Nerf-Coated World

July 30, 2003

Guess who's back

...back again.... Matty's back... tell a friend... guess who's back guess who's back guess who's back guess who's back guess who's back guess who's back guess who's back, deh deh deh...

Back from Europe. Kept just about completely out of the news while I was gone. The BBC is pretty much everything you've heard it is. Every story is spun with a critical view of America. Every damn story. Hell, if North Korea has problems, it's because America refuses to trade with it. Iraq is shit and it's America's fault because it meddled there. Don't talk to them about the pictures of Uday and Qusay -- it was an irresponsible move on the part of the Pentagon, and one that might face scrutiny for violating international laws, fuck you very much. Oh, and Liberia is going to hell in a handbasket, and that's also America's fault because it hasn't gotten involved. They actually suggested that America ought to be responsible for Liberia because it has a responsibility to take care of its former colony. I mean, the Brits know all about the responsibilities that come with being a white country and the burden that comes with taking care of the darkies whose land they colonized in past centuries. Okay, they didn't say that last part, but they couldn't have been more clear that they think there is a paternal colonial obligation there. Please excuse me while I bash your condescending racist tea-stained crooked teeth into the anchor desk, thanks.

CNN World? Actually a good source of info. They kept commentary to a minimum, which was nice. Something that made me wish they had it on cable here. I'd watch it more than Fox News, because, let's face it, Fox gets annoying after about ten minutes. Not for the political leanings necessarily, but because they Get! So! Excited! About! Everything! Because! They! Think! It! Will! Keep! People! Glued! To! Their! Tee! Vees! Stop! Exhausting. Let's not do eight pots of coffee and a pack of No-Doz before air time, guys, thanks.

Bleh. Why am I here and not back in Venice. Speaking of, Jeremy Piven was staying in our hotel. Saw him outside talking on his cell phone.

Um, what else. Okay, how's this. Met a LOT of people from all over the place, and they actually really like Americans. Well, all the ones I talked to anyway. One guy from South Africa gave an impassioned speech about how he can't stand the American tourists who wear Canadian flags on their backpacks to make other people think they're not what they are. (I knew exactly what he was talking about... one of my uncles, either intentionally or not, wore a hat with a Canadian flag on it the whole trip.) He said, "You guys are the only fucking country in the whole goddamned world that stands up for fucking principles anymore, and it pisses me off when you weasel out of it and don't take pride in just how fucking great you really are." Eat that. Nice guy, too.

I heard there were bombings in Nice, the day after I was there. Lucky timing on my part. I still haven't read about this, and I doubt I'll really bother, but if what I heard was correct, they happened in the same place my brother and I were walking around for a couple of hours. What I do know, though, is you can't really worry about that stuff on that level, or you'd freak yourself out thinking there was a bomb in every trash can.

And here's the other thing. Life is so much better and happier when you don't stay glued to the news. I mean, who doesn't know this. The great majority of what happens in the world is either good or neutral; the great majority of what you hear on the news is decidedly not. You can make yourself completely neurotic if you keep tabs on all the crap going on in the world -- and you can miss some of the great, wonderful things right in front of you while doing it. I had a great time on this trip. Unbelievable. I couldn't even begin to describe just how amazing it was, and even if I did, you wouldn't understand its significance anyway unless you knew me personally. And since this is not primarily a personal blog (although I've flirted with that idea), I'm not about to go into gads of backstory to fill out the tales I have to tell. Thus, staying on message, I leave you with the few observations above.

Wishing you happiness.

Posted by Matt at 12:19 PM

July 19, 2003

Cruisin' update

Hey guys, just a quick update from the mid-Mediterranean. Old Matt got seriously sick yesterday (vomiting and everything.... might be that Norwalk virus you hear so much about). On the day I wanted to be the most healthy: France. (Bad enough we're here only a day in each place. Worse that I didn't get to encounter the two rude French people at full mental strength.)

Don't quite have the time to write anything else right now, but to all you people who keep checking out the site, I loves ya. Back in 10 days.

