PAYOFFS BY SADDAM... BRITISH ANTI-WAR LEADER LISTED!!
Scott Ritter and Congressman Jim McDermott Implicated
Read this on Powerline first. All I have to say is George Galloway is an evil man and makes corruption too easy for those more evil than him. Wouldn't be surprised if Michael Moore was on this list too since he's more concerned about money than his supposed causes... Okay, I'm unfairly assuming too much without any hard evidence, which would still put me several feet higher than Moore. I can safely assume Moore likes food more than his supposed causes. Anyway, the entry from Powerline:
The Weekly Standard has the latest on Saddam's payments to journalists and policitians around the world. Scott Ritter and Congressman Jim McDermott are among those who appear to be implicated. As to some, like MP George Galloway, the leader of the anti-war movement in Britain, there is no doubt whatsoever. A memo from the Iraqi Intelligence Service says:
[Galloway's] projects and future plans for the benefit of [Iraq] need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work. And because of the sensitivity of getting money directly from Iraq, it is necessary to grant him oil contracts and special and necessary commercial opportunities to provide him with a financial income under commercial cover without being connected to him directly...[T]he name of Mr. Galloway or his wife should not be mentioned...[Galloway] needs continuous financial support from Iraq.
Confronted with reports of the Iraqi documents, Galloway proclaimed his innocence from his villa in Portugal.
What we have heard so far is only a fraction of what must eventually come out. Many documents were destroyed before or during the war; many more were destroyed during the war, or in the immediate aftermath. No doubt some of the regime's darkest secrets were never written down at all. Nevertheless, American intelligence agencies are now in possession of the equivalent of 100 semi truck loads of Iraqi government and Baath party documents. Many more disclosures will tumble out over the next few years.
Junto Boyz
Saturday, January 31, 2004
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NORTH POLE DIET
Cheating on The South Beach Diet
Hanging out with some friends I grew up with in Chicago today, and we were recalling last week during my brother's rehearsal dinner how my friend Hamon was making fun of our close friend's wife, Vicki, on her attempt at the South Beach Diet. Vicki was talking about how she "allows herself" to eat carbs on the weekends. My friend Hamon, who has a witty and sometimes off-the-wall sense of humor, found it amusing that she wasn't saying she was cheating, but that she "allowed herself" so he started to make fun of her.
"Vicki, that's not the South Beach Diet... it sounds more like the North of Miami diet... you're not following the elements of the South Beach Diet... sounds a little off geographically..."
He kept making jokes while Vicki and others were laughing at our table.
Along the same lines, today when we were discussing this I realized my diet was special too in relation to the South Beach Diet. I decided to call mine the North Pole Diet for those that want to get fat like Santa Claus. Instead of high protein, low carb or no carbs and then a "balanced" diet, my diet plan consists of high fat, high protein, and high carbs. Also feel free to add any other food groups to this diet. This is the most adaptable in the world and to any lifestyle. Guaranteed. For example, some of my daily meals over the past couple weeks include:
Breakfast... Egg McMuffin, two hash browns, steak & egg bagel, large orange juice. Another day I had a three-egg omelette with ham, cheese, onion, mushrooms, green peppers with a side of three sausages and ham. OJ and tomato, but then I felt like pancakes so I ordered them too.
Lunch... I went to El Taurino's in LA, which has some of the best mexican fast food I've ever had, and ordered a steak burrito and two tacos. Today I had a bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions and buffalo sauce (Buffalo Joe's), a order of buffalo wings, spicy cheedar chips, and a gut RC cola.
Dinner... a full slab of ribs (St. Louis style) and an order of beef brisket. Five cokes, bread, and other people's leftover ribs and cole slaw.
Anyway, eating like this will might not produce the same results as Atkin's or the South Beach Diet, but it will surely make you happier and feeling healthier for a short period of time... the North Pole Diet. Ho! Ho! Ho!
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Cheating on The South Beach Diet
Hanging out with some friends I grew up with in Chicago today, and we were recalling last week during my brother's rehearsal dinner how my friend Hamon was making fun of our close friend's wife, Vicki, on her attempt at the South Beach Diet. Vicki was talking about how she "allows herself" to eat carbs on the weekends. My friend Hamon, who has a witty and sometimes off-the-wall sense of humor, found it amusing that she wasn't saying she was cheating, but that she "allowed herself" so he started to make fun of her.
"Vicki, that's not the South Beach Diet... it sounds more like the North of Miami diet... you're not following the elements of the South Beach Diet... sounds a little off geographically..."
He kept making jokes while Vicki and others were laughing at our table.
Along the same lines, today when we were discussing this I realized my diet was special too in relation to the South Beach Diet. I decided to call mine the North Pole Diet for those that want to get fat like Santa Claus. Instead of high protein, low carb or no carbs and then a "balanced" diet, my diet plan consists of high fat, high protein, and high carbs. Also feel free to add any other food groups to this diet. This is the most adaptable in the world and to any lifestyle. Guaranteed. For example, some of my daily meals over the past couple weeks include:
Breakfast... Egg McMuffin, two hash browns, steak & egg bagel, large orange juice. Another day I had a three-egg omelette with ham, cheese, onion, mushrooms, green peppers with a side of three sausages and ham. OJ and tomato, but then I felt like pancakes so I ordered them too.
Lunch... I went to El Taurino's in LA, which has some of the best mexican fast food I've ever had, and ordered a steak burrito and two tacos. Today I had a bacon cheeseburger with grilled onions and buffalo sauce (Buffalo Joe's), a order of buffalo wings, spicy cheedar chips, and a gut RC cola.
Dinner... a full slab of ribs (St. Louis style) and an order of beef brisket. Five cokes, bread, and other people's leftover ribs and cole slaw.
Anyway, eating like this will might not produce the same results as Atkin's or the South Beach Diet, but it will surely make you happier and feeling healthier for a short period of time... the North Pole Diet. Ho! Ho! Ho!
Friday, January 30, 2004
EDWARD KOCH... ANOTHER PROMINENT DEMOCRAT VOTING FOR BUSH
Dennis Miller Quote on Kerry
Back in Chicago tonight after my four, nice warm days in LA. It's now colder than when I left the city four days ago. I can now feel the bitterness of the wind and cold biting my skin, which you can only find in a few places like Chicago.
Anyway, a couple days ago I was watching MSNBC, or maybe it was CNBC, and they had Dennis Miller on as a guest analyst for the New Hampshire primaries. He stated that John Kerry looked like an Easter Island statue with a power tie on, which made me laugh out loud since I thought it was so true.
Below is a recent article by Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, on why he's voting for Bush in 2004. Hope my good friends who are Dems read this too, but too many are political operators or future candidates so they will never cross the party line and vote... unless they have a great awakening and switch parties.
BOLTING FOR BUSH
FORWARD
JANUARY 9, 2004
By EDWARD I. KOCH
I am a lifelong Democrat. I was elected to New York's City Council, Congress and three terms as mayor of New York City on the Democratic Party line. I believe in the values of the Democratic Party as articulated by Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and by Senators Hubert Humphrey, Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Our philosophy is: "If you need a helping hand, we will provide it." The Republican Party's philosophy, on the other hand, can be summed up as: "If I made it on my own, you will have to do the same."
Nevertheless, I intend to vote in 2004 to reelect President Bush. I will do so despite the fact that I do not agree with him on any major domestic issue, from tax policy to the recently enacted prescription drug law. These issues, however, pale in importance beside the menace of international terrorism, which threatens our very survival as a nation. President Bush has earned my vote because he has shown the resolve and courage necessary to wage the war against terrorism.
The Democratic presidential contenders, unfortunately, inspire no such confidence. With the exception of Senator Joseph Lieberman, who has no chance of winning, the Democrats have decided that in order to get their party's nomination, they must pander to its radical left wing. As a result, the Democratic candidates, even those who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, have attacked the Bush administration for its successful effort to remove a regime that was a sponsor of terrorism and a threat to world peace.
The Democrat now leading in the race, former governor Howard Dean, is a disgrace. His willingness to publicly entertain the slander that President Bush had advance warning of the September 11 attacks and his statement that America is no safer as a result of the capture of Saddam Hussein should have been sufficient to end his candidacy. But the radicals who dominate the primaries love the red meat that is thrown to them, even when it comes from a mad cow.
