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March 29, 2006
Workin' and A-Swingin'
As I mentioned before, I'm transferring a bunch of my old tapes onto CD. Most of what I'm bothering to move is either off the radio or in mono. In this case, it's old Glenn Miller 45s that my parents had on a special RCA release from about 50 years ago. I taped them for some reason, and in this case, I can work, documenting some code for a client I'm finishing up with, pausing to break the recording into tracks on the software. Surprinsgly, given all the lousy treatment the tapes have been through, they still sound pretty good.
Ya gotta love Glenn Miller.
CJR's High Journalistic Standards (Update)
Columbia Journalism Review's Daily takes note of my comments on Hugh's interview yesterday with Michael Ware. In doing so, they exhibit the kind of straw-man argumentation that's made the MSM a kind of Jefferson Society with keyboards.
But the View isn't done. "[Ware] could do a lot more reporting under the protection of the US military than he either knows or acknowledges." (Ware doesn't know the embed option exists?) "If he's really concerned about either his safety or that of his staff, there does seem to be an answer."
This was the part of the interview I was referring to, and going back and reading it, it appears I misheard:
But I mean, what I'm saying to you is that if you think anyone would have the right to complain or to take umbrage at what I do, it would be the troops here on the ground. It would be U.S. military intelligence. It would be the U.S. military. You'd think that they wouldn't give me embeds, wouldn't you? You'd think that they wouldn't grant me backgrounders, or wouldn't take me out on special events. You'd think that they wouldn't give me access to the generals, or to military intelligence. You know, in this war alone, I've been in combat with virtually every kind of U.S. fighting force there is, from the SEAL's, to the Green Berets, to Delta, to Infantry, Airborne, Armored, Mechanized. I mean, I've been there, done that in combat. I've been in every major battle of this war, except from Najaf and the first battle of Fallujah. That includes the battle of Tal-Afar, the Battle of Samara, and the Battle of Fallujah, with front line units. I witnessed an event that the Pentagon subsequently asked me to write about as a witness, which is now a matter for the Congressional Medal of Honor nomination. And I am mentioned in that citation. So if anyone would have a problem with what I do in exploring the issues of this war, you'd think it'd be the military. Yet strangely, they don't.
When I heard this on the air, it sounded to me as though Ware was complaining that he might be denied access based on how he reported. Going back and reading it, he's clearly not saying that. But he does say this about other reporters:
And something happens, something that may not exactly play well back home. And yet, it's something that you know, well, people outside of this experience would never understand that. I mean, how do you relay that without betraying the trust and the confidence of the troops? And for some journalists, they have to bear in mind well, if I write a negative story about the military on this embed, will they give me another embed? So there's always these pressures from all the players. (emphasis added. -ed)
And yet, there's plenty of evidence that most reporters don't get out much beyond Baghdad, and those that do limit themselves to military press events. Bill Roggio reported that while he saw reporters on the ground outside of those events. Ware appears to have been all over the place, and does seem to have availed himself of the military's openness in a way that is unusual for western journalists.
Incredibly, the CJR responds to my complaint as though I had the right interpretation, and proceeds to defend the press on that basis.
UPDATE: In reading even further, I found another quote which supports my initial interpretation, that Ware seems to believe that the military picks and chooses its embeds based on their coverage. Ware's ostensibly referring to what other reporters believe, but then goes on to describe a case where he claims the Iraqi government came after him for a story he wrote. So he's also clearly tying this to his own experience. Whether his later comment is a clumsy recovery aimed at buttering up his, er, bread-and-butter is unclear, but it's certainly at odds with the second quote, from earlier in the interview.
Just Passing Through
Colorado has apparently turned into Staging Area Alpha for illegals coming into the country. Last week, in the middle of the annual tussle between winter and spring, winter got the upper hand on the plains. In the aftermath, a few of the highly-profitable jitneys running illegals from Mexico to points east spun out and closed the interstates.
Now, traffic's bad enough around here without this sort of complication, but it points to Colorado's central position as a collection and distribution point for the free flow of labor across the border. Take a look at a map. Colorado's got I-25 heading north-south, I-70 and I-76 heading east-west, and an hour farther north to I-80. (I-80, where "This is the place," takes on a whole new meaning.)
The inability of local law enforcement to help out is only making things worse. Denver's mayor hasn't exactly made this a high priority; the local latino politicos in Weld County openly oppose an ICE office in Greeley, and, this morning's Rocky details the long-haul meter-free taxi running from Denver to points east:
Law enforcement officials and local residents regularly see vehicles that they suspect are ferrying illegal immigrants to points east and west.
"With the need for agricultural workers beginning to increase, there will be more travelers in the next few weeks," Morgan County Sheriff Jim Crone said. "If we went out and focused on the interstate, I think we could get two or three loads of people a day, with anywhere from 10 to 25 people in a load. And that would overtax our jail."
...
