Nerf-Coated World

April 30, 2003

Bad news for Texas sports

Bad news for Texas sports fans: T.J. might be leaving. (Thanks to Bob for the link.)

"When you get to where you can't improve your position, you almost have to go,'' said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "His stock can't get any higher than it is now. You have to support that.''

It's interesting to see the short-sightedness implicit in this point-of-view: note the assumption that Ford's position (his value) won't be any higher, ever, than at this moment, just after the Longhorns were defeated in the Final Four, Ford coming off a mediocre game against the overwhelming Carmelo Anthony. There's no hope of Ford ever being any better, any more highly valued than at this moment in his career. There are no future wins in the Final Four in his future, no more chances of outstanding performances like his Orangeman adversary had, no more years to hype his talent and build a name for himself as Jordan and Magic Johnson did. No, the game is over at this point for T.J. Ford; the star can't rise any higher for this young sophomore.

I wonder if this sudden announcement has anything to do with the incident two weeks ago, where Ford had to be rushed to the hospital after suffering an injury in a pick-up game at Gregory Gym. I wonder if Ford, escaping major injury, thought to himself -- "You know, I could get seriously injured playing here at Texas, and I would never get a dollar for playing pro ball." Better to get a contract and then get injured, and then there's the possibility of coming back -- but get injured in college? That's the death knell to a career just out of the incubator.

At any rate, when guys like Ford leave their teams midway through their four-year college careers (if you can call them careers), it's damaging. There isn't time to develop a tradition within the players. By the time Ford was a senior, that Longhorn basketball team could have been solid as a rock under his leadership. And those juniors and sophomores would have been far better as players and would have learned from him. Better basketball would have been the end result.

Even if Ford is drafted, and even if he gets to start -- which, no doubt, will be for the Clippers or the Cavs -- what will be the net effect? (No pun intended.) There's very little hope of Ford being part of a solid team with any hope of reaching any level of greatness -- at least not this early in his career. Wouldn't it be better to stick with a team that has a real chance of winning two straight NCAA tournaments in the coming years? That's an opportunity Ford can't get back if he goes pro now, and that kind of accomplishment can only increase his value to the NBA.

It just seems to me that he has so much to gain by staying at Texas -- short of an actual paycheck. It just seems to me that this is a case where patience could pay greater dividends over the long haul. You gotta look out for number one, of course; it's just sad that he won't be around to build up something that we all had hoped would turn out to be a new basketball legacy at Texas.

Posted by Matt at 2:05 PM

Stephen Den Beste puts in

Stephen Den Beste puts in perspective the efforts by France, et al, to establish a powerful European military:

But never fear! Paris is on the case, and has a solution. Europe needs an independent military which is capable of "counterbalancing" the US, but doesn't want to pay for it. Europe needs a nation which actually has a force large enough to be credible, which can become a partner in Europe's defense so as to protect Europe from American aggression. (Which is to say, Europe needs a new free ride.)

In short, Europe needs Russia to come in to Western Europe and save it from America.

Posted by Matt at 10:58 AM

April 29, 2003

I doubt I'll ever get

I doubt I'll ever get used to this.

Posted by Matt at 10:00 PM

Did manage to get two

Did manage to get two things done yesterday that needed doing:

1. listed my Tetris on eBay


2. set an appointment for the trusty Volvo, to fix the things they didn't fix last time

Sigh. I'm going to miss that car. You drive nearly 65,000 miles in a vehicle, and you get a little bit attached. It wasn't as hard to do with my last one -- even though it was my first -- because at that point, it had all sorts of little things wrong with it. And even though I had it for longer than this one, I drove about 20,000 fewer miles on it (no trips to Atlanta or L.A.).

Anyway, the Tahoe will have more room, so I can stretch out better. My legs are far longer than the average, so the Volvo, while it fits me, fits me just barely. It's the end of an era. I got that car at the end, and the beginning of a new chapter of my life. And here it is again, I'm getting new car (new to me) at the end and the beginning of another new chapter.

Posted by Matt at 3:12 AM

April 28, 2003

No way! Chewbacca's back for

No way! Chewbacca's back for Episode III! I might ned up going to see it after all!

UPDATE: Although, now, after reading the whole article carefully, I'm inclined to wonder if this is a hoax. See if you can spot the problem:

Lucas has noted in the past that having Baker inside the R2-D2 suit brought "an element of humanity" to the character.

