More fun in Israeli. Palestinian leader Abbas pledged that there would be no more rocket attacks from his terroritory in to Israel. Almost as soon as he said this, there were rocket attacks from his territory into Israel. Israel responded with force, as they have every right to do. Abbas says the rockets were shot by groups he has no control over. Presumably there will be anti-Israel protests over these incidents. Despite rocket attacks continuing, Abbas made a pledge, and thus the Israelis should ignore any further rocket attacks and lives lost because of them.

Uh... No. But I bet a lot of people will feel that way anyway. The double standards in the Middle East are all about think-speak, just like in 1984. They control the wording, and thus the visible morality, even though in a truly moral sense, Israel has done more than enough for the Palestinians and ought to bomb them into the stone age for their ingratitude.

This is third hand with absolutely no evidence to back it up, but it's kinda funny. Anyway, the deal is that the New York Times had some story where they basically made fun of scientists from the early 80's who had been warning that the planet would be completely deforested within 20 years. This was a widely held theory in which people who disagreed were blasted. Much like the global warming theories. I'm not saying global warming is wrong, but just that it's funny that the New York Times can bash theories from 20 years ago which they were completely behind at the time, and then completely support similarly unproven theories today. Maybe the deforestation thing should have taught them to be a little more skeptical when scientists say something will be some way years in the future.

Well holy crap! Read this article and prepare to be ticked off. To sum up, the MPAA, one of the groups behind the RIAA suits against people for sharing files online (the group that is suing grandmothers who don't even know how to use their computers, much less share files) has a wonderful new idea. They want to define home theatres as anything with an over 29" TV as a "Home Theatre" and require a $50 license fee for any movies shown on said system. Their logic is that when we rent movies, we rent them for ourselves, and should have to pay them extra money if friends see the movie as well.

Ain't gonna happen unless Congress sells out the American people yet again.

My earlier mention of bad reporting from the AP was hte impetus for some interesting blogger debate. We've seen incfreasing use of "anonymous sources" for major news stories, as well as stories that turn out to be fiction, or at least severely stretching the truth. Has the media always been this cavalier about the truth, and we are only discovering now that we have millions of fact checkers typing away at home and trying to get to the truth, or has the media just gotten a lot less ethical in recent years?

And what to do about it? The news media has little incentive to clean up their act. If the average person realizes that the Emperor has no clothes, despite what the media is telling them, they will laugh at the Emperor. So it is in the media's best interest not to have people delve too far in to their practices. As long as people are willing to believe them, the AP can make up any lies it wants, use any source, no matter how dubious, and keep peddling their opinions couched as fact to the world.

A lot of bloggers are having a debate over the future of Europe. Some feel the continent has been castrated and will eventually be taken over Muslim immigrants and fall under sharia law. Others remind us that this is the continent that brought us such wonders as pogroms, the Holocaust, and lots of other fun stuff, and that eventually some straw will break the camel's back, and there's gonna be a lot of dead non-Europeans in Europe. Who knows.... But it is important to remember that these peace-loving, welfare state, US bashing people are descended from nations that have caused the world much of its suffering over of the past millenium or so. And there's no reason they won't do so again.

More fun with the Associated Press. They've had several stories in which they atributed information to a Captain Jamil Hussein, including a very recent one which made international headlines. This particular story told of 6 Sunnis being dragged from a Mosque and burned alive on the street by Shiites. No one else has colaborated Hussein's story, but the AP ran with it anyway. Now the Iraqi government is claiming that no such person as Jamil Hussein exists as police captain, or as policeman at all.

Sounds like the AP is being strung along by the enemies of peace. How very typical. You'd think, as suspicious as the AP is of anything coming from the U.S. government, that they would be suspicious of things that come from some random Iraqi dude.

The details are still unclear, but six Imams were taken off a plane, I think in Minneapolis, and the usual suspects are protesting with the typical canards like "Flying while Muslim." But here's the thing, this wasn't just 6 Imams, this was six Muslims going out of their way to be as suspicious as possible. They asked for ticket upgrades so that they would be spread out over the plane. They loudly praised Allah and prayed while going through security, and somehow two of them ended up sitting in first class despite being denied upgrades. They chose seats which put them in similar spots to the 9/11 bombers. And so they got taken off the flight.

Good for the airline. I don't care if these people weren't going to bomb anything. In fact they were probably trying to make a point about profiling, and they did. Now I know that profiling is the way to go.