The Morgan County population was 31 percent Hispanic in the last census, compared to 17 percent Hispanic statewide. But, the sheriff said, some local Hispanics believe the figure is now closer to 50 percent.
Some time ago, Crone said, law enforcement officials planned a week-long sweep in Morgan County to arrest illegal immigrants. However, "They stopped it after two days because they had taken so many people into custody that there was no room (in the jail) for any more."
Tancredo may be right that the protests on Saturday could have been broken up by a few ICE agents checking for papers, but cleaning up the problem that way would require either an armada of C-130s or a holding facility the size of the state.
I have to write this every time, because the issue has at least two parts: for me, this is a question of sovereignty and security as well as economics. We're not going to ship out 11 million people, no matter what Derbyshire says. Steve King can claim that Americans will work for $10 an hour, including employers' insurance, payroll tax, and unemployment insurance costs, but I haven't seen it. We need to come up with a solution that cements the loyalty of those already living here, while cutting off the flow of illegals who undermine that loyalty.
I'm also more than a little worried about importing workers whose intention is to make money and leave. I want people coming in who have a stake in the country and in building a community. There's a strong argument to be made that the reason Mexico is poor has nothing to do with our having stole half their country (and the half with the paved roads, at that), and everything to do with the attitude of the initial settlers.
North of the Rio Grande, people came to build and create. South of that line, people came to pull as much metal out of the ground as they could, and then go home. That's changed, but it's only now that they're starting to get out from under that corruption. I'm pretty sure we don't want to be importing it here, and the only way to prevent it is to limit immigration to assimilable numbers.
The protests in Denver featured many more Mexican than American flags (although the DenPo decided to magnify the latter in its photo). We are rapidly approaching a tipping point, beyond which the politics of the issue will start to resemble that of hijabs in Europe. SB90 is good news, and a start, but without local support, it'll be a dead letter involving years of litigation to prove and enforce, years we don't have any more.
Maybe She'll Blame the Jews
Cynthia McKinney has a little temper, temper:
Rep. Cynthia McKinney and a police officer scuffled Wednesday after the Georgia Democrat entered a House office building unrecognized and refused to stop when asked, according to U.S. Capitol Police.
...
Members of Congress do not have to walk through metal detectors as they enter buildings on the Capitol complex. They wear lapel pins identifying them as members.
McKinney routinely doesn't wear her pin and is recognized by many officers, the police official said, adding that she wasn't wearing it when she entered a House office building early Wednesday.
By one police account, she walked around a metal detector and an officer asked her several times to stop. When she did not, the officer tried to stop her, and she then struck the officer, according to that account
We're taking bets on how long before she accuses the Israel lobby of paying the officer to harass her.
Heavy Water
It appears that the break-in to the Blackstone, Mass. water supply was the work of teens, rather than terrorists:
Two boys and a girl have been arrested in connection with the water supply scare in Blackstone. This comes as people there anxiously wait for test results to come back this afternoon. The system was shut down Tuesday after someone broke into the town’s water storage facility, sparking fears it may be contaminated.
Police said all three suspects are 15 years old....
Police say the three teens broke into the facility Monday night. It houses a 1.3 million-gallon storage tank that supplies water to Blackstone and part of North Smithfield.
Someone cut barbed wire to enter the complex, cut the lines to an alarm, and then damaged an electrical panel and a vent at the top of the tank.
Authorities say the group left behind an empty, 5-gallon container that had an odor. Investigators were unsure whether it belonged to the water supply company that uses the facility.
OK, so it's not exactly Bierko dumping nerve gas into your home furnace, but the bad guys are watching. Since there's probably no way of securing every utility facility in the country against penetration, this sort of thing is going to have to be handled downstream through chemicals and filtration. Electrified and alarmed fences aren't a bad idea, though.
Neither is a decent stash of bottled water.
March 28, 2006
Reporting From the Other Side
One section of Hugh Hewitt's interview with Michael Ware struck me in particular. Hugh analogized to WWII, and what would happen if a reporter had the chance to report from the other side in that war.
Actually, William Shirer & other journalists did report from Germany during the war. But they did it 1) when the US wasn't a belligerent, and 2) while reporting that they were under Germany censorship. Neither of those conditions obtains with Michael Ware.
Like it or not, when the war broke out, the Germans didn't make it a habit to kill foreign correspondents; they deported them. Once the war started, any newspaperman wandering across the front lines to hang out with the Germans on maneuvers would have been shot as a spy. And for good reason. The mere fact this is at least a matter of dispute amongst the councils of our current enemy should tell you something about the service that Mr. Ware is performing.
Remember, too that normal military censorship has relatively well-known rules. Talk about morale if you like, but the troop train schedule is off-limits. Ware's admitted to being "careful," but without careful questioning after each story, it's impossible for a reader to figure out what kind of restraints he's putting on himself. Not only can't you read between the lines, you're not even sure what directlon the lines run, or if there are any lines.