Not that Lucas has the slightest clue about acting. Or humanity. If anyone is reading this who has any influence whatsoever on Big Georgie Skywalker: Please please PLEASE make him take some classes at a community college about directing actors. No really, even a high school acting class would help. He clearly was able to skip these classes when he got his film degree; how he was able to skirt the requirements is a travesty we all must endure. Put a gun to his head, or threaten to release the special editions of Star Wars Episode IV on DVD... whatever it takes.

Posted by Matt at 12:31 PM

Lordy lordy. Sleep schedule's messed

Lordy lordy. Sleep schedule's messed up again -- has been for a little while -- and I'm forcing myself to stay awake until late this afternoon. I had the strangest bout of insomnia last weekend. My mind just would not stop. I lay in bed for three, four hours -- this after going to bed late, around four -- and could not, for the life of me, fall asleep. The rest of the week was history.

On a three a.m. excursion to H-E-B (the local all-night grocery store -- love it) last Wednesday, I took a very rare trip to the pharmaceutical section and procured myself a boxful of Unisom. I have a healthy aversion to using pills and the like to cure what ails me (which usually works out fine; I don't even get headaches all that much), so this was definitely new ground I was breaking. Pills for sleep? Gah.

Well, I took one, and it seemed to work. Apparently the active ingredient is the same stuff they put in NyQuil to knock you out (it's the "so you can rest" part of the "so you can rest medicine"). Nonetheless, when you go to sleep too late, the damage is done. Assuming you have the luxury to sleep a full eight hours, you won't be tired the next night until much later, and thus, the cycle is set in motion. For a whole week you have to tack on an extra three or four hours to your waking periods just to rotate your diurnal cycle to fit in with the working world.

If there's a better way to do this, I'd be glad to hear it.

Just for the record, I did try to reset my sleep schedule once by trying to correct it within the course of a day or two. Didn't work. I was wiped out later. I think the greatest difficulty is not being around people all day long. I've found that if I'm awakened by the phone and I start my day with talking to someone, I'm up for good. The very act of conversation with another human being probably stimulates some part of the brain that isn't easily quieted after being aroused. Maybe if they could come up with a smart alarm clock that calls you on the phone and simulates human intelligence. Of course, if it sounds like those automated telemarketing calls, forget about it. But there's a multi-million-dollar idea there for an A.I. specialist, just waiting to be had.

Posted by Matt at 12:23 PM

Gonna be a rough day

Gonna be a rough day today. Let's see what I can do about it.

Posted by Matt at 9:20 AM

April 27, 2003

Not much posting this week,

Not much posting this week, I know. I was doing a few entries a day there for a while, so I know I set a high bar to clear; now that I haven't been posting as much, I feel like I've let the audience (all three of you) down.

I told Bob recently that I had considered doing more entries of a personal nature; he said I should go for it. I haven't yet felt the urge, though. Not that there's nothing going on in my life; rather, quite the opposite. In fact, the more eventful my life gets, the less I feel like writing about it here. I'm not an exhibitionist, and I don't quite see the value in creating a web-diary of sorts; the very concept is sort of sour to me. They're mostly composed by people who, well, like to tell the world their problems. Not my style.

But here's what I will do. I can definitely see a value in creating a blog that can be a record of the things I feel are worth sharing. The things that I'm proud of, the goals I achieve. And up until recently, sadly, I didn't have many of those worth writing home about. Things have changed.

Bob's brother Ian just wrote about an excruiating experience while running for half an hour. Reading it, I was reminded of the time I tried to go for a leisurely bike ride in northwest Austin. (For those of you who don't know, the terrain is awfully hilly, and for a guy as out of shape as I was, it was dreadfully difficult to enjoy.) At the end, I threw up, my body totally exhausted from having to pedal up so many hills, my skin cold, my face flushed red. I was in pain. Not a good statement on how well I was taking care of myself. And I suspect that as of two weeks ago, three years after that horrible experience, I was doing even worse.

Well, last Monday (that's two weeks ago), I finally got the gumption to start the Body-for-LIFE program. It's a workout program designed by a guy named Bill Phillips, and it's geared towards those of us who aren't in shape. It's tough. It's really really hard to get through the workouts. But it's so well-designed and well-planned that it makes the goals doable. I've already seen major improvement in my upper body, and I'm not kidding -- I saw overnight change in my abs last night. Granted, I worked them out like crazy, but man -- if going through that much pain -- the well-focused, efficient, right kind of pain -- is what it takes to get those results, I'll suck it up and do it because I know what I'm doing is for a greater goal.