Georgia Tech lost to Georgia today, in yet another pitiful performance from GT QB Reggie Ball, the true MVP for UGA this day. That Reggie can still play so moronically after starting for four years is mind-boggling; the fact that Coach Gailey has stuck with him perhaps more so. It's not like you couldn't see this coming. Yes, Reggie has some brilliant games, but he's also got the best receiver in the world, and he can barely ever get the ball to the guy. With just an average QB, Matthew Stafford for example, Calvin Johnson would have won the Heisman. A QB that connects one less than half his passes is not a D1 QB.

I can't put the blame on the defense, they held GA to 15 points. I can't put it on Calvin, because the balls thrown to him weren't catchable. Can't blame running back Tashard Choice, he was rolling all day and should have been used more in the red zone instead of Reggie's patented "close my eyes and throw it in the air and hope Calvin catches it" plays. I could put some blame on the other receiver named Johnson. And on play caller Patrick Nix for bad red zone choices. But most of the blame has to go to Reggie Ball and the man responsible for him, Coach Chan Gailey. This was a 7-5 team that plays in a conference in an off-year and got lucky to be 9-3. With a decent QB, however, you could make that 11-1.

Good news on the Peter Jackson/Lord of the Rings prequel front. Turns out the rights to The Hobbit revert back from New Line to Saul Zaetz (or Zantz, or something like that), and the soon-to-be owner of record says that of course Peter Jackson will be the man behind any such film. The article also mentioned a second Lord of the Rings prequel movie. I can't imagine what they would do. Probably take a line or two from the appendix in the books and turn it in to a movie. Tolkien liked to sum up major world events on Middle Earth to notations on a calendar.

The United States Secretary of Education was on Jeopardy and got her butt kicked by the guy that played Squiggy.

Here's two pieces of news to tick you off. First a 92 year old woman was shot and killed by police in Atlanta when she responded to their raid on her home by shooting. Why did she shoot? Maybe because strange men NOT wearing police uniforms banged on her door and said they were the cops, and then broke the door down. Why in god's name should she have believed them. Assuming she's not really a criminal, she would ahve no reason to expect cops to break down her door, and the only other possibility there is that her life is in danger. As it turns out, she was right. These kinds of raids need to be stopped. It's not just that innocent people get hurt, but that the authorities then apologize for the mistake, don't punish anyone, nothing changes, and it happens again.

The other story is that some Muslim dude in Colorado was just sentenced for having a slave. He said he wasn't doing anything illegal since slavery is all good under Muslim law, despite the fact that he is living in the US under our laws. The Saudi's are really upset, and instead of telling them, "Too bad, we don't allow slavery here," we sent a diplomat over their to appease them. We need to make it clear to the world that the US will follow sharia law about the time the Moon and the Sun take a day off and go visit Jupiter for tea.

Isn't the UN wonderful? I top official from that corrupt and biased organization visited the Israeli city of Sderot, where she was the victim of stone throwers, Israeli workers who are pissed that they have to deal with Palestinian rockets falling on their heads daily, and the UN tells them they have no right defend themselves. Actually what the official said was that they have the right to defend themselves, but not in an illegal manner. No mention of the illegality of randomly launching rockets at Israeli citizens.

Israel ought to give rockets to their citizens in besieged towns like this. Let's see how long the Palestinians keep launching theirs when every one they shoot gets a response with a much more powerful rocket with a better guidance system. Of course the UN will say that is illegal because Jews aren't allowed to defend themselves. They'll couch it in terms like, "Unfair techonological advantage" or somesuch like that.

In these times of cynicism, especially regarding government, it's nice to remember the great things our government has done. I read a nice little column today about one of those things, something that absolutely transformed our country socially and economically, and that's the Eisenhower Interstate System. Can you imagine Atlanta without the downtown connector, 285, and I-20? How would I get to New Orleans to visit friends if not for the interstate system? What Ike signed in to law has become the arteries through which our country's lifeblood flows.

Here's an example of knee-jerk derision. A Knox County, TN comissioner was in his office when a man entered with a gun. He pulled his own gun during the confrontation and chased the guy off. The local alternative paper (that means liberal and anti-gun) bashed him for it, saying it was typical of his bad judgement.

Turns out the bad guy was collared by the cops soon after for the murder he had committed earlier in the day before the confrontation with the comissioner. I think the alternative paper there should apologize for jumping to judgement. If someone had just murdered a person and then shows up in my office, then I'm pretty sure my life is in danger, and I'd be damn glad to have a gun. I don't honestly care what he had done before he shows up in my office, actually. If someone walks in with a gun, I'm gonna do my best to stay alive, and if that means pulling my own weapon, good for me for not laying down and dying. Anti-gun people live in fantasy worlds where every problem can be solved with milk and cookies and a little chat. The real world has never worked like that, and never will until we solve the issue of scarcity.