The fact is, there are plenty of embeds who reports what they see, good or bad. Michael Yon comes to mind. The military is confident in the rightness of its behavior to the point that as long as Yon doesn't pick up a weapon again, or as long as Bill Roggio doesn't have flashbacks to his service days, they can keep going and reporting as long as they like. While it does seem that Ware has gotten out of the bar at the Palestine Hotel, he could do a lot more reporting under the protection of the US military than he either knows or acknowledges. If he's really concerned about either his safety or that of his staff, there does seem to be an answer.
This is worse than the deal cut with Saddam, first, because it comes after Eason Jordan's nasty little revelation, and second, because you can't make normal assumptions about what's fair game and what's not.
This guy's sold his soul for a few bylines.
UPDATE: Upon further reflection, this post has been revised and extended from its initial form..
March 27, 2006
War Quickies
First, does anyone really believe that Moussaoui was in cahoots with Richard "Really Big Shoe" Reid to hijack a fifth airplane? It more or less goes against everything that we know operationally about that day. I'm content to believe that Moussaoui was part of the 9/11 plot at some point, but this sounds like the ravings of someone who's either trying to save his skin by confessing everything, or who's a few seats short of a full flight.
Secondly, are we finally getting serious about Mookie al-Sadr? I didn't like the deal we cut in the first place, letting him go, just to rebuild his militia. Didn't we already make that mistake with one Iraqi, er, strongman? Having private militias operating outside the government is a recipe for chaos. On the other hand, maybe this will be a test for the Iraqi security forces' competence and loyalty. Either way, we need to put Mookie out of business.
Painting the Map Red
Hugh's new book is out! It's basically the "take, clear, and hold" strategy of national politics, and you can buy it here. Colorado (along with Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ohio) are the battleground states Hugh identifies. Speaking from the front lines, I'd say he's got the Colorado part pegged.
March 26, 2006
GMU Rescues the NCAA
George Mason is going to the Final Four. I grew up a couple of miles from GMU, at a time when it was still struggling to establish itself after breaking free from U.Va. It was fully accredited, of course. But because of its newness and its suburban setting, it always seemed at least a full step below Georgetown and Maryland, and the in the latter case, that was saying something, sort of one step above a community college.
Now, with the development of a first-class economics department, and this, Mason is putting my hometown on the map. Like it or not, sports success is one of the surest ways to national attention, so I'm sure that Rte. 123 will be crawling with sports "reporters" looking for human interest stories amid the institutional architecture. The joke's on them - Rte. 123 pretty much crawls at all hours, anyway.
With two #1 seeds playing today, I had pretty much resigned myself to a boring Final Four, with nobody to root for and a #4 seed having to pass for Cinderella. The last #11 seed to crash the party was LSU in 1986, and since then 42% of Final Four teams have been #1 seeds, and an outright majority have been #1 or #2. The only year with any spice was gloriously uncompetitive 2000, when a #5 and two #8s made it, and the games were all decided by 12 or 13 points. Over time, the difference between #1 and #4 seeds has been shrinking, while the difference between #4 and everyone else has been growing.
The good news is that Mason can still meet LSU in the Finals.
AP: Criminalizing Illegality
Apparently, the AP doesn't think that illegal immigrants are breaking the law:
More than 50,000 people gathered downtown Saturday as part of a national protest against a crackdown in immigration laws, including federal legislation aimed at criminalizing illegal immigrants and building more walls along the U.S.-Mexico border. (emphasis added -ed.)
In fact, the proposed legislation would make being here in the country a felony. It's already a crime, of course.
This is at least a two-part issue. We can have an open immigration policy, or a closed policy, or something in-between. But we can't have any policy at all without control of our borders. The fact is, and it is a fact, one can be for strong border control and support a large flow of immigrants, or even a guest-worker program. This kind of obfuscation lumps all immigrants together, makes it easier to accuse border-control advocates of racism, and is part of a larger set of talking points designed to politicize the issue along partisan lines. The ultimate goal, of course, is to preserve the Hispanic vote for Democrats:
Speakers during the rally ridiculed the Republican party telling participants that "they're not on our side and they're pitting Americans against us."
Right. That's why the Democratic governors of Arizona and New Mexico - and Bill Richardson himself is Hispanic - have declared states of emergency along their borders with Mexico. If the rally itself was this politicized, the AP made no attempt to discern the political leanings of its organizing groups.
"This is the standing point of a new beginning," said protester Eli Chairez-Clendenin, 36, of Denver, who immigrated to Colorado in 1974. "We're not going to be intimidated or afraid to speak our mind. We're going to be who we are."
Mr. Chairez-Clendenin thus came here when he was, what, four years old? So he came here with his family. It's not as though he made this decision himself, as an adult, responsible for his decisions. To all intents and purposes, the man's a native, and his opinions on recent illegals need to be weighed with that in mind.
This was the wire service. It'll be interesting to see what the Denver Post does with it tomorrow.
