Nerf-Coated World

June 30, 2003

Gotta love the Republicans...

Who could be bothered to defend the Constitution when your efforts could be directed at changing it?

Sigh. I didn't vote for George W. the first time, and it's looking more and more like I'm gonna have to not vote for the Republicans again in 2004. Boy, they're doing a freaking great job of capturing the intelligent young liberty-minded crowd.

Posted by Matt at 10:11 AM

Mark Steyn strikes again

Excellent column from Mark Steyn today. Hits everything from sodomy to "Swingin'" Sandra Day O'Connor, Maureen Dowd, and the corruption of language. I don't know how he packs that much into a single op-ed, but, well, there you are.

Posted by Matt at 9:14 AM

Housecleanin' time

That's what it is round Casa De Howell. Time to wrap up loose ends; time to bid good riddance to the rubbish that has been accumulating on my desk and in various boxes and deposit the it, processed in my stylish-yet-reasonably-priced Target trashbucket.

Time to look through all the old stuff and see what's worth carrying on into the future and what doesn't get its passage paid. Time to figure out what to do: to write, to act, to lawyerize... Time to decide on a destination. East a couple hundred miles? West by an order of magnitude farther? Rent or buy? Condo or house? How does the balance sheet make it happen, and what am I doing not having all those numbers in there anyway?

And more befuddlingly, how did I manage to write a new post at least once a day for the last three weeks (not including that Saturday, because I spent that day updating a post from the previous day, so, don't count that one, k?)? Do the forty to fifty people who read this site every day get a kick out of it? I sure get a kick out of it for my own reasons.

Enough gibberish for you? Fine. Please to enjoy this great example of entertainment at its finest.

Posted by Matt at 3:51 AM

June 29, 2003

Some perspective, please

It always seems to be the people who understand America the least, that criticize it the most. So leave it to someone who didn't grow up here to show these people what's what. Dinesh D'Souza: 10 things to celebrate: Why I'm an anti-anti-American

As an immigrant who has chosen to become an American citizen, I feel especially qualified to say what is special about America. Having grown up in a different society -- in my case, Bombay, India -- I am not only able to identify aspects of America that are invisible to the natives, but I am acutely conscious of the daily blessings that I enjoy in America.

Posted by Matt at 10:39 PM

June 28, 2003

Jerk posts unconfirmed news on blog site, soon to be discredited

Too good to be true?

WASHINGTON — Ayman al-Zawahiri, Usama bin Laden's right-hand man, was reported last night to be in custody in Iran along with several other top Al Qaeda leaders.

The Arabic news channel Al-Arabiyah said the fanatic Egyptian-born doctor is under arrest in Iran along with bin Laden's son Saad and Al Qaeda's infamous spokesman Abu Ghaith.

So an Arab TV outlet reports that Iran has these top guys in custody. But wait! Iran denies it! What gives there?

The al-Arabiya satellite television network, citing unnamed diplomatic sources, reported al-Zawahiri and al Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith were among several al Qaeda suspects Iran had arrested in recent months.

But Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, said the report was untrue.

"First of all this is not the case," Asefi said. "The people in question have not yet been identified. Also, there is no reason that even after the identification process is completed that we should discuss this issue with the media because this is a security issue."

I regurgiate the reports, you decide.

Posted by Matt at 5:06 AM

Jake, Elwood, and George Dubya

Bryan writes:

Read the last paragraph of this article. I sincerely hope this is a complete mischaracterization of what the President said or a total fabrication. If not, it's all beginning to make sense. Who needs to tell the truth or follow the Constitution when you're on a mission from God?

According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."

Abbas: My hands are tied, Mr. President. I've tried talking to them, but I can't stop Hamas from carrying out these attacks. You have to understand, Mr. President, I can't reason with these people. They honestly believe Allah is talking to them, telling them to kill as many Jews and Israelis as possible. They think they're doing the work of God.
GW: Well, Mahmoud -- you don't mind if I call you Mahmoud, do you? -- let me tell you how I see it, because I really understand how hard it is to reason with people who talk to God. See, God told me to strike at al Qaida -- and I struck them. And then he instructed me to strike at Saddam -- which I did. And now, Mahmoud, I gotta tell you: I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. Way I see it, we can play it two ways. If you help me, I will act. And if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them. I hope you understand me on this issue, Mahmoud, because it's real important that I make my position clear.

Posted by Matt at 1:32 AM

June 27, 2003

I hate politics

Bob notes that I am pessimistic about government. To quote a mildly retarded character from a little play called The Boys Next Door, well, frankly, and I repeat, I am.

Seriously, though. I am concerned about our government. The root of my frustration is that we the people have forgotten the whole point of this country, namely, freedom. It goes beyond simply not wanting freedom; rather, a large number of people seem to actively refuse it. They want more restrictions. They want more "protections". They don't realize that each one of these that passes is another limitation on otherwise legal, voluntary behavior, and that as a free society, we don't get any more "rights" or "priveleges" in return.

These people want Big Brother. They think the government is fundamentally benign or, at worst, neutral; I would just rather see it mind its own business and get off my back. It affects all of us. And it's sneaky, too: most people in this country don't think they pay taxes. What a joke. Do they wonder where the money from their paycheck goes -- the itemized parts that have such lovely acronyms like FICA and OASDI? I doubt it. I think if people were made personally aware of how much their keeper is costing them, they'd reconsider the merits of maintaining it.

I love the idea of freedom, not merely as an academic issue but because I understand its connection to human happiness. But I hate politics. I hate that I have to think about it. I hate that I have to spend one minute thinking about what the folks in Washington are going to do if I'm not looking. I just want to live my life -- and I imagine most people just want to do the same. They don't want me telling them what to do any more than I want them telling me what to do. We don't have the right to do it anyway, and having government do the "telling" doesn't legitimize the act.

I believe it is possible to achieve the goals of a truly free society, but it will take strength of will and a solid foundation of ideas from a large number of confident leaders to make it happen. (And it will take us refusing to countenance any action that individuals withing the government take that further diminish our rights or our freedom.) And knowing that, though difficult, this is possible, gives me enough optimism to counter the pessimism generated by the activities of another day in the capital.

Sheesh.

Posted by Matt at 6:35 PM

Scene: Matt goes to the Taco Cabana

EXT. - DAY - TACO CABANA DRIVE-THRU. MATT rolls up in his car, rolls down the window.

Taco Cabana Employee: Welcome to Taco Cabana, can I take your order?
Matt: Hi, I'd like a half-order of fajitas... lettuce and tomato only... and--
Taco Cabana Employee: a large iced tea?
Matt (startled): ...Yes. A large iced tea.
Taco Cabana Employee: Nine twenty-nine, drive around.
Matt: Sigh. I come here too much.

Posted by Matt at 1:29 AM

Waaaaaaaaa. Waa.

Doesn't Tim Blair know that people's feelings could get hurt by the mean, nasty, hate-filled, ignorant, rude, inimical things he's saying?

Right-wing jerk.

Posted by Matt at 1:21 AM

June 26, 2003

War'll do that to ya

Holy shnikes.

Have you seen this picture of the Iraqi Information [sic] Minister? He's almost bald, and what remaining hair he does have is all white. The man looks haggard.

Before:

After:

Doesn't it look like he could collapse of heart failure at any minute? I mean, the guy looks like he sipped out of the wrong grail but stopped before his body exploded.

