June 30, 2004

Celebrate!

Happy Tunguska event day!

June 29, 2004

Squirrel Steals Yellow Ribbons From Tree

I initially thought it was a slow news day, but this story merits a chuckle.

June 28, 2004

The Irony

Michael Moore demands that he be able to screen questions in advance of an interview.

Well, isn't that precious? The puffy mic-in-your-face-popper can dish it out, but can't take it.

Free Iraq

Help Afghanis, Buy A Rug

Very interesting that Worldstock.com, a division of Overstock.com, is now Afghanistan's largest private employer.

Guinness is good for you

So says Instapundit.com.

The Finest Coup de Grace

Jonah Goldberg on Michael Moore.

June 27, 2004

Amnesty Is a Sign of Strength, Says Naif

Amnesty Is a Sign of Strength, Says Naif.

Yes, but what does the ingenue say?

;)

June 25, 2004

You Nazi!

Godwin's Law:

As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.

Thanks to Taranto for pointing this out in regards to Gore's speech.

June 24, 2004

A Religion of Peace

Like the song says, teach your children well.

Free Speech Violations

As mad as I am at the fat doofus Michael Moore (who, when I challenged him face-to-face at a Harvard appearance admitted that he didn't understand economics but thought the minimum wage should be $40,000 per year, which proved his point) I am even madder at these seemingly benign, but ultimately sinister
restrictions on free speech, if it's political.

Our problem in this country is not that we spend too little time discussing political issues. And filmmakers, editorialists, demagogues and rabble-rousers ought to have free rein to to excite that portion of the population which they can reach with their message.

These misguided, wrong, and unfair election speech laws inevitably lead to unintended consequences such as the rise of 527s and the suppression of Michael Moore.

June 23, 2004

Mighty Mite

Muscle Man Toddler lifts weights thanks to gene mutatioin that blocks myostatin....

Does Crunch sell that?

Allawi

I am beginning to like Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi more and more:

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Giornale, Allawi dismissed al-Zarqawi as a criminal who would be caught and punished.

"Abu Musab al-Zarqawi doesn't threaten just me, but the entire country," Allawi told the newspaper, which released a copy of the interview Wednesday night.

"He has killed hundreds of Iraqis, has sown disorder and fear," Allawi was quoted as saying. "But he is just a criminal who must be captured and tried. We are used to threats and we know how to deal with them and how to win."

He sounds like a reasonable, tough, patriotic leader. He won't be our lapdog, for sure, and that's good because it's never really in our long-term interests to have an ally ignore its own long-term interests.

But when all is said and done, the new Iraqi polity and the United States of America, have the same interests: a free, prosperous Iraq defended actively by Iraqis and implicitly by an American standing army.

June 22, 2004

Master Bakers with too much, uh,.... time... on their hands

They've made a JOYCE CAKE.

And some nice collateral to go with it.

June 21, 2004

Tivo Users Show Interesting Ad Skipping Habits

Sorry for the link to a link to a link, but I liked MarketingVox's commentary on "Tivo Users Show Interesting Ad Skipping Habits". Quite interesting really.

June 20, 2004

Bring It On

The America Accountability Act is a badge of honor, coming as it does from the vile killers and miscreants that rule Syria.

Folks with too much time on their hands

Legion XXIV.

June 18, 2004

Your Enemy, If You Choose To Acknowledge It

From NRO:

WHAT'S ON THE TAPE [WARNING: THIS IS GRAPHIC]
According to Senate sources, this four-minute video, comprised of several clips, came to be after several verbal and written inquires were made to the Defense Department at the start of 2004. It is an edited version of several different tapes, totaling between one and two hours, discovered after the regime's collapse. The translations of the words heard on the tape were provided by the Department of Defense.

"You don't appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it."

The first film clip opens with the camera showing a man standing in a bland, mostly empty room. The camera pans down to show his right hand. Folded rugs are visible in the background. The clip jumps to footage of scrub-clad "surgeons" with rubber surgical gloves severing the man's hand at the wrist. First the skin is peeled away with surgical knives and tweezers; ligaments, tendons, muscle, and bone underneath are exposed. Then the gloved hands wielding the knives begin to slice, shredding through the sinews, slashing muscle, breaking bone, until the hand is ultimately detached and plopped onto a green cloth, as yellow, pulpy tissue spills forth.

"You don't appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it."