I've stuck with it for two weeks, and I know I'll complete it. And at the end, I'll look totally different. In fact, I've held off buying new clothes because my sizes are all going to be different at the end of this. For the better. In fact, one of the reasons I decided to do this was because I could no longer fit in 34's when I went shopping for some new pants over Christmas. That was horrible. I used to be a 33-inch waist; then I moved up to 34's about three years ago, and here I was not being able to even button them in the fitting room. I felt terrible. I was embarrassed in a way that I had rarely ever been -- I was embarrassed to myself. I don't usually feel embarrassed from other people; I am who I am, and I try to live with integrity so that doesn't happen. But there, in that fitting room, I was suddenly ashamed of myself; I let myself down. And that hurt.

So anyway, it's two weeks into it; I've lost at least ten pounds (I fluctuate some; I've lost as much as thirteen), and I've already seen major changes in my abs and chest. I can't push out my stomach as much as I could before, and my chest is thicker. My arms are thicker. There's actually a slight bulge when I flex my biceps -- something I haven't had since mid-college. I feel great, I'm working out hard, and I've never been prouder of myself. In fact, just like I've heard a lot of people say when they start a workout program like this, I feel like other things in my life are coming into focus. Mentally, I'm seeing myself do things I don't want to do; it's a side-effect from having to work through the tough workouts where every muscle is burning but you've got to complete that set.

I'm not a muscle-head. I was never an athlete. (I scored three whole points on my high school freshman basketball team, and two of those were against the retarded kids' team. No joke. Coach played me a lot in that game -- it was the only time he did.) And I'm catching myself, all of a sudden, being concerned about the nutritional content of my food. Not out of fear of things that are Bad For You, but because I don't want to ruin what I've been working so hard on. That's the distinction, I guess between living life to the fullest, and living in fear of it. My driving force in this regard is the pride I feel in accomplishing something that I wanted to do and hated myself for not doing, and I will not accept my own failure. It's too important to prove to myself that I can achieve something difficult. Which is something I haven't done in a long time.

I find myself nearly kicking myself -- nearly -- for not doing this sooner. In fact, when I saw my old boss a few summers ago, and he'd just gone through the Body-for-LIFE program, he said that he wished he had started it sooner. I get that now. Once you do it, once you get past that first phase of difficulty, once you start to focus yourself on the positives that you're achieving, and once you integrate that concept that the pain that it takes to get there is worth it, you start to see the world differently. What if I don't take that chance? What if I don't do that thing that I think I should do, but won't because I'm afraid of it, or I think it'll hurt too much? I'm starting too see how it all makes a difference. This is something I put off for almost two years. I can only imagine where I'd be now, physically, mentally, emotionally, if I had mustered up the guts to do this sooner. The great part is that it is only uphill from here, and I'll probably have a longer life now that I'm starting this habit.

Anyway, I thought this experience was one worth sharing. There have been plenty of others, mind you. But I really want to spend my time doing constructive things. Focusing on the positive is something that is really important to me these days -- in a very core-level way. I cannot tell you how much the negative irritates me now. I have had enough of people who complain about everything, whose minds are always focused on tearing things down. Which isn't to say there isn't a place for criticism, but let's be honest: there are people whose entire personalities are constructed around cynicism and negativity in such a fundamental way that I can't help but to think that they cannot be very happy.

I've always thought that happiness was a choice. Even when I have been unhappy in my own life. The difference is that I never wanted happiness enough. I wasn't willing to believe in it enough -- its authenticity. I'm starting to understand that not only is it possible, but that it comes from inside. It comes from pride in your efforts and living in accordance with your values. Integrity. Living an honest life with goals and a genuine desire to achieve those goals. Maybe it really does take hitting rock-bottom to get there (wherever rock-bottom happens to be for you); but I think I hit that point a little while back. It's an intensely personal thing for each person, and although there was no Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus moment for me, the thing for me was taking a step back and honestly assessing: what do I want out of life? And the answer to that question has made many of the uncertainties go away in a way that I couldn't resolve before. Now that I know what I want -- and they're simple things, really -- I know what I need to do to get them.

Read enough? Hope so. That's where I am right now; maybe this will be of value to someone.

Posted by Matt at 6:51 AM

April 23, 2003

Groan. So there's some fuss

Groan.

So there's some fuss about the comments made by Sen. Rick Santorum, regarding a case before the Supreme Court that would strike down state sodomy laws. Here they are, for those of you who like primary sources:

If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does.