Posted by Matt at 10:25 PM

A gay old time at the Supreme Court

I'm working on a response to this right now. I will have it posted tomorrow.

Posted by Matt at 8:14 PM

Failure to stop and render aid, my foot

You remember this story -- the Fort Worth nurse's aide who hit a homeless guy with her car on her way back from a party, and then left him alive, his body halfway inside her car, begging to be taken to a hospital, she refusing, instead closing the garage door behind the car and leaving him there for a day until he died, and then dumping his body in a local park to hide the fact? She's getting life.

What amuses me -- only in a sick kind of way that sadly acknowledges how devoid some people are of any moral sense or ethics -- is the defense her legal team whipped up:

Mallard's legal team never disputed that she killed Biggs. But they said the death was an accident — not murder.

"Find her guilty of what she's really guilty of, failure to stop and render aid," defense attorney Jeff Kearney said.

...you know, instead of leaving the man's body in your car and then dumping it in a park.

Jerk.

Posted by Matt at 6:00 PM

June 25, 2003

Some thoughts on government this fine morning of June 25th

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

Anyone know who said that? It's a game show, hotshots! Post your answer in the comments section.

Posted by Matt at 5:16 AM

What the heck is going on over at Lileks?

Something's up. And he's being awfully oblique about it. I mean really oblique. Whatever it is, there's some drama involved; it's got him mad, and it's weird reading him like that.

Posted by Matt at 5:01 AM

Did Apple cook the books for the new G5?

Steve Jobs announced the latest PC from Apple on Monday, claiming that the new 64-bit PowerMac G5 trounces the fastest Intel chips currently on the market. For anyone seriously interested in checking out the details of these benchmarking tests, Apple has made available a resource for that purpose on their website (at the previous link).

Well, funny thing about the Internet is that you've got fact-checkers waiting around every corner to keep you honest. Marc Hachman at ExtremeTech.com raises some questions about the benchmarking process used by the independent testing lab with which Apple contracted to rate its new machines. Seems that Apple had the lab do a little "tweaking" to make sure the G5 would be advantaged in ways that the Intel PC's weren't.

Hachman gives Apple the benefit of the doubt where he can, but he still concludes:

[I]f you've designed the best system, prove it. Open it up for examination. Publish the benchmarks. Back up your claims. Don't leave room for doubting Thomases like myself to poke through testing documents and raise questions – questions that we'll hopefully be able to persuade Apple to respond to.

Short of any major unexpected developments -- such as Apple switching to use Intel architecture -- I wouldn't be surprised if this is the final or penultimate line of PC's that Apple releases before sliding completely into a niche as a high-end, low-volume boutique computer house.

Posted by Matt at 2:36 AM

June 24, 2003

You really want this guy in charge?

You know, in hell -- the hell where the UN actually does rise up and take over -- this guy would have to be president. And he'd probably institute mandatory attendance at rallies where he could speak, and take down people on his chidin' list, all in that funny accent of his.

Posted by Matt at 5:59 PM

Wha?

Is CNN getting its news from watching the Animaniacs?

PEEKSKILL, New York (AP) -- A man was arrested Monday and charged with tossing his baby daughter out a seventh-floor apartment window, police said.

The 10-month-old girl survived the 80-foot fall, crashing through several tree branches before landing on the ground. She suffered only cuts and bruises.

Posted by Matt at 1:53 AM

June 23, 2003

'Splain this one to me, Lucy

Could someone please tell me tell me the logic behind this? These are the TV listings for channels 53 and 54, Time Warner Cable, 7:00 PM:

ESPN2:
Athletics at Rangers
180 min.
Oakland at Texas.

FOX Sports Southwest:
Athletics at Rangers
180 min.
Oakland at Texas.

Posted by Matt at 8:51 PM

Taking the joke WAY too far

A blogger just lost her job because of an anonymous fax sent to her workplace. The motivation seems to be nothing more than abject nastiness. I can't summarize it all here -- read the whole scoop at Jim Treacher's blog.

Posted by Matt at 6:49 PM

Speaking of Jeffrey Jones and Paul Reubens...

(which I mentioned here in an uproariously funny tangent), check this hot mullah action, "straight" from President Khatami! It's moments like these that seal it: these guys are nucking futs.

Thanks to InstaPundit for the link.

UPDATE: No one laughed at my "straight" joke. Durnit.

Posted by Matt at 4:08 PM

Does anyone else find this bothersome?

I've left feedback for all 32 of the people I've done business with on eBay.

How many have left feedback for me? 21.

Posted by Matt at 4:17 AM

You're so vain

Bob Collins is, in fact, the man.

Bob has pictures up from the weekend bash at his place -- just the latest in a long series of great parties he has thrown. This set of captions encapsulates just one of the many characteristics that I love about this guy:

Julia insisted that I take another picture of her and get her good side this time. I think I did good.

I did so good I decided to get someone else to take one of me and Julia. I don't have a good side (rather, I don't have one good side, as they're all good).

Posted by Matt at 4:12 AM

Uni-balls

James Lileks even makes getting new office supplies funny.

At the Uniball table, the new magic pen with invisible ink that turns purple when it hits the page! And it has - drumroll - a clear reservoir tank. All your old pens with their inscrutable interiors are old and busted, and I sneer at you from my position on the clear-tank paradigm verandah, where I have a lounge chair and an umbrella and a drink. It’s clear but it tastes purple.

Is it just me?

(By the way. Uni-balls have always been my pen of choice. These ones especially.)

Posted by Matt at 3:30 AM

Porn in the Inbox

Please tell me it isn't just me. A full 80% of all my incoming mail is spam, and about half of that is porn.

Look, if you're a porn-hocker, and you happen to be reading this site (and really, I'm glad you are, thanks), could we please cool it with the porno? Please? Don't you do anything else all day other than look at and disseminate porn? Please stop. I don't want it. No-one else I know does. So couldja just lay off? Really? Thanks, you're a peach.

Posted by Matt at 3:19 AM

Poker

Well, my life is officially a sitcom now. I had my first Poker Game with the Guys. I cashed out at the end, up almost 60% on my initial pay-in, for a grand total of $2.90.

I'm thinking of buy a couple of tacos. Or a taco and a drink, perhaps.

Posted by Matt at 3:16 AM

June 22, 2003

War Stories

From Time: How the US caught the Ace of Diamonds.

Posted by Matt at 5:20 PM

Another reason to like the Astros

Lance Berkman. That guy is riot.

DP: According to BaseballLibrary.com, you have a habit of impersonating mascots. Give me your best impersonation story.
LB: Now see, here's an example of how one incident can blossom into an inaccurate report. What happened was I had minor knee surgery when I was in Triple-A in 1999 -- I had a little torn meniscus and they went in and shaved it off so that it wouldn't give me any trouble. I was ready to go after about three weeks of rehab but they wanted me to sit out a month, so I had a week where I felt like I was fully ready to go. But they were holding me back and I wasn't getting the chance to play. So, I came to the park. I knew I wasn't going to be in the game. And so I snuck into the mascot's room and put on the costume of the large water rat mascot. There's a boy and a girl, and I put on the girl costume and went out unbeknownst to the manager and was dancing around on the dugout and walking around the field. A couple of guys recognized me in the suit by the way I was walking and they let the manager know, and he got pretty upset.

