out on little kids just because their parents are in the National Guard, you're stepping over the line. Further comment withheld due to incensed author.
Banana Junior 6000
Tech gear lust can begin at an early age. For me, in 1985, I wanted a Banana Junior 6000. (Thanks to Gruber for the link.) My personal favorites are "Fritos," "Toaster Ovens," and "I Think."
P800
More gear lust, this time courtesy of Steven and The Register. With our current mobile contract up in June, I'll be shopping around for the best plan, and a new phone. I've had my sights set on SonyEricsson's T68i, and may still pick that up, depending on P800 pricing in 4 months. Both the T68i and the P800 would allow me to dump my Palm and have just one device. Currently, my mobile is a low-end StarTac.
Good-bye, Mr. Rogers
Beloved children's programming legend Fred Rogers died early this morning at age 74, from stomach cancer. Song composer, puppeteer, Presbyterian minister--Mr. Rogers' love for kids took us all, from 1968 to 2001, into the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Good-bye, Mr. Rogers, and thank you for being a part of my childhood. You were a blast.
tchotchke
Lee was not familiar with the term, so I pointed him to Webster's, which defines it as a noun, Yiddish in entymology etymology, and means "trinket" or "knickknack."
As I told Lee, the word saw a jump into the mainstream during the dot-com glory days, when those companies would give out all kinds of logo-emblazoned crap at trade shows, conventions, expos, and to anyone the marketing people ever came into contact with. Maybe too many tchotchkes is yet another reason why so many of them dot-bombed.
That said, I do appreciate a quality tchotchke, like the metal Apple luggage tag I received from them last year at MWNY.
Don't waste your money
Please don't shell out ten smackers for MacMaid when Erik gives you an AppleScript that'll do the same thing for free.
Monty Python in church?
It's pretty cool when your pastor uses a Monty Python reference in his sermon. In this case, it was the "Department of Redundancy Department." Tim was talking about how the term "born-again Christian" is redundant, since by definition someone who is a Christian is born again through his new faith in Jesus Christ. He threw in the above Python gag as a further example of said redundancy.
Former Star hits 1,000
Former Dallas Star Joe Nieuwendyk, currently with the New Jersey Devils, reached the 1,000-point plateau last night with a goal against Magnificent Mario's Pens in a comeback win for the Devils. Many Stars fans, myself included, were sorry to see Nieuwey go, though we understood Stars management's thinking at the time. Congrats, Joe!
What a great kid
Mark Newhouse's daughter Jordan donated a 14-inch ponytail to Locks for Love on Valentine's Day, and Mark has documented the event in the form of a QuickTime movie:
"Locks of Love is a non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children across the U.S. under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss. "It takes ten to 15 donated ponytails to make one hairpiece because Locks of Love only uses lengths of 10 inches and longer. 80% of donors are children."
Liberal radio talk show hosts?
Ann cracks me up:
"If liberals cared about ideas or knew any facts, they would cease being liberals. Even the audience for the left's government-supported radio network, National Public Radio, has more conservative listeners than liberal listeners. According to a Pew Research Center study released last summer, conservatives consume far more news than liberals--including listening to NPR and watching PBS more than liberals. (As Mickey Kaus said, 'No wonder conservatives are so pissed off.') "Liberalism thrives on ignorance. Their media are 'Lifetime: TV for Women,' NBC's 'The West Wing' and 4 billion 'Law and Order' episodes in which the perp turns out to be a Christian, white male who recites the Second Amendment before disemboweling a poor minority child. "Liberal persuasion consists of the highbrow sneer from self-satisfied snobs ladled out for people with a 40 IQ. This is not an ideology that can withstand several hours a day of caller scrutiny where their goofball notions can be shot down by any truck driver with a cell phone."
I don't know why my wife watches "Law & Order," "NYPD Blue," et al, when she spends half the episode complaining how the cops twist citizens' rights to gather evidence and/or get a confession. No, she's not a criminal attorney, but yes, she is a lawyer and remembers all of this good constitutional stuff from law school. (Thanks, Rick!)
iChat logs
I share Michael's iChat irritation. One of the things I love about Fire is that I can drag a log file onto BBEdit and have it open up in the text editor. iChat logs have to open in iChat, presumably so you can see the pretty word balloons. The solution, obviously, would be the ability to open my iChat chat log in BBEdit and read it in plain text glory, or open it in iChat and get it with the balloons. From a UI perspective, I prefer iChat over Fire, since most everyone I know uses AIM. Two friends stubbornly cling to MSN (Hi, Wil!). I have accounts with ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo! Messenger, but with the aforementioned MSN exceptions, everyone I know on the other services also uses AIM, so iChat it is.
Cool new PDF trick
Michael notes Bill Bumgarner's example on using Mac OS X 10.2.4's new PDF Workflow feature. I tried out Bill's example, since it plays into my own web reading habits, and it's wicked cool. Bill also says:
"But PDF Workflow is even more flexible than that. It isn't limited to just saving PDF. You can also drop scripts, apps, filters, and other mechanisms into the PDF Services folder. That'd be the Workflow part of the whole thing."
Doing the right thing, rather than the "popular" thing
Doing the right thing is oftentimes not the easy thing to do. With regard to Saddam Hussein, President Bush's course of action is the right thing to do, though it certainly isn't easy. This is counter to the Clinton model of executive leadership, always putting a finger to the wind to test popular opinion. What amazing foresight Winston Churchill had:
"Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling one's pulse and taking one's temperature."
This is why President Bush is also not listening to the "news" media and the peace protestors (whom with, again, I have no problem regarding exercising their right to protest, rather with their reasons). Despite what the "news" media would have you believe, the current peace movement does not reflect the popular will of the American people. Even if it did, that still wouldn't make it right.
"The Founders understood that democracy was important, but if you didn't filter it through a republican system you'd be just as likely to end up with a tyranny of the majority as you would with a healthy society. Don't worry, I won't quote the Federalist Papers, but trust me, it's in there." --Jonah Goldberg
The "news" media and peace protestors would be wise to hearken this advice, as well:
"We do need to remind everybody that tyrants don't respond to any kind of appeasement. Tyrants don't respond to negotiation. Tyrants respond to toughness. And that was true in the 1930s and 1940s when we failed to respond to tyranny, and it is true today." --Condoleezza Rice, U.S. National Security Advisor, over this past weekend
Tyrants don't respond to peace protests and sycophant "news" media in other nations as well. At least not in any way that would make them less of a tyrant.