Sometimes not quite daily!
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/365402.html
Where do you draw the line on monopolies? Obviously the goal of any company is to be sued by the US government for being a monopoly, a sure sign that you have suceeeded in dominating the marketplace for whatever you are selling. What about a company like Google? The vast majority of US internet users use Google for their searching needs. Because of this, if a company ticks Google off, they can move the company's website lower in the Google rankings, so that if you look up peach cobbler makers, Peach Cobbler Inc. might show up on the 2nd page of listings instead of the first where they were previously. Google, of course, is run by two guys who try to avoid anything resembling "evil," a word they throw around in almost every interview. But let's say we get to the point where 95% of all web users use Google. Then you have one comapny that thinks it's ranking is too low and is affecting their sales. So they sue Google, saying it's a monopoly. Then the government steps in and says Google has to stop being a monopoly. How do they do that? Run commercials that say "we know we're the best by far for searching the internet, but would have of you stop using our site, please?" Or maybe Google would be broken up. Then, you have to choose between Google South and Google North. Enough rambling. Go Jackets!!!! What's the good word? To hell with Georgia! What do we do with 'em? Piss on 'em!
Do you know what sharia law is? That's the strict interpretation of the Qu'Ran that the extremist Islamists follow. You know the type, they blow up innocents? Anyway, sharia law states that there are only three things you can do with an infidel (that's anyone who does not have the same beliefs, which for these people includes more moderate Muslims as well). You can convert them, you can allow them to live as 2nd class citizens (the rules for which are not suitable for what you and I would consider decent living), or you can kill them. WHere does that put you, me, and most of America and the western world? Dead! What I'm trying to get across is that this isn't about economic sanctions, it's not about Palestine. Bin Laden and his ilk are out to make the world an Islamic paradise. It doesn't matter what concessions are given, it doesn't matter if we blow the crap out of them, they aren't going to stop any time soon.
Salaam Pax, famous Iraqi blogger now living in London, wrote a letter to Bush that was published in The Guardian. James Lileks, another well known blogger, responded with a somewhat hostile entry that started with Fuck you! Then the fun began. Blogger after blogger linked up with their own responses, creating a chain that took me up and down the blogosphere, though most seemed to be of a similar flavor to Insta-pundit politics. Either way it was fun, and educational. Most of my readers have probably not heard of these bloggers, but they are read by tens of thousands of people daily, and that number is growing. Are they really important? Not yet, but some of them will be, and events like this are great at illuminating their personalities, politics, and favor towards each other in a way you don't usual get in normal day to day blogging.
Think 2303. You're a historian looking back ont he 20th and 21st centuries. What happened in 2003? Was the fabled "War on Terrorism" the last act in the great wars of humanity? Did it truly end the conflicts began by the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in 191x?
It's that time of year. The 40th anniversery of the assasination of JFK. Did you know that JFK lost the popular vote? That means he didn't have 50%, nor did he have more votes than any other candidate. But he won the electoral college. So the next time some jerk starts talking about how Bush is not a real President because he didn't win the popular vote, ask them why anyone gives a damn about Kennedy. After all, he wasn't a real President either.
The National Book Awards were given out yesterday, with Shirley Hazzard given the award for best fiction novel. Stephen King was awarded and honorary National Book Award for his contributions to American literature. This was followed by a snide remark (which I cannot find, though I know I read it somewhere this morning) from Ms. Hazzard, deriding King for being popular. This is another shot in the war between snobby academic literary types, and people that write books that others actually want to read. To some you cannot be taken seriously if more than critics and three others read your book. I applaud King for his speech in which he said he has no use for those that refuse to respect such authors as himself, Tom Clancy, John Grisham, etc. Granted, I'm not a big Grisham fan, and I find Clancy to be both entertaining and a horrible writer, but to me King's book, especially his Dark Tower series, are the height of literature. He uses pop sulture references, ancient myths and legends, and his own catalogue of works to create an epic story of good versus evil. He's a good writer, with a great sense of style and grammer, and an imagination to challenge the best that have ever lived.