And then on the other hand, I was listening to Sean Hannity today on the radio, and he was pretty much in agreement with Santorum. Their point is basically the slippery-slope argument: "If we legalize gay sex, then we've got to legalize polygamy! And bigamy! And beastiality!" And no self-respecting Christian would allow that, right? (Hannity did make the point that both he and Santorum are Catholic.)

And of course, they miss the point entirely. They forget that this is a free country. It ain't a theocracy; it's a constitutional republic, whose Constitution, I might add, does not mention God or Christianity. (And by the way, guys, that was on purpose.)

You can't just outlaw certain consensual activities because they may "damage the fabric of society." People do it anyway; it doesn't hurt anyone, and making it illegal just undermines the legitimacy of the system that gave rise to such laws that are so out of step with what the people want. In short: they don't stop anyone from doing it, and trying to stop it just makes the government look oppressive (because, well, in this case, it is).

If we are free -- and supposedly, that's one of the guiding principles that our country was founded upon -- the government doesn't have the right to dictate what activites are allowed, when taking place with one or more consenting adults. Yeah, in addition to not having the right to dictate what bedroom activities one may engage in, government also doesn't have the right to tell you what chemicals to put in your body, if you so choose, although it most certainly has the right and the obligation to protect you against those who force them down your throat. And of course, if, while hopped up on your drug of choice, you lose control of your actions and end up damaging someone else's person or property, the government has every right to prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law because you screwed with someone else -- against their consent.

I just wanna slap these guys around: IT'S ALL ABOUT CONSENT YOU IDIOTS. You don't have the right to tell me that I can't be gay, and yes, engage in gay actions, if I so choose. (And for the record, I am most certainly straight.) This is nothing more than the Republican version of social engineering, and it's every bit as despicable as the leftist-Democrat version, the let's-tax-the-things-we-hate-and-just-a-little-bit-tax-the-things-we-want-to-encourage version.

This is retarded policy. It's about 225 years behind the times, and it's time these guys got a clue. (On both sides of the aisle, please.

Posted by Matt at 6:13 PM

April 16, 2003

Frankly, my head hurts. I

Frankly, my head hurts.

I had to write a very large check to the Fed today... so that some jerks in Washington can split it up and spend it on stuff of Vital National Interest. Conveniently, most of them will do their damnedest to remind their voters of the Great Work they're doing with my money and most of them will be re-elected (so it's a win-win).

But truth be told, I'm tired. I'm tired of thinking about how much the government gets of my money. I'm tired of thinking about how everything in the world would be much better if everyone just took care of their own damn backyard and took this creed to heart:

"I swear -- by my life and by my love of it -- that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Speaking of backyards, I want one someday. I want a house, the suburban dream. Kids going to a private school. I want to have a regular job -- not at a desk, though -- and a beautiful wife and a backyard to mow. Simple things. I want them.

I want my head to stop hurting from thinking about so much of the world's problems, problems which are almost entirely beyond my sphere of influence. I've turned off the news. I'm not reading it anymore online. I'm just going to pay the bills and finish work on longstanding projects (and one just popped up again...). I'm going to check the status of my application for readmission to UT, and I'm going to plan out my summer. Which is further in the future than I've practically planned in some time.

I'm going to take some classes before heading to Europe for two weeks. I'm going to get a tan and complete the Body-for-Life Challenge, which I started at the beginning of this week. My muscles are really hurting, still, two days later. And I walked about five miles today, not so much for the BFL thing, but because my car is in the shop. I'll have it back tomorrow morning.

I'll probably be trading my car for mom's. She's got a Tahoe. I'd really like to get a bigger car. I'm a big guy, I need the space. Hopefully we can set something up soon.

And just thinking about the future. Man. Things change. You move on. Bob knows what I mean.

I'm off to bed, to wake up early, pick up the car, finish a website, reply to an e-mail, pay some bills, make some new friends maybe.

Posted by Matt at 1:10 AM

April 14, 2003

Today, CNN did a round-up

Today, CNN did a round-up of what's being said about the liberation of Iraq in the Arab media. I just about died laughing when came across this excerpt, from a writer who wanted to know where the Iraqi Information Minister went:

I heard that al-Sahhaf has been captured, and then he issued a statement denying it, and declaring that he was the one who actually captured the Americans. Then I heard that when Saddam's statue was destroyed in Baghdad, al-Sahhaf made a statement to say that the statue was for one of Saddam's doubles.

Posted by Matt at 3:00 PM

April 12, 2003

And now for something completely

And now for something completely different...