In contrast, President Bush has confronted the terrorist threat head on. Immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the president presented the core principle of what has become known as the Bush Doctrine, an articulation of American foreign policy that rivals in importance the Monroe Doctrine, which barred foreign imperialism from the Western Hemisphere, and the Truman Doctrine, which sought to contain communism around the world. The Bush Doctrine, simply stated by the president, is: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
President Bush has lived up to that credo. Under his leadership, Afghanistan was liberated from Al Qaeda's patron, the Taliban. The president also has demonstrated, through the liberation of Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, that he is willing to wage a preemptive war when he believes the national interests of the United States are endangered.
Even if we never find weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq — though I think that we will — our military campaign for regime change was justified. If the bodies of a quarter-million Iraqi dissenters killed by Saddam, some tortured with their eyes gouged and tongues cut out, is not proof enough, there is still Saddam's undisputed use of weapons of mass destruction against his own people and Iran. That record is why Congress overwhelmingly voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
It is not only in Afghanistan and Iraq that President Bush has risen to meet challenges presented by our increasingly dangerous world. When the president labeled Iraq, Iran and North Korea an "axis of evil," many commentators mocked him. When he threatened Syria, Iran and Libya with serious consequences if they continued to support terrorist groups, there were those who denounced him for being too bellicose. Now, however, it appears that the president's hard line has begun to pay off. Recently, Libya agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs and allow in international inspectors. There are even indications that Iran and possibly North Korea may permit international inspection of their nuclear programs.
Nor have the president's critics stopped him from standing up for American interests. Many of those who oppose the Bush Doctrine also criticize the president's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court and his decision to withdraw the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. These actions, however, are well-grounded.
President Bush was correct to oppose the Kyoto Protocol. The treaty would have exempted China and India, which have a combined population of more than 2 billion and are among the world's largest polluters.
As for the new International Criminal Court, it would be downright irresponsible to give this new tribunal the right to indict and try our military personnel for war crimes, given all the enmity directed at the United States nowadays. Instead we should continue to rely on our military justice system, which has an excellent reputation.
President Bush also was right to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. That treaty would have prevented the United States from deploying a shield against nuclear missiles that could be launched by rogue states or terrorists. The president's critics can pontificate about the importance of international institutions all they want, but we have to face facts. North Korea has nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Pakistan not only has nuclear weapons, but is suspected of having provided nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. The two recent assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf highlight the dangers we face. Should Musharraf be removed or killed, no one knows who will ultimately control Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It would have been negligent for President Bush to allow our hands to remain tied at a time when we need to be exploring every option to defend ourselves.
This record and the Democratic candidates' irresponsible rhetoric are the reasons why I will vote for a second term for President Bush. This does not mean, however, that I have given up on my party and its principles. To the contrary, I will continue to fight against the president's domestic agenda. I also hope to support the Democratic effort to take back the presidency in 2008, but it is up to the Democratic Party to show that it can be entrusted with our nation's security.
Edward I. Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, is a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave.
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Dennis Miller Quote on Kerry
Back in Chicago tonight after my four, nice warm days in LA. It's now colder than when I left the city four days ago. I can now feel the bitterness of the wind and cold biting my skin, which you can only find in a few places like Chicago.
Anyway, a couple days ago I was watching MSNBC, or maybe it was CNBC, and they had Dennis Miller on as a guest analyst for the New Hampshire primaries. He stated that John Kerry looked like an Easter Island statue with a power tie on, which made me laugh out loud since I thought it was so true.
Below is a recent article by Ed Koch, former mayor of New York City, on why he's voting for Bush in 2004. Hope my good friends who are Dems read this too, but too many are political operators or future candidates so they will never cross the party line and vote... unless they have a great awakening and switch parties.
BOLTING FOR BUSH
FORWARD
JANUARY 9, 2004
By EDWARD I. KOCH
I am a lifelong Democrat. I was elected to New York's City Council, Congress and three terms as mayor of New York City on the Democratic Party line. I believe in the values of the Democratic Party as articulated by Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and by Senators Hubert Humphrey, Henry "Scoop" Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Our philosophy is: "If you need a helping hand, we will provide it." The Republican Party's philosophy, on the other hand, can be summed up as: "If I made it on my own, you will have to do the same."
Nevertheless, I intend to vote in 2004 to reelect President Bush. I will do so despite the fact that I do not agree with him on any major domestic issue, from tax policy to the recently enacted prescription drug law. These issues, however, pale in importance beside the menace of international terrorism, which threatens our very survival as a nation. President Bush has earned my vote because he has shown the resolve and courage necessary to wage the war against terrorism.
The Democratic presidential contenders, unfortunately, inspire no such confidence. With the exception of Senator Joseph Lieberman, who has no chance of winning, the Democrats have decided that in order to get their party's nomination, they must pander to its radical left wing. As a result, the Democratic candidates, even those who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, have attacked the Bush administration for its successful effort to remove a regime that was a sponsor of terrorism and a threat to world peace.
The Democrat now leading in the race, former governor Howard Dean, is a disgrace. His willingness to publicly entertain the slander that President Bush had advance warning of the September 11 attacks and his statement that America is no safer as a result of the capture of Saddam Hussein should have been sufficient to end his candidacy. But the radicals who dominate the primaries love the red meat that is thrown to them, even when it comes from a mad cow.
In contrast, President Bush has confronted the terrorist threat head on. Immediately following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the president presented the core principle of what has become known as the Bush Doctrine, an articulation of American foreign policy that rivals in importance the Monroe Doctrine, which barred foreign imperialism from the Western Hemisphere, and the Truman Doctrine, which sought to contain communism around the world. The Bush Doctrine, simply stated by the president, is: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."
President Bush has lived up to that credo. Under his leadership, Afghanistan was liberated from Al Qaeda's patron, the Taliban. The president also has demonstrated, through the liberation of Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, that he is willing to wage a preemptive war when he believes the national interests of the United States are endangered.
Even if we never find weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq — though I think that we will — our military campaign for regime change was justified. If the bodies of a quarter-million Iraqi dissenters killed by Saddam, some tortured with their eyes gouged and tongues cut out, is not proof enough, there is still Saddam's undisputed use of weapons of mass destruction against his own people and Iran. That record is why Congress overwhelmingly voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
It is not only in Afghanistan and Iraq that President Bush has risen to meet challenges presented by our increasingly dangerous world. When the president labeled Iraq, Iran and North Korea an "axis of evil," many commentators mocked him. When he threatened Syria, Iran and Libya with serious consequences if they continued to support terrorist groups, there were those who denounced him for being too bellicose. Now, however, it appears that the president's hard line has begun to pay off. Recently, Libya agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs and allow in international inspectors. There are even indications that Iran and possibly North Korea may permit international inspection of their nuclear programs.
Nor have the president's critics stopped him from standing up for American interests. Many of those who oppose the Bush Doctrine also criticize the president's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court and his decision to withdraw the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. These actions, however, are well-grounded.
President Bush was correct to oppose the Kyoto Protocol. The treaty would have exempted China and India, which have a combined population of more than 2 billion and are among the world's largest polluters.
As for the new International Criminal Court, it would be downright irresponsible to give this new tribunal the right to indict and try our military personnel for war crimes, given all the enmity directed at the United States nowadays. Instead we should continue to rely on our military justice system, which has an excellent reputation.
President Bush also was right to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. That treaty would have prevented the United States from deploying a shield against nuclear missiles that could be launched by rogue states or terrorists. The president's critics can pontificate about the importance of international institutions all they want, but we have to face facts. North Korea has nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. Pakistan not only has nuclear weapons, but is suspected of having provided nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. The two recent assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf highlight the dangers we face. Should Musharraf be removed or killed, no one knows who will ultimately control Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It would have been negligent for President Bush to allow our hands to remain tied at a time when we need to be exploring every option to defend ourselves.
This record and the Democratic candidates' irresponsible rhetoric are the reasons why I will vote for a second term for President Bush. This does not mean, however, that I have given up on my party and its principles. To the contrary, I will continue to fight against the president's domestic agenda. I also hope to support the Democratic effort to take back the presidency in 2008, but it is up to the Democratic Party to show that it can be entrusted with our nation's security.
Edward I. Koch, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, is a partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
NEW HAMPSHIRE PRIMARY
America's Three-Ring Circus
I arrived in Los Angeles this morning for some meetings this week. A little tired from city hopping, but I'm excited about some of these meetings and also seeing some of my good friends... Will, Robert (coming back from London after doing a surgery rotation there), YG (good friend from Chicago who recently moved out here), Jimmy (friend from Korea who will most likely move back to LA, and who I wrote about a couple times), Bell, and others if I have time.