This article, illustrating the points Bush made in his trip to Britain, does a fantastic job describing the differences between the thought of your typical American like myself, and the leftists in Europe. Hopefully I'll be able to find a transcription of Bush's speeches so I can perform my own analysis.
It seems that in Britain, depsite the daily reports of protestors against Bush being out in force, polls indicate a 62% level of support for Bush. The most interesting point to me is that the age group that is most supportive of Bush is the 18-30 range. The least supportive? 65 and over. That kind of surprises me. You would think that the older folk would remember the U.S. saving their butts in WWII, and would support action against an evil and bloody dictator like Saddam.
The United Nations doesn't think that the children of Israel deserve any sort of protection from terrorists. A once great institution has become the tool of the Arab Middle East.
Did you know that a lot of "anti-war" groups espouse violence? One has even gone so far as to ask for donations to send to Baathists in Iraq, saying that they don't know what these funds will be used for, but if its for arms, so be it. How is that in any way anti-war? That's pro-war, or perhaps just pro-violence, but certainly not anti-war. Alot of other "anti-war" demonstrators admit to hoping for a long, horrid guerilla war with lots of casualties. This hypocrisy is so disgusting I find it hard to imagine even the liberally-biased media gives any credence to many of these groups. One of the worst is called ANSWER. This group has a record of hypocrisy, yet attracts a somewhat mainstream group of housewives and students to their protests. Look it up. The list of items on its agenda of support are sickening. The fact is, most of these groups are not anti-war at all. They are anti-Bush, and in some cases, anti-American. For them war is only bad when it represents the interests of a free, capitalist society. If someone started a war against the U.S., you would see their true colors come out.
The industry I work in has been going through a lot of historically unique changes recently. Because of the mortgage boom of the last year or so, everyone hired hired hired to meet demand. Even so, back in June and July it seemed like there just weren't enough people, everything got slower, and it was a real pain in the ass. Now the industry ahs slowed down significantly, and, though I should be expecting it, I get very sad whenever I hear of an associate at a company I do business with being laid off. One company bought an underwriting center lsat year, reneamed it, retrained all the people to their guidelines, and did a pretty good job with it for a while. Now they are closing the center and laying off all those people. I just heard someone on the phone with an account executive at one fo the lenders we deal with. Apparantely he's going to be terminated very soon if he doesn't bring in more business, so he was basically calling around and begging. It seems so desperate, and I feel really bad for the guy. I hope I'm not next.
What's up with the silly Europeans? Bush makes a visit to England, and suddenly being part of a protest becoems the social event of the season. The really sad part? All these protesters know, deep down inside, that when it really comes down to it, if the shit hits the fan, a strong and determined United States is the best hope of the world. Let's say CHina decides to take over Asia and Europe. Next thing you know, you'll have the UN, NATO, the EU, and everyone else come crawling to Bush, begging for help. Why? Because whatever else they think about the US, we are the only country that could stand up to China, or anyone else for that matter. And because these people also know, deep down in their hearts, that the US stands for good and for freedom, and that we'll protect the world with everything we have, whereas a country like France, even if they still had a strong military, would fold like the Falcons in the 4th quarter. The foriegn minister of Portugal, asked why his country was supporting our Iraq efforts, responded with something like, 'Because we know the US would defend us against agressors. We don't know that about any of our European brethren.
Arab extremists have a strange way of doing things. They figure out who their enemies are, and they attack, attack, attack, trying to defeat the bad guys. We in the United States, however, have a much more enlightened way of dealing with our enemies. We start looking for reason within our selves why we were attacked. If someone wants to kill us, they should go ahead and do it, because we deserve it. In the US, the only way to win is to let your enemy defeat you. There are no victims. Everyone deserves it. Everyone except the people who do the killing. They should be lionized, as all their actions are completely moral and without compromise.