Posted by Matt at 7:42 AM

July 12, 2003

Scenes from a mall

I don't like to go shopping. Not for clothes anyway. I've always had that crazy mad-scientist gene that shuts down all desire to primp, up to and including the choice of clothes I wear. That isn't to say I'm a freak that wishes we all would wear the same uniforms, or that I'm like Einstein, who supposedly had one "uniform" hanging in his closet (he'd just wear the same thing day after day). It just means that I take no particular pleasure in dressing myself.

I'm also the kind of guy who just doesn't understand some things. Like, for example, why there were never any sales people around in the department store today when I needed one. Or like how stores don't carry a lot of pants in my size (I'm tall), and why they don't organize them even according to size, or even according to color or style or fit.

Seriously. I spent 45 minutes going through every pair of pants at Foley's, seeing if I could find any 34-36's. I found five. And three of these weren't pleated (despite being in the pleated section). It's times like these that I wish I was about two inches shorter. There are hundreds of 34-34's. It's that extra two inches that make my shopping life difficult.

Another thing: shoes. Most of the major shoe stores don't carry them above a size 13. Convenient for 95% of the population. Not so much for this guy. I'll be getting new shoes tomorrow, all right. But I'll be doing it in Houston, at a store where carrying large shoes is just part of business. That's part of the downside of living in a middle-sized city -- it's not big enough for a store to justify keeping the high-end sizes in stock. Special ordering: fine. But damnit, I really just want to get some damn pants and some damn shoes without having to place an order. (Same goes for hats. They cut them off at 7 1/2. I wear a 7 3/4.)

So speaking of malls, I'll provide you with some highlights of my day.

• The AC was out on the second floor of Barton Creek mall. It was 100 degrees in Austin today -- you do the math and guess how hot it was. All I can say is that it was like a Mexican indoor market up there. (If you've ever been to one, say, in San Antonio, you know what I mean -- they're hot and crowded, not the kind of thing you expect when you head out for the mall.) People were sweating and fanning themselves all over the place.


• How is it that some people seem to know everyone in the mall? I was walking behind some guy and his friend -- they said hey to every other person that passed. "What's up Roy?" "Hey man." "LeBron!" Likable guys.


• Worst salesperson ever: "Hey, I'm looking for some of these, maybe in a 34-36, do you know where I might find them?" "Um... You might try looking around... I think we have some somewhere." "Great. Thanks."


• Worst dressed salesperson ever: Baggy red long-sleeved knit shirt, red pajama pants, striped red and black socks, brown shoes. The reds didn't match. This guy was selling clothes. Some lady comes up to him at the counter and asks, "Hi, can we check out?" He looks around and starts walking away slowly, saying "Um... I'm really not supposed to be in this department... I'm supposed to be over there..." (he points to another section of the men's department). "Um, I guess you can follow me and I'll get you set up and stuff." Pajama pants. I'm guessing his manager is just jumping at even the remotest opportunity to fire the guy.

And finally, I'm heading out of town tomorrow and won't be back for about 16 days. About. (I get back on the 28th.) I'm heading to Europe for a big family vacation -- there'll be 19 of us going; it should be interesting. I'll take pictures, and I'll maybe have some sort of full report for you when I return.

But until then... Arrevederci. Ciao. Au revoir. Hasta luego. And by the time I get back, I might know how to say goodbye in Greek and Arabic. We shall see. Stay tuned!

Oh! And finally: we got some ads set up on iComix.com. They're paying us per click -- so if you happen to hop on over to iComix, be sure to visit our advertisers. It sure ain't paying the rent right now, but it would be great to get some of the site's costs paid for. No pressure. But, you know. If you happen to click on over. And happen to see one of those ads that interests you. You know. If your interest level happens to be adjusted so that you're interested in about anything, I don't have a problem with that. Wha--? Aieeee!!! (Matt jumps out the window.) Later.

Posted by Matt at 10:59 PM

July 11, 2003

Your lips move, but I can't hear what you're saying

So is the problem of Ann Coulter, according to Lileks:

On the Fourth of July I had a big argument with my oldest & dearest friends about Coulter’s book, and it had to do with Joe McCarthy. They appreciated her Stirring Defense. I regarded that as a losing cause and a waste of time. Yes, the point about CPUSA penetration of various elements of American society is valid and needs more attention to set the historical record straight - so why don’t we concentrate on the message instead of spending our time raising the rusted hulk of the USS McCarthy from the Marinas Trench? Every interview Coulter’s done ends up being about Joe Farking McCarthy, and the subsequent points about the actual extent of Communist activity in America in the late 40s and early 50s gets lost, because the host or hostess cannot BELIEVE she is defending him. All heat, no light. All legs, no walking.