Anyway, keeping up with the New Hampshire primary made me realize that P. T. Barnum could not have created a better mix of clowns, freaks, and sideshows than the Democratic candidates are showing on this great political stage.
In the first ring, you have two overgrown babies (Kerry & Dean) crying back and forth. This recent quote by Dean cracks me up:
"One of the things John will have to learn as a front-runner is (to) stop whining when people say something different about him."
What? Excuse me? Howard, you were the one who cried and whined to DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe when the other candidates were attacking you. You told McAuliffe to get them off your back. Wow, talk about a pot calling the kettle black. Short-term memory is not a good characteristic for the president of the United States, Howard.
The second ring is occupied by Kerry alone. James Taranto (Best of the Web Today, The Wall Street Journal - January 26, 2004) and Dave Brooks (New York Times) discusses Kerry's abnormally flexible backbone (Taranto article below and link to Brooks' article):
Profiles in Courage?--I
Where does John Kerry fit on the ideological spectrum of the Democratic Party? Is he a centrist like Bill Clinton or a doctrinaire liberal in the mold of Michael Dukakis, the man he served as Massachusetts' lieutenant governor two decades ago? The answer appears to be somewhere in between. Kerry has some Clintonian instincts, but in a party dominated by left-wing interest groups, he lacks the political courage to do anything about it.
The liberation of Iraq is one example. In October 2002 he voted in favor of war. Then, faced with the rise of Howard Dean, he reinvented himself as a peacenik, even going so far as to vote, in October 2003, to defund the troops.
This is of a piece with his domestic-policy record, as laid out by the New York Times' David Brooks. "If you look back over the span of John Kerry's career, you find that every few months or years he takes a hard look at some thorny public issue," observes Brooks. "He will momentarily embrace daring ideas, but if they threaten core constituencies, he often abandons them, returning meekly to the Democratic choir. That is the difference between speechifying and leadership."
In 1992, he gave a speech challenging Democratic dogma on race. He has called for "unpopular reforms" in Social Security. And in 1998, he "took on the teachers' unions":
In twin speeches in Washington and Massachusetts, he described school systems that are "imploding upon themselves," beset with "bloated bureaucracy" and "stagnant administration." He said we had to "end tenure as we know it" so incompetent teachers could be fired more easily.
Now, however, Kerry is a staunch defender of teachers unions, which he refers to as "teachers." Yesterday the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, told ABC-TV's George Stephanopoulos: "Yes, we need increased accountability in schools. We need to raise the standards. But you don't have to do it in a way that disrespects teachers and literally throws the baby out with the bath water, which is what they're doing today."
They're literally throwing the baby out with the bath water? Is Kerry showing off the inadequacy of his own (private) education? Or is this his latest effort to stake out a moderate position? After all, liberals usually favor partial-bath abortion.
The third ring is the freak ring with Clark all by himself. I still can't believe he said he supports abortions in any stage. Even my pro-choice friends would agree, since it's scientifically proven that even in the first trimester is life, that the third trimester is the killing of a life. Now Clark sides with that idiot Michael Moore and he can't even clearly defend his position and whether he thinks it is wrong and inaccurate to call President Bush a "deserter":
Profiles in Courage?--II
On Friday we noted that Wesley Clark, in a New Hampshire debate, had refused to renounce Michael Moore's characterization, at a rally where Moore endorsed Clark, of President Bush as a "deserter." Yesterday on "Meet the Press," host Tim Russert gave Clark several more opportunities to do so, and he once again declined:
Russert: Is it appropriate to call the president of the United States a deserter?
Clark: Well, you know, Tim, I wouldn't have used that term and I don't see the issues that way. This is an election about the future, and what's at stake in this election is the future [blah blah blah] . . .
Russert: But words are important, and as you well know under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, if you're a deserter, the punishment is death during war. Do you disassociate yourself from Michael Moore's comments about the president?
Clark: Well, I can't use those words and I don't see the issues in that way. But I will tell you this: that Michael Moore has the right to speak freely. I don't screen what people say when they're going to come up and say something like that. That's his form of dissent, and I support freedom of speech in this country, and I would not have characterized the issues in that way. I think this is an election where we have to look at the future, not at the past. And so what we're doing is we're taking the campaign to the American people [yadda yadda yadda] . . .
Russert: The right of dissent is one thing, but is there any evidence that you know of that President Bush is a deserter from the United States armed forces?
Clark: Well, I've never looked into those, Tim. I've heard those allegations. But I think this election has to turn on holding the president accountable for what he's done in office and comparing who has the better vision to take the country forward.
One might have given Clark the benefit of the doubt on Thursday; perhaps he just wasn't prepared for the question. But by Sunday morning he had had 2 1/2 days to think about it, and he gave exactly the same answer. Why would Clark act as if it's perfectly acceptable to slander the president by falsely accusing him of a crime? Probably because he's afraid that if he did the decent thing, he would lose some Angry Left votes.
As we noted in September, Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Clark had been relieved of his European assignment because of "integrity and character issues." Having watched Clark campaign, we begin to get an idea why.
Clark is an idiot. Does Michael Moore really hold that much power in the Democratic party? Among voters? I highly doubt it, so why do you care if you distance yourself from him. To the majority of America, that whole conversation is a turn off.
Objectively speaking, he could have and should have answered those questions better. As my mother would state sometimes, "I think he has low intelligence, Dear." Either this or his campaign manager sucks and he is poorly coached. Clark had so much momentum early on and a great presence. He's just tripped, shot himself in the foot, revealed himself to be awkwardly arrogant (that lieutenant comment about Kerry still cracks me up), and extremely self-centered. I'm not sure if he really wants to run for president to change the world and to make our nation better. It seems he's in it to have his name in the history books more than anything else. Either way, I still think he could have been coached better on the campaign trail, and I bet the Clinton camp of the Democratic party just threw up their arms in surrender.
Clark is a joke. All these guys have flaws that are too big. Again, I like Edwards as a candidate but the majority of his party would understandably think he is too inexperienced. Anyway, these three front-runners (Kerry, Dean, Clark) would have been signed up by old P.T. Barnum during the early days of his circus without hesitation. Maybe they should just quit this race and join the circus today.
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America's Three-Ring Circus
I arrived in Los Angeles this morning for some meetings this week. A little tired from city hopping, but I'm excited about some of these meetings and also seeing some of my good friends... Will, Robert (coming back from London after doing a surgery rotation there), YG (good friend from Chicago who recently moved out here), Jimmy (friend from Korea who will most likely move back to LA, and who I wrote about a couple times), Bell, and others if I have time.
Anyway, keeping up with the New Hampshire primary made me realize that P. T. Barnum could not have created a better mix of clowns, freaks, and sideshows than the Democratic candidates are showing on this great political stage.
In the first ring, you have two overgrown babies (Kerry & Dean) crying back and forth. This recent quote by Dean cracks me up:
"One of the things John will have to learn as a front-runner is (to) stop whining when people say something different about him."
What? Excuse me? Howard, you were the one who cried and whined to DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe when the other candidates were attacking you. You told McAuliffe to get them off your back. Wow, talk about a pot calling the kettle black. Short-term memory is not a good characteristic for the president of the United States, Howard.
The second ring is occupied by Kerry alone. James Taranto (Best of the Web Today, The Wall Street Journal - January 26, 2004) and Dave Brooks (New York Times) discusses Kerry's abnormally flexible backbone (Taranto article below and link to Brooks' article):
Profiles in Courage?--I
Where does John Kerry fit on the ideological spectrum of the Democratic Party? Is he a centrist like Bill Clinton or a doctrinaire liberal in the mold of Michael Dukakis, the man he served as Massachusetts' lieutenant governor two decades ago? The answer appears to be somewhere in between. Kerry has some Clintonian instincts, but in a party dominated by left-wing interest groups, he lacks the political courage to do anything about it.
The liberation of Iraq is one example. In October 2002 he voted in favor of war. Then, faced with the rise of Howard Dean, he reinvented himself as a peacenik, even going so far as to vote, in October 2003, to defund the troops.
This is of a piece with his domestic-policy record, as laid out by the New York Times' David Brooks. "If you look back over the span of John Kerry's career, you find that every few months or years he takes a hard look at some thorny public issue," observes Brooks. "He will momentarily embrace daring ideas, but if they threaten core constituencies, he often abandons them, returning meekly to the Democratic choir. That is the difference between speechifying and leadership."