The next clip opens amid Saddam Fedayeen — Fedayeen means "those willing to die for Saddam" — chanting loudly: "With blood and spirit we will redeem you Saddam." The Fedayeen stand barking and clapping in a courtyard. A blindfolded prisoner, forced to his knees and held in position has his arm outstretched before him along a low concrete wall. A masked member of the Fedayeen raises high a three-foot-long blade and ferociously slams down on the man's hand, slicing through his fingertips. The victim is wailing, howling, screaming in agony.

The swordsman-torturer, not sufficiently satisfied with his first effort, raises the sword again and drives down once more on the man's immobile hand. This time he severs the fingers closer to the knuckles as blood spurts cartoonishly from his hand spilling over and down the concrete slab. The victim emits a wail I have never heard — could never imagine hearing — from a grown man, this time louder, harder than the first.

The camera then turns to the assembled Fedayeen as they continue rhythmically chanting.

"You don't appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it."

In the third clip, a prisoner sits on the ground, his arm tied with white cloth, strips to a wooden board resting on a gray concrete slab. A man stands before him with a sword, this blade is wider than the last. He, too, strikes down on the man's hand, severing it from his right arm as the prisoner recoils in pain. The camera then quickly darts to the man's hand resting on the dusty ground several feet away as it was launched a considerable distance from the prisoner due to the force of the torturer's chop.

"You don't appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it."

When Mel Gibson's movie The Passion was released, several critics harped on the scenes where Jesus is flogged mercilessly by Roman soldiers. The brutality was so extreme, critics charged, the depiction bordered on parody — it was not a credible rendering of what could have happened to Jesus.

In the fourth clip in the Saddam torture film, it's clear Gibson's cinematic vision of just how depraved men can be was not divorced from reality.

A tall prisoner, stripped to the waist and blindfolded has his arms tied before him to a white pole, his bare back exposed. Black-clad Saddam Fedayeen surround him, jackal-like, as one begins to pound on his back with a black rubber whip. With the man screaming, his scourged back arching backward, shoulders and arms frantically struggling to block the blows, one of the Fedayeen torturers is heard to say "no situation more honorable than truth over falsehood." Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! The prisoner's knees buckle as he crumbles into a hump on the ground from the blows, crying out in pain. Another Fedayeen grabs his hands and pulls him up the pole to receive further lashes.

"You don't appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it."

"In the name of Allah the merciful," intones the beret-topped loyalist to Saddam's "secular" regime in the next segment. He introduces to the viewer and the assembled butcher squad to another prisoner. The loyalist-narrator reads from Koran, Sura 2:179: "And there is a saving of life for you in the Law of Equality in punishment. O men of understanding, that you may become the pious."

"The Fedayeen, Saddin Ezzedin al-Arousi," he goes on, "was charged with a special mission in which he betrayed his duty in the mission. The head of the Fedayeen has ordered the following: He is expelled from Fedayeen work and his arms are to be broken in front of his unit. Tarik Juman will personally undertake the breaking of his arms. Thank you."

The camera jumps to al-Arousi sitting with one arm tied behind him as his right arm is extended out to his side. His right elbow rests on a cinderblock and his right fist is supported by another cinderblock. Nothing supports his forearm in between. While a Fedayeen holds the prisoner's elbow in place, Tarik Juman crashes a three-inch-thick pipe down on his old compatriot's forearm, bending the forearm in a 'V' shape and shattering the bones within. This procedure is repeated for his left arm as well.

"You don't appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it."

In another clip a hooded and blindfolded prisoner is led to a room where he is forced to kneel, hands tied behind his back. Another man sits before the prisoner with thick metal tweezers and a scalpel. With his left hand he grabs the tip of the prisoner's tongue with the tweezers and pulls it forward from his head. With the scalpel in his other hand he slices through the prisoner's tongue, cutting it out of his mouth and then dropping it on the floor.

This ritual is repeated for more prisoners who are lined up, squatting in a row like parts on an assembly line waiting for processing, sitting ducks surrounded by dozens of men bearing witness to a Baathist tongue lashing.

"You don't appreciate what happened in that prison until you see it."

In the final clip we see a blindfolded prisoner being led to his fate as the assembled men around him sing "Happy Birthday, long live the leader, eternal gift to the people." Again with arms tied behind his back he is shoved to the ground, bent over stuffed burlap sacks. A black-clad Fedayeen loosens the prisoner's shirt exposing his back and neck, while another stands two feet from him holding a long silver blade at its curved handle. He raises his arms and strikes, hacking the prisoner's head from his body, tumbling it to the ground. He picks up the severed head by the hair and places it ceremoniously on the dead man's back as the camera pans in closer and closer and you can make out the victim's now lifeless and bloodied face.