In Coulter's Independence Day op-ed, she opens with the line that Joe McCarthy was one of the five greatest defenders of freedom in the 20th century. Now, let's stipulate that this is true for a second. Even if it is, she's got a big problem in trying to convince anyone of the fact -- not merely because McCarthy has been stigmatized or demonized -- but because they don't accept the initial premise. That premise being that there was an active effort by many to instill Communist ideology across our country, and that those efforts were a serious threat to our freedom and our way of life. If your audience isn't convinced of that, then obviously: they're going to write McCarthy off as an obsessive, windmill-fighting nutball.

If you're going to bring up McCarthy, you'd better be prepared to discuss the fundamental ideological differences between the Communist Manifesto and the Constitution of the United States. You have to understand that the ideas of latter cannot be upheld if they are trumped by those of the former. You have to know that the Communist Manifesto advocates exactly the opposite of everything this country was founded upon -- that every man, woman, and child is not his own person, but a serf to the government where the highest virtue is serving the state. Antithesis to the ideals of a country that was founded on the primacy of individual liberty.

There is no doubt that the Soviets tried to undermine us from within -- just as we eventually succeeded in doing the same to them. We fought with the tools of capitalism and choice; they fought by influencing people that greater state control was a good idea. (And no, it doesn't matter that their motives are benevolent; they almost always are benevolent -- it doesn't change the fact that the consequences of these ideas end in disaster for all involved.) Those who write McCarthy off, wholesale, either fail to identify that the Cold War was primarily an ideological one or seriously underestimates just how high the stakes of that war really were.

But anyway, back to Coulter. She starts from defending McCarthy, yet fails to realize that probably 90% of the public doesn't get just what the big deal was. So to put it ungracefully, the woman is out of touch. Or if she isn't, she certainly doesn't care about winning over those who currently disagree with her. In which case, I have to ask why she bothers with the articles and the books and the radio show if she isn't going to make a greater effort to use those powerful tools to influence those in the current ideological battles going on today.

Posted by Matt at 1:08 PM

Enumerated Powers Act

This would be a boon to freedom. It quite simply requires Congress to cite the part of the Constitution that allows the government the power to do whatever law claims authority to do. Kind of makes congressmen think twice if they actually have to consider Constitutional authority before introducing yet another bill.

Congressman Ron Paul has been trying to get this taken seriously for years. It's in committee now; I want to see it called to a vote.

Via The Mind of Man.

Posted by Matt at 12:15 PM

July 10, 2003

"He only does that to people he loves."

Did anyone else see this? Dick Morris, in an open letter to Hillary:

The real reason I was reluctant [to work on Bill's campaign again] was that Bill Clinton had tried to beat me up in May of 1990 as he, you, Gloria Cabe, and I were together in the Arkansas governor's mansion. At the time, Bill was worried that he was falling behind his democratic primary opponent and verbally assaulted me for not giving his campaign the time he felt it deserved. Offended by his harsh tone, I turned and stalked out of the room.

Bill ran after me, tackled me, threw me to the floor of the kitchen in the mansion and cocked his fist back to punch me. You grabbed his arm and, yelling at him to stop and get control of himself, pulled him off me. Then you walked me around the grounds of the mansion in the minutes after, with your arm around me, saying, "He only does that to people he loves."

Posted by Matt at 10:43 PM

Environmental dogma led to the sacrifice of 14 shuttle astronauts?

Blunt headline, but let's examine it. We know now what caused the Columbia disaster: insulating foam that flaked off from the main booster tank -- foam created with a new "environmentally friendly" formula, but that was responsible for a huge increase in damage to the shuttles' tiles on liftoff.

Aerospace engineer and former NASA filght controller Hannes Hacker weighs in.