March 24, 2006
The WaPo Wanders Off The Reservation
Apparently, certain readers aren't taking too well to Redstate.org's Ben Domenech's hiring by the Washington Post. Howard Kurtz's column has a slightly whiny tone to it: "Liberal bloggers, some of whom have been criticizing The Post since its editorial page backed the war in Iraq, have expressed varying degrees of outrage over Domenech's hiring." And while calling Ted Rall a "steaming bag of pus" may make Ted Rall upset, calling Dan Froomikin an "embarassment" could just as well be a professional assessment.
Still, the complaints smack of perceived betrayal of the faithful. Conservatives are upset over the monolithically liberal WaPo blogroll, while leftists are upset over the presence of a single righty. The fact that the leftys are screaming like a woman scorned suggests the degree to which they count on the Post's megaphone, and the risk that the Post has been running of ghettoizing itself.
On the other hand, maybe it's jealousy. If the lefty bloggers were as important as they think they are, they wouldn't need the Post anyway.
And finally, what business is this of Pete Stark's? When the White House folded like a cheap suit and attacked Bill Bennett for some offhand comments about the crime rate, conservatives were wondering why the White House felt compelled to comment. Don't expect liberals to be asking when Pete Stark got into the newspaper business.
The Language of Business
Mais Non!
If the French government cared about business, the fact that their businessmen get it might matter.
March 23, 2006
Instapundit vs. WSJ on Newspapers
Yesterday, Glenn Reynolds suggested some things that newspapers could do to become more relevant and to stay alive:
- First, I think I'd skip the "paper" part.
- Second, I'd put some of the money I saved ... into hiring reporters and writers
- Third, I'd stop insulting readers.
- Fourth, I'd get readers involved.
On the same day, the WSJ (subscription required) discussed things newspapers are trying to do to make themselves more profitable:
- New, smaller-circulation papers targeted at
people who don't read Generation Y
- New, smaller-circulation papers targeted at communities
- Free (or low-cost) classifieds
- Having search engines return advertising
Notice a difference? Reynolds is concerned with product; the WSJ is concerned with revenue model.
The WSJ also included this little bit of incoherence:
Newspapers remain a profitable business, despite the high fixed costs of printing plants, news-gathering staffs and home-delivery operations. As the primary advertising option in their local markets, most newspapers have enjoyed significant leverage with advertisers. They use that power to raise prices.
In 2005, publicly traded U.S. newspaper publishers reported that newspaper operations produced operating-profit margins of 19.2%, down from 21% in 2004, according to figures compiled by independent newspaper-industry analyst John Morton. He says that figure is still more than double the average operating-profit margin of the Fortune 500 companies.
Without seeing Morton's numbers, it's hard to know how he got there. It's also hard to see how this squares with the fact that newspapers have only maintained any profitability by cannibalizing each other at a rate that would make Idi Amin squirm. And self-cannibalizing, as well, which is the point of Reynold's item ). And raising prices in a declining market has a certain air of Detroit about it.
The fact is, both approaches are necessary. All of Reynold's product improvements won't make any difference if they can't figure out how to make the thing pay. Some newspapers are experimenting with the Net. The WaPo has turned the blogosphere into its comments section (although some blogs seem to ping generously in order to attract traffic). The Rocky has tried to get bloggers to cross-post in YourHub.
I got an email a couple of weeks ago from a local section editor asking for advice on what stories to cover. But if he had been reading the blogs, he wouldn't have needed to ask. (I answered anyway.) Mike Littwin insists that newspaper guys read the blogs obsessively, but the blogosphere itself (through Newsbusters, Powerline, a dozen other media-watch blogs) provides evidence on a daily basis that it's not doing much good.
To some extent, this is a matter of self-selection. After all, the Journal is a newspaper, and a business newspaper, so it's likely to focus on things like operating margins and revenue streams. Yet, in the past, it's covered other industries with far more attention to product, so I'm inclined to think that this isn't the business bias of the paper. To the extent that the Journal accurately reflects what newspaper magnates are thinking, they're decidedly not looking at their product.
And Detroit can tell them all about that.
March 22, 2006
Caucus Night
A couple of quick notes and advice from my first caucus night.
First, just because I'm wearing a yarmulker, that doesn't oblige you to comment on it. There were a few blacks there, few hispanics (aside from the party chairman), and a couple of Jews. I've got no brook for formal affirmative action, but repeatedly telling someone, even with good humor, that they look like a fish out of water is a great way to make sure things stay that way. I wasn't offended - the Party clearly sees the need to, er, broaden its base - just annoyed after a while. Successful outreach needs a little less clumsiness, and I've already self-selected.
Second, I'm sure that the older gentleman who read the rules has a history of long and distinguished service to the Party. Evidently that service doesn't include trying to maintain control over a roomful of adults with other obligations, in a hall with lousy acoustics. Get someone who people want to pay attention to. They don't have to be Robin Williams up there, you'd think that people with a lifetime in politics would know the value of public speaking skills.