I can barely stand to read these descriptions, but if you like, you can see the video at AEI.

STILL a Top 5,000 Reviewer

Though I don't expect this to last too much longer.

Panel Finds No Tie Between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan

Assails Warmongering "D-Day" Invasion; Vindicates Those Who Questioned President's Assertion of "Imminent Threat" of Hitler.

$100K+ Jobs: over 8,000 last month at TheLadders.com

Whew! My other company, TheLadders.com, which sends out over 8,000 all-new jobs that pay $100,000 to $500,000 per year, is closing in on the 100,000 subscriber mark!

Andrew Goldberg's Dinner Date Invoice to Dana Scher

This e-mail is making the rounds of New York City this afternoon. Can anybody tell me if it's true?

-----Original Message----- From: "Dana Scher" Date: June 12, 2004 8:44:11 PM PDT To: List Subject: FW: Invoice 6/12/04

Just to give you an idea of what dating life is like in June 2004 -- This is
an email I received from a guy who I went out with ONE TIME from Jdate -- No
worries, I am definitely sending him a money order -- not a check with my
home address on it!! Calgon, take me away!!

Subject: Invoice 6/12/04
Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2004 17:15:59 EDT

Dear Dana:

On June 5, you agreed to accept dinner, paid for in full, by me, based on
your stated offer that we would go out again. In that you have ignored all
overtures to said follow up meeting, you are hereby considered in breach of
contract.

To that end, you are being invoiced for 50% of the cost of the dinner,
pursuant to the offer. For the record, the offer presented you with the
option of not going out again and paying for half of the dinner, or going
out again and not paying at all. You accepted these terms, choosing to go
out again, as stated above, but have since failed to deliver your end of the
agreement. In that this was merely a promise to meet, and not a promise to
marry, the agreement is binding under New York law and does not require a
written agreement (i.e. statute of frauds).

Furthermore, this is absolutely not a joke.

Your share is 50% of $74.51 which is a total of $37.25. Payment in full is
expected within 30 days.

You may remit to:
Andrew Goldberg
[Address deleted]
NY NY 10012

Will Andrew or Dana please come forward? blog @ cenedella dot com is the address.

UPDATE: I've checked Snopes and Google for de-bunking on this one, to no avail as of yet.

UPDATE 2: Easy on Andrew, people! At least he was nice enough to pick up the spare penny. He would've been well within his rights to round up from $37.255 !!

UPDATE 3: Snopes is on it... stay tuned.

Verizon Wireless Leads the Wireless Industry in Customer Satisfaction

Does anybody believe this nonsense?

UPDATE: Reader IW writes in:

"hey re: VZ, you know I just got rid of my trusty old startac and got the new samsung 670. i've got enough horror stories about wireless carriers and why i waited 3.5 years to get a new phone (my number is not portable because someone messed up). anyway, discovered one trick -- avoid going to a VZ store to the extent possible. I actually got a better deal out of calling them up first from the comforts of my desk, negotiating my 100 buck discount for being a customer for over 2 years (this was denied in store even though I've been a customer for over 5 years) and then getting them to plug that onto my records so I could walk into the store and practically pick it up. The folks in the store are too defensive and aggressive and treat you like a captive customer. The folks on the phone are monitored for quality control and just seem a lot happier to work with you. "

Thanks for the good advice!!

UPDATE 2: We see m to have touched a nerve here at Stone! Our Upper West Side Correspondent writes in:

Wow, that's quite an accomplishment. Who did they nudge out of first place, The KGB or The Tony Soprano Loan Collection Agency?

At the Verizon I go to on Broadway (81st, I think) they have this stupid sign in book. But nobody tells you it's there. It's like a practical joke for first time customers. I now alert people to the book when I see them come in so they don't screwed (like I did) waiting forever before being told, "Sorry, you didn't sign the book."

Come to think of it, they didn't actually say "sorry".

The store is filled with the happiest faces you'll see this side of the DMV at lunchtime.

Evil, vicious little jerks, that's Lowell Mcadam's contribution to human happiness.

June 17, 2004

S70n3 pwns yuo

According to Leet.

June 16, 2004

Free Summer Events in Gotham

A nice listing of free summer events here in the Big Apple.

Trans-lingual

Just pointed out to me that the vast majority of pages cited by Google with the phrase "plus ca change" are in fact, English-language documents. And that that is representative of the phrase's infrequent use in French.

So, properly considered, is it still a French, or is it now an (American) English phrase?

Gosh, beer only has 9

Beer.