It's official, movie executives are morons. Due to an accounting error (which, if I remember correctly, was New Line Cinema fudging the numbers to take away $100 million which Peter Jackson should have had coming to him) from The Lord of the Rings movie production, New Line has declared that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will NOT be involved in the movie version of The Hobbit.

And fans all over the world probably agree with me when I say, "Due to New Line Cinema being a bunch of assholes, Ben Skott will NOT be involved in paying money to see the movie version of The Hobbit."

Sorry guys, if Peter Jackson, the man who brought Lord of the Rings to life in a way I never thought possible, is not involved in the film version of the prequel, then I'm not interested. That's just the most retarded move they could have made. No wonder film stars are moving to TV.

I'm not one to say that politicians should never change their minds. Obviously someone to hidebound to admit they were wrong, or to absorb new information and make a new stance based it, is not fit to lead, but at the same time, there are certain things that should remain the same. I say this because I just read that a Republican state representative in Minnesota has announced that he is switching to the Democratic party. The change makes the Democrats the majority in the Minn. State House, whereas the GOP was in charge before. I'm sorry, but if I vote for a candidate who says he is a Republican, then I expect him to remain Republican for the duration of his term in office. If he wants to rerun as a Democrat in the next election, good for him, but if I vote for a Republican, he should stay that way for the remainder of the term or resign his office. This bait and switch crap is simply wrong.

Now that the election is over and the Democrats have won, I have noticed major news outlets which were repviously ignoring the wonderful economy suddenly getting on the bandwagon. Now the economy is awesome, paychecks are rising across the board, etc. Of course all that was happening before the elections, too, but you wouldn't know it from reading the New York Times or watching CNN.

And now I hear more draft talk from Charlie Rangel. Remember all the warnings before the 2004 election, stuff like "If you vote for Bush, you're voting for the draft." Yet somehow everytime someone has brought up official discussion about reinstituting the draft, it's a Democrat.

After one day, what can I say about the Nintendo Wii? One word:

AWESOME!

Nintendo did what they set out to do. They ignored the super-fast hardware that Microsoft and Sony are concentrating on, they eschewed DVD players and HD, and what did they come out with? A system based on fun, and that's exactly what you get. I tired of video game tennis 5 minutes after the first time I ever played, but the Wii makes a simple game exciting again. And the highlight launch game, the new Legend of Zelda.... WOW!

And it's cheap, too. $250 for the system, $100 for two extra games beyond the sports game it comes with, $60 for a second remote/controller setup, and $20 for component cables so I can get 480i instead of the 480i that is standard. Loving it!

For the first time ever, I participated in that greatest of rights of passage for geeks. I waited outside a store in the cold before opening to make sure I got a new console system as soon as it's released. My roommate convinced me to go to Best Buy with him at 5 am, and now he is downstairs setting the Nintendo Wii up on a tv. And I'm tired as hell.

Barnes and Noble has put out a new set of classic hardcovers, for $12.95 each. They have about 20 authors, and each author gets one big ass volume with several novels or collections. I picked up the Jane Austen one, which has seven novels, pretty all her well known ones. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, and three others I've never heard of. I wish I could buy the whole set right now. At only $250 or so, it's a bargain. And for that price, you should sign up for the B&N Preferred Reader program which costs $25, and get you 10% off, leaving you even on the purchase of the whole set.

After many years of putting together the computers I use from cobbled-together parts, or gettng refurbished laptops, I finally got fed up and decided to get one that works all the time, not just some of the time. So dude, I bought a Dell. I ordered it Friday morning, a dual core Inspiron 1505 with super extra high wide screen resolution, a pimped up video card and a gig of ram. Is it the ultimate laptop? Not even close, but for my purposes, it rocks. I can multi-table poker without overlap, watch a movie, and chat on IM all at the same time.

Anyway, say what you will about Dell, but I ordered this thing Friday and it was at my door Tuesday afternoon. That's pretty damn amazing. They really have an incredible supply and fulfillment chain. Anyway, the laptop works! Granted, I spent what felt like several hours removing much of the preloaded software, and I'm frustrated that it doesn't actually come with a Windows disk, even though I paid for Windows. I think I get a free upgrade to Vista, though. I'm not sure, I seem to remember having to change something about that option in order to get the higher resolution monitor.

It's often said that history is written by the victors. Well the Dems won, will history be rewritten?

Already in the AJC today was a letter from a reader who listed the following items as direct results of the Bush Presidency: The stock market falling from an all-time high (uh... it's up there again, except for NASDAQ, and those #'s from 1999 and 2000 were historically out of whack and due to the tech bubble, not policy), 9/11, Katrina, global warming, and pretty much every bad thing that has happened ever. And, of course, now that the Dems took Congress, all those things will be immediately fixed.