Third, sell the post-caucus politicking. No, not sell as in, "office accounts," or "replacement for Deanna Hanna." Sell as in, get people debating. Almost everyone in that room ended up as a delegate to the state convention. If we're not just going through the motions, these things matter.
Finally, I think Mike Miles spoiled the party for everyone. If you can organize, organize, organize, pull surprise upsets at the caucuses and the convention, and still get only the votes of you and your mom in the primary, it calls into question the whole process. Maybe things were more exciting in counties where whole precinct delegations couldn't fit in a cupboard. But in trying to defend the process, I got the same feeling that I got from conversations with fellow train-travelers a couple of decades ago.
March 21, 2006
Welcome to the blog of the new Precinct 648 Republican Committeeman, and delegate to the state convention this year.
Hold the applause. This is from Denver, where apparently going to Republican caucuses is one of those jobs that Americans just won't do. About 70 precincts met in the lunchroom of a local middle school, with each table set up for three precincts. There were three people there from my precinct, for three delegate slots. The state convention is on a Saturday, so if there's any writing involved, everyone's going to know who I voted for, if they care.
The fact is, for Colorado, the Republican map is inverted from the population centers. If the caucuses were organized like high schools, Denver and Boulder would house all the single-A schools and 8-man football teams. Kind of like Dennis Quaid's team in The Rookie, where showing up isn't 90% of life, it's closer to 99%.
Colorado has a strange schizophrenic system. There's a caucus, which selects the candidates who appear on the ballot for the primary. Then there's the primary. The caucus system has come under increasing attack as an anachronism, with some justification. But the parties get to pick the candidates, and there's no good reason why that task shouldn't fall to those most involved. The primary avoids smoke-filled room deals, although since the legislature is on the way to outlawing smoking, that's less of a threat now, anyway.
The other thing that the caucuses and conventions do is send resolutions to the national party for possible inclusion in the platform, so it remains the best way to gauge the party's collective wisdom, or, in the Democrats' case, its collective insanity.
Now for the fun. After tomorrow, I'll be on every candidate's mailing and phone list. Stay tuned.
UPDATE: Fellow RMA member Clay Calhoun was also elected a delegate from the somewhat more-competitive Elbert County. The RMA begins its Long March to power.
UPDATE: Ray A. Rayburn, delegate from Boulder, has some useful clarifications in the comments section.
March 20, 2006
Civil Wars
One of the best descriptions that I've found of the politics of 1860 comes from Bruce Catton's The Coming Fury, the first in his trilogy of the Centennial History of the Civil War. Now, Catton was a northerner, and had the North's views of the causes of the war, which differ considerably from the South's. They do, however, have the added advantage of being right. (For instance, if states' rights divorced from slavery really were the issue, why was the CSA Constitution mute on that point?)
The key thing to remember is that at each point in the crisis, the two sides failed utterly to understand each other. The North, in particular the Republicans, had no idea of the threat they represented in the minds of the South, in particular the newspapermen. Lincoln justified his refusal to elaborate on his views on the legal status of slavery on the grounds that anything he said can and would be used against him in the court of public opinion. What he didn't see was that while it couldn't affect the election (he wasn't on any Southern ballots, anyway), his silence could be twisted just as effectively as any words he might have used.
In fact, throughout 1860, the North continued to view secession as a threat, and then as a political maneuver, long after the fire-eaters had hijacked the process and driven Union sympathy to the fringe. There was considerable Union sentiment, but it was a mile wide and an inch deep, and once the step was taken, loyalty was going to be sectional rather than national. In fact, the border states - including Virginia - didn't secede until it was evident that force would be used to protect Federal property and keep the south in the Union.
For the South's part, they didn't understand the North's commitment to the Union, and its unwillingness to be coerced into committing large portions of its GDP and legal system to the support of a crumbling institution. It also probably overestimated Southern sympathy in the border slave states, which is odd, considering that that's where the Constitution Party, whos platform essentially consisted of wishful thinking about reaching another compromise, got most of its votes.
In fact, the one character who comes out looking the most sane, the most rational, and the most insightful, is Stephen Douglas. Douglas was the only candidate who was willing to conduct a campaign on the actual issues of slavery and potential secession, while all other parties talked around the first and ignored the second. By doing so, Catton points out, they left an electino process designed for national decision-making not having resolved anything.
One last point is also worth considering. Secession was brought about by a confluence of southern temperment, and a skillful manipulation of the political process. The fire-eaters, William Yancey chief among them, maneuvered to get a crisis, promoting a schism in the Democratic Party and willing the election of Lincoln. They did this because they rightly calculated that much of the South was tired of compromise and talk and wanted action and a resolution. Douglas's sin was, in Catton's words, that he was proposing a politician's solution at a time when the political institutions had ceased to function. The fire-eaters denied him the nomination precisely because they feared he might be able to bring such an agreement about. From their point of view, it was better to split the party in order to lose the election, and then let the fear of Lincoln do its work.
