Why we cannot win

Al Lorentz is on the ground in Iraq. Read why he thinks we can't win.

(Though this Lew Rockwell guy looks crazy, with a link for buying gold right on his front page.)

I had lunch with a friend of mine who has voted Republican in every presidential election of his 40+ years. He said he wants to 'strangle Bush' and that this is Vietnam (quagmire-wise). May it not be so.

Baseball

If the Cubs can't win with this kind of schedule, they don't deserve to be in the playoffs. Arrggh!

I agree that Ichiro is really achieving something.

Trashing creation in Wired, then on MetaFilter

Against my better judgment, I took a little, baby stand. The result"

Sean Meade - thanks for offering yourself up here as the token sacrificial beast on the altar of 'we make fun of creationists day' here at metafilter.

By my count, I'm the only dissenting voice in this long thread.

I know these arguments. I've read them before. And, although I can't express the counter-arguments really well, and am not really going to try in these fora, I'm still not convinced by the arguments for evolution. Besides, not only is there little to no interest in hearing my side, there's massive denigration of anyone who's not a true believer.

Today's links

Matthew Baldwin does it again: Here's what zombies are looking for. (He also had a couldn't-be-truer haiku.)

What the bubble got right by Paul Graham. I agree with most everything in here (though I think he's a little hard on suits, and I don't buy the California mystique.)

Connie Rice makes the 'debates' sound basically rigged. (True confession: I kept reading Ms. Rice's name as 'Condi Rice'. It was confusing.

Godspeed, SpaceShipOne.

Military weblogs

I knew the military weblogs were out there, but never surfed them. Here's an article with a few links.

This guy's into punk.

Campaign rhetoric stinks

But you knew that, right?

Here's a sample.

Too good to pass up

Matt has a post about President Bush and humility.

But the really interesting part is how it produces a Google Ad for Give God the Glory - Read about God actively at work. Share your own G3 story.

Only on the web, folks.

And, to add more weirdness, Elizabeth just came in and said 'Daddy, that music was beautiful.'

My dad auditioned for...

this movie the other day.

William Shatner, who played the cowboy commander of the starship USS Enterprise in the 1960s series "Star Trek," was in Riverside to hold auditions for four small parts in a low-budget science fiction film he wrote with Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock in the series and subsequent movies.

Shatner told local residents that the working title of the film is "Invasion Iowa."

He had a conversation with Shatner, too. So there you go.

My dad knows how to party.

Los Angeles secession

How did I miss that Los Angeles voted in 2002 on the secession of the San Fernando valley? This is the kind of thing I'm interested in!

Here's an About Measure F page (pro). My thoughts:

• If this is right, the Valley was getting shafted in a lot of ways. All of those concerns needed to be addressed.
  
• I believe in smaller and more accountable.
• LA Department Heads (up to 300,ooo$) and City Council Members (133,000$) got paid too much per year.

However, I would be concerned about the tax base issue. Remember our discussion about Pittsburgh? There has to be a better way to balance accountability and fairness with satisfactory revenue for the core city. I continue to ask questions like 'How many people from the suburb/municipality in question work in the core city and benefit therefrom?'

My del.icio.us

OK, I've taken the plunge with My del.icio.us for my quick links. The interface is really handy. You should check it out.

Something new

I'm fooling around with Bloglines 'My Blog'. I like the ability to 'clip' things that wouldn't normally make a full post for me, in an application I'm already in. I want a place for my short posts like Matt's del.icio.us links, Anil's daily links, and kottke's remaindered links. Probably I'll just go to a separate weblog within Blogger, meant to be read in and RSS/Atom reader, though I might look at del.icio.us.

GoogleAds, editorial policy, and censorship

Google has subjected itself to a lot of criticism, including from me, by not putting their ad policies in writing. Looks like they're going to do that now. One condensation is: 'Hate Ads Bad; Protest Ads OK'. Hmm. We'll see. Protesting homosexuality was deemed hate speech before by Google.

Google says they're trying to sell ads and services. But others want to drive traffic to their sites, and are willing to pay to do it. They say they want people to get views from the actual search results, not the paid ads. However, Google themselves have taken out position ads, like when the first site returned for 'Jewish' was anti-Semitic.