In 1992, he gave a speech challenging Democratic dogma on race. He has called for "unpopular reforms" in Social Security. And in 1998, he "took on the teachers' unions":
In twin speeches in Washington and Massachusetts, he described school systems that are "imploding upon themselves," beset with "bloated bureaucracy" and "stagnant administration." He said we had to "end tenure as we know it" so incompetent teachers could be fired more easily.
Now, however, Kerry is a staunch defender of teachers unions, which he refers to as "teachers." Yesterday the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam, told ABC-TV's George Stephanopoulos: "Yes, we need increased accountability in schools. We need to raise the standards. But you don't have to do it in a way that disrespects teachers and literally throws the baby out with the bath water, which is what they're doing today."
They're literally throwing the baby out with the bath water? Is Kerry showing off the inadequacy of his own (private) education? Or is this his latest effort to stake out a moderate position? After all, liberals usually favor partial-bath abortion.
The third ring is the freak ring with Clark all by himself. I still can't believe he said he supports abortions in any stage. Even my pro-choice friends would agree, since it's scientifically proven that even in the first trimester is life, that the third trimester is the killing of a life. Now Clark sides with that idiot Michael Moore and he can't even clearly defend his position and whether he thinks it is wrong and inaccurate to call President Bush a "deserter":
Profiles in Courage?--II
On Friday we noted that Wesley Clark, in a New Hampshire debate, had refused to renounce Michael Moore's characterization, at a rally where Moore endorsed Clark, of President Bush as a "deserter." Yesterday on "Meet the Press," host Tim Russert gave Clark several more opportunities to do so, and he once again declined:
Russert: Is it appropriate to call the president of the United States a deserter?
Clark: Well, you know, Tim, I wouldn't have used that term and I don't see the issues that way. This is an election about the future, and what's at stake in this election is the future [blah blah blah] . . .
Russert: But words are important, and as you well know under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, if you're a deserter, the punishment is death during war. Do you disassociate yourself from Michael Moore's comments about the president?
Clark: Well, I can't use those words and I don't see the issues in that way. But I will tell you this: that Michael Moore has the right to speak freely. I don't screen what people say when they're going to come up and say something like that. That's his form of dissent, and I support freedom of speech in this country, and I would not have characterized the issues in that way. I think this is an election where we have to look at the future, not at the past. And so what we're doing is we're taking the campaign to the American people [yadda yadda yadda] . . .
Russert: The right of dissent is one thing, but is there any evidence that you know of that President Bush is a deserter from the United States armed forces?
Clark: Well, I've never looked into those, Tim. I've heard those allegations. But I think this election has to turn on holding the president accountable for what he's done in office and comparing who has the better vision to take the country forward.
One might have given Clark the benefit of the doubt on Thursday; perhaps he just wasn't prepared for the question. But by Sunday morning he had had 2 1/2 days to think about it, and he gave exactly the same answer. Why would Clark act as if it's perfectly acceptable to slander the president by falsely accusing him of a crime? Probably because he's afraid that if he did the decent thing, he would lose some Angry Left votes.
As we noted in September, Gen. Hugh Shelton, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Clark had been relieved of his European assignment because of "integrity and character issues." Having watched Clark campaign, we begin to get an idea why.
Clark is an idiot. Does Michael Moore really hold that much power in the Democratic party? Among voters? I highly doubt it, so why do you care if you distance yourself from him. To the majority of America, that whole conversation is a turn off.
Objectively speaking, he could have and should have answered those questions better. As my mother would state sometimes, "I think he has low intelligence, Dear." Either this or his campaign manager sucks and he is poorly coached. Clark had so much momentum early on and a great presence. He's just tripped, shot himself in the foot, revealed himself to be awkwardly arrogant (that lieutenant comment about Kerry still cracks me up), and extremely self-centered. I'm not sure if he really wants to run for president to change the world and to make our nation better. It seems he's in it to have his name in the history books more than anything else. Either way, I still think he could have been coached better on the campaign trail, and I bet the Clinton camp of the Democratic party just threw up their arms in surrender.
Clark is a joke. All these guys have flaws that are too big. Again, I like Edwards as a candidate but the majority of his party would understandably think he is too inexperienced. Anyway, these three front-runners (Kerry, Dean, Clark) would have been signed up by old P.T. Barnum during the early days of his circus without hesitation. Maybe they should just quit this race and join the circus today.
Sunday, January 25, 2004
AOL TESTS ANTI-SPAM FILTER
Droppage a Problem on Massive Networks
Quick post on a restful day after my younger brother's wedding. Beautiful and festive wedding. I'm so happy for my little bro.
Anyway, came across this article on News.com. AOL is trying a new spam filter, which is great. While they're at it, they should also work on their droppage problem. I've kept my AOL email account for about 10 years since early on it was convenient for me to access their service anywhere while I was traveling (pre-broadband days), and I continued to keep it for continuity sake as a personal email account. Over the past couple years, I used it more frequently and I've noticed how I don't receive some emails. It's not because of spam filters too because I would receive the second email if it was a group email and someone sent a response to the whole group again. I'm guessing there is some droppage of emails in the AOL system due to an overload of emails, which sucks because I could have offended someone or a relationship could have been weakened since I didn't respond to an email I never received... "That bastard Bernard... never writes me back! Yada, yada, yada..."
This also happens in Korea on my SK Telecom mobile phone service. I estimate about 10% of my calls never reach me. They don't even show up on my caller ID. I only find out that someone called if they leave a voice message or tell me later on in person or email that they called me. Also for SMS messages, which Koreans love, suffer from about a 10%+ droppage rate too, which I remember reading somewhere. For my wireless service, I initially thought it was my phone or certain coverage areas, but I later on found out that those factors don't come into play. Some of my friends began experiencing an increasing droppage rate too. For some that don't know the Korean wireless market, it has one of the highest wireless penetration rates in the world with almost 70% of the population utilizing cellphones. Within Seoul, it seems to be everyone from high school students to elderly, and they are not only using their cellphones for calls but messaging friends and taking photos. You can also use cellphones almost anywhere... from any floor of an office building to basements to subway stations to the countryside. So this droppage problem is not based on weak signals or accessiblity, but I'm guessing an overload of SKT's wireless network.
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Droppage a Problem on Massive Networks
Quick post on a restful day after my younger brother's wedding. Beautiful and festive wedding. I'm so happy for my little bro.
Anyway, came across this article on News.com. AOL is trying a new spam filter, which is great. While they're at it, they should also work on their droppage problem. I've kept my AOL email account for about 10 years since early on it was convenient for me to access their service anywhere while I was traveling (pre-broadband days), and I continued to keep it for continuity sake as a personal email account. Over the past couple years, I used it more frequently and I've noticed how I don't receive some emails. It's not because of spam filters too because I would receive the second email if it was a group email and someone sent a response to the whole group again. I'm guessing there is some droppage of emails in the AOL system due to an overload of emails, which sucks because I could have offended someone or a relationship could have been weakened since I didn't respond to an email I never received... "That bastard Bernard... never writes me back! Yada, yada, yada..."
This also happens in Korea on my SK Telecom mobile phone service. I estimate about 10% of my calls never reach me. They don't even show up on my caller ID. I only find out that someone called if they leave a voice message or tell me later on in person or email that they called me. Also for SMS messages, which Koreans love, suffer from about a 10%+ droppage rate too, which I remember reading somewhere. For my wireless service, I initially thought it was my phone or certain coverage areas, but I later on found out that those factors don't come into play. Some of my friends began experiencing an increasing droppage rate too. For some that don't know the Korean wireless market, it has one of the highest wireless penetration rates in the world with almost 70% of the population utilizing cellphones. Within Seoul, it seems to be everyone from high school students to elderly, and they are not only using their cellphones for calls but messaging friends and taking photos. You can also use cellphones almost anywhere... from any floor of an office building to basements to subway stations to the countryside. So this droppage problem is not based on weak signals or accessiblity, but I'm guessing an overload of SKT's wireless network.
Friday, January 23, 2004
OPTIMISTIC ABOUT AMERICA
Another Wedding Tale... A Mother's Wish
With one more day until my brother's wedding, things have finally seemed to settle and I'm looking forward to my younger sibling getting married. He deserves to marry a wonderful woman and partner with someone that matches his dreams and supports his ambitions.
Earlier this week, we were going to breakfast (mom, bro, future sister-in-law) when my mom asks my brother, "Dear, who's giving the toast at the reception?"