NASA notes that it is impossible to ascertain with certainty whether it was the old or the new foam that caused the recent disaster, and environmentalists will no doubt say this means that we can't pin the disaster on them. But any unnecessary increase in risk in an enterprise so unforgiving of error, is unacceptable. The bottom line is that NASA took a much greater risk in order to comply with EPA demands. Environmentalist junk science trumped sound engineering.

This is not the first time that has happened. The cause of the 1986 Challenger explosion is officially established as hot gases burning through an O-ring joint in one of the solid-rocket boosters. NASA was roundly criticized for its decision to launch in cold weather over the objection of some engineers, but there was a deeper cause that was not as widely reported.

In 1985 NASA had switched to a new putty to seal the O-ring joints. The new putty became brittle at cold temperatures, thus allowing Dr. Richard Feynman to teach NASA a famous lesson. At the congressional hearing investigating the accident, he simply placed some of the O-ring putty in a glass of ice water and crumbled it in his fingers.

NASA had changed the sealant because its original supplier for O-ring putty stopped producing it for fear of anti-asbestos lawsuits.

Posted by Matt at 6:02 PM

Frame-a-riffic & Matt's Iron Law of Electronics Purchases

I just got my art back from the framers'. It looks pretty dang good. I wish I could have afforded to spend a little more on the frame (about $200 more), but I made the most of what I could spend, and it looks fantastic.

I'd show you pics, but I don't have a digital camera yet. I decided to wait for the mid-summer price drop as always happens. Last year I got burned getting a new iMac and complementary iPod, just to find that had I waited another 30 days or so, I could have had the same computer with a 17" screen (instead of a 15" one) and the same iPod with twice the storage space for the same amount of money. "When Matt finds out about this, he's going to be pissed," said a friend. I was. Thus, I've learned my lesson: thou shalt not buy electronics in June. Or early July. Wait at least until August.

Posted by Matt at 5:56 PM

July 9, 2003

The Internet is... well...

Merde. Caca. Feces. See for yourself.

Posted by Matt at 9:54 PM

A cry from Zimbabwe

Steven Tennett isn't asking for American troops. Or foreign aid.

No, the favor I have to ask is very different--and far simpler. America, stop apologizing for your greatness.

Stand up and proudly champion the principles that have enabled you to earn your wealth and power: capitalism and the individual's inalienable rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness. Condemn every form of tyranny and tell the world that the political system created by your founders is the only noble system the world has ever seen. Tell every individual across the globe that no matter if he is black, white or Arab, the *only* path to freedom and prosperity is through the ideas contained in your Constitution and Bill of Rights. To modify a saying from one of your great founders, George Washington: Proclaim a standard to which the wise and the just can repair.

To do so costs you nothing--and will achieve much.

You will give hope and inspiration to any individual in Zimbabwe, Iran, Hong Kong or elsewhere who is actually fighting for his liberty. You will earn the respect of freedom- loving people the world over--the only "world opinion" it could ever make sense to win. And by your moral certainty you will strike fear in the hearts of your enemies--and any tyrant who dares to violate the rights of the individual.

Posted by Matt at 3:46 PM

BlogLite

Yeah, I know posting has been somewhat light over the last few days, but I do this for your benefit.

My benefit? Yeah, your benefit. Lemme 'splain, Lucy.

I just won't blog when I don't have anything interesting to say on the subjets du jour. There is absolutely no need whatsoever to have one more guy (namely, me) points that others have made again and again, just for the sake of keeping posts current. What's the use to you if you have to scroll through my blog just to see the same stuff you've already read on other blogs? Same links, same blockquotes... bo-ring.

Now, this isn't to say that I'm not constantly working on having interesting things to say. I am, in fact. But for now, allow me to link to a very funny site. Take it away, Homestar! (Definitely check out Trogdor. Definitely. Rain man.)

Posted by Matt at 11:54 AM

Doublespeak

From SDB:

It's a tenet of some leftists that "free speech is censorship." For instance, criticism is censorship. Permitting all viewpoints equal time is censorship. And it's actually a principle espoused by some on the left that active censorship is a good thing in order to prevent censorship.

Posted by Matt at 11:41 AM

Back-door shenanigans

So picture this.