Posted by Matt at 4:10 PM

Harry Potter: Why do adults dig him?

Somehow the Harry Potter craze missed me -- but that isn't to say I don't appreciate it from the sidelines. It's remarkable how many adults love these books -- not just parents or teachers, who have to read the books to relate to the young'uns, but independent people in the twenties and up, who just plain love reading about Harry P. and his adventures. It's telling, too, that I've never heard anyone go on and on about the latest John Grisham or Michael Crighton with the same level of enthusiasm that I've heard many go on about Harry Potter; it's rare that you see that kind of passion evoked from a book.

Before I go on and on myself, about a subject of which I have no first-hand knowledge... heh. Dianne L. Durante has a thought-provoking answer to the question: "Why are Rowling's books so beloved by adults as well as children?"

Posted by Matt at 3:31 PM

Saddam: Sa-dead? (Hyuk, hyuk!)

Via the indispensible Tim Blair (thank you Sir, may I have another!) an interesting report -- we might have just taken out Saddam.

American specialists were carrying out DNA tests last night on human remains believed by US military sources to be those of Saddam Hussein and one of his sons, The Observer can reveal.

The remains were retrieved from a convoy of vehicles struck last week by US forces following 'firm' information that the former Iraqi leader and members of his family were travelling in the Western Desert near Syria. [...]

The attack on the convoy came two days after US authorities captured Abid Hamad Mahmud, one of Saddam's top aides. The Washington Post reported yesterday that Mahmud, who was seized by American Special Forces near Saddam's home town of Tikrit, had provided information about Saddam's whereabouts.

The paper reported that Mahmud had told US authorities that the deposed Iraqi leader and his two sons survived the war and that the sons, along with the aide, escaped to Syria, only to be forced to return to Iraq.

Ed: You just produce a corpse and I'll [believe Saddam is dead]. I want to see this dead [dictator] first hand.
Grace: Ed!
Ed: It's all right, Grace! It's Ferris Bueller... the little twerp. I'm going to set a trap and let him fall right into it.
Grace: Ooooh!
[The Pentagon]: Uh... uh... Ed? I'm... I'm sorry... did... did you say you wanted to see a body?
Ed: That's right. Just uh, roll [his] old bones on over here and I'll [believe you]. You know that's school policy.

Where was I? Oh right. Let's hope they got him. And score one more for the hellfire! Am I right? People?

UPDATE: Well, CNN has picked up the story, with some comments from the Senate Intelligence Committee. As has Fox.

"I will not be surprised at any military action that would lead to the possibility that we have now finally killed Saddam Hussein," Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., told Fox News Sunday.

UPDATE UPDATE: CNN has more details.

Posted by Matt at 12:05 AM

June 21, 2003

"America's big ethnic secret"

... is the fact that it's run by Germans. Evidently. Ahem.

Not kidding, this actually appeared in a London Times op-ed today. I don't get it. I'm starting to think that the euro-lectuals are not human, but in fact Raelians. Or some of those Heaven's Gate folks who thought it was plausible that a UFO hiding behind comet Hyukatake would carry them to a higher plane of consciousness... that is, after donning Nike shoes, shaving their heads, and removing their genitalia.

Tim Blair as usual treats this silliness with all the appropriate pithy dismissal.

(...and sadly, the article is "behind subscription" now, so you can't read it for yourself... it was a hoot.)

Posted by Matt at 7:35 PM

Does greater understanding mean getting less joy out of things?

Stephen Den Beste wonders if there comes a point at which literature professors stop enjoying the very act of reading -- for knowing the medium too well. He points to the case of Mark Twain; after Twain had been trained as a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi, he lamented having "mastered the language of this water" and "every trifling feature", that afterwards, "the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river". I don't share Twain's view; it's my conviction that greater understanding leads to greater appreciation.

Early in my studies of theater, I was forced by my teachers into the mindset of not just sitting back and passively watching a play, but analyzing it -- breaking it down into its component parts and evaluating them each for what they were and for what they contributed to the play. The worst critical judgment of a play you can offer is: "It was good," or "It was bad." It's far more informative to know why: was it the actors? One actor? The dialogue? The plot? How was the pacing? Did the set do its job? How was the lighting? What about it contributed or detracted from the play? The list goes on and on.

After a while, one minute into a play, and you're already sizing it up. You're attuned to the good and the bad in a way that passive enjoyment doesn't allow. You know, for instance, when that actor blurts out that line in a way that rings totally false, whether it was the actor's fault or the writer's. Or possibly the director's, for trying to force an emotion out of a scene when to do so would be contrived and unnatural.

To me, having this critical analytical mindset does nothing to sap the joy from the experience of watching a play. Admittedly, there are many plays I've been to which I otherwise might have enjoyed more were it not for the analytical mind I bring into the theater. But at the same time, having this ability to understand the language of the theater, and the tools with which the actors and director and designers carry it out, only enhances the joys of a great production. Far better to know when you're seeing great set design, or great acting, or great direction or stage management, rather than just lump it all into an undifferentiated mishmash of "good" or "bad".

The major risk of developing this mentality is that you might find that you're surrounded with mediocrity -- and now you're aware of it. But while that understanding does have its drawbacks, the benefits far outweigh the costs. Far better to recognize things for what they are. If you truly do love the theater -- or any medium -- I say: learn all you can about it, and learn to analyze it, understanding all the parts and how they fit together to form the whole. When you have this understanding, you'll find that you'll enjoy art far more than you ever could without that understanding.

What a shame it would be to be exposed to great beauty, but lack the ability to understand just how beautiful it is. The more you know and understand about a medium, the more able you are to understand, enjoy, and appreciate great art when you see it.

Posted by Matt at 2:52 PM

Letter from a Concerned and Upset Citizen

Honorable Congresswomen:

As a young and hardworking American, I steadfastly oppose the largest expansion of the financially unsound Medicare program since the "Great Society", itself an abject failure. This further intervention into what little is left of the market for medical services will further distort the market for medicine, further the entitlement mentality, and drive drug prices higher. It is my generation, not yours or the elderly, that will pay for this plan and the books will be balanced upon my backs and the backs of my children in the form of higher taxes and inflation. This expansion of Medicare will make my family poorer and I do not appreciate your efforts to do so.

We are told time and time again that the Republican Party is the party of free markets, individual responsibility, and liberty. If so, why is the GOP supporting the expansion of a pillar of American socialism? The medical industry needs to be unleashed from Federal regulation, not subjected to a miasma of increased intervention, regulation, and subsidy. Are Republicans supportive of free markets or, like the Democrats, does the party now believe that wealth and prosperity can be legislated into existence, paid for by massive deficit spending, and that the iron laws of a world of scarce resources can be ignored?

If the GOP has decided to follow the Democratic Party in its march to the Left, please let your constituents know so they may be more informed voters during the next election.

A Concerned and Upset Citizen,

Bryan Baskin

Well put.

Posted by Matt at 2:06 PM

June 20, 2003

Same-sex marriage? Yes, in the Gay White North!

Well Canada's going to allow same-sex marriage. Some people are mad about this.

I say: so what. Big deal. In fact, great. It ain't the government's business who I'm married to, so long as that person is a consenting adult too. (So despite some congressmen's worst fears, gay marriage does not mean opening the door to such things as, say, incest, as children are, by definition, not consenting adults.)