Why aren't we ranking first or even in the first page of results? That will be the question raised. And the Google response traditionally has been that if someone feels they must have representation, then they should buy an ad.

That response inevitably turns the ad space into more than a merchandising medium. It also remains a message delivery outlet. And when those messages are stifled, even though it's ad space involved and despite what may be showing in the editorial results, Google remains left open to accusations of censorship.

Old news (you know, from yesterday)

CBS takes it on the chops. Schadenfreude.Lesson to learn: be careful what you say about webloggers.

The Cat Stevens deportation is interesting. Should he be on the watch list?

Boy, the Vikings sure stunk Monday night. After I bragged about their O-line over on Collaboratory the Eagles constant blitzing gave the O-line nervous tics. Lots of penalties, therefore. We couldn't run. And Daunte wasn't as rattled as he used to get, but he was still rattled. Ugh.

I see in my SC news that there's a plan to extend I-73 from Myrtle Beach to Michigan, but I can't find a really good page for it. I'd like one map of the states it will pass through. Maybe they haven't finalized their corridors, yet.

My last political opinion of the day

I agree with Dick Cheney when he says (at the end of this article): 'Today we face an enemy every bit as intent on destroying us as the Axis powers of World War II, This is, put it simply, an enemy we must destroy.'

But I disagree with the next part: 'And with President George W. Bush as our commander in chief, that's exactly what we will do.'

As you know, I disagree with Bush's/Cheney's methods and many of their decisions.

That wasn't very informative, was it?

Bush at the UN

The grist

I agree with President Bush that the UN had a responsibility to follow through with their threats against Saddam Hussein (thought that's not how he's pitching it now).

Is Kofi Annan right that our invasion of Iraq was illegal? I don't think so. It's not that simple. Is the UN the arbiter of International Law when the UN is broken? I don't think so. It's somewhat analagous to one of the 'states' rights' issue from the American Civil War.

I still think Bush should have worked harder to form a more multinational coalition, especially with the bigger players (just the realpolitikal reality).

I think we still have a real problem with instituting democracy in Iraq when many of the people want theocracy. Of course, I want democracy. I think it's best for the people. And after the price we've paid (mostly in lives, but also in dollars), I don't think we can let Iraq go Fundamentalist. But it feels like there's some irony there, at least.

I agree with Annan that we need to watch how 'the necessary fight against terrorism itself is allowed to encroach unnecessarily on civil liberties.'

Seth Godin

Interact correspondent Kurt Graves sends in this list of Lies to protect the status quo. What can I say? I buy it.

Peter King on 'Patriot Reign'

I generally agree with Peter King on football matters. What other reporter knows more about the subject?

This week he reviews a new book which says Bill Parcells was talking to other teams when he took the Patriots to the Super Bowl.

Parcells is obviously a great football mind. But I've never liked what I've seen of his cantankerous personality. If these reports are true he is, further, a self-absorbed opportunist.

The main allegation comes from Bill Belichick, backed up by hotel bill telephone records.

Further, King highly recommends the book as a great look inside football. I've added it to my Amazon wishlist. (Feel free to send it!)

Analyzing the situation in Iraq

Senators Urge Bush to Rethink Iraq Policy. These senators include Republicans and the notable John McCain. McCain said we had too few soldiers. I agree.

I find Senator Kyl's comments totally disingenuous. It's not that many of us find the struggle shocking. It's that we feel it was undertaken with too few soldiers, at least.

I disagree, too, with Senator Graham (from my state). The case that this is a civil war and insurgency is a lot stronger than the case that it's not, that it's part of the war on terror where the terrorists have gone to Iraq.

I want my Kith and Kin!

Where are Paul and Macon? I hope they're not neglecting Kith and Kin because they're Getting Things Done (tm) :-)

*cast eyes down*

Like Jason said in the comments below, the Iowa shellacking by ASU is embarrassing.