Well not completely.

Irrationality just pisses me off. Lack of integrity pisses me off. Why the hell can't people just be who they are, say what they mean, and be at least minimally rational in making up their minds? No answers? Me either.

That is all for now. Please resume your previous activities.

Posted by Matt at 10:08 PM

April 11, 2003

So it turns out that

So it turns out that Tariq Aziz (Iraq's foriegn minister, you might recognize him from such international incidents such as "No! I will not answer any questions from the Zionist Israeli Media!") may have been preparing to go to business school:

In a ground floor office are photographs of a man in his forties who appears to be Aziz's son. White business cards bearing the name Ziad Tariq Aziz are on a large oak desk. On the floor is a box of cigars, a backgammon set and a bottle of Cartier cologne. Brochures advertising Smith & Wesson and Remington firearms are scattered on the office floor. A Princeton Review test preparation book, titled "Cracking the GMAT," is marked with notes in the margins.

Posted by Matt at 5:46 PM

This is horrible. Eason Jordan,

This is horrible.

Eason Jordan, a reporter for CNN, has an article out today in the New York Times detailing some of the horrific stories he couldn't broadcast -- because to do so would have meant death for any number of people in Iraq.

For example, there's this gut-wrenching story:

I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in-law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails).

Posted by Matt at 2:19 PM

April 10, 2003

God, I love James Lileks.

God, I love James Lileks.

Today at the Pentagon press briefing, a reporter asked about Humanitarian Crisis, and Rumsfeld described at great length the humanitarian crisis that existed before the Allies got there, and how things were actually improving. It was classic Rummy; he not only refused to accept the premise of the question, he refuted it like a blacksmith working out marital frustrations on a red-hot horseshoe. You can just imagine what some of the reporters say to one another as they leave the briefing:

I say, what’s that in your hands, there? That pink thing?

Oh, this? It’s my ass. Rumsfeld handed it to me. And I see you have a nice clock there - brand new?

No, it’s quite old, but Rumsfeld cleaned it. Free of charge.

Posted by Matt at 2:08 AM

April 9, 2003

Ha! You've got to see

Ha! You've got to see this.

Posted by Matt at 3:09 PM

Could this guy just keep

Could this guy just keep his mouth shut about things he has no authority on?

The invasion of Iraq was planned a long time in advance, and the United States and Britain are not primarily concerned with finding any banned weapons of mass destruction, the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, said.

"There is evidence that this war was planned well in advance. Sometimes this raises doubts about their attitude to the (weapons) inspections," Blix told Spanish daily El Pais.

Yeah, yeah, I know he's just covering his ass and sucking up to whoever will grace him with his next paycheck, but still. This is just classless. This is twice now he's failed to find the WMD in Iraq, and it makes him look better if he says that the US had plans to invade anyway, and he's just a little Swede, what could he do about it?

He knows NOTHING about what the US planned against Iraq. (And incidentally, the Pentagon routinely draws up war plans, against anyone and everyone, for the sake of preparedness, so even if we did have war plans against Iraq (and I'm sure we did), that doesn't mean we had any imminent intention of using them.) The fact that we even went to the UN and patiently tried to convince the rest of the world of our position -- and no-one seriously doubted that Iraq was in breach, just that we didn't have the right to enforce the previous resolutions "unilaterally", neverminding the fact that the UN wouldn't get off its ass and do something about it -- that fact says a lot about what the US "had planned". Anyone who argues that "the process" didn't run its course or have enough time to be effective is someone who likely has no concept of the word "deadline". If thirteen years wasn't enough for Blix, no time would have been enough.

Just think about that for a second. Thirteen years is half my life. New Kids on the Block was cool. Extreme was just about to come out with their second album (the best one, in my opinion). 21 Jump Street was still on the air. Give me a freaking break, Blix.

The truth of the matter is that the UN is a sprawling, one-world-government bureaucracy with a purpose. The purpose being to employ as many grad students from public affairs schools as possible. They sit, they gab, they drink Martinis with their diplomat friends and sniff loudly at anyone who displeases them, and we pay for it. They want us to pay more. I wouldn't be too upset if the building on First avenue was auctioned off to the highest bidder (probably it'll be Trump) and renovated with high-speed internet and bay windows for the new upscale residents. Turn that concrete plaza into a grassy park. It's over, it's done. It's irrelevant. That sound you hear emanating from Blix's gums is the sound of desperation -- that his whole life has been a failure, that the only way a man like him can make a living is through a government-appointed job paid for by Joe Average (the same guy he scoffs at when he hears about how the American Street supports their half-wit President on this matter) -- and he knows it. He knows what a waste he is, and you can bet everything you own that he will spend the rest of his able-bodied days doing everything he can to use his pull and influence to make sure that there are always institutions that sap off the people to support assholes like himself.