Perhaps you heard about the police drug raid at Goose Creek High School in South Carolina? This is the on where officers came in with guns drawn, dumped the contents of book bags on the ground, handcuffed students for no particular reason, and, in the end, found absolutely nothing. I find it all completely offensive. Having a school resource officer, essentially a cop who sucks too much to acutually deal with crime, is one thing, even metal dectectors are, shamefully, acceptable to me, but these random raids, which the school system said they have two or three times a year, are ridiculous. Since when is a school's job law enforcement? If there is actual evidence of a high school drug ring, then the police should take care of it like they would if the offenders were adults. Get the suspects, ask some questions (with, mind you, lawyers present if the student wants one), and try to figure out the truth. Ruining an entire day of school, and scaring students half to death, is a waste of taxpayer's money. The kids could actually have been learning, what some historians says was the original purpose of public school, and the cops could have been going after real criminals. You know the type, right? Rapists, murderers, rabble-rousers like Al Sharpton (didja hear about the riot he started outside a Jewish owned business a few years ago which resulted in the business burning down, and a few peoiple dying? Yeah, great civil rights leader there. Try googling Freddie's, Al, and Sharpton to get the scoop on that bastard). At any rate, I'm glad my public high school, North Springs High School, was, and still remains, an excellent place to learn for those who choose to.
http://andrewsullivan.com/
http://www.msnbc.com/news/856672.asp?cp1=1
AT&T sucks! I had paid $1.99/month for insurance on my phone. It broke through my own stupid actions, and when I called to get a new phone I was told that only the $3.99/month plan would have covered my loss. That's all well and good, but I was never offered a $3.99 plan. I remember asking the guy, "Do you have insurance so that when I do something stupid I can get a new phone?" He said they did, and signed me up for the $1.99 plan. Anyway, I can't get a new phone without paying FULL price, which, as you may know, is typically over $150 for a decent phone. Why is it that a new customer can get a $300 phone for free, but a long time loyal customer just gets screwed? I'm thinking about paying to break my contract and then getting a free kickass phone from Verizon or T-Mobile or something. I need to find out which services have good customer service, because I'm tired of dealing with AT&T no-service.
http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/031109_zader_vodkapundit.php
Sandra Day O'Conner, widely considered one of the most influential of our Supreme Court justices, recently said that it's important for our judicial system to be influenced by the decisions and attitudes of foreign courts. It scares the hell out of me to hear a judge of the highest court of OUR land saying such things. In what part of our history has it mattered what other countries are doing? We've been the engine driving the world economically, technologically, miliatarily, legally, and culturally for much of the last two centuries, all because we did things our way, withoout regard to what the rest of the world thought was best, or held as customary. If we'd ignored our own ideas and logic, how different would the world be today? I couldn't say exactly, but I'd be willing to bet the Europeans would still be warring against one another and dragging the rest of the world to hell with them. The internet wouldn't be here, and who knws what else?
I just read an interesting discussion on the current unemployment problem in the US. Turns out that, while unemployment rates have risen in the US since Bush took office, the total number of people employed has also gone up, which contributes a great deal to the first stat. There are a number of ways you could explain this away. More families are needed two wage earners to survive, more retired people are looking for work because their social security hasn't panned out the way they thought it would, more people are just getting out of college and looking for jobs, etc. A lot of that can be laid at the feet of the entitlement and tax people. Higher taxes means you have to earn more to live, thus the need for two wage earners. Social security is a symbol the left's need to take away people's decision making ability. Government planned retirement, a system that most economists agree is going to cause a lot of problems when the baby boomers hit 64. At any rate, all of this looks really good for Bush, because you can't blame him when the total number of jobs has gone up, and unemployment rates are due to factors beyond his control. I believe in Milton Friedman economics, where you leave people as much room to make their own decisions as possible, you give a lasseiz faire attitude toward business, and basically you let the market drive itself. I think the tax cuts nd the resulting surge in growth are testaments to these ideas, and hopefully soon the evidence will be so overwhelming that even Democrats will have to sit down and shut up on the economy.