Calories in Sake

39 calories per ounce. So let's see, to get your daily 2500 recommended calories, you'd need to drink 64 ounces. According to Google, that's a half-gallon.

Count me in.

June 15, 2004

Happy Magna Carta day!

Signed 789 years ago today, it protects, among other things, your first-born son from having his noble title usurped by the crown.

Phew!

Pop Quiz

From The Corner:

20 Quotes: Is it Reagan or W.?

1)“European discomfort with the President, however, goes beyond the political differences that preceded and will outlast his presidency. It has, as well, a personal basis. He appears to Europeans to be ill equipped for the responsibility that he bears, a kind of cowboy figure, bellicose, ignorant, with a simplistic view of the world…

2)“[The President] came to Europe to persuade people that he is not the shallow, nuclear cowboy of certain unkind assessments. Said [a] White House spokesman … on the eve of departure, ‘Some in Europe do not know or understand him.’ But now that the president has been among them… Europeans may think they got him right the first time.”

3)“For many Europeans… America has become paranoid… [which has] led them to take their distance from us… Mutual recrimination becomes political action. Both sides of the Atlantic, writes … an editor of the influential Hamburg weekly Die Zeit, are ‘losing interest in each other.’ … The estrangement has not come naturally. The communality of heritage and beliefs between the United States and Europe is old and powerful and has withstood frequent vicissitudes. However, an accumulation of events and developments has built up enough discord to threaten the most solid of foundations.”

4)“The anti-American theme, a popular subject for campaigning politicians, is aimed mostly at U.S. policy and the [U.S.] administration. This country is pictured as a French David standing up to an American Goliath. [The French foreign minister] warned during the … controversy: ‘There is a progressive divorce between Washington and Europe …. The U.S. seems totally indifferent to our problems.’”

5)“In a day of protests across Western Europe, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the [American policy]… The protest organizers said about 1.2 million people took part in the demonstrations…. Hundreds of thousands jammed central London in what was said to be the largest protest of its kind in British history. In Rome, an estimated 350,000 marchers paraded through the center of the city.”

6) “Europe Sees U.S. Foreign Policy As Out Of Control” – Los Angeles Times headline

7) “Speaking to members of the American Stock Exchange, [Senator Edward] Kennedy said, ‘Our present course is taking the United States toward unilateral intervention … toward a war, whether we want it or not, whether we like it or not, (that) will inevitably involve American forces in combat. But surely, an American invasion… would plunge us into the most unwanted, unnecessary and unjustified war in our history,’ Kennedy said…. Kennedy said Congress must propose ‘an alternative policy with a real prospect of success.’ ‘So, as a first step, we must call off the dogs of war,’ he said.”

8)“[W]e have a President who is obsessed by the subject. [Nicaragua for Ronald Reagan – or Iraq for George W. Bush] is his Moby Dick. Like a political Ahab, he pursues it beyond reason, beyond humanity, beyond safety. In his frustration, he spews out rage and hate, fear and falsehood.”

9) “[The President] has substituted a mindless militarism for a foreign policy… frightening our friends… Already, the cost of [the President’s] policies is devastating to our country in economic strength, in diplomatic influence, in national security, in moral stature.”

10) “‘This has been a foreign policy without a guiding star,’ said… a former official in Republican administrations… ‘It has been the most ideological administration of U.S foreign relations I've seen and the least conceptual, in terms of a clear vision of what the world ought to be like and what we would do to get there.’”

11)“The tangible achievements of his first term have been relatively modest. His economic program, in the judgment of many experts, has succeeded almost in spite of itself – and the current recovery is built on record deficits that will burden the nation for a generation. His foreign policy has lacked coherence…”

12) “Unilateral intervention by a truculent and trigger-happy Uncle Sam might delight some U.S. citizens – frustrated by events, eager for easy answers – but elsewhere… it would only serve to reaffirm the worst fears…”

13) “The United States has a myopic, ideological foreign policy that really isn't a policy at all, but a collection of maneuvers produced by prejudice and instinct. The men responsible for American diplomacy, it seems, often fail to grasp they have put us into grave trouble around the world…. [The President] has angered and undermined his closest ally in Europe, [the British Prime Minister], and he has aggravated the gravest problem facing the United States, a problem symbolized by the largest protest demonstrations in Europe since World War II...”

14)“To win that vote [congressional vote to authorize support for its foreign policy goals], the Administration is now reduced to McCarthyite tactics: the insinuation that foes of its … policy are … stooges or worse. Can Congress be whipped by these tactics into a policy of such moral, military and political degradation?”