End rant! Have a good day!

Oh, speaking of rants, Bob has a great one. Go Bob!

Posted by Matt at 2:17 PM

After, oh, about the third

After, oh, about the third day of the war, when the Great Iraqi Rebellion didn't immediately materialize more than a few people were quick to gloat. But even in the South, far from the reach of Saddam Hussein, they sneered, Americans are being defeated by the very people they intended to liberate!

And catch-phrases being so chic, they really wore this one out: Did you Americans really expect to be greeted with flowers? Or bullets? Hm?

Catch-phrases sure are a bitch, aren't they :

Hundreds of jubilant Iraqis cheered, danced, waved and threw flowers as U.S. Marines advanced through eastern Baghdad and into the center of President Saddam Hussein's capital on Wednesday.

Posted by Matt at 3:48 AM

Sorry for the light blogging

Sorry for the light blogging today. Lot on my mind lately, and I didn't have a lot to say that wasn't being said elsewhere. Even though I get a lot of my links from other blogging sites, I usually only post the same links if I either have an as-yet unexpressed point-of-view on the matter, or if the link is so interesting that I think it needs to be seen by everyone. Everyone meaning the three people who read this blog. Including me.

Anywho. Here's a neat account of yesterday's attack on Baghdad, ringside:

How Iraqis will respond when the Iraqi ruler and his sons are finally toppled will be central to the judgments history makes of the war, and perhaps a foretaste came on the fifth or sixth run of one of the F-18's.

A missile was fired from low altitude and struck a bulls-eye on the building's southern facade, at about the 10th floor, setting off a fireball leaping into the sky, followed by a plume of thick black smoke.

An Iraqi man of about 30, wearing a track suit and watching from a window on an upper floor of the Sheraton Hotel a mile down the river to the south, leaned out to shout something to two reporters for American publications who had made of their own 12th-floor balcony a grandstand seat.

Thumbs up, grinning, the man punched the air, triumphant.

Only in afterthought, perhaps concerned that he might have been overheard by other Iraqis, or perhaps that he might be identified from reports the Americans would write, did he retract — with a scatological outburst about America, but still with the same broad grin.

Posted by Matt at 2:07 AM

April 7, 2003

Jeez... I predicted that Mohammed

Jeez... I predicted that Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf would get more blustery as the situation got more grim. But this is just silly.

He denied certain buildings, such as the al Rashid hotel, were under coalition control.

"The Americans, they always depend on a method what I call ... stupid, silly. All I ask is check yourself. Do not in fact repeat their lies."

The funniest thing I've seen in the last two weeks was last night: a Fox News embedded reporter was interviewing one of the soldiers who had taken the great square where Saddam parades his troops (you know the one: it's got those two huge swords criss-crossing over the entrances on both sides). He asked the soldier "So, the information minister just got on Arab television and said that American forces hadn't taken the Ministry of Information, and that you aren't in Baghdad. What do you have to say to that?" His reponse: "Well, it's funny he says that because I can see the Ministry of Information building from right here, it's just across the way there."

Here's another gem:

"They are sick in their minds. They say they brought 65 tanks into center of city. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick mind," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf said. "There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad at all."

I read someone's comments somewhere that said that what made the rebuilding of Japan and Germany possible was their complete defeat, to the point of humiliation. In this war, it won't be us who delivers the humiliation. We're just setting the stage for it. It's the Iraqi information minister himself that will do the deed.

Posted by Matt at 1:16 PM

Oh man. I just got

Oh man. I just got a stark full-frontal view of my sense of humor while browsing another website. This is what made me laugh:

11:19 PM EDT/7:19 AM Iraq: The Guardian: Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf an "unlikely star"

Analysis of and background info on the Iraqi Information [sic] Minister.

Posted by Matt at 12:36 AM

Sorry if stories like these

Sorry if stories like these are getting old, but they've got to be told: Forced to die for a regime they hate

THE elderly Iraqi man walked gingerly towards the checkpoint set up by Royal Marines on the outskirts of Basra. As he got closer to the troops they warily fixed their gun barrels on the shuffling figure in front of them.