For years I've been saying that I'm not going to worry about my chloresterol level too much, because by the time it matters, they'll probably have draino for veins. Turns out I might be right.
I saw an article explaining the results of a survey that ABC did among Iraqis across the breadth of that country, and covering a wide range topics. One item that I found particularly interesting is the conclusion that many Iraqis believe in democracy, but few feel their country is ready for democracy. What exactly has to happen for a country to be "ready" for democracy? Do a lot more people have to be killed by tyrannical leaders? Perhaps a country is only ready for democracy when they overthrow the rule of an overseas king who taxes their tea too much? Maybe a group has to waner the world and be hate and opressed for thousands of years before having half their population killed by a fascist dictator before they are ready for democracy? It is very disturbing to me that anybody anywhere could actually say they don't think they are ready for self-determination. It's such a liberal, and illogical, mindset that I have to feel the Iraqis who said such things were led that way by their interviewers.
Big daddy, the boss of us all, the one being that everyone, be they President, Ayattolah, King or Queen, must bow down to, is mad, and we don't know why. Sol, our sun, the source of everything we hold dear, is shooting solar energy at us in big flares. Why is he/she so mad? I bet the Democrats blame it on the tax cuts.
If the Democrats really had the best interests of the United States and the world in mind, they could have attached to the $87 billion for Iraq another few billion to be used exclusively for finding new and viable sources of energy for ours and other energy-greedy products of the industrial age. I don't think this war could be avoided, or should have been avoided, in the current state of the world, but I do think that getting the United States off its middle east oil dependency could go a long way to creating a lasting peace in the area. Look at it this way: No more billions in oil sales, and Saddam, for instance, would not have had the money to pay his lackeys and probably would not have been able to control as much as he did. No more oil billions, and the tyrannical leaders of the region lose a lot of leverage. You would no longer have countries like France trying to play both sides, attempting to look good to the world and keep their oil contracts at the same time. I truly feel this oil dependence hamstrongs both our efforts at world peace our ability to expand the human race into the universe. Not that space shuttles and the like run on regular unleaded, but the transports that carry building materials to whever they build space vehicles use oil. The people that drive to work use oil, and the very fact that there is so much disunity in the world due to oil distracts anyone from a true effort at colonization. So let's take a page from John Gault and find a new source of portable energy to use. Gault, by the way, was one of the men of productivity in Atlas Shrugged, and he discovered a method of taking the ambient energy floating all around us all the time and turning into useable energy.
I was reading about Zell Miller's recent announcement of support for President Bush, and the mixed feelings overwhelmed me. While I am glad to hear him show some sense and support a politician who actually seems to want to do something, I also felt that loyalty is important, and it shows a lack of integrity to do what Zell did. More reading led me to a different conclusion.
I suppose I'm becoming relatively sure that Saddam did not have vast stockpiles of WMD's. He probably had some somewhere, and he certainly had the programs ready to go if he needed some, but it looks like the fear of war may ahve caused him to detroy a lot fo what he had. He apparantely made even his generals think he had them, I suppose to keep them under control, and keep their optimism under control. The question is, does it matter? He was and still is an evil man. He was murdering his own countrymen by the tens of thousands. He needed to be stopped, and he was definitely in defiance of UN resolution after resolution. You can't sit idly by while a country ignores the rest of the world, because that will convince other countries to do the same. So I am glad, WMD or not, that we took out his regime. Watching our soldiers get killed day after day is very disturbing, but I think a lot more people are murdered each day in our own country on their way to get groceries. I'm not trying to be blase, I'm just saying that the possible payback, an Arab run democracy smack in the middle of the world's powder keg, could be a very good thing in the long run. Now if only the rest of the world would stop blaming Israel for everything that goes wrong.
"You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely "anti-Zionist." And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth; when people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews--this is God's own truth."
I work,I play. My aim is to make that something like a 1:10 ratio. Lots more play, much less work!