15)“When a politician claims that God favors his programs, alarm bells should ring… If there is anything that should be illegitimate in the American system, it is such use of sectarian religiosity to sell a political program. And this was done not by some fringe figure, but by the President of the United States.”

16)“What is the world to think when the greatest of powers is led by a man who applies to the most difficult human problem a simplistic theology – one in fact rejected by most theologians?... What must the leaders of Western Europe think of such a speech? … The exaggeration and the simplicities are there not only in the rhetoric but in the process by which he makes decisions.”

17)“Perhaps even more dangerous, [the President’s] smug view, if further inculcated in Americans, will preclude self-examination, humility, a willingness to concede error. Are we so clearly a God-directed, chosen people that we have no need to question our virtue, or the evil of our rivals? If [the President] really thinks so, he has shaken off the strongest restraints on human conduct – doubt and fear.”

18) "[Pollster Lou Harris] believes that [the President] is polarizing the country more than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt and that, when such strong political polarization occurs, it tends to lead to a greater voter turnout. That would benefit the Democrats…"

19) "'[The President] has been a divider, not a uniter… The American people will reject four more years of danger, four more years of pain,’ [a leading congressional Democrat] said."

20) "[One state Democratic chairman] said: '[The President] has a lot of problems. The less he does, the better he does; the more he does, the worse he does. He keeps polarizing the voters, and the Republican Party is not big enough to allow that. An incumbent President must unite the country, not divide it. It’s unbelievably bad strategy on their part.'"

To find out which are about Reagan and which are about W., click here.

June 14, 2004

Amusing Chutzpah of Dirtballs

London woman pilfers $7.9 million from her Goldman Sachs bosses.

What investment banking is really like

I don't think I was the Defeated One, and I certainly wasn't the Star, so this strikes me as damn accurate.

The Next Big Thing

Local newspaper media monopolies are ripe for the picking.

My next project -- give me a couple years -- is going to be to eviscerate the local media business with a web-only product:

• Local bloggers and gadflies provide content (look, they'll be more entertaining and relevant than a journalist and people will know their biased)
• Zipcode focused advertising from Match, Monster, eBay, Google, etc. will provide the revenue stream without a salesforce
• All internet delivery will eliminate physical costs and provide an immediacy that once-a-day printing can't compete with

The technology is not quite there to make this happen:
1. Easy-to-read, large-format, portable LCD screens do not yet exist.
2. The geo-targetting by zipcode for distributed advertising does not exist.
3. The dissemination of blog software, while increasing apace, is not yet sufficient to get the critical mass of community personages involved.

I'm thinking this will take 5 years for the technology to mature.

As far as "journalism" as a profession, well, look, all skills get commoditized over time. You have only to watch a breaking news report or a reality TV series to see that the modern person has thoroughly internalized TV posture, etiquette and behavior. What used to be a source of great consternation, twittering and flustering -- "I'm on TV!" -- is now fielded with a non-chalance bordering blase.

Similarly with journalism skills -- they are being commoditized over time. And while the etheral notion of objectivity is perhaps beyond the grasp of the common blogger, the inclusion of who-what-when-where-why in an informative piece seems to be achievable. Why not cut out this nonsense attempt at providing a "fair piece" when no such thing does or can exist, and instead announce biases at the start, and allow the Reader to take the case as she sees fit?

MediaSavvy: Why can't a newspaper be more like a blog? Part V: Community and karma

Agatha Christie Born, Robert Penn Warren died

On my birthday.

And in Japan, it's "Respect for the Aged Day."

Religion of Peace?

What a leader of this historically not-so-peaceful religion has said:

Wherefore with earnest prayer I, not I, but God exhorts you... to repeatedly urge men of all ranks whatsoever, knights as well as foot-soldiers, rich and poor, to hasten to exterminate this vile race from our lands...

For all those going thither there will be remission of sins if they come to the end of this fettered life while marching by land, crossing by sea or in fighting the pagans. This I grant to all who go, through the power vested in me by God.

Oh what a disgrace if a race so despicable, degenerate, and enslaved by demons should thus overcome a people endowed with faith in Almighty God!

I mean, this is just to be clear that "He without sin among you, cast the first stone" when it comes to analyzing world religions.

UPDATE: For a much better, fuller length piece, see Jonah Goldberg here.

June 13, 2004

Some, uh, interesting photos

On Yahoo! News - Most Emailed Photos page...

Visit the Parthenon

I would actually like to visit the fake Parthenon someday.