Holding his hands in the air he shouted out in English: "Please, please. Surrender, surrender." He looked like just another fighter - until he dropped five grenades on the floor. [...]

"I did not want to do the attack because I hate Saddam Hussein and his regime and the British I see as my friends. I am a Muslim and killing people is also against my religion, but they gave me no choice.

"When I walked up to the gate I thought, ‘I cannot do this’. So I told the British soldiers I am their friend and I pulled up my shirt and showed them my weapons, and they didn’t shoot me.

"There are other people like me that the regime forces to do things they don’t want. We just want freedom."

Posted by Matt at 12:28 AM

Here's a neat trick James

Here's a neat trick James Lileks seems to have perfected: turning an argument on its head with an elegance and economy of words so that the truth seems strikingly obvious:

It reminded me again of an interview I heard a few weeks ago with the CEO of some big Middle-eastern Internet company; he said that Arabs hate the US because of the oppressive governments we support. The host asked if people were pleased when the Taliban was deposed, and he said of course not - the US was attacking a Muslim nation!

Posted by Matt at 12:20 AM

April 5, 2003

The Guardian's got an interesting

The Guardian's got an interesting piece today on how the fearsome Republican Guard has fared. Here are some excerpts:

"God only knows what I'll do now," said one of the guardsmen, a corporal, Dawi Hussein Mohamed. "I wish I was a bird and I could fly to my family." [...]

They were still in uniform, but were already making their transition to civilian life. "It's a relief," said Mahdi, of his capture, of the collapse of the guard, of the end of the regime. "It's like a weight off my chest."

Yet Mohamed spoke of how difficult it would be for Iraqis of his generation - they are all in their early 20s - to think themselves out of the tyranny inside their heads. Asked what he thought about Saddam, he said: "He's my father, he's my president. We didn't understand him properly. We grew up with him around so we don't know anyone else but him."

Posted by Matt at 4:18 PM

News flash: Chief U.N. weapons

News flash:

Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Friday that he would be interested to learn whether Iraq has chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Posted by Matt at 3:59 PM

April 4, 2003

Why hasn't the Iraqi street

Why hasn't the Iraqi street turned out in droves to support us, the great liberators? I spent about a half-hour last night trying to give this question the attention it deserved, and in the end, scrapped what I'd written because I knew that I couldn't do the subject justice.

Thankfully, Stephen Den Beste showed up today with the piece that I was trying in vain to write.

Posted by Matt at 5:33 PM

Interesting anecdote from CNN: A

Interesting anecdote from CNN:

A bus full of men in civilian clothes had been pulled over at a checkpoint. While one man was being questioned, he drew a finger across his throat, Tomlin and others on the bus said. Asked what that meant, he responded with a glare. ...

"What you're saying is you want to kill me," Tomlin said to the man.

The Iraqi nodded.

"You're saying you want to kill me?" he asked.

The Iraqi grinned and glared.

At that point, a gunnery sergeant grabbed the man, threw him to the floor and bound his hands behind his back with plastic handcuffs.

The Iraqi was "crying like a baby," the sergeant said, and Tomlin said the other 30 men on the bus "knew we meant business."

And 2) Is this more support for the theory that the Arabs see us as weaklings? They clearly don't respect us, and after our performance in Somalia and the first Gulf War (where we failed to finish the job), not to mention our feeble response to the bombings of our embassies and barracks throughout the 80's and 90's, they have ample reason to think we are weak. Lacking in intestinal fortitude, so they say. It occurs to me that the Soviet Union at least respected us, maybe in part because they knew that we would defend ourselves if provoked.

Two decades of appeasement sends a message to an entire generation. It shouldn't be surprising that the guy was "crying like a baby" when his theory about American guts was put to a real-life test.

Posted by Matt at 5:14 PM

April 3, 2003

I've never read anything

I've never read anything by Ayn Rand and I only have a basic understanding of objectivism but I do have one, overpowering and decisive argument against both: Bryan Register.

You should read The Fountainhead, and then tackle Atlas Shrugged. The former sat on my nightstand for several years before I made an honest attempt to read it; the latter I picked up immediately after finishing the first. The books are really enjoyable, and you'll probably be surprised by how timely they are (despite having been written 60 and 47 years ago, respectively).

Posted by Matt at 3:25 PM

What do liberated Iraqis want?

What do liberated Iraqis want?

NAJAF, Iraq, April 2 — In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today.

What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring?

"Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"

Around him, the crowd roared its approval.