In the early 80's, a software developer creates an information management system to make it easier for government prosecutors to track witnesses and other information. The software is powerful -- whatever it is about it, it works and it works well. It's so good, the US DOJ wants to distribute it to all the major cities, and implement a national version of it. It gets distributed all up and down the line, in all our major systems.

But the DOJ has its share of corruption, and they end up stealing the software and bankrupting the company that created it. Meanwhile, they implement back-door functionality to allow anyone who knows the right password to snoop on any other system using the software. Know the password, and you have access to all the information.

So then the US sells the software to other countries, like Israel. And Robert Hanssen sells it to the Russians. And it somehow falls into the hands of Saddam Hussein under Bush 41. Even organized crime operations get it and use it. Not a bad idea; distribute the software to as many friendlies as possible, and allow spies to sell it to non-friendlies, knowing that you have the back-door password; you have access to all their systems, all their intelligence.

Now, with that setup in mind, picture this. Al Qaeda gets a copy of the software, through black-market channels in Russia. And somehow, they get access to the back-door. They would then have access to all our systems using the software; they would know what we know -- specifically, what we know about them. It's counter-intelligence, custom-built by our own boys and turned against us.

I'm thinking: Terminator 3. But it might have actually happened. And it would explain why the government, shortly after 9/11, put out a request for bids to software companies -- to build a new database information management system, with the major requirement being that it absolutely must not be built on any existing technology.

Food for thought.

Posted by Matt at 11:30 AM

Freakin' raccoons

I didn't sleep all that well last night. You see, I have a raccoon problem.

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but it's worth mentioning again now: there is a lumbering fearless little creature with dextrous hands and an insatiable appetite for cat food who comes around in the middle of the night and has pulled a number of B&E's on my apartment.

I'm not kidding. He has actually entered my apartment. I live on the second floor, and I have a balcony with a heavy sliding glass door. This raccoon -- this little thing that weighs probably twenty-five or thirty pounds and looks like something out of a Disney cartoon -- manages to shinny up the wooden beam that leads up to the second floor and open my door.

I've seen him do it. He gets his little hands in the crack between the door and the frame and just pulls. He pullls until it moves. If the door isn't locked, it slides right open -- but I can't stress this enough: that door is heavy. It's a big, eight-foot tall, five-foot wide door in a heavy metal frame, and this little wandering scavenger can open the damn thing. He knows exactly what he's doing when he does it; he walks right up to it and pulls in the right spot. The door is just another obstacle in the way between him and food.

As I said, his food of choice happens to be cat food, namely, my cats' cat food.

Last night at about 5:30 in the old a.m., I hear grunting coming from the living room. Grunting, shuffling, banging into things... after about a minute of this, I decided that this wasn't an episode of my cats' late-night crazies. So I get up. There in the middle of the living room is the twenty-pound light blue bag of IAMS with a little thirty-pound furry creature hunching over it. The bag is ripped open, so it's more of a pile of food on a bright blue placemat, in the middle of my living room. And the balcony door was wide open.

I yell at the thing in my get-the-hell-out-of-my-apartment voice. "AY!" (It's like "hey", but with no "h".) He turns and looks at me. And this is the thing that is both amusing and frustrating for me: he continues eating. The thing has no fear. So I charge him.

Seeing a big six-foot-five guy running at your little one-foot-eleven self has got to be somewhat intimidating if you're in the middle of a meal. He turned and ran. About four feet, and then turned around and looked to see if I was still coming (and he was right -- I had stopped when I saw him turn... intelligent little bugger). So I finished the job. I shooed him onto the balcony and chased him down the wooden post.

Now, this raccoon is not a bad guy, but I don't like the thing in my apartment. Uninvited. He's not like David Leisure on Empty Nest -- he can't come over just whenever he pleases to steal stuff out of my fridge. I'm thinking I would install some anti-raccoon netting or some such on my balcony, but since I'm moving in about six weeks, it won't be worth the effort.

So there you have it. Thus the sleepiness today. Might I mention: it isn't good for the restorative process to have your cycle interrupted by a home invasion.

Posted by Matt at 10:43 AM

July 8, 2003

I can't come up with a title for this one

Walter Williams has some things to say about media ignorance.