"Bernard and Stephanie's maid of honor, Mom. Who else?"
"Is your father speaking at the reception?"
Slight pause. "Of course not, Mom. He's giving a few words after the ceremony."
"I see." Now my brother and I are on the same page. Waiting for the next question.
"Well... What would you think if I speak, dear?"
"Mom, I think we'll be okay."
"Dear, what if I speak?" Not hearing the response she wants, my mother leans forward behind the driver's seat and waits again.
"Mom, Bernard is already doing the toast and then the maid of honor. I really don't think we need another person," my brother softly responds, which is opposite of my hardnose tactics with my mother.
She turns to my brother's future wife, "Did you know when Bernard's friend, Peter, had a second reception in Korea Bernard's father spoke about Peter, and then I spoke about Vicki? People still come up to me and talk about how poetic and beautiful my words were. That was almost five years ago..."
Silence from the front of the car. Not because my mother tells tall tales or strectches the truth, but because we heard this story several times before.
"Well, I think it's great if you said a few words," my brother's future wife states, while ignorant of the strength of the web she just stepped into and foolishly thinking she was being a supportive soon-to-be daughter-in-law. My mother doesn't care for such words or will remember them (okay, maybe i'm being a little harsh on my mother, but this is somewhat true. she's a cold-hearted businesswomen).
"Mom, maybe it's better that you save your speech for Bernard since he is your first son."
I turn my head towards my brother and I can't help breaking into a loud roar, "That was pretty good... you think you're funny, huh? Pretty smart too?"
We both start laughing out loud while my mother cracks a smile and still waits for the answer.
I say to my mother, "Naw, Mom, you should just do it now at your baby's wedding."
My brother chimes in, "Ok, Mom, if you think of something good you can speak. Please just tell me in advance."
"Ok, Dear." Then she turns to me and says, "Dear, don't think you're getting out of this either. I'm going to speak at your wedding too."
"Ok, Mom."
Anyway, Pete Du Pont has a decent article below about life in America.
Don't Worry, Be Happy
There's no reason to be pessimistic about life in America.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY PETE DU PONT
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
In 1958 liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith's best-selling "The Affluent Society" assured us that living standards had risen so far they couldn't rise any further. In 1960 Prof. Paul Erlich concluded that 65 million Americans would perish from famine in the 1980s and food riots would kill millions more. Scientific American predicted in 1970 that in 20 years the world would be out of lead, zinc, tin, gold and silver. And Jimmy Carter's 1980 "Global 2000" report forecast that mass starvation and superplagues would ravage the globe in the final year of the millennium. They all more or less agreed with English philosopher Thomas Hobbes that our lives would be "solitary, nasty, brutish, and short." And they were all dead wrong. Gregg Easterbrook's new book, "The Progress Paradox, How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse," documents the opposite:
Almost everything about American and European life is getting better for almost everyone. Public health is improving by almost every measure. . . . Environmental trends are nearly all positive. . . . Drinking, smoking and most forms of drug use are declining. Teen pregnancy is declining. Welfare rolls are shrinking without increase in poverty. . . . Crime has declined. . . . Education levels keep rising. . . . Armed conflict and combat deaths worldwide are in a cycle of decline. Global democracy is rising, military dictatorship and communism are on the run. Mr. Easterbrook's data on the escalating quality of American and global life are broad and deep, and if you are a CNN/New York Times buff, astonishing and irritating. Optimists have turned out to be fully correct; pessimists alarmingly misguided:
- Life expectancy in America has increased from 41 years at the beginning of the 20th century to 77 in 2000; we live almost twice as long as we did a century ago. And both longevity and health are bound to get better. Infant mortality is down 45% since 1980, and we spent 50% more on health care per person in 2002 than in 1982. For example, there were 200,000 knee replacements in 2001 at an average cost of $26,000. That's $5.2 billion for a health-care procedure that didn't exist a decade ago.
- Incomes are up. Inflation-adjusted per capita income has doubled since 1960. And we're working less for more money. The average American worked 66 hours a week in 1850, 53 hours in 1900 and 42 today. The total number of working hours in the average lifetime has declined linearly for 15 consecutive decades. In 1880 the typical American spent two hours a week relaxing; today it is 40.
- Poverty is down. Twenty-two percent of Americans lived in poverty in 1960; by 2001 that rate had declined to 11.7%. Mr. Easterbrook concludes that to avoid becoming poor in the U.S. "you must do three things: graduate from high school, marry after the age of 20, and marry before having your first child." Only 8% of those who do all three become poor; 79% of the poor failed to do them. Contrary to pessimist mantra, democratic capitalism forces poverty on no one.
We are not running out of any resource--oil, natural gas, copper, aluminum or anything else. Pollution is down; today's new cars emit "less than 2% as much pollution per mile as a car of 1970." Man and technology are not the enemies of the natural environment. In Connecticut the population tripled and agricultural production quadrupled in the 20th century, yet the state is 59% forested today compared with 37% in the 19th century.
- Illegal drug use, alcohol consumption, teen pregnancy and the divorce rate are all down. Crime is substantially down. Food production, educational attainment (12.3 years on average, the highest in the world), white-collar jobs (which now outnumber blue-collar ones) and house size and ownership (70% own their own homes today, compared with 20% a century ago) are all up.
- The goods available to us are overwhelming, and getting cheaper all the time. Mr. Easterbrook notes there were 11 million cell phones in the world in 1990; there are now more than a billion. Regular gasoline costs the same in real terms as it did in 1950. Cheeseburgers that cost 30 minutes of work at typical wages when the first McDonald's opened now can be bought for three minutes of work. The 1880s prairie farmer knew little of what was happening in the outside world; today television and the Internet give him hourly access to global information on the economy, war and peace and the NFL playoffs, and of course he can see every fire, crime, disaster and political accusation produced.
All this progress is not just in America or wealthy nations. Middle-class men and women in Europe and America live better than 99.4% of humans who have ever lived. In 1975 the average income in developing nations was $2,125 per capita; today (inflation adjusted) it is $4,000. Global adult literacy was 47% in 1970; 30 years later it was 73%.
And democratic capitalism triumphed over communism without a shot being fired. The best governmental and economic system the world has ever known simply crushed the century's worst idea.
Mr. Easterbrook identifies problems that remain, from poverty that shouldn't exists at all in such a prosperous America to the fact that one-third of us are obese today, vs. 12% in 1960--the latter a byproduct of prosperity. Yet with all the progress we have enjoyed, why aren't we happier about it? He concludes that our genetic pessimism--an internal bad-news bias--plus the championing of victimhood by elites, intellectuals and the media, along with the material abundance that pressures us to seek more abundance, are the reasons that people don't feel better off.
But feeling worse and being worse are two different things, and calamities are no more around the corner in 2004 that they were four decades ago in Messrs. Galbraith's and Erlich's minds. But elitist global pessimism lives on--recall that in the 1992 presidential campaign Al Gore stated that America "faced the greatest calamity in the history of man."
There are calamities--terror attacks, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions--but they are not caused by global progress or democratic capitalism. Today's America can be improved--and is constantly improving--but that is no reason to insist falsely that it is calamitous, dysfunctional, or doomed. Rather than nasty, brutish and short, 21st century life is good, comfortable and long, and getting better all the time.
Pete du Pont writes the "Outside the Box" column, which appears once a month on OpinionJournal. Mr. du Pont is policy chairman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank, and a director with the law firm Richards, Layton & Finger in Wilmington, Del.
Mr. du Pont has served as a Delaware state legislator and U.S. congressman. He was elected governor of Delaware in 1976 and re-elected in 1980. On Jan. 1, 2000, the Wilmington News Journal named Mr. du Pont one of the "100 Delawareans of the Century", citing his leadership accomplishments during his tenure as governor, particularly his efforts to reform government, cut taxes, and to make Delaware a leader in the financial-services industry. As governor he signed into law two income tax reduction measures, and balanced his state's budget eight out of eight years. In 1988 Mr. du Pont was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and in 1996 he co-founded and served as editor of IntellectualCapital.com, one of the first public-policy e-zines.
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Another Wedding Tale... A Mother's Wish
With one more day until my brother's wedding, things have finally seemed to settle and I'm looking forward to my younger sibling getting married. He deserves to marry a wonderful woman and partner with someone that matches his dreams and supports his ambitions.
Earlier this week, we were going to breakfast (mom, bro, future sister-in-law) when my mom asks my brother, "Dear, who's giving the toast at the reception?"