Not. I understand that the majority of people who voted Democrat aren't nearly so delusional as to think all those things are Bush's fault. But I am looking forward to seeing if Bush opponents like the New York Times staff start to reinterpret current events more favorably, so as to make the new Congress look better.

I'm also hoping the Democrats do some good. Maybe the conservatives that the Democrats hypocritically supported as Democrats will drag the party kicking and screaming into doing the right things. I fear for health care, though.

As a side note, the state of Michigan passed a ban on affirmative action. The President of the University of Michigan then said, basically, that the ban sucks and she and her lawyers are going to do their best to get around it, and continue to admit students based on the color of their skin instead of their academic qualifications. She even said, and this is a quote, "The University of Michigan is diversoty." Huh... I thought it was supposed to be an institution of higher learning, but I guess now it's just higher indoctrination.

***Edit- Check the bottom of this entry for an important revision.

So I wrote Cynthia Tucker to blast her on the small business health care thing I mentioned earlier. This was before I realized I wrong about what Pelosi had said. But Cynthia wrote me back before I had the chance to correct myself to her (which I did in a subsequent email, along with an apology). Anyway, this is the entirety of her response to my intitial, incorrect email....

"My ideas don't come from Nancy Pelosi, so I have NO idea what she has in
mind."

Her entire column was that the economy sucks (she neglected to actually mention numbers except for the 4.4% unemployment rate, which she says is deceptive because those jobs are all at McDonalds or Wal-Mart) and so people should vote Democrat, and they will take care of the health car problem, but she then says she doesn't have a clue what the Democrats plan. For an editor of a major paper to write such duplicitous BS and not even bother to look up the plans for the people she supports is just disgusting. She should be ashamed.


EDIT: In retrospect, I regret my comments regarding Ms. Tucker. I was rude, and not fair at all. One advantage of a newspaper... More time to think about things before they actually get printed.

I just love election time. It's when the lies and prevarificating flow like shit in a sewer. I previously mentioned an article about Nancy Pelosi, and her plan, among other things, to make small businesses take on more of the health care burden for their employees. Just a few minutes ago I read a column by AJC editorialist Cynthia Tucker, in which she says that health care costs are too big a burden on small businesses, and we should all vote Democrat so they will remove that burden. How does she reconcile that with Nancy Pelosi's statement that they will do the exact opposite if elected?

It doesn't matter what's true, all that matters is saying whatever it will take to get votes for Democrats. If one audience wants one thing, and another wants to hear something different, give them what they want to hear, whether or not it's a blatant lie.

EDIT: I made a boo-boo! Pelosi is calling for a 50% tax credit for companies involving health care. So that sort of takes away the point of this entry. On the other hand, she doesn't mention exactly what that means, or where the money would come from. Three guesses, and they all include the words increased taxes.

This is an interesting article about Michael Kinsley's impressions of Nancy Pelosi and her plans for the country if the Democrats take Congress. Kinsley, as far as I know, is a left-leaning columnist for Slate who seems to really want to vote Democrat, but can't seem to after talking to Pelosi. His main complaints are that she offers nothing for the war except meaningless talk about redeploying tropps in a "responsible" manner, whatever that means, and something about tax benefits for veterans. Somehow I don't think that terrorists are angry because we don't pay our veterans enough. She also seems to think that the solution to the health care "crisis" is to make small businesses pay 50% of health care costs or something ridiculous like that. Won't that destroy small businesses, make people invest in larger companies instead, and only exacerbate the destruction of the middle class?

And then I read an article about what Europe wants from this election. Old Europe seems to be hoping for a Democrat victory. Why? One blogger, a European, said that if the Dems win, that will only encourage the Muslim youth that are causing such problems in Europe (it's not just in France, not by a long shot). They already show contempt for Europeans, and a Democrat victory will be seen by many as the US folding, as well.

And what are the primary problems in Europe today? Besides the violent Muslim stuff, it's the failure of the welfare-state, and the stagnant economies. And the Democrats see these failing economies as roadmaps to follow, and lead our country to an equal oblivion. If they were smart, Europeans would pray for a Republican victory, because when the Caliphate decides that it's time to incorporate Europe, we will be the only ones standing in the way. And if you can't see that happening, you haven't paid much attention to what Muslim leaders are saying.

Can you believe people still stick to the lie that news isn't biased? According to this from the Washington Times, only 12% of network news stories on midterm election candidates were positive to Republicans. I would expect that from the editorial pages of a newspaper, but the national network news is supposed to report the news, not be an opinion piece.