Posted by Matt at 9:45 AM

July 7, 2003

Savage out

Michael Savage, host of the Savage Nation radio show, has been ousted from his second job hosting a show on MSNBC.

Two words: Finally.

I don't have a beef with about half of what Savage says (I listen to him sometimes on the radio here in Austin), but the half I do disagree with is pretty nasty. He's got a real contempt for various segments of American culture (he thinks we're on the road to total moral decay, the solution to which, of course, is more religion). For those who buy into political stereotypes, Savage is the classic enraged white American male -- like Michael Douglas in falling down, only loud and Italian, and a little more nuts.

Anyway, back to the point. I almost blogged about this last week when I heard his show on the radio after the Supreme Court ruling on sodomy. Savage had a guest host filling in, who was taking call after call who echoed the same point: Most Americans disapprove of sodomy, despite the poll data, therefore it is right that it is illegal. I was tempted to call in and play Spot the Fallacy, but it was pretty obvious that the tone of the show had been totally set; there was no reasoning with these people when it came to the supremacy of majority rule on this issue (but argue for majority rule when it's a liberal position, and they'll slam you, and wonder what ever happened to principles in this country). Anyway, the show was just the latest in a series of ill-reasoned positions Savage's show has taken -- conservative for the sake of preserving the old, not because it's necessarily right.

Read the excerpt from the show at the bottom of the above link and tell me if I'm wrong to celebrate this guy's removal from the MSNBC cable lines.

UPDATE: Lileks has more on the subject, using more adjectives and clauses and such.

Posted by Matt at 6:37 PM

R.I.P.

It's been a rough month.

Buddy Ebsen.
Katharine Hepburn.
Barry White.
Hume Cronyn.
David Brinkley.
Gregory Peck.

Posted by Matt at 11:38 AM

July 6, 2003

Get out!

Schwarzenegger in the California governor's mansion? If I still lived there, I'd vote for him.

And just an observation... Reagan spent 8 years as governor of California; Schwarzenegger probably has a decent shot of winning, too. Yet both are Republicans, unlike the vast majority of their profession, and much unlike their whole industry, which wields considerable influence in the state.

Posted by Matt at 9:48 PM

Iraq / terrorists / etc.

Glenn Reynolds rounds up some interesting theories about the overall strategy in Iraq -- from GW's "bring 'em on" taunt, to shifting focus to the "Great" of the Satans (that would be us), to using Iraq as "flypaper" for terrorists. If you like overall mess-with-their-heads kind of thinking, this post'll satisfy.

Posted by Matt at 9:34 PM

July 5, 2003

Balance

Let's call attention to some of the good news in Iraq: 11 Iraqi gunmen killed in failed ambush.

The more we do this, the less inclined these folks will be inclined to try. That, and if we can produce Saddam's corpse.

Posted by Matt at 7:38 AM

July 4, 2003

What made America great

Served up with your hot dogs and hamburgers this fine Independence Day, some food for thought from Edwin Locke:

Why should we celebrate the Fourth of July? Because America — as the greatest product of Western civilization — is the greatest country in the world. But it cannot remain great unless we understand the causes of its greatness.

In this age of diversity-worship, it is considered axiomatic that all cultures and countries are equal. Western culture, it is declared, is in no way superior to that of any other, not even to tribes of cannibals. To deny the equality of all cultures, claim the intellectuals, is to be guilty of the most heinous of intellectual sins: "ethnocentrism." It is to flout the "sacred" (and false) principle of cultural relativism. I disagree with the relativists — absolutely.

In other Independence Day news, Bob made the center color spread of his local paper, singing the national anthem in front of half a thousand locals and foreign diplomats. Go Bob!

And -- U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

Posted by Matt at 2:31 PM

July 3, 2003

Objectivism in bridge

Nice article in the New York Times this past week, about a bridge player who applies the tenets of Objectivism to life -- and to the game of bridge.

Money passage:

Some weeks later, I press Wildavsky on a similar point: if Objectivism truly gives him an edge in bridge, why share it with the competition? He gives me two answers, both of which I think are true. First: ''I just decided that my philosophy is the most important thing that makes me what I am, and it couldn't hurt to let people know.''