"Bernard and Stephanie's maid of honor, Mom. Who else?"
"Is your father speaking at the reception?"
Slight pause. "Of course not, Mom. He's giving a few words after the ceremony."
"I see." Now my brother and I are on the same page. Waiting for the next question.
"Well... What would you think if I speak, dear?"
"Mom, I think we'll be okay."
"Dear, what if I speak?" Not hearing the response she wants, my mother leans forward behind the driver's seat and waits again.
"Mom, Bernard is already doing the toast and then the maid of honor. I really don't think we need another person," my brother softly responds, which is opposite of my hardnose tactics with my mother.
She turns to my brother's future wife, "Did you know when Bernard's friend, Peter, had a second reception in Korea Bernard's father spoke about Peter, and then I spoke about Vicki? People still come up to me and talk about how poetic and beautiful my words were. That was almost five years ago..."
Silence from the front of the car. Not because my mother tells tall tales or strectches the truth, but because we heard this story several times before.
"Well, I think it's great if you said a few words," my brother's future wife states, while ignorant of the strength of the web she just stepped into and foolishly thinking she was being a supportive soon-to-be daughter-in-law. My mother doesn't care for such words or will remember them (okay, maybe i'm being a little harsh on my mother, but this is somewhat true. she's a cold-hearted businesswomen).
"Mom, maybe it's better that you save your speech for Bernard since he is your first son."
I turn my head towards my brother and I can't help breaking into a loud roar, "That was pretty good... you think you're funny, huh? Pretty smart too?"
We both start laughing out loud while my mother cracks a smile and still waits for the answer.
I say to my mother, "Naw, Mom, you should just do it now at your baby's wedding."
My brother chimes in, "Ok, Mom, if you think of something good you can speak. Please just tell me in advance."
"Ok, Dear." Then she turns to me and says, "Dear, don't think you're getting out of this either. I'm going to speak at your wedding too."
"Ok, Mom."
Anyway, Pete Du Pont has a decent article below about life in America.
Don't Worry, Be Happy
There's no reason to be pessimistic about life in America.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY PETE DU PONT
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
In 1958 liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith's best-selling "The Affluent Society" assured us that living standards had risen so far they couldn't rise any further. In 1960 Prof. Paul Erlich concluded that 65 million Americans would perish from famine in the 1980s and food riots would kill millions more. Scientific American predicted in 1970 that in 20 years the world would be out of lead, zinc, tin, gold and silver. And Jimmy Carter's 1980 "Global 2000" report forecast that mass starvation and superplagues would ravage the globe in the final year of the millennium. They all more or less agreed with English philosopher Thomas Hobbes that our lives would be "solitary, nasty, brutish, and short." And they were all dead wrong. Gregg Easterbrook's new book, "The Progress Paradox, How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse," documents the opposite:
Almost everything about American and European life is getting better for almost everyone. Public health is improving by almost every measure. . . . Environmental trends are nearly all positive. . . . Drinking, smoking and most forms of drug use are declining. Teen pregnancy is declining. Welfare rolls are shrinking without increase in poverty. . . . Crime has declined. . . . Education levels keep rising. . . . Armed conflict and combat deaths worldwide are in a cycle of decline. Global democracy is rising, military dictatorship and communism are on the run. Mr. Easterbrook's data on the escalating quality of American and global life are broad and deep, and if you are a CNN/New York Times buff, astonishing and irritating. Optimists have turned out to be fully correct; pessimists alarmingly misguided:
- Life expectancy in America has increased from 41 years at the beginning of the 20th century to 77 in 2000; we live almost twice as long as we did a century ago. And both longevity and health are bound to get better. Infant mortality is down 45% since 1980, and we spent 50% more on health care per person in 2002 than in 1982. For example, there were 200,000 knee replacements in 2001 at an average cost of $26,000. That's $5.2 billion for a health-care procedure that didn't exist a decade ago.
- Incomes are up. Inflation-adjusted per capita income has doubled since 1960. And we're working less for more money. The average American worked 66 hours a week in 1850, 53 hours in 1900 and 42 today. The total number of working hours in the average lifetime has declined linearly for 15 consecutive decades. In 1880 the typical American spent two hours a week relaxing; today it is 40.
- Poverty is down. Twenty-two percent of Americans lived in poverty in 1960; by 2001 that rate had declined to 11.7%. Mr. Easterbrook concludes that to avoid becoming poor in the U.S. "you must do three things: graduate from high school, marry after the age of 20, and marry before having your first child." Only 8% of those who do all three become poor; 79% of the poor failed to do them. Contrary to pessimist mantra, democratic capitalism forces poverty on no one.
We are not running out of any resource--oil, natural gas, copper, aluminum or anything else. Pollution is down; today's new cars emit "less than 2% as much pollution per mile as a car of 1970." Man and technology are not the enemies of the natural environment. In Connecticut the population tripled and agricultural production quadrupled in the 20th century, yet the state is 59% forested today compared with 37% in the 19th century.
- Illegal drug use, alcohol consumption, teen pregnancy and the divorce rate are all down. Crime is substantially down. Food production, educational attainment (12.3 years on average, the highest in the world), white-collar jobs (which now outnumber blue-collar ones) and house size and ownership (70% own their own homes today, compared with 20% a century ago) are all up.
- The goods available to us are overwhelming, and getting cheaper all the time. Mr. Easterbrook notes there were 11 million cell phones in the world in 1990; there are now more than a billion. Regular gasoline costs the same in real terms as it did in 1950. Cheeseburgers that cost 30 minutes of work at typical wages when the first McDonald's opened now can be bought for three minutes of work. The 1880s prairie farmer knew little of what was happening in the outside world; today television and the Internet give him hourly access to global information on the economy, war and peace and the NFL playoffs, and of course he can see every fire, crime, disaster and political accusation produced.
All this progress is not just in America or wealthy nations. Middle-class men and women in Europe and America live better than 99.4% of humans who have ever lived. In 1975 the average income in developing nations was $2,125 per capita; today (inflation adjusted) it is $4,000. Global adult literacy was 47% in 1970; 30 years later it was 73%.
And democratic capitalism triumphed over communism without a shot being fired. The best governmental and economic system the world has ever known simply crushed the century's worst idea.
Mr. Easterbrook identifies problems that remain, from poverty that shouldn't exists at all in such a prosperous America to the fact that one-third of us are obese today, vs. 12% in 1960--the latter a byproduct of prosperity. Yet with all the progress we have enjoyed, why aren't we happier about it? He concludes that our genetic pessimism--an internal bad-news bias--plus the championing of victimhood by elites, intellectuals and the media, along with the material abundance that pressures us to seek more abundance, are the reasons that people don't feel better off.
But feeling worse and being worse are two different things, and calamities are no more around the corner in 2004 that they were four decades ago in Messrs. Galbraith's and Erlich's minds. But elitist global pessimism lives on--recall that in the 1992 presidential campaign Al Gore stated that America "faced the greatest calamity in the history of man."
There are calamities--terror attacks, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions--but they are not caused by global progress or democratic capitalism. Today's America can be improved--and is constantly improving--but that is no reason to insist falsely that it is calamitous, dysfunctional, or doomed. Rather than nasty, brutish and short, 21st century life is good, comfortable and long, and getting better all the time.
Pete du Pont writes the "Outside the Box" column, which appears once a month on OpinionJournal. Mr. du Pont is policy chairman of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based think tank, and a director with the law firm Richards, Layton & Finger in Wilmington, Del.
Mr. du Pont has served as a Delaware state legislator and U.S. congressman. He was elected governor of Delaware in 1976 and re-elected in 1980. On Jan. 1, 2000, the Wilmington News Journal named Mr. du Pont one of the "100 Delawareans of the Century", citing his leadership accomplishments during his tenure as governor, particularly his efforts to reform government, cut taxes, and to make Delaware a leader in the financial-services industry. As governor he signed into law two income tax reduction measures, and balanced his state's budget eight out of eight years. In 1988 Mr. du Pont was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and in 1996 he co-founded and served as editor of IntellectualCapital.com, one of the first public-policy e-zines.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
EDBERSTADT'S ARTICLE ON NORTH KOREA
Countdown to My Bro's Wedding
Got into Chicago Sunday from NYC and I've just been relaxing, working, and helping a little with my brother's wedding prep. Initially, my brother wanted wedding around 200 people, but my parents pumped up the list to 300 without even trying. Some others were thinking it's some social gala among the Korean American community in Chicago and invited themselves. Odd, rude people. My brother received some invite responses with "+ 3 guests", which were not children but another couple. Another woman called my mother in Korea and demanded that she be invited, and then she called my brother and asked to be seated by "so and so." My bro was pissed, but just went along with it.