Check out this little gem from Austin Bay on John Kerry. The most important thing he says is that John Kerry is not read for a YouTube world. In other words, Kerry, and a lot of politicians, are accustomed to a helpful media that will drop mistakes and miscues, and help whitewash extreme statements, but they cannot depend on that anymore. CNN may be willing to drop a story that makes a politico look bad, but a million blog readers are going to see the video and write about and tell their friends about it.

I remember in a history class talking about how TV made all the difference when JFK ran against Nixon. JFK looked so nice on screen that people who only heard the radio broadcast of their debate said Nixon won handily, but people who watched the televised broadcast said JFK won.

Perhaps this is a sign of a new change. Myabe we won't care who looks better and more polished anymore, but instead who can think quick on their feet, avoid foot-in-mouth disease, and hold their own in blogging debates.

It's not just politics, though. Don't forget the ivory tower. Academics don't just have other academics looking over their anymore, now they have all those bloggers, many of whom have just as much expertise, if not more so, than an academic in the area they discuss. It's the long tail of learning, and anyone can do it.

I'm worried about Israel. It seems the policy of the UN forces that got sent to southern Lebanon care a lot more about yelling at Israel then stopping Hezbollah from reorganizing and rearming. And that means Hezbollah is reorganizing and rearming, and that means they will start shooting missles at Israel again eventually. When Israel is forced to retaliate, they may accidentely kill one of the useless UN forces people. Once that happens, a lot of people jsut looking for an excuse to come down on Israel will do so. This may be how WWIII starts.

Here's an interesting story about the dangers of homonyms. Youtube.com, the online do it yourself video showcase, is being sued by utube.com, a pipe and tubing company. Why? Bceause ever since youtube.com got popular, utube.com has been getting like 2 million hits a month, paralyzing their online website and business interests. They are suing for Youtube to either change their name (probably won't fix the problem), or for Youtibe to give Utube enough money to establish a new corporate identity.

I don't know what the legal issues are on this, but from my perspective, utube.com has a good point, and probably does deserve some sort of consideration from youtube.

The New York Times story on the John Kerry flub is a cartful of BS, according to this. First off, they take Kerry at his word that it was a joke that went badly. Fine, I can handle that. But then they misquote what he actually did say, to make it seem like you'd have to be an idiot not to realize it was supposed to be a joke. The problem the New York Times has is that anyone can look it up on YouTube, see Kerry speaking, hear the actual words come out of his mouth, and know that the New York Times is either flat out lying to save democrat votes, or made a severe mistake that any respectable news outlet ought to have caught. The New York Times is looking like a bunch of amateurs sitting around in their pajamas trying to find ways to save their outmoded business model and liberal affectations.

YouTube, people.... You can't make stuff up anymore, because we will see it and know the truth, and know you are a liar! Makes me wonder how much of recent, pre-internet explosion, history that we take for fact is actually lies spun in favor of whoever got to write the story.

The John Kerry is a moron saga continues. If we give Kerry the benefit of the doubt, and believe him when he says his statement about education and being stuck in Iraq was supposed to be a joke at Bush's expense, then Kerry is still an idiot.

Kerry and Bush, as was so often cited during the previous election, both went to Yale. But Bush got better grades. So what Kerry is really saying is that if you go to Yale and get better grades than Kerry did, then you may get your country stuck in Iraq. Take that further... He's also implicitly stating that had he been elected President, we'd be in even more of mess because he didn't study as hard or get as good grades as Bush.

In the end, it doesn't matter. No matter how you interpret his statement, the man is an idiot who constantly sticks his foot in his mouth. Say what you will about Bush and grammatical mistakes, but he rarely messes up verbally to the standards Kerry has set again and again. History will look back on Kerry as perhaps the weakest candidate for major office ever put out by the Democrats, and the liabilities he brings to the party are still affecting them for the next election.

I'm starting to write a new book. I've had so much trouble getting far whenever I try to write a novel that I decided to go with non-fiction this time. It's gonna be a strength training/exercise book. I have a great title and everything, and I think if I finish it, it could become one of those cool fad things like Body for Life was a few years ago, except my goal is to write a volume that people can use as a basis for developing their bodies based on their own goals and interests, not to create a program that everyone should follow exactly. I'm pretty excited about it, and I hope I persevere. One nice thing about exercise books is that you can use lots of pictures, diagrams, charts, etc., so it's not 300-400 pages of straight text like a novel. Plus if it gets published and catches on, I'm sure to get an interview on Good Morning America where I show off some of my exercises on national TV. I'm gonna have to lose the paunch over my six-pack before then :)