Yes, it's "unnatural," physically speaking. But it ain't your right to tell me I can't do it. It's also unnatural for us to do all sorts of things, such as ingest alcohol and drive cars and communicate instantaneously to other parts of the planet. So on what principle can you legitimately oppose this? It's just one more freedom that our citizens should have -- regardless of what the majority may think.

This country was set up not so a majority could rule and implement its beliefs about the world upon the minority. It was set up explicitly so that the people were respected as individuals, and that the majority would in fact not have the power to impose rules upon them.

I wish the GOP'ers who are most vocal about this would recognize themselves for the social engineers that they are. They do a good enough job of decrying the efforts to coerce behavior at the expense of personal freedom on the other side of the aisle; it ain't any different when you're trying to prohibit people from straying from the already-adopted behavior. That merely makes your position "conservative" in the strictest sense of the word; it implies nothing about principle other than that the status quo should be preserved.

Politically, I believe in the supremacy of individual freedom, each person acting in his or her rational self-interest -- above all else. (No, I'm not an anarchist; if you really want an explanation, stomp your feet in the comments.) And that dedication to liberty means that yes, for the sake of that principle, we must allow others to do things that we personally me might find repugnant, so long as it doesn't physically harm anyone else. We ought to be glad that we have people fighting for this kind of thing -- they're constantly making the rest of us evaluate and reevaluate just what we're supposed to be all about in this country.

It ain't the government's business. And that's that.

Oh, and for the record, I'm not gay. I'm very much straight. And available. ;)

Posted by Matt at 8:24 PM

Runaway train loose in L.A.

Says Union Pacific spokesman John Bromely: "The cars ran away free on their own."

I wonder if the next time I crash my car, I can tell the insurance company that it just ran away free, on its own. Volitional powers! I'll say. Nope, no error by me, nope nope nope.

Posted by Matt at 3:48 PM

Unexpected surprise

October Eve arrived today -- three days early. Kudos to Linda at Quent Cordair Fine Art for getting it out to me so soon! I can't wait to get it framed and hang it on the wall.

Meanwhile, I was reading an interview with the artist, Damon H. Denys, and this part stuck with me:

Naturally, of course, I’d love to live in a city or country filled with Romantic, rational minds where I could always catch a show or gallery stroll that made it feel great to be alive. The sheer inspiration that would provide me for my own work would be immeasurable. At the moment, I’m perfectly happy living in a similar microcosm of friends, with our own thoughts and works. It would be great though, to see that kind of positive thinking and attitude on a massive scale.

Practically speaking, I think it’s too early for such a revolution. Our ancestors only recently managed to drag themselves out of the dark ages. Or rather, a few bright minds managed to drag them out kicking and screaming. I don’t think a lot of people are ready yet to handle the responsibility of deciding what’s good, judging others and expecting to be judged As more people accept the responsibility of living by their own minds for their own existence, things will change It is happening. You can see signs of it around, especially if you keep in mind what the world was like 200 or 300 years ago. But Rome wasn’t built overnight, as they say.

Posted by Matt at 3:21 PM

Aw, it's so cute!

Hubble snapped some photos of the universe when it was really young.

Posted by Matt at 12:44 AM

June 19, 2003

I saw Saddam pumping gas at a truck stop outside of Sandy, Utah

Dig this funny cartoon.

Posted by Matt at 8:53 PM

Prank calls to dictators

You gotta love these guys. Not content with the standard order-ten-pizzas-for-the-guy routine, these guys actually have called -- and gotten through -- to Chavez in Venezuela and now Fidel Castro in Cuba.

In the recorded phone call, replayed several times on the air and on television, hosts Enrique Santos and Joe Ferrero of Spanish-language El Zol, FM 95.7 used snippets of the conversation they had with Chávez in January to fool Cuban functionaries into connecting them with Castro himself -- or at least someone who sounded exactly like him.

Posing as an aide to Chávez, Ferrero told those he reached with the Cuban government that Chavez had left a suitcase with "sensitive documents" at a hotel when he and Castro were in Argentina recently.

After several minutes, Castro said he was "informed and fine" with the matter of the suitcase at which time Santos got on the line and started berating Castro -- or someone who sounded like him.

"Are you fine with the s--- you've done on the island, assassin?" Santos said. "You fell for it just like Hugo Chávez."

That prompted a profanity-laced tirade from Castro in which he called the radio host several names.

At least in my head that's how it goes.

Posted by Matt at 3:57 PM

June 18, 2003

Iran, Iran so far away

Glenn Reynolds has a whole lotta links to stuff going on in -- you guessed it -- Iran. Could it be that the mullahs are about to take their final bow? Film at 11.

Posted by Matt at 6:37 PM

RIP to the estate tax?

Well, the House just voted to eliminate it. What are the odds the Senate will follow suit?

Posted by Matt at 5:38 PM

McWhat?

What the heck is a griddle cake, anyway?

Posted by Matt at 3:10 PM

Programamming

I'll be hittin' the computer all day today, working on a project I've long had in the works. I'm in the middle of that second major phase: taking the concept from the blueprint stage to construction. I never know exactly how things will go once I start programming -- there's lots of building and rebuilding -- so here's hoping I can plot things out clearly and efficiently the first time through.

Posted by Matt at 12:55 PM

June 17, 2003

Word of the day

neologism:

1. a new word, usage, or expression
2. a meaningless word coined by a psychotic

Posted by Matt at 8:20 PM

Stomping out crime... like nothing else

Sheesh. And the Armed Robbery Standards Manual clearly states, in section 8.18: "Before carrying out your intended operation, take care to fully assess not only the preventative and defensive capabilities of your intended target, but offensive assets as well. Fully note any weapons your target may have at his disposal, including any vehicles that might be used to thwart your escape."

Posted by Matt at 6:14 PM

Art!

I just bought my first piece of art, ever. It's a full-size print on canvas -- so it's sort of like getting the original, only about a tenth as expensive.

Needless to say, I am very pleased with my purchase. I imagine I'll be even more so when it gets here on Monday. Heh.

UPDATE: Why leave you on the edge of your seats? Here's the piece I got.

Posted by Matt at 4:22 PM

Roger Clemens and the whole hat drama

Bob's got some thoughts on the whole Roger-Clemens-doesn't-want-to-be-inducted-into-the-Hall-of-Fame-unless-they-induct-him-as-a-Yankee issue. Me, I'm just thankful it's a slow news day.

For more on the continuing drama of Which Hat To Wear?, ESPN.com's Jeff Merron offers some perspective, taking a look at some of the more interesting "quandaries" that have arisen over the years. I'm with him. Nolan Ryan should have damn well been inducted as an Astro.

Posted by Matt at 2:49 PM

June 16, 2003

Da Blog: Now 10,000% more popular!

Interesting stuff going on here at Da Blog. Since I was linked by the InstaMan and Professor Den Beste, I've had an average of about a thousand unique visitors a day.

Just thought I'd mention that. And thanks, Messrs. Reynolds and Den Beste.

Posted by Matt at 3:54 AM

Bush had Wellstone killed! And did other assorted conspiratorial things!

You gotta love Lileks. When he takes people out to the woodshed, he does it so... delightfully. With no malice or hatred, but completely and decisively.

I repeat my earlier theory about these people: they already believe that we are living in a Star Trek world with one global government, and the US is some rogue holdout fighting the existing order. The world can lead us. His article cited the three world leaders who attempted to stay Bush’ bellicose hand, and the rollcall was instructive.