For that reason, elections need to be about what they're about. It's one reason "trangulation" and "the permanent campaign" are so damaging to the body politic, and it they probably have soemthing to do with why we're now 48-48 rather than 40-40.
Carnival of the Capitalists
March 19, 2006
Tape Conversion
As part of getting serious about cleaning up the house, I needed to get rid of a bunch of old audio tapes I've been keeping forever. I needed to audio equivalent of transferring home movies from Disneyworld in digital, and I stumbled across Digitalizer by Digitope. So far, it seems to be working all right, although the quality is difficult to regulate since there's no audio output from the system as it's recording. Still, it lets you cut an any-CD-player-ready CD, which is mostly what I'm going for on these old tapes.
The biggest problem is the editing. The visual display doesn't stay synched with the track that's playing, so there's a lot of scrolling back and forth, which makes track-realignment a real pain. Since most of the tapes are tapes of radio shows, the individual tracks aren't very clear, so I spend a lot of time with this crummy feature.
The fastest you can dub, and retain any kind of quality, is 1 sec/sec. You know how whenever Lileks starts a new book, he kvetches about spending more time with his scanner than with his daughter? This has the potential to turn into that kind of thing,
Sleeper Cell
Last week at Shabbat dinner, I met a fellow visitng from New York, who was working for Showtime on their series, Sleeper Cell. "Better than 24," he said. "So, the terrorists, they're...," I tried to ask. "Yes, they're Muslim, but they're not all Arab." "Hmm," I averred.
Well, the DVDs are out, for those of us unwilling to pay extra for what's mostly premium crap. While I'm not willing to agree that it's "Better than 24," the mere assertion of which plants doubt, that's mostly because it's a completely different animal. While Jack Bauer (reverent pause), has only one day to save LA and uncover conspiracies of increasing complexity, size, and scope, Sleeper Cell is more like Wiseguy.
The language is a lot rougher, the (brief) sex scenes are more explicit, although for some reason the violence is probably more explicit on 24. But the story is more subtle, and while the terrorists are clearly the bad guys, and the Muslim FBI infiltrating is clearly the good guy, he's got to deal with bureaucracy and ignorance in trying to get his superiors to play their cards right. At times, this borders on cliche, but at other times, there's real insight.
One episode shows how drug trafficking and prostitution are helping to fund terror rings, using our own vices against us. At the end of episode 4, Darwin (the FBI agent), informs his handler that "it's not just a war on terror, it's a civil war within Islam, and [the moderate Imam] and those like him are the only ones that can win it." There's a lot of truth in this, and while the outspoken moderate Imam has yet to appear outside of Hollywood, the outspoken moderate Muslims in LA, Denmark, and Holland could use real politicians saying more of this sort of thing.
Each season seems to be 12 episodes, and I've only been through the first DVD, but on the whole, I'm impressed.
Jimmah Strikes Out
At the risk of repeating myself, I'd like to point out that Hamas has apparently proven impervious to the entreaties of our worst ex-President, Jimmy Carter. Despite his pleas to keep the money flowing, in order not to radicalize Hamas (really!), the Islamofascists have decided to form a government "without moderates." While this may come as a disappointment to the Carters and the James Wolfensohns of the world, it's unlikely to change their opinions.
Keep an eye out for any MSM reference to these requests - essentially honored - and their failure to "moderate" Hamas in any future reporting. I doubt they'll be there. Instead, watch for the same post-Gulf-War-I dance to be repeated, this time with Hamas. Watch for the MSM to latch onto anything, anything at all, to avoid coming to the conclusion that Hamas means what it says.
Included in the AP report is this little gem:
The Palestinian Authority is highly dependent on foreign aid to prop up its economy, which has suffered a near fatal blow during five years of fighting with Israel.
In fact, the Palestinian economy has been destitute from at least the time of the first intifada, suffering first from a greater interest in making bombs than making, well, much of anything else. Also unmentioned is the complete lack of evidence that the foreign aid that flowed in like Niagara was going anywhere but into the pockets of Arafat and his Abu Buddies. Inasmuch as this corruption is the most-often-cited rationalization for why the Palestinians didn't really mean it when they voted for these thugs, it's an odd omission at best.
March 17, 2006
Thanks, Powerline
This week has been a blast, getting to know new readers, and hopefully having some new readers getting to know me. The Powerline guys have been incredibly generous.
The Fickle Finger of Fate is probably scheduled to move on tomorrow, when I'll be on the weekly Shabbat hiatus, so I'll thank them now, and hope that some of you who've visited will be tempted to come back from time to time.
Vacating the Field
Take a look ah the Issue groups focused on the Middle East that Project Vote-Smart tracks:
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA)
American Muslims for Jerusalem
Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel
U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
See a pattern? Yes, I thought so.