Posted by Matt at 3:12 PM

Lordy, lordy. That Stalinist dictator

Lordy, lordy. That Stalinist dictator cracks me up.

Posted by Matt at 1:20 PM

The Iraqi Street is livid.

The Iraqi Street is livid. No, not at who you might think.

Posted by Matt at 11:05 AM

Okay, I'm getting really tired

Okay, I'm getting really tired of Fox News' "BREAKING NEWS" feature. Gentle and learned readers, I ask you: Is this breaking news?

Bush: 'We Will Not Stop Until Iraq Is Free'

1. news that we didn't already know

Seriously. They're pulling a real "cry wolf" thing here. I've stopped paying attention. When they figure this out -- that their news alerts aren't getting attention anymore -- they'll do either one of two things: 1) cut back on the Breaking News Alerts so that they're worth more, or 2) come up with an additional news alert, perhaps Super Breaking News Alert, to differentiate between news that is truly breaking and that which is merely just coming in. I've got my money squarely on the latter.

Posted by Matt at 10:35 AM

Giant squid? Our cephalopod is

Giant squid? Our cephalopod is bigger.

Posted by Matt at 10:27 AM

The other Bryan wrote something

The other Bryan wrote something yesterday that definitely needs to be said about the rescue of Pfc. "Baby" Jessica Lynch:

YES, it's fantastic we got her back alive, but just like with Elizabeth Smart I wish people would make the tiny, tiny mental leap as to what these two must have gone through and quit yucking it up on the airways over how wonderful and wacky life is.

All the rest of the ambushed soldiers were summarily executed. This one beautiful young woman was, for several days (and thank Jesus we spared her the YEARS of it she might have gotten), almost certainly raped many times.

(And does anyone doubt that if she were not as pretty, she wouldn't be getting this much attention? And did anyone stop to think that if she weren't a cute, blond-haired, blue-eyed thing, that she would have probably been executed along with the others in her squad? I'm not going to spell that out. Think about it for a second.)

This experience is going to screw up this girl's life forever. So it would be nice if the anchors took this opportunity to probe that they really are human beings and exhibited a little more awareness of this fact.

I have personal experience with how grotesque and callous the media can be in spinning the stories they sell. I'll share that one another time.

Posted by Matt at 9:57 AM

Signs of the apocalypse: Grand

Signs of the apocalypse: Grand Ayatollah issues a fatwa urging Muslims to cooperate with, not kill the Americans:

Grand Ayatollah Sustani, whom Iraqi authorities in Najaf had held under house arrest, was released and issued a fatwa calling on Iraqis not to interfere with coalition forces, Brooks said Thursday.

Posted by Matt at 9:40 AM

April 2, 2003

CELEBRITY SIGHTING UPDATE: Just saw

CELEBRITY SIGHTING UPDATE:

Just saw Harry Knowles at a pizza place here in Austin. I'd never seen a picture of the guy in real life -- so get this: I recognized him from his cartoon self, featured on his website. I caught his eye twice as I was trying to figure out if it was him, so the second time, I decided to not be a twerp about it and just go introduce myself and ask him if he was Harry Knowles. He was. He was a nice guy, he asked me who I was, and what I did, and such. I told him I checked his site out every week for Buffy updates. We talked a little about the show.

That's all.

Posted by Matt at 8:21 PM

A lengthy discussion of tribalism

A lengthy discussion of tribalism and its relation to the Arab world and the European socialist welfare state. Lengthy passages from Ayn Rand.

The government of a mixed economy manufactures pressure groups--and, specifically, manufactures "ethnicity." The profiteers are those group leaders who discover suddenly that they can exploit the helplessness, the fear, the frustration of their "ethnic" brothers, organize them into a group, present demands to the government--and deliver the vote. The result is political jobs, subsidies, influence and prestige for the leaders of the ethnic groups.

This does not improve the lot of the group's rank and file. It makes no difference to the hard-pressed unemployed of any race or color what quota of jobs, admissions and Washington appointments were handed out to the political manipulators from their particular race or color. But the ugly farce goes on, with the help and approval of the intellectuals, who write about "minority victories."

Posted by Matt at 1:50 PM

April 1, 2003

I love it: To quote

I love it:

To quote an unknown medic with the 101st Airborne at the Battle of Bastogne, "They've got us surrounded, the poor bastards."

Posted by Matt at 2:53 PM

It's not often that I,

It's not often that I, humble American, come across news freom Bob's part of the world, so here it is.

Posted by Matt at 10:19 AM

Build your own South Park character. Why not?

September 2009

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