China. France. Russia. Our moral betters. ...

Isn’t it funny what children believe. No matter what their age.

Posted by Matt at 3:37 AM

June 15, 2003

That's one helluva big bomb

I thought things had more or less settled down in Northern Ireland. Guess not.

Northern Ireland police found a bomb weighing about half a ton in a van in the city of Londonderry on Sunday, and blamed republican guerrillas opposed to a peace deal in the British-ruled province.

Posted by Matt at 4:43 PM

Heh.

I love motivational posters.

Posted by Matt at 2:30 PM

June 13, 2003

10 of the top 12 richest senators belong to...

...the Democratic Party. Huh. And they've got the top five, too.

• John Kerry, D-Massachusetts: $163,626,399


• Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin: $111,015,016


• John Rockefeller, D -West Virginia: $81,648,018


• Jon Corzine, D-New Jersey: $71,035,025


• Dianne Feinstein, D-California: $26,377,109


• Peter Fitzgerald, R-Illinois: $26,132,013


• Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey $17,789,018


• Bill Frist, R-Tennessee: $15,108,042


• John Edwards, D-North Carolina: $12,844,029


• Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts: $9,905,009


• Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico: $7,981,015


• Bob Graham, D-Florida: $7,691,052

But do you think maybe these guys could quit claiming that the tax cuts are too big -- when they've got plenty to go around?

UPDATE: For another angle, did anyone else catch the curious phrasing in this story?

Financial disclosure forms released Friday by the nation's 100 senators show there are at least 40 millionaires among them -- 22 Republicans and 18 Democrats.

So I did my own breakdown. It turns out that of the millionaires in the Senate, the Republicans have a combined total of just over $99 million in assets. The Democrats? Over $526 million.

That's over half a billion dollars. Split between only 18 people. All Democrats. Look at the numbers again. The millionaire Democrats have more than five times the wealth of the millionaire Republicans. The top two wealthiest Democrats each have more money than all 22 millionaire Republicans combined.

I only bring this up because there are dozens of ways you can break down statistics, and stories like this are great if the numbers reveal some sort of trend or some sort of distinction that challenges conventional wisdom. (And if there's nothing interesting in the report, why bother putting it on the front page?) These numbers are staggering; I can't believe CNN's editors ignored this.

So CNN didn't break down the statistics to make the Democrats look bad. That doesn't prove bias. But you do have to wonder where this line came from:

The top three wealthiest senators are Democrats: John Kerry of Massachusetts, with a net worth of at least $164 million; Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, with a net worth of at least $111 million, and John "Jay" Rockefeller of West Virginia, with an estimated net worth of at least $82 million.

There's just no rational explanation for this, other than that the person responsible for this report was deliberately trying to downplay the fact that the Democrats in the Senate are far wealthier, on the whole, than the Republicans.

No, for those of you thinking I'm a right-wing nutball, this isn't a capital case, and it really isn't that big of a deal. But it is misleading, and any journalistic source ought to be called out for this kind of thing.

Posted by Matt at 10:17 PM

eBay shenanigans

This ain't good. Looks like a guy sold a million bucks worth of stuff on eBay, and screwed about a thousand people out of their money.

Since I'm somewhat of an eBay enthusiast, I was curious as to how this guy pulled it off. Outright frauds usually don't get very far on eBay, for one simple reason: feedback. If you make it a pattern to screw people over, you'll get a reputation for it, quick. Honest sellers, on the other hand, make make their customers happy, and in turn, get positive comments to bolster their image as a trustworthy dealer. It isn't a perfect system (it would only be so if there were only "perfect" people), but it works very well.

Thanks to the feedback system, you have to be awfully crafty if you want to defraud people of thousands of dollars again and again. For example, recently there was a teenager who sold a lot of cheap old laptops, inflating their specs in his ads, and thereby getting a lot more for them than they were worth. Most people don't know how to check their computer's processor speed or RAM, so he got away with it most of the time. When he did get caught by someone computer-savvy enough to figure it out, he was quick to offer a refund, saying that there must have been a mix-up in processing. He largely got away with it for a while; most of his customers thought they were getting what they paid for, so his feedback didn't suffer. (He still was eventually caught.)

So I did a little investigating to see what this guy's feedback said. I was surprised to see that nearly 1000 people had left positive feedback, and only 44 negatives. If this guy was ripping people off left and right, how did he get so many people to praise his "excellent customer service"?

You don't have to read far to notice a pattern. It seems that very few people appear to have received their computers. But what's striking is that over half the people who left positive feedback seem to have received a full refund plus an additional $100 for their trouble. (I don't know of any reputable business where this is a common practice.) Even further, it's also interesting to note how many of the positive responses mention how "honest" and "reputable" and "trustworthy" the seller is -- something you usually take for granted in feedback. (Me be thinkething these guys doth protest too much.)

How far do you have to dig to find the truth? How's a mere three pages for ya? Here's the money quote:

Praise: Great service, laptop unavailable but gave Full Refund + $100 for Pos. Feedback!

Any person could have read this feedback and known that something fishy was going on. Only those naive enough to let their desire for a cheap computer cloud their reason were fooled. Everything comes at a price. There's no such thing as a free lunch. And there's no such thing as $3000 computers being sold on eBay, legally, for $1000. This is the lesson: Caveat emptor. Each person has to rationally assess the situation -- the seller's integrity being one of many factors -- and then act according to his best judgment of whether he'll actually get what he's paying for. My money's down that each of these people have far better judgment than they did before they got bilked.

Of course I don't sanction fraud; it should be punished as any other serious crime. This guy should be made to pay full restitution, plus interest, to his victims, no matter how long it takes him. It seems, though, that if individuals exercised better judgment as a whole, it would be a lot harder for people like this to flourish.

Posted by Matt at 9:26 PM

June 12, 2003

Another Quote of the Day

"Don't let anybody discourage you or tell you that intelligence doesn't pay or that success in life has to be achieved through dishonesty or through sheer blind luck. That is not true. Real success is never accidental and real happiness cannot be found except by the honest use of your intelligence." -- Ayn Rand

Posted by Matt at 2:53 PM

Quote of the Day

"If there's one thing I have learned by personal experience and by observing the people around me, it's that a person's life actually starts from about 35 on; I mean, the best and most active part of one's life. Up to that time one merely learns and accumulates experience." -- Ayn Rand

Interesting thought.

Posted by Matt at 11:40 AM

The verdict is in on IBM

...and the verdict is GUILTY. Guilty of providing excellent service, that is!

Okay, enough of the camp. Seriously, they really did an outstanding job fixing my Thinkpad -- far better than I had been expecting.

My Thinkpad's problem was pretty severe. It seems that after using the computer for three years, ten or more hours a day, and opening and shutting the lid (the part with the screen) at least once each day, the hinge wore out. That is, the hinge that holds the lid to the main unit. The connections inside that hinge -- the ones that send the video information to the screen -- had become so frazzled that the bottom inch and a half of the screen would swirl with random pixels... and then fade to white, conveniently rendering that crucial bottom inch and a half of the screen totally unusable.

Since I still had a month left on my three-year warranty, I called up IBM to see what could be done, thinking of course that they'd find every reason to charge me for the problem, or say that I must have dropped it or something. I thought, even if I have to shell out a couple hundred bucks to get this thing fixed, it would still be cheaper than fully replacing it.