Crazy Brave

An Unlikely Hero - The Marine who found two WTC survivors.

Sue sue sue

Oops! New online dating site poaches from Diller, faces the music.

That is going to be one painful and protracted affair...

June 09, 2004

Fredonia, New York

I guess I am from a whitebread town.

Info at your fingertips

That's it, I've caved. Rather than the usual nonce of headlines, stock tickers and weather, I've opted to make Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia my homepage.

Grant losing mo'; Reagan gaining

UWS Correspondent writes:

Cheers. And thanks for the write up. I feel it is my duty to stick up for binge drinking Republicans.

I am a great admirer of Lee, as well. Just finished Gods and Generals. Awesome book. And I agree that Lee was the superior General. No question.

To your point... I think there were other Generals who could have done what Grant did to save this country.

I don't think there were any other presidents who could have done what Reagan did to save this country.

Ronny on the 50 is just fine with me.

And just because I think they're interesting... two quick anecdotes about Grant and Lee and their interesting relationship.

Robert E. Lee, specifically, spoke in glowing terms about his adversary. He was particularly grateful for the generous treatment he had received at Appomattox and that Grant threatened to resign his commission in the Army if Andrew Johnson continued to persecute Lee. In May of 1865, Lee spoke openly of his feelings on this issue: "As to my own fate, I know not what is in store for me. I believe the politicians in Washington are bent on the most extreme measures, and if they have their way will stop at no humiliation they can heap on me. My sole reliance is on General Grant. I have faith in his honor and his integrity as a soldier, and do not believe he will permit the terms of my surrender of the parole given me, to be violated."

Grant assisted Lee in more covert ways in the late 1860's. In 1869, it was suggested by members of Congress that the rotunda of the Capitol include a massive painting representing Lee surrendering to Grant. The Congressmen visited Grant and told them of the proposal, expecting the President-Elect to be amenable to the suggestion. Instead, the usual calm and unruffled Grant became markedly agitated. "No, gentlemen," Grant said, "it won't do. No power on earth will make me agree to your proposal. I will not humiliate General Lee or our Southern friends in depicting their humiliation and then celebrating the event in the nation's capitol." This immediately ended any discussion of the painting.

Great tidbits UWS!

GMail invitations

Clever buggers those fellas over Google. Once you become a GMail beta tester, they give you 3 invitations per month to send out to friends.

As I've been a beta tester for 2 months, I have 6 invites.

Local Stone readers who want an invitation to get your own personal GMail account, with 1 GB of data storage, write in! (but as I am at work, hit me at news @ salesladder DOT com, OK?)

Note: these are going for as much as $25 each on eBay right now.

Upper West Side sticks up for Drunk Republicans

For which I suppose I should be eternally grateful, our UWS Correspondent defends:

Marc,

Entertaining and insightful stuff, as always.

But I think you're being too rough on U.S. Grant. A lot of people consider him to be one of the more misunderstood men in U.S. History.

I, for one, am a great fan of the man. He overcame a lot of adversity in his life. Plus I always root for the short guys. (Grant stood under 5'8''.)

As you are a truth-seeker and an enjoyer of history, I would refer you to this link. http://www.mscomm.com/~ulysses/ I particularly enjoyed the FAQ and Drinking links.

It is meant to be a pro-Grant site. But, I think you'll agree it's well documented as well as quite even-handed - see this quote for example:

The Battle of Shiloh: Though Grant and Sherman deny until their deaths that they were surprised here, the evidence is persuasive that they were. Grant's iron will and stubbornness resist disaster and the Union holds the field on the second day.

Grant was a popular whipping boy even back in the times of his successes. Lincoln was constantly defending him. My two favorite quotes about Grant come from Lincoln.

Upon hearing a complaint that General Grant drank......"Drinks, does he? Well, find out what he drinks and send a barrel of it to my other Generals!"

Upon hearing criticism of Grant's character and competence... "I cannot spare this man... he fights."

Cheers.

Blog on.

Frank

By contrast, Reagan, at the head of democracy, an inherently tricky and fickle force to marshall, defeated the Soviet Union in less than 9 years after his inauguration.

Remember, in 1979, President Carter had ceded American moral authority on both the foreign front (such as Afghanistan) and the domestic one in his infamous Malaise speech. (It's really a remarkable abdication of leadership -- read it in its entirety).

Reagan, mostly singlehandedly and from pure force of character, led the nation to defeat the Soviets, launch the economic boom we still enjoy today, and brought American idealism back to American minds.

He belongs on the $50, Grant doesn't.