It's going to be a logistical headache since there are over 90 out-of-town guests that need to be shuttled to each location in the suburbs. Chicago is so widespread you definitely need a car to get around.
Anyway, I haven't posted an article or entry on North Korea for a while. Here one I received from my friend Mingi, who works at Time. Small world because I met Mingi when I came out to Korea about three years ago, but his uncle, Dr. Bong Hak Hyun, was one of my early mentors after I graduated from college. Read below if you want.
Atomic Shakedown
Pyongyang's promise to disarm is just a cunning financial ploy
BY NICHOLAS EBERSTADT
TIME Magazine
January 19, 2004
How many times can someone sell the same dead puppy to the same dupes? North Korea's Kim Jong Il is currently conducting an international experiment to determine the answer to this question. The merchandise the Dear Leader is hawking isn't really a dog that won't hunt, of course—it's another phony nuclear deal. And the credulous buyers aren't simpletons at a county fair—they're top Western and Asian statesmen. Given the high stakes in this sting and the sophistication of the intended victims, you'd think the game would have been shut down before now. But you'd be wrong. The latest hapless steps toward another session of "six-party talks" in the North Korean nuclear drama, in fact, suggest that diplomats are assuming their familiar positions for another round of atomic bait-and-switch.
For the moment, the primary obstacle to Pyongyang's receiving more international donations in exchange for false promises to dismantle its nuclear weapons program is U.S. President George W. Bush, who has stated that he will not be blackmailed. Last week, however, Pyongyang executed a deft end-run around Bush. North Korea's play was to invite an unofficial delegation of Americans (including former
State Department official Charles Pritchard and Stanford University Professor John W. Lewis) for an inspection tour of the Death Star itself, the Yongbyon nuclear complex. As the would-be dealmakers settled into their hotel rooms, North Korea's news agency pitched a "bold concession" for ending the nuclear impasse: in return for an end to Washington's economic sanctions and a resumption of free supplies of energy from the U.S. and its allies, Pyongyang would "refrain from [the] testing and production of nuclear weapons and even stop operating [its] nuclear power industry."
A little background illustrates the hollowness of this promise. The dynastic enterprise known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) has been open for business since 1948, and for most of that time it's been building, and gaming, its nuclear program. Long ago, Kim & Co. figured out a formula for extracting protection money from abroad in return for promising to scrap the nukes: make a deal, break the deal, then demand a new deal for more, issuing threats until you get what you want. So far, it's worked pretty well. Pyongyang got the previous President Bush to remove all U.S. nukes from South Korea to grease the 1991 North-South deal for the "denuclearization" of the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang was caught cheating on that understanding—so it threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire," and landed an improved deal from the Clinton Administration (the 1994 Agreed Framework, with free oil and free nuclear reactors in exchange for a freeze on D.P.R.K. nuclear sites). When Kim & Co. seemed to be cheating on the Agreed Framework in 1999, Washington paid 500,000 tons in food aid to inspect a single suspect nuclear site. (In the course of those negotiations, North Korea warned about a possible "pre-emptive strike" on the U.S. if the talks failed.)
In October 2002, North Korea was once again caught cheating on its nuclear freeze arrangements—this time, with its secret, highly enriched uranium program. So what did Pyongyang do? Naturally, it upped the ante. It kicked out all the inspectors called for under the Agreed Framework and tore up its copy of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Kim started saying the D.P.R.K. possessed nuclear weapons and that it might be time to test, or sell, one. And it began asking for a lot more foreign cash to keep things quiet in the
neighborhood. Under last week's proposal, North Korea would get not only a resumption of goodies bargained for in the Agreed Framework but also new money from the World Bank and others ("ending sanctions" is code for Washington's unlocking the door to multilateral aid).
It looks as if Pyongyang's shakedown artists have judged their international market correctly. Western and Asian diplomats are whipping out their calculators to figure the new price for postponing a North Korean nuclear breakout. Last week, Beijing lauded North Korea's "further willingness" to "stop nuclear activities"; in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell hailed the offer as "a positive step" that "will allow us to move more rapidly toward the six-party framework talks." Lost in this feel-good chorus was any apparent recollection of the original objective of talks with the North: namely, to hold Pyongyang to its earlier promises to scrap its nuclear program completely and forever.
As North Korea's neighbors prepare to be fleeced, one may wonder: What keeps this con going? It's not that American and Asian leaderships are invincibly ignorant. They've just bought into a variant of La Grande Illusion (as such thinking was called in France in the late 1930s). The notion that the Kim regime has absolutely no intention of ever giving up its nuclear capability—at any price, for any reason—is too terrible to face. Better to play pretend, even if this means being bilked in return for fake "breakthroughs" and bogus "accords."
Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
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Countdown to My Bro's Wedding
Got into Chicago Sunday from NYC and I've just been relaxing, working, and helping a little with my brother's wedding prep. Initially, my brother wanted wedding around 200 people, but my parents pumped up the list to 300 without even trying. Some others were thinking it's some social gala among the Korean American community in Chicago and invited themselves. Odd, rude people. My brother received some invite responses with "+ 3 guests", which were not children but another couple. Another woman called my mother in Korea and demanded that she be invited, and then she called my brother and asked to be seated by "so and so." My bro was pissed, but just went along with it.
It's going to be a logistical headache since there are over 90 out-of-town guests that need to be shuttled to each location in the suburbs. Chicago is so widespread you definitely need a car to get around.
Anyway, I haven't posted an article or entry on North Korea for a while. Here one I received from my friend Mingi, who works at Time. Small world because I met Mingi when I came out to Korea about three years ago, but his uncle, Dr. Bong Hak Hyun, was one of my early mentors after I graduated from college. Read below if you want.
Atomic Shakedown
Pyongyang's promise to disarm is just a cunning financial ploy
BY NICHOLAS EBERSTADT
TIME Magazine
January 19, 2004
How many times can someone sell the same dead puppy to the same dupes? North Korea's Kim Jong Il is currently conducting an international experiment to determine the answer to this question. The merchandise the Dear Leader is hawking isn't really a dog that won't hunt, of course—it's another phony nuclear deal. And the credulous buyers aren't simpletons at a county fair—they're top Western and Asian statesmen. Given the high stakes in this sting and the sophistication of the intended victims, you'd think the game would have been shut down before now. But you'd be wrong. The latest hapless steps toward another session of "six-party talks" in the North Korean nuclear drama, in fact, suggest that diplomats are assuming their familiar positions for another round of atomic bait-and-switch.
For the moment, the primary obstacle to Pyongyang's receiving more international donations in exchange for false promises to dismantle its nuclear weapons program is U.S. President George W. Bush, who has stated that he will not be blackmailed. Last week, however, Pyongyang executed a deft end-run around Bush. North Korea's play was to invite an unofficial delegation of Americans (including former
State Department official Charles Pritchard and Stanford University Professor John W. Lewis) for an inspection tour of the Death Star itself, the Yongbyon nuclear complex. As the would-be dealmakers settled into their hotel rooms, North Korea's news agency pitched a "bold concession" for ending the nuclear impasse: in return for an end to Washington's economic sanctions and a resumption of free supplies of energy from the U.S. and its allies, Pyongyang would "refrain from [the] testing and production of nuclear weapons and even stop operating [its] nuclear power industry."
A little background illustrates the hollowness of this promise. The dynastic enterprise known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) has been open for business since 1948, and for most of that time it's been building, and gaming, its nuclear program. Long ago, Kim & Co. figured out a formula for extracting protection money from abroad in return for promising to scrap the nukes: make a deal, break the deal, then demand a new deal for more, issuing threats until you get what you want. So far, it's worked pretty well. Pyongyang got the previous President Bush to remove all U.S. nukes from South Korea to grease the 1991 North-South deal for the "denuclearization" of the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang was caught cheating on that understanding—so it threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire," and landed an improved deal from the Clinton Administration (the 1994 Agreed Framework, with free oil and free nuclear reactors in exchange for a freeze on D.P.R.K. nuclear sites). When Kim & Co. seemed to be cheating on the Agreed Framework in 1999, Washington paid 500,000 tons in food aid to inspect a single suspect nuclear site. (In the course of those negotiations, North Korea warned about a possible "pre-emptive strike" on the U.S. if the talks failed.)