So IBM sent me a box to pack my laptop in -- they paid for shipping, both ways -- and I sent the laptop off. I steeled myself for the inevitable phone call:

"Mr. Howell, it appears that this laptop has suffered damage that did not, as you say, come from daily use, but more likely from an incident in which it appears to have been dropped."
"But I didn't drop it, it wore out."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Howell, I understand that, but all I know is what the tech people tell me, and they say it was dropped, and I don't have the authority to change that status."
"Can I talk to the tech people?"
"No, I'm sorry, we can't do that. I'm showing here that if you would like to have the unit repaired, we can do that, but it's going to cost you... let's see... Ahem. I'm showing here that to repair the unit, it's going to cost $867.24."
"Forget about it. Send it back."
"Okay, we'll do that. We thank you for being a customer, and thank you for calling IBM."

They completely replaced the screen -- and I can't understate how amazing this is -- and I'm pretty sure they replaced the whole lid as well. They also took care of replacing the speakers, which, for some reason, always rattled. No charge for any of it. Just a fixed laptop, back in my hands at 10:30 am. Total turnaround: four business days.

These are the moments when you're grateful for the headaches you didn't have in doing something that shouldn't be an ordeal, but for some reason always turns into one. To contrast, I bought my desktop from Dell, and instead of sending me the full $100 rebate they offered with the machine, they cut the check for $50. Which wasn't the deal. And two weeks into it, I still haven't heard from their customer service [sic] department to fix this. Sigh. But back to the raving: IBM just earned a customer for life. I've always been a fan of their laptops' design and features -- now I'm completely sold on the company. I highly highly highly recommend.

Posted by Matt at 11:16 AM

June 11, 2003

Astros no-hit the Yanks!

Unbelievable! I watched the ESPN GameCast -- about six innings into it, I think: hmm... no hits so far... I wonder!

I didn't get my hopes up though. I once saw Mike Scott go nine and two-thirds against the Braves without a hit. By the ninth, we were all on our feet in that stadium -- totally sure Scott was going to get his second no-hitter in two years. The crowd was cheering louder with every pitch. One out... then two outs. Then Ken Oberkfell knocks this little Texas-league looper right over Glenn Davis's head into shallow right field. All twenty-five thousand of us let out a collective "Awhhh!!..." at once. Terrible. It was great.

The 'stros took six pitchers to do it tonight. Unbelievable. I love it!

Posted by Matt at 9:30 PM

About this blog

Thanks to the Blogfather, traffic to Da Blog has increased approximately eleventy-hundred percent*! What with all the new people breaking down the gates, I thought I'd take a second to tell you a bit about this blog.

This thing here is my personal outlet to talk about the stuff that I happen to find interesting. Politics, weird dreams -- anything. So don't be surprised if you're reading about taxes one minute and then you hear about the saga of me selling my upright arcade game on eBay (it was Tetris, by the way). You need spice in your life. Damnit.

My politics? Not a big fan of the standard labels. (I much prefer Stephen Den Beste's way of breaking it down.) I'd rather you like my writing style. Because there's about ten thousand bloggers all blogging under the anti-idiotarian mantle, and they all share the common characteristic of being virtually indistinguishable from each other. Maybe I'm the same way; I don't know. All I do know is that if I'm grabbed by a blogger (and not in the naughty way), it's because they've got some sort of unique hook or perspective on things. I don't have time to write in here all day, or come up with a whole lotta mammoth entries, so I've gotta grab you with my ANGER!! My SEETHING, WHITE-BOY ANGER!

While you're here, might I suggest some comics to go with your commentary? I highly recommend this site. Nope, no personal connection here, just a purely objective reference to fellow webophiles.

* - Not really. I don't know because I'm not keeping stats here. All I do know is that strange people are posting in my comments, and I'm finding it strangely exciting.

Posted by Matt at 2:47 PM

Blix's parting blows

So Blix is retiring, and he's got some words for the "bastards" in the Bush Administration. Yes, those are his words. Most of it's typical retiring-Swedish-civil-servant blather, so I won't go into it here, but I thought I might point something out to the genius who failed twice at finding Hussein's WMD programs.

"There are people in this administration who say they don't care if the U.N. sinks under the East River, and other crude things," he continued, adding that some in Washington viewed the international organization as an "alien power, even if it does hold considerable influence within it."

"Such feelings don't exist in Europe, where people say that the U.N. is a lot of talk at dinners and fluffy stuff," he added.

Nearly every square inch of Manhattan island is dedicated to one purpose -- a distinctly American purpose -- and that one purpose alone: PRODUCTIVE WORK. If you're going to park your cars in its garages and use up space in its buildings, you'd by god better be doing something worth the space you're taking up. In the real world, you'd be evicted in a month for living that kind of life, and yes, we the American people resent that.

We don’t like it when people do nothing all day. We dislike it even more when they get the most extravagant privileges of wealth without having to do anything for it. And we get pushed over the line into that zone of Hating Your Guts when those same people then insult us for our simplisme. We came here to get away from jerks like that.

The least Blix and his brothers-in-thought in Europe could do is to make even a slight attempt to understand Americans. They don't. They just look down their noses at us, without expending one neurotransmitter in the effort to figure out what makes us think the way we do. When or if they do come to their senses (they won't) and figure out just what it is that makes us Americans tick, they'll shake their heads and sigh about how vapid and uncultured we are for only seeing the world in terms of how dreadfully useful things are.

Totally appropriate, then, that for bunch of guys whose lives are supposedly dedicated to world peace and understanding the cultures of others, they fail in grasping one of the most culturally significant characteristics of the nation that provides them the ground their building stands on. No wonder we don't care if it sinks into the East River.

Posted by Matt at 1:25 PM

Weird Dream

Well, I had several, actually, but this is the one most fresh on my mind.

Picture it: I'm going back to college after years of being out of it. The school is a relatively small one (and from the looks of it, it is rather upscale). It's nighttime, and people are everywhere, milling around, getting to know each other.

I have no skills in meeting people, however. Most of what I do is to wander around, hands in my pockets, making eye contact every now and then, and then getting embarrassed and turning away.

As I'm making my way back to the dorm, some people have congregated outside one of the doors that I need to go through. I try to politely make my presence known; they ignore me. So I decide to find an alternate route.

As I walk away from the little crowd, a little girl follows me. She is, for some reason, the spitting image of Rudy from the Cosby Show, and she's wearing a nice white dress. This girl never once looks me in the eye, but she stays two feet from me as I walk away and try to find another door to enter the building. I look back and see that the crowd in front of the door has dispersed; I look down and see that this girl has grabbed onto my leg.

Her mother comes toward us. "Ruthie, ruthie! Now you know not to do that!" She looks up at me. "I'm very sorry. She does this sometimes."

"It's okay," I say. I smile at Ruthie. I notice for the first time that she has "RUTHIE ANN" tatooed across her forehead. Odd girl.

I make my way back to the dorm, but I stop at a room that looks a lot like a board room, complete with a beautiful mahogany conference table. One wall is a giant picture window, looking out on a beautiful view of a Santa Monica afternoon. There are some brushes, paints, and a canvas here for some reason, and for another unexplained reason, I start to paint. My big experiment is to see if I can use actual sand in the paint and make it look like real sand.