DOCS

A great service from Beth Israel Medical Centers is their DOCS facilities. Alack, I can never find the info on their confusing website, so I am going to post it here and always be able to find it.

Manhattan Locations: 57 E. 34th St. First Floor (212) 252-6000

1555 Third Ave.
(212) 828-2300

202-204 W. 23rd St.
(212) 352-2600

I'm a special fan of Dr. Obadia.

Microsoft and the misallocation of resources

What if Microsoft had simply focused on its Windows operating system instead of squandering resources, good architecture, and good will on all its other enterprises?

Reagan on the $50

The plan to put Reagan on the $10 bill, and boot Hamilton, will likely meet excessive resistance from the supply-side branch of the Reagan Revolution.

As we are slowly but surely inflating our way through the centuries, why not look ahead? Much as the penny is useless today, when another order of magnitude of price inflation passes, the dime and the tenspot will be as common and as useless as singular currency units are today.

So instead of looking at the $10, why not go after one of our own, and replace the Republican on the $50 bill?

The dissolute drunkard Ulysses S. Grant, who won the Cvil War while sacrificing thousands to the cleverer Lee, has been eclipsed in our histories by Lincoln (rightly so).

With an eye toward the future, and a firmer understanding of our past, it is time to put Ronald Wilson Reagan on the $50 bill.

George Will

His greatest role is a bit purple, perhaps, but I liked this opening para:

ONE MEASURE of a leader's greatness is this: By the time he dies, the dangers that summoned him to greatness have been so thoroughly defeated, in no small measure by what he did, it is difficult to recall the magnitude of those dangers, or of his achievements. So if you seek Ronald Reagan's monument, look around, and consider what you do not see.

George Will spent the 90s worried about the re-awakening Soviet threat, which just goes to show you that great phrase-making is a talent separate and apart from political vision. That Reagan incorporated both with a geniality that caused opponents to underestimate and be charmed by him is yet another reason to awe this singular gift to our country.

Free country, not a Christian Nation

An excellent survey of the Constitutional doctrine that underlay our nation's separation of church and state that ends with this important conclusion:

In summary, this is not a Christian nation precisely because the framers understood that if any government enforces or even encourages any religious belief or lack of belief, everyone's religious liberty is put at risk. To those who think it would be better if we agreed to call this a Christian nation, ask them a few questions:

Do you want agents of any government to make religious decisions for you?

Do you want any government to help you, directly or indirectly, as you try to persuade others of the truth of your religious beliefs?

Do you believe parents are not always the proper source of religious instruction for young children, and if not, do you want government agents to decide which parents are wrong or inadequate regarding religion?

Do you want government agents to try to force a preference for religious beliefs on anyone?

Do you believe any government should tax citizens to pay for encouraging others to accept religious beliefs not shared by those being taxed?

Any who agree that the answer to each of these questions is "No!" must also agree that this is a free country, not a Christian nation.

And for those folks who imagine that their particular brand of religion would win out in such a state, the tendency toward schism of religions, inevitably gambles your favored position in an uncontrollable wager.

Founding Father's Religion

And as I am on a big Founding Fathers kick at the moment, and therefore know what apostates they would be in the eyes of today's Church(es), here's another site claiming that the Founding Fathers were NOT Christians.

Jefferson supported a Christian nation?

In response to an e-mail making the rounds which rather incorrectly cites Founding Father support for the establishment of Christianity as our state religion, here is the incomparable Snopes.

Gentoo!

Welcome to Gentoo is Rice, the Volume goes to 11 here is a page dedicated to, uh, either praising or ridiculing Gentoo. The author seems to string together a bunch of laudatory quotes and then assert that those lauders are weenies.

Or something like that.

There they go again

I hope the New York Post has a copyright exemption for articles of outstanding public value, such as this one that I am copying in its entirety:

WRITING on Ronald Reagan's achievements in Newsweek, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. notes, "Reagan's admirers contend that his costly re-armament program caused the Soviet collapse. Maybe so; but surely the thing that did in the Russians was that time had proved communism an economic, political and moral disaster." Funny: Here's Schlesinger in 1982, observing that "Those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse" are "wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves."

Many historians and pundits have refused to credit Ronald Reagan's policies for helping to bring about the Cold War victory, blaming communism's chronic economic problems. Yet, like Scheslinger, they failed to describe it as inevitable while Reagan was actually in office.

In 1982, the learned Sovietologist Seweryn Bialer of Columbia University wrote in Foreign Affairs: "The Soviet Union is not now nor will it be during the next decade in the throes of a true systemic crisis, for it boasts enormous unused reserves of political and social stability."