I'm fairly sure this isn't a bias Vote-Smart's part; every other section of the site has both sides represented where they exist. Since Israel's security isn't (or shouldn't be) particularly controversial among Jewish groups, why do the ADL, AJC, and AIPAC (AIPAC, of all people!) not publish ratings of their own on this matter?
The standard answer is that we don't want, and can't afford, for Israel to become a partisan issue. It's not without merit. Since people vote on many issues, you don't want an election to turn on, say, the economy, and find that you've got a Foreign Relations committee taking campaign contributions from Hamas fundraisers. But I'm pretty sure than abandoning the field to the bad guys is having the opposite effect, and may eventually make Israel a bi-partisan issue, the other way. And I'm not even sure it's a completely honest answer.
By allowing the other side to drive the ratings, you're creating an incentive for one party to seize the issue as soon as they think the bad guys may have some strength. And in a hyper-partisan era, when one party thinks that impeachment is a winning campaign issue, this becomes a real possibility. In the short run, you encourage it to become a partisan issue. In the long run, your friends start to ask why they're supporting you in the first place. That's how politics works.
I think there's also something else at work here, though. I think there's a reluctance on the part of a traditionally Democratic leadership to admit that that party has become the (still uncomfortable) home of anti-Semitism, a la Cynthia McKinney and Al Sharpton. I think they and their largely Democratic membership don't want to face that fact, and the fact that conservative Republicans are now Israel's most reliable supporters, in part because they've been listening to their own press clippings about "theocracy." In the meantime, the actual theocrats are busily enrolling in Yale where they can take a census of gay and Jewish students to see how large the swinging wall has to be.
Further, it's too easy to just write off Republican support as "those evangelicals." Maybe, somewhat. (Evangelicals aren't a majority of the party; they aren't even really driving the agenda.) But if you do that, then you have to explain why you can't carry the Democrats anymore, why you can't appeal to them on their terms, and that's profoundly embarassing, as well.
Either way, the Jewish leadership isn't doing its job here.
For statistical geekery, continue reading below.
Still don't believe there's a difference between the parties?
CAIR in 2005 was either 100 or 0, so it looks as though they only followed one vote in the House. Here's the chart:
| | 0 | 100 | | Democrat | 49 | 152 | | Republican | 220 | 7 |
The Washington Report is a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel publication from DC. Here are (most) of the 2004 aggregates for the House and Senate:
US House:
| | 0 | 33 | 50 | 67 | 100 |
| Democrat | 24 | 7 | 18 | 8 | 102 | | Republican | 96 | 8 | 10 | 1 | 43 |
US Senate:
| | 0 | 50 | 100 | | Democrat | 9 | 3 | 15 | | Republican | 26 | 3 | 13 |
These are so lopsided, I didn't even bother to run chi-square tests. One more, "American Muslims for Jerusalem," from 2003-2004. This is a score, rather than a voting %, so the basic statistics are listed rather than only a count:
| Office | | Party | | Average | Std Dev | Count | | U.S. House | Democrat | -4.99 | 6.82 | 183 | | | Republican | -9.13 | 4.60 | 204 | | U.S. House Total | | -7.17 | 6.11 | 387 | | U.S. Senate | Democrat | -1.43 | 3.78 | 14 | | | Republican | -5.04 | 3.31 | 23 | | U.S. Senate Total | | -3.68 | 3.87 | 37 |
(By the way, the Diaz-Balart cousins, Catholics both, are at -10 and -15, apparently it's not just for evangelicals, anymore.)
Once again, you can run the comparisons if you want, but I think you'll end up with z-scores in the triple digits.
RFID Hacks
I had a chance to review two books on RFID recently - The Spychips Threat and RFID Essentials. Each took on the issue of RFID security differently.
Now, it turns out that the greater threat (at least immediately) isn't to the individual, but to the business, because that's where the money is.
Best hack:
Lacking their own power source, the chips are also susceptible to so-called power-consumption hacks. Adi Shamir, a professor of computer science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, announced in February that he and a student researcher were able to hack into an RFID tag and extract its kill password, which is a code that effectively makes the tag self-destruct.
The researchers deduced the password by monitoring the tag's power consumption. (It turns out, the tag's power consumption rises when it receives incorrect data from the reader). The researchers uncovered the tag's kill code in three hours. While that tag was dated, more recent iterations, which came on the market in the second half of 2005, could react in similar ways, the researcher says. And a tag can be hacked with a tool as simple as a cell phone.
Let's see. Port security. Ubiquitous RFID tags on cargo containers. Viruses. I think I see the outlines of next year's 24 story arc starting to take shape...
Better Late Than Never
While inhabitants of the blogosphere have known about the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's exploits in Tall Afar for some time, apparently the news is just penetrating the Denver Post newsroom.
Better late than never, I suppose. I don't have the print version in front of me, so I can't say what page it's on, but it's nice to see a report about local soldiers that doesn't focus solely on their funerals.