Weekend linkage

• Some guy got fired for criticizing Dan Rather's handling of the questionable Bush memos.
• John Hardy posts a visual palindrome. I've been thinking about oral/aural palindromes. Is 'sheesh' one?
• Don't know how I missed Google Accounts.
• Kottke says George Lucas is afraid of imaginary pirates. I agree with Kottke, of course.
• Scott's post on Robert McNamara [wikipeida] piqued my interest. Not sure what I think, yet. Seems like McNamara was right about a lot of things.
• Macon said he'd been waiting for my take on the CBS Bush memos (he sent me this link as a canvas of the issues). I assumed from the start that they were fake. And, while it's interesting that Dan Rather dimissed weblogging out of hand, this is the response we're used to. The New York Times has been doing it for years. They're wrong, of course, and I think it's been demonstrated that weblogging, on certain things, can eat old media's lunch.

Football thoughts

Looks like I'm going to win in all 4 of my fantasy leagues this week. That's more like it. Beats that 2 and 4 from last week. So, my thoughts while watching the three network games + highlights:

• Indianapolis looked bad for six quarters, then caught fire.
• Dan Dierdorf is often mistaken in his facts. He's right in what he's trying to say...
• How are the Giants and Bears winning? I'll tell you how: the Redskins and Packers self-destructed. Green Bay looked like world champions Monday night.
• New Orleans put together a complete game after getting stomped by Seattle last week, but lost Deuce McAllister.
• St Louis and San Francisco hung on in their games, but still lost.
• Injuries are (literally) decimating some teams: the Indianapolis defense, Minnesota's and Philly's running back corps, Carolina's offense, etc.
• Carolina got spanked by Green Bay last Monday night, but looked great in the second half yesterday. Some of their success this week was a function of how bad KC's defense is. Carolina's offensive line is questionable.
• Baltimore looked more like themselves yesterday, especially Jamal Lewis and the defense. I wonder what happened last week against Cleveland (especially since Cleveland looked so bad yesterday).
• Atlanta went off yesterday. A lot better than their previous week against SF, when they were bland.
• Detroit keeps winning. How? Is Mariucci getting things together? Is Harrington getting better?
• Peter King was right: the Titans defense isn't as good this year.
• I knew Daniel Graham was going to do well against Arizona.
• Jim Nantz and Greg Gumble switched places. Does that mean something? Is it a promotion for one of them? I like Greg better across the board.
• Lip-reading Bill Parcells to Keyshawn Johnson: 'Shut up.'
  

A9

Interesting that A9 has columns that toggle, while Google has tabs, given that Amazon was the website that popularized tabs. The toggleable columns remind me of the Gmail interface. FWIW.

RobertGalleryFilter

Rookie Gallery to Make First NFL Start as Oakland's Right Tackle. In the few minutes I watched on Sunday, Gallery did a really good job, notably, including a heads-up fumble recovery. Go Hawks!

RSS/Atom

Macon noted to me on the phone the other day that BlogRolling has been unreliable in its 'new' categorizations. Ain't that the truth. Thankfully, everyone on my BlogRoll has RSS/Atom feeds, which are totally reliable.

(Everyone, that is, except for Paul. What do you say, Paul? Could you turn that bad boy on? ;-)

Bonds' image

Barry Bonds' manager hopes joining the 700 club will change his image. Nope. Being more personable and denouncing steroids could change his image.

Three quick links

U.S. Intelligence Offers Gloomy Outlook for Iraq

Hawkeyes Aim to Limit Walter, Sun Devils' Passing Game in Battle of Unbeatens. Isn't this the same team we beat up on last year? Yes it is. Admittedly, our offense has a lot less power this year. But if the defense is true to form, we won't have to score too many points. It's not a sure thing. We'll see.

Interview with David Neeleman, CEO of JetBlue (via kottke)

More beating my head against the wall

(I only mean, politics-wise, not that Bush is leading...)

Electoral vote predictor for today (click Next Report for subsequent days). (via MeFi)

Wil playing soccer

Looks like a pro, aye? And Beckham-handsome, too. 

This is why I hate politics...

Well, one reason, anyway.

The whole Zell Miller thing. I know I'm late to this party.

The speech (transcript)

MeFi thread on Jimmy Carter's rejoinder

I find the whole thing distasteful: Miller's reshaping of the race into one issue, his attacks on Kerry, the Democrats' resulting attacks on Miller.

Gag.