I'm interrupted. There's a situation just down the hall in front of me. It seems Ruthie is going nuts. Her mother is talking with the dorm security person, holding Ruthie over her shoulder. "I just want to get in to talk to him -- she just wants to apologize for earlier."

"What's this all about?"

"Oh good, you're here. Ruthie just wanted to see you one more time."

"Oh, okay." But what I really meant to say was: This is getting weird. Please just go away. "Hi Ruthie," I say, smiling. She turns her head away, burying it into her mother's neck. Somehow, I know that she's actually eighteen, and this strikes me as terribly immature for someone so old.

"Ma'am, I don't have anything against your daughter or anything, but I don't even know this girl. I really just want to be left alone, you know?" Ruthie's mother pats her daughter on the back and gently bounces her up and down.

"Oh, I know that, honey. She just has decided that she's in love with you is all. And you know love, it has no sense sometimes," she laughs.

"And besides," she says. "She told her brother she's in love with you and he says he's going to kill you."

"Huh?"

"We visited him today. He's just in for robbery now but it was aggravated robbery, and you don't really want to mess around with him."

The rest of the dream consisted of me somehow figuring out who this guy was and me declaring that I would kill him first if he ever came near me. Weird stuff.

The other dream was a vivid love story between me and a longtime girlfriend. I wish I remembered more of it; from what I can tell, we were at the end of our relationship because we never were able to tell each other how we really felt. We were both so afraid of getting hurt that neither of us ever showed our love for each other; hence, we ended up thinking that the other didn't love us back. There was a shouting match followed by an incident in a record store in which the guy who I thought She was dating was there, so I got mad and walked out. It would have made for some interesting scenes in a screenplay, I tell you what.

Posted by Matt at 12:57 PM

Things to do

1) To listen at least as much as I talk.

2) To keep persuasion as the priority in arguments -- not winning the damn thing.

3) To remember that eye contact is damn important. And that if you always look down when other people look at you, other people think you're a jerk.

Posted by Matt at 12:17 AM

June 10, 2003

Back again

Well, the trip went great. Far better than expected. Now I really want that digital camera... there were so many cool things to photograph in west Texas. Granaries, silos, oil rigs -- even some good old fashioned Main Streets, the buildings still preserved, even if there are "For Sale" signs in all the windows. Some nice landscapes too, although when you get up in the panhandle, there ain't much "scape" to the land.

Posted by Matt at 11:10 PM

Headin' to Canyon...

...Texas, that is. It's a small town south of Amarillo. I'm dropping off the Tetris that I sold on eBay roughly five weeks ago.

FIVE WEEKS AGO? Why so long?! I'll fill you in some other time when I don't have to get up in five hours. For a sixteen-hour road trip. I could be in Australia in that time, but no; I'm going to CANYON, TEXAS. Joy.

Meanwhile, please enjoy this piece by Stephen Den Beste. Some interesting thoughts about how to solve the North Korea situation, which has evidently become the worst place in the world to raise a family. (And you thought the fact that they eat dog was bad? Just stay away from the meat whose fat coagulates in the shape of a diamond. That's all I'm gonna say.)

Posted by Matt at 12:28 AM

June 9, 2003

Capitalism in Iraq

Capitalism in Iraq is following the expected pattern: it's flourishing...

the private side of rebuilding is proceeding at breakneck speed -- without much in the way of government involvement, official supervision or international approval.

Sandi, the merchant banker, came to Iraq with plans to install a cellular telephone network and launch a commercial airline. He said he had a telecom vendor ready to start installing towers and relay stations. He had arranged to lease several jetliners and hire former Iraqi Airways pilots, crews and ground personnel to begin twice-weekly flights from New York to Baghdad.

But ORHA had other ideas... they would confiscate any telecommunications equipment that he tried to install. If he tried to launch commercial air service, his planes would be grounded, they said. Those areas of reconstruction are subject to high-level approval, and remain off limits to upstarts for now.

"They are not facilitators," he said of ORHA officials. "They are not helpful. They are nothing but a bunch of bureaucracy."

The article has some great perspective offered from a Concerned Expert, who fears that the true, laissez-faire capitalism we see in Baghdad might actually do damage to a society that has for thirty years depended on a centralized government. Then, cut to:

Still, for every economic hand wringer, there is at least one cowboy capitalist ready to tame the new frontier.

"It's like Texas in 1879," said Ihsan Hussein Ali, who was not sure why he chose to cite that year in particular. "There are no rules."

"[T]he streets of Baghdad have become one big duty-free bazaar." Prices are falling, "because there's no government now," according to the locals. What a great time to be alive. All those little Bin Ladens we were supposed to produce in Iraq might actually find jobs and lead a productive life.

And: I sure hope the US figures it out; that the worst thing we could do is go in there and slap a bunch of regulation on Iraq (because after all, that's what civilized countries do). My money's on the position that the people in charge just want to establish order and then get the hell out; they want to go home, and there's no sense sticking around to build a bureaucracy. Maybe I'm being too generous in my estimations, but there's hope.

Finally, the article gives a little anecdote that might address what I think is the most important issue in all of this, at least as far as the US is concerned. How are the Iraqis coming to see the US in all of this? Liberators? Aggressors? Oppressors?

Salah Talab has been operating his House of Elegant Bodies weightlifting gym in a nondescript concrete building for seven years... "Where you from? California? Good! Big beach for bodybuilding!" he said, sketching an imaginary coastal expanse with his hands....

"Membership $10 a month for Iraqis," Talab said. "For Americans, I make discount. Any amount you want."

Posted by Matt at 12:17 PM

Reasons NOT to go around slapping your name on everything

A 26-year-old college student was electrocuted while walking barefoot at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert. Any P.R. grads care to explain to me why this is in any way a good statement for a press release?

"The Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre extends heartfelt sympathy to the family and friends of the individuals involved in this unfortunate incident."

Posted by Matt at 12:29 AM

Stuff. The tangible kind and others.

1) I've been thinking about picking up some prints from the Cordair Gallery. I stumbled across this establishment late last year; it is the only gallery that features work from artists whose paintings and sculptures I would actually love to look at. As it is, I spend ten minutes at a time just looking at Damon Denys' October Eve. And Bryan Larsen's Heroes inspires a feeling in me that I can't quite describe -- probably because I'm not used to feeling happy and hopeful when I look at art.

That's the problem with most art that has come out of this past century: it's all designed to bring you more in line with the artist's point-of-view: that the world is either worthless or meaningless. And I've always begged to differ. More on these artists/these paintings/art in general some other time.

2) I've been meaning to get a new digital camera. I've been thinking somewhere on the "prosumer" (I hate that marketing term) end of things. However, Best Buy, Circuit City and Fry's only have, at most, two models each on display at their local stores here. I need to pick up a camera, hold it in my hand and play with it if I'm going to lay down over $500 on one. I can read all kinds of reviews online, but nothing sells me a camera like tactility. Perhaps I'll sidle into a local (read: more expensive) camera joint and see if I can handle the merchandise.

3) Possibly one of those cool Sharper Image air filters you see the infomercials for on the TEE-vee. About a month ago, I discovered that Sharper Image has an outlet on eBay -- their air filters are available at quite a discount. Why am I not a 78-year-old man for wanting an air filter? Because I have two cats and their hair is everywhere, I tells ya: everywhere.