But the genius award undoubtedly goes to Lester Thurow, an MIT economist and well-known author who, as late as 1989, wrote: "Can economic command significantly . . . accelerate the growth process? The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union suggests that it can. . . . Today the Soviet Union is a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States."

Throughout the 1980s, most of these pundits derisively condemned Reagan's policies. Strobe Talbott of Time magazine faulted the Reagan administration for espousing "the early '50s goal of rolling back Soviet domination of Eastern Europe," an objective he considered misguided and unrealistic.

"Reagan is counting on American technological and economic predominance to prevail in the end," Talbott scoffed, adding that if the Soviet economy was in a crisis of any kind, "it is a permanent, institutionalized crisis with which the USSR has learned to live."

Talbott, later an official in the Clinton State Department, would eventually insist that the Soviet Union had failed "not because of anything the outside world has done or not done . . . but because of defects and inadequacies at its core."

Perhaps one should not be too hard on the wise men. After all, explained Schlesinger in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse: "History has an abiding capacity to outwit our certitudes. No one foresaw these changes."

Wrong again, professor: Ronald Reagan foresaw them. In 1981, Reagan told the students and faculty at the University of Notre Dame: "The West won't contain communism. It will transcend communism. We will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written."

In 1982, Reagan told the British Parliament in London: "In an ironic sense, Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis. . . . But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxism-Leninism, the Soviet Union."

Reagan added that "it is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying freedom and human dignity to its citizens" and he predicted that if the Western alliance remained strong it would produce a "march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history."

In 1987, Reagan spoke at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin. "In the communist world," he said, "we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards. . . . Even today, the Soviet Union cannot feed itself." Thus the "inescapable conclusion" in his view was that "freedom is the victor." Then Reagan said: "General Secretary Gorbachev . . . Come here to this gate. Mr Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

Not long after this, the wall did come tumbling down, and Reagan's prophecies all came true. These were not just results Reagan predicted. He intended the outcome. He implemented policies that were aimed at producing it. He was denounced for those policies. Still, in the end his objective was achieved.

Margaret Thatcher remarked a few years ago that Reagan would go down in history as the man who "won the Cold War without firing a shot." Perhaps it is too much to ask the wise to admit their errors. But it's only right that we who have enjoyed the benefits of the post-Cold War boom should give Reagan due credit during his lifetime for his prescient statesmanship.

Facts, figures, and those troublesome assertions of long ago are the three banes of the modern pinko.

June 08, 2004

That's A Classy Jelly Bean Company

Out there in California.

Worst Album Covers Ever book

Pre-order The Worst Album Covers Ever at Amazon now!!

I'm Glad She's Comforted

Poor Nancy Reagan, what grief after 52 years!:

The former First Lady believes her long-suffering husband recognized her when he stared into her eyes for an instant before taking his last breath, his daughter Patti Davis writes.

I hope it gives her solace.

Out loud

Former dissidents surprised by "simple" truths:

Andrei Zorin was practicing his English that memorable day back in 1983, listening to the forbidden BBC World Service on the shortwave radio when President Ronald Reagan made his declaration that the Soviet Union was an "evil empire" that must be defeated.

Zorin, a dissident-minded literary scholar, was so stunned that he risked speaking openly on the telephone to his friends to tell them about Reagan's forceful words. "I jumped out of my chair and started calling," he recalled Sunday. "Of course, to us it was no surprise that the Soviet Union was such an empire, but the idea that somebody would say it from the podium, out loud, was a revelation."

For many Russians, Reagan was then, and remains today, a hero whose challenge to communism in the 1980s led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and inspired a generation of pro-democracy activists. "Walls are crushed by words," Zorin said.

To say the true things, if they are simple, as Noonan has noted is most difficult for the most educated.

Pecking Order

At the funeral of President Reagan are we really putting monarchists ahead of democrats?:

"Kings and queens take precedence over presidents, then prime ministers," she said. "There is a pecking order."

Say it's not so!!

Tear Down This Wall!

From the Washington Post -- the video.

Optimist Kerry

John Kerry is a lot of things both good and bad -- patriot, liberal, flip-flopper, tireless advocate for POW-MIAs *and* restoring good relations with Vietnam -- but optimistic?

Errrr. No.

June 07, 2004

Freedom Man

On AndrewSullivan.com , a great e-mail.

Fare Thee Well

RONALD REAGAN

Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth

Natan Sharansky knows it.

Soviet Armenia

A great anecdote.