The second explanation: it has to do with Sept. 11 and the sense that day provoked in Wildavsky that our society is under attack, not just from collectivism within but also from a kind of destructive nihilism without. ''It's more clear now that the survival of Western civilization is at stake,'' he says. A more Objectivist world would be a better place for Adam Wildavsky to live, and that would trump whatever advantage he might lose in bridge.

Posted by Matt at 4:04 PM

If you really want freedom

Neal Boortz:

I want you to write a letter to your congressman and your senators. I want you to tell them that you really got to thinking while watching people working on their melanomas on the beech, and you want the government to do something for you. You want the government to cut you loose.

Tell your congressman that you want to be free to establish your own relationship with your employer. No minimum wages. No mandated benefits. You want to negotiate your own employment contract with your employer, and the only thing you want the government to do is to help you enforce it through the courts if your boss starts screwing around.

Tell your elected officials that you do not believe that you have a right to health care. Tell them that you do not wish to use the police power of government to force someone else to provide you with medications or medical services. Write that you are perfectly willing to assume the total and complete responsibility for acquiring your own health insurance, all you want them to do is eliminate the mandates and allow you to shop for just the coverage you desire. Be sure to add that in the event you get sick without insurance, or you can’t cover the costs, you absolutely do not want the government to step in and spend one dime of someone else’s money on your care.

Tell them that you want an end to Social Security. You want out. You will be responsible for setting up your retirement plan and you will be willing to suffer the consequences in old age if you fail to do so. Tell your representatives that in a free society the government shouldn’t take money from people who are now working just to give it to people who are not.

Maybe you will want to tell your senators and congressman that you have no interest what other people do in the privacy of their own homes. You don’t want any laws that regulate their sexual conduct, and you don’t want them punished if they sit out in the back yard under the stars at night puffing on some marijuana.

Inform your representatives that you want to be free to make your own consumer choices, and that includes choices of which professional you want to use for medical and legal services. Tell them that you are perfectly willing to rely on your own judgment, or the judgment of private accrediting agencies when it comes to selecting an attorney or a doctor. You might add that you don’t like the idea that you have to go to the government to ask who may and who may not clip your fingernails.

Posted by Matt at 7:32 AM

Not fun

Not the way you want your night at the ballpark to end:

At least 20 people were injured when a crowded Coors Field escalator suddenly accelerated after a Colorado Rockies game Wednesday night, fire officials said. [...]

"It's like it had no brakes and everybody was just piling up at the end of it," she said. "People were just falling on each other." [...]

"I saw people's heads all hitting each other," he said. "I heard people's bodies banging against that thing."

Posted by Matt at 6:51 AM

Rag on us all you want...

but the NL Central has got to be the most evenly-matched set of teams in baseball. Coming up on the All-Star break, three out of six teams -- the Cubs, the Astros, and the Cards -- are tied for the lead in the division.

This race will be the one to watch this year.

Posted by Matt at 3:39 AM

Are these guys even doing their jobs?

What's this?

WASHINGTON — Forty-four House Republicans have threatened to torpedo President Bush's coveted Medicare prescription drug plan if it does not include free-market reforms.

They say the drug benefits will cost too much and drive Medicare ever closer to insolvency. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the bill will cost $400 billion over 10 years.

Except this bill already passed. Huh. So I suppose these same 44 House Republicans, who are courageously threatening to block this bill's passage (presumably when it comes back from conference) are the same 44 brave souls who stood firmly against it when it passed the House last week.

Well, no, that isn't quite right. See, 'cause only 14 Republicans voted against it.

Pardon my confusion, but if only 14 voted against the bill last week, and now 44 are threatening to kill it when it comes back around for its second vote, doesn't that mean that at least 30 of these guys changed their minds after having cast a yea-vote? What -- it's suddenly too expensive now? The bill is now something totally different from the one they voted for?

I may just be a layman from a midde-to-large-sized city from the little old state of Texas, so I might not "get it" when it comes to the nuanced and complicated goings-on of the national legislature. But are these guys even reading the bills that they vote for? Are they even considering what the heck it is that they're doing when they click the little button that says "Yea" at their desk on the House floor? What exactly is it that they're doing with their time up there, that we're paying them $141,300 plus benefits to do?