I also picked up Rudy real cheap at the Best Buy today. It's a very fine film, I must say. And it's personal to me on a different level, too: it was Vince Vaughn's first movie -- and for those of you who don't know, I was his stand-in for a movie he shot in Houston before he hit the big-time. Seeing him in his first film reminds me that everyone does start somewhere, and that I could start somewhere too.

The moment that gets me most in Rudy is when he comes home for Christmas after being away for a semester in South Bend. He sees his father and brother -- and listens to their unsupportive grumblings about him -- and then he finds that his longtime girlfriend has now hooked up with his other older brother. It's the moment he realizes that he has nothing left at home for him. And facing that fact, the first thing that he says is: I've got to go to work. Next scene: Rudy alone on the football field, busting his ass even harder, wrestling tackling dummies and high-stepping through the ropes to get himself in better shape.

I just want to know: when the hell did I stop having that be the first thing that I thought? And how quickly can I make it a habit again?

Posted by Matt at 12:15 AM

June 6, 2003

Root causes? It ain't poverty. It's tyranny.

I'm trying to make it a policy not to just regurgitate what others are saying in the Blogosphere unless I have some unique perspective to add into the mix, or unless I feel there is an issue that is important enough that it bears repeating -- even to the three (count 'em) people who read this site on a semi-regular basis. This following item meets both criteria.

Earlier in the week, a study was widely reported in the mainstream press about Arab public opinion, the conclusion of which was that the US is increasingly seen in a negative light. It isn't hard to see the conclusion that many drew from this; clearly, it's US Foriegn Policy© again, fertilizing the little terrorist seeds in the desert, and if we'd just plain Knock It Off, the worst we'd have to worry about is Eric Robert Rudolph and the occasional McVeigh.

I read about this poll and immediately thought: well, obviously.

What else would you think about the US over there? It's not like here, where there are so many competing sides to the story, it's hard to tell who's telling the truth. Al Jazeera was supposed to be an objective bastion of free Arab journalism, but it was shown pretty clearly what a joke it was when the Americans rolled into Baghdad -- even as Al Jazeera reporters were claiming that we were being defeated left and right.

Just last week, the editor of Saudi Arabia's Al Watan newspaper was fired -- fired -- for daring to criticize the state of the regime there. Meanwhile, the same people that kicked him out of his job continue to let the Wahhabi schools do their thing, teaching the kids that the US is the Great Satan. So that's okay. But criticizing the leadership ain't. Same goes for Iran, where you can get sentenced to death if you question the authority of the mullahocracy.

The regimes obviously have their reasons. They don't want to get their butts thrown out of power. When you repress a people, you've always got to watch your back. And if you can redirect the people's restlessness and ill-will towards a third party, say Eurasia the US, you kill two birds with one stone. You set up the conditions such that the media, if they want to keep their jobs (or their lives), are all too eager to rail against the horrors of the Great Satan, while paying no attention to the more immediate, direct causes of the suffering that these people have to go through: your own regime.

The point is: this poll is not news. It's just a natural effect of what you'd expect to see in a place where the information is tightly controlled and dissent is snuffed out -- quite literally, not in the Michael-Moore-Tim-Robbins-Dixie-Chicks-crushing-of-dissent-means-having-my-album-sales-drop-and-no-one-wants-to-see-my-movies way. Where others read this poll and see us being at fault, I see it as another indictment of the terrible regimes these people have to live under, where, at best, you don't even get the other side of the story, and at worst, you get fed a steady diet of anti-US rhetoric because it suits the purposes of the Powers That Be.

So it's nice to see that someone with credentials agrees with me (I wonder if the term "street cred" is ever floated in academic circles?). Take a look-see.

Instead of viewing terrorism as a response -- either direct or indirect -- to poverty or ignorance, we suggest that it is more accurately viewed as a response to political conditions and longstanding feelings of indignity and frustration that have little to do with economic circumstances. We suspect that is why international terrorist acts are more likely to be committed by people who grew up under repressive political regimes.

Posted by Matt at 6:24 PM

Bryan returns!

Bryan Baskin (the engineer -- not the Bashful one -- for those of you keeping score) returns from weeks of not-blogging to respond to my question about the feasability of air cars. Interesting stuff.

And as often happens, the thing that leaps out at me is something that has less to do with the specific point, and more to do with a broader one:

These new advancements in aircraft will allow such people to still enjoy the amenities of the city without dealing with all of the costs, taxes, crime, traffic, etc. Similarly, the internet is helping people to work more effectively in disparate groups and locations. Not everyone will be able to move to "the boonies", especially before retirement, nor does everyone want to, but the wealth generated by several centuries of technology and capitalism are allowing us to move back in with Nature, but this time it's on our terms.

Posted by Matt at 1:28 PM

Back

Back from the great Bayou City. It's amazing how much a place can change in eight years. I'm just in awe at how quickly so many of the old fixtures that I grew up around have been revamped and transformed into bigger, better, and more modern places of business.

For example: The old Rice grocery store on Kirby and West Alabama. It's now a Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Which I think is great. I never liked that Rice anyway. And as far as I can remember, there was no BB&B nearby when I most needed one, as I was heading back to college.

And an entire city block at the corner of Westheimer and Willowick/Weslayan was razed to form the biggest H-E-B Central Market ever. Suddenly, this nasty block with a run-down diner and overgrown weeds is now jam-packed with people trying to get in and get their grocery shopping done. Now the other Rice grocery -- sadly, for it, located across the street -- is probably next on the developer hitlist. (Of course, I remember when it was a Safeway, so no tears from me here.)

And unlike about a thousand kagillion people, I like it when this stuff happens. I like it the way I know that Christmas is coming. Because for the most part, this is progress. A ramshackle Big Boy, barely attended and on a lot that makes you wonder if there are any bodies buried there, would only get my nostalgic attention if there weren't any point in its destruction. Like, say, if they built McDonald's. But you can't freak about it when you know that that Central Market's going to be far more useful to everyone. That IS progress. Greater efficiency and use of resources.

Not to tie this up with a cute quip, but: I do wonder what they did with the big fiberglass Big Boy. There may actually come a day when they've all been shuttled off to the junk heap and buried under god knows how many disposable diapers and other assorted, well, junk. And that would be kinda sad. Save the best parts and move on, is what I say.

Posted by Matt at 11:14 AM

June 3, 2003

Hangin' in H-Town

It's been a good couple of days here in Houston. I drove down Sunday night, got to hang out with Steve-a-rooni for the last couple of days, and I've actually got a lot of work done (I took a huge file box and my laptop with me).

Speaking of the laptop: I just installed Windows XP, and it likes. Very much. It had been running Windows 2000 for almost three years, but if you've ever had a computer that long -- and you are constantly installing new programs -- you know that there's this Windows Fatigue Syndrome that sets in after a while. Programs don't load as fast as they used to. The computer takes longer... and longer... and longer... to boot up (mine was taking longer than four minutes). Well, a quick (well, hour-and-a-half) installation of XP over 2000, and a massive clean sweep of all the old, rarely-used programs off my hard drive did the trick.

Now I have to go through and re-register some of my programs, and re-install others. Which isn't a problem because the installation didn't format the hard drive; I had backups of everything. Look at me doing things the "recommended" way. It's a first, and whoa, it works.

Posted by Matt at 3:38 PM

Build your own South Park character. Why not?

September 2009

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