Just Arrived
Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong. I've been a Bill James fan for a long time, and this sort of thing never ceases to fascinate me. It'll be interesting to see how well it holds up against the baseball blogs.
Holtzman v. Beauprez
With Hugh Hewitt having identified Colorado as one of the purple states we need to keep tilting red, the governor's race this year is turning into one of national importance. I moved out here in part to get away from the hot house of national politics, so I'm feeling a litle like Wilmer McLean, but I'm here, and there's no helping it.
I had a chance to see the first face-to-face debate (although not the first joint appearance) between Marc Holtzman and Bob Beauprez, and my first impression was that it stengthened my previous impressions. Holtzman is more of an ideas guy, while Beauprez has a somewhat more governmental approach to things. Holtzman is less comfortable speaking in public, while Beauprez is polished enough to allow himself some humor. Holtzman, running an outsider's campaign, is working harder to establish contrast, while Beauprez is working harder not to offend anyone just now.
While my heart's with Marc and his efforts, the campaign is starting to look a little like the Mike Miles-Ken Salazar matchup. So any pressure that can be brought on Beauprez to force him to talk more about ideas is good for the party. I sent an email with some of the following observations to Holtzman, not because they haven't thought of them, or because I'm declaring for one side or another, but because I think a good primary is good for the party, and helps win the battle of ideas.
First, about that speaking style. Holtzman has gotten better, but Beauprez's humor is still disarming. Holtzman really sees himself as continuing the Reagan revolution, but while the words are optimistic, the voice and facial expressions are a little too strained and earnest. It leads to Beauprez walking away with a higher Q-rating, even though there's no need for it. Instead of saying, "I have a plan, and I know what I want to do," Holtzman could earn points by getting out from behind the lectern, gesturing to the crowd, and telling them that, "you already know the answer," before telling them what it is. He's not tall enough to lean over the lectern, but doing that would really compliment his audience.
A terrible moment came at the end of the debate, where Beauprez was responding to some of Holtzman's comments, invoked Reagan, and Holtzman lost his cool and interrupted Beauprez. While the look on Beaprez's face was worthy of Al Gore in the first debate, Holtzman lost any advantage by breaking the rules and giving Beauprez a chance to stay in command, and put Marc back in his place a little. I'll have audio of that (and other portions) loaded up this afternoon.
Second, on issues, Holtzman is full of ideas, but needs to work harder to connect them with themes and with items that matter to people. On the other hand, his ideas are appealing to a Republican crowd, and are more specific that Beauprez's on water and transportation. Beauprez wants to address transportation through roads, rails, and airports. Honestly, that ought to sound terrible to a Republican audience. The Denver railyard is already slated to be moved out east, and airports are largely private enterprises alread. People want to hear about roads, and this talk about "studies" to "get ahead" of the curve sound like expensive boondoggles that don't address specific problems that we're familiar with.
On health care, Holtzman ought to be winning hands-down. Again, there's a limit as to what the state can do, but if you start with the fact that the government has turned the health-care "market" into a pretzel, things like HSAs and federal waivers are no-brainers. They should be at the top of the list, not where Beauprez has them, down at the bottom after, "encourage electronic recordkeeping."
The biggest difference, though, the one that Holtzman kept hammering on to create contrast, was immigration. Holtzman repeatedly banged on Beauprez for not being tough enough on illegal immigration, including references to a bill to crack down on sanctuary cities. Beauprez cited Tom Tancredo's endorsement, and given Tancredo's willingness to be a one-issue candidate and one-issue endorser, that does carry some weight. And the fact is, while Beauprez can't cite the same 100 and 95 ratings on immigration that he can on more general issues, Vote-Smart has him doing pretty well, there, too. Still, it's clear that Beauprez would rather not talk about immigration as his top issue, and Holtzman seemed to get under his skin a little there.
One area where I just flat-out disagree with Holtzman is on CAFTA. My only western-hemisphere free-trade regret is that we didn't get a chance to extend the thing all the way down to the South Pole before Latin American governments started going Left and looking to China for succor. Beauprez's right on this one, and Holtzman is wrong, and we can deal with immigration without ditching free trade.
Look, it's not like Beauprez has no ideas about what to do. He's probably looking ahead both to the general and at having to govern, possibly with a minority in one or both state legislative houses. And Colorado's governor has, at some level, less power than Denver's mayor. The two candidates are probably identical on that issue, except that Beauprez can draw on legislative experience dealing with other states on the issue. Colorado's centrality comes from geography and population rather than any particular talents Beauprez has, but it's still an advantage for him.
Cross-posted at the RMA's gubernatorial primary site, Holtzman v. Beauprez.
New Header Graphic
Thanks to reader Arthur Lemay for the new, less-jarring header graphic, which lines up the mountain vista much more smoothly.
Bonds. Iraqi Bonds |