Seriously. Congressmen: DO YOUR DAMNED JOBS and research the freaking bills you're voting on before you cast your vote. These are our lives you're playing with here. We have to accept the consequences of your decisions, and this country-club "just pass any old bill, we've got an election coming up you know, let them eat cake" mentality is precisely the kind of nonsense that causes alienation and apathy among the people you're supposed to be working for.

Take your responsibilities seriously already. Now.

Posted by Matt at 2:59 AM

July 2, 2003

Quagmirocity

James Taranto in today's Best of the Web:

"Not One Quagmire, but Two" reads the headline of an editorial in today's Des Moines Register. The subheadline: "Americans are dying in Afghanistan, too."

Actually, the word for a conflict in which soldiers die is not quagmire but war. The Register complains that "more than 60" U.S. servicemen have died in Afghanistan "since the initial U.S.-led attack some 20 months ago." All patriotic Americans mourn their loss--but this is roughly 1/50th the number of people who died on U.S. soil some 22 months ago in an attack directed from Afghanistan. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the paper carps, "what is left now are two war-torn countries in the Middle East that can be breeding grounds for chaos, violence and terrorism." And what pray tell would be there had America not intervened?

Posted by Matt at 3:21 PM

Liberia

So as you might have heard, there's a major civil war going on in Liberia. Bloodshed, mischief, mayhem, soap -- all sorts of nutty goings-on, with much death and destruction.

How does this concern us? Good question. Other than the fact that Liberia was founded by an early-nineteenth century movement in the US, which raised money to buy slaves' freedom and send them to Africa (get it? Liberia?) -- well, nothing. Other than that many Liberians want us to intervene. And, funnily enough, France, Russia, the UN... take it away, Neal Boortz!

That’s right, France and the U.N. are asking the U.S. to possibly send troops to Liberia, presumably to dethrone [Liberian president] Charles Taylor.

Why Liberia and not Iraq? I guess France doesn’t have any huge oil contracts with Taylor that need to be preserved. Then again, maybe because America would presumably be working with, instead of against Muslim insurgents.

Here's some reading material, all pertinent to the issue (study up -- you'll be quizzed on this later):

The UN:

Security Council diplomats continued to look toward the holdout in the growing drive for an international force in Liberia -- the United States, which European and African diplomats say should be taking a larger role in efforts to end the escalating three-year war in the American-founded nation.

"Our collective interest and our common humanity demand urgent and decisive action from the Security Council. We cannot be oblivious to the warning signs of an imminent possible catastrophe," Annan's letter said.

In a clear reference to the United States, which has so far declined to act in a country with which it has close ties, Annan said the force should be "under the lead of a (U.N.) member state."

The New York Times, which ardently opposed Mr. Bush's Iraq policy, said in an editorial yesterday that "the United States cannot send troops to pacify every international conflict or relieve every humanitarian emergency."

But the paper added that Mr. Annan "makes a compelling case for dispatching an American-led international force to Liberia" and said the rationale is both "humanitarian and geopolitical."

Posted by Matt at 9:57 AM

An important announcement

Blogging may be light today, as I will be working fastly and furiously on a programming project. (I do this. It's like cramming for a test -- total focus and concentration for as long as my brain will handle it.)

Then again, though, the last time I said that, I posted half a dozen times in the next couple of hours.

So for now, I leave you with today's Quotable Quote© from James Lileks:

I loved my job but hated where I lived, and that was a poisonous combination.

Posted by Matt at 4:30 AM

July 1, 2003

I almost forgot...

Happy 2003.5, everybody!

Posted by Matt at 10:46 PM

Football, etc.

What with all the hoopla with Miami leaving the SEC for the Big East, and Virginia Tech following suit, the folks at ESPN decided to redraw the conferences completely, doing a little college-sports-gerrymandering of their own.

My favorite is that Arkansas takes the place of Baylor in the current Big 12 (now renamed the "Bring Back the Wishbone" conference).

Posted by Matt at 9:40 PM

Build your own South Park character. Why not?

September 2009

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