In October 2002, North Korea was once again caught cheating on its nuclear freeze arrangements—this time, with its secret, highly enriched uranium program. So what did Pyongyang do? Naturally, it upped the ante. It kicked out all the inspectors called for under the Agreed Framework and tore up its copy of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Kim started saying the D.P.R.K. possessed nuclear weapons and that it might be time to test, or sell, one. And it began asking for a lot more foreign cash to keep things quiet in the
neighborhood. Under last week's proposal, North Korea would get not only a resumption of goodies bargained for in the Agreed Framework but also new money from the World Bank and others ("ending sanctions" is code for Washington's unlocking the door to multilateral aid).
It looks as if Pyongyang's shakedown artists have judged their international market correctly. Western and Asian diplomats are whipping out their calculators to figure the new price for postponing a North Korean nuclear breakout. Last week, Beijing lauded North Korea's "further willingness" to "stop nuclear activities"; in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell hailed the offer as "a positive step" that "will allow us to move more rapidly toward the six-party framework talks." Lost in this feel-good chorus was any apparent recollection of the original objective of talks with the North: namely, to hold Pyongyang to its earlier promises to scrap its nuclear program completely and forever.
As North Korea's neighbors prepare to be fleeced, one may wonder: What keeps this con going? It's not that American and Asian leaderships are invincibly ignorant. They've just bought into a variant of La Grande Illusion (as such thinking was called in France in the late 1930s). The notion that the Kim regime has absolutely no intention of ever giving up its nuclear capability—at any price, for any reason—is too terrible to face. Better to play pretend, even if this means being bilked in return for fake "breakthroughs" and bogus "accords."
Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
IOWA CAUCUS RESULTS
Dean Trips & Falls
Kerry 38%
Edwards 32%
Dean 18%
Gephardt 11%
Kucinich 1%
With Martin Luther King Day and the Iowa Caucus passed, it was a very interesting week to watch as the Democratic candidates fought to gain momentum going into New Hampshire's primary. I actually was surprised by Kerry's strong showing in the end, but not by Edwards. I guessed Dean's bitter and assine personality would eventually make him stumble on the campaign trail which he did, and Edwards' positive message would benefit. Dean's handling of that elderly Iowa man was probably the worst campaign move I've seen in a while. After the Iowa man criticized him for being negative on Bush, Dean gets upset and tells him, "You sit down!"
His angry tone doesn't come out in the news article, but it did for audiences in Iowa. Definitely a reason for his 18% showing after so much hype and hoopla. I can imagine his campaign staff warning him about such behavior, and Dean getting defensive saying that the man deserved such a response or something similar. Bitter, defiant, defensive... all poor qualities for any type of leader. Also for being so defiant and supposedly steadfast in his principles, he brings in his wife on the campaign trail after stating that his wife and family would not be "props" on the campaign trail. I guess he felt the pressure and the changing of the tide. Lastly, Dean's sound character led him to pay Carol Moseley Braun $20,000 per month for her endorsement of Dean (yesterday's Crossfire stated $25,000 per month). Braun's character is already proven to be corrupt and broken, but Dean's action on this brings new questions into his moral fiber and ability to lead a nation.
Outside of my Dean bashing, since I think he's the biggest dork in the field, I would objectively state that John Edwards has the best chance to defeat Bush. He's a little young and not as established as Kerry, but think he can generate the widest appeal. Plus James Carville made an interesting sidenote that Edwards was the best campaigner he's ever seen. Better than Clinton, which was interesting to hear, but I wasn't sure if it was the Ragin' Cajun's fly-by comments again or a thought he's had for a while. But alas, in the end, it doesn't matter because whoever the Dems field will face defeat in 2004 by Bush.
|
Dean Trips & Falls
Kerry 38%
Edwards 32%
Dean 18%
Gephardt 11%
Kucinich 1%
With Martin Luther King Day and the Iowa Caucus passed, it was a very interesting week to watch as the Democratic candidates fought to gain momentum going into New Hampshire's primary. I actually was surprised by Kerry's strong showing in the end, but not by Edwards. I guessed Dean's bitter and assine personality would eventually make him stumble on the campaign trail which he did, and Edwards' positive message would benefit. Dean's handling of that elderly Iowa man was probably the worst campaign move I've seen in a while. After the Iowa man criticized him for being negative on Bush, Dean gets upset and tells him, "You sit down!"
His angry tone doesn't come out in the news article, but it did for audiences in Iowa. Definitely a reason for his 18% showing after so much hype and hoopla. I can imagine his campaign staff warning him about such behavior, and Dean getting defensive saying that the man deserved such a response or something similar. Bitter, defiant, defensive... all poor qualities for any type of leader. Also for being so defiant and supposedly steadfast in his principles, he brings in his wife on the campaign trail after stating that his wife and family would not be "props" on the campaign trail. I guess he felt the pressure and the changing of the tide. Lastly, Dean's sound character led him to pay Carol Moseley Braun $20,000 per month for her endorsement of Dean (yesterday's Crossfire stated $25,000 per month). Braun's character is already proven to be corrupt and broken, but Dean's action on this brings new questions into his moral fiber and ability to lead a nation.
Outside of my Dean bashing, since I think he's the biggest dork in the field, I would objectively state that John Edwards has the best chance to defeat Bush. He's a little young and not as established as Kerry, but think he can generate the widest appeal. Plus James Carville made an interesting sidenote that Edwards was the best campaigner he's ever seen. Better than Clinton, which was interesting to hear, but I wasn't sure if it was the Ragin' Cajun's fly-by comments again or a thought he's had for a while. But alas, in the end, it doesn't matter because whoever the Dems field will face defeat in 2004 by Bush.
Saturday, January 17, 2004
RED HERRING'S TOP TEN TRENDS 2004
Short NYC Trip for Short Films... Loving the Big Apple
I got into New York City yesterday for a meeting with Resfest. It is "an annual, global festival dedicated to showcasing innovative film, music, art, design and technology." Basically, it's a digital film festival that tours 18 cities worldwide. I was introduce to them by my friend Bernie, who is the creative director for MTV Korea, but assists Resfest's Korea tour and its head, Jay. Anyway, the software company I've been helping out for the past several months has a cool product for people in the design and digital production industries, so I thought Resfest would be a good potential customer and partner. If you see the software product, it's pretty cool. It definitely has a rare "wow" effect on people since it allows for very fast zooming along with the integration of multimedia into one document or presentation. When we use a touchscreen plasma display monitor to scroll through our newspaper demo, people say it looks like the scene in Minority Report. We're moving along the newspaper with our fingertips, zooming to an incredible resolution (from a 30 page layout zoomed down to a few sentences), and people see the electronic text document with flash, video, and sound running concurrently inundating their senses.
Part of the reason I wrote about Innotive's software product is because I came across the Red Herring's top ten tech trends for 2004 and number one made me think of another application for this software product in advertising.
I'm in NYC only for a couple days, so I decided not to call so many people and pack my schedule. It's one of my close friend's birthday today, so I'm just going to chill this weekend and mainly concentrate on eating... greasy Chinese food, falafel from a street vendor, maybe a good Italian place, maybe Brazilian BBQ...
RED HERRING'S TOP TEN TRENDS 2004
No. 10: Outsourcing backlash (Management)
Once popular with cost-conscious IT execs, outsourcing has been shown to be full of security holes.
No. 9: Fear factor (Security)
In a dangerously unstable world, security gets smarter and more tightly integrated into the fabric of networks and machines.
No. 8: Back to the bootstrap (Venture Capital)
Angel investors are back, funding the small startups that will be tomorrow's giants.
No. 7: Copywronged (Intellectual Property)
Hollywood fends for its meal ticket as consumer appetite for digital content grows.
No. 6: Digital immediate gratification (Culture)
In the move to all things digital, consumer electronics are changing the way we live - and think.
No. 5: China syndrome (Regions)
Multinationals will have to be quick learners to stake a claim to the country's high-tech bonanza.
No. 4: On the cheap (Computing)
Low-cost everything is the order of the day.
No. 3: Fat chance (Health)
Obesity becomes a big problem - and big business.
No. 2: Making the triple play (Communications)
The battle for voice/video/data subscribers gets nasty.
No. 1: Ad infinitum (Advertising)
Madison Avenue is waking up to the limitless new opportunities in digital media.
Top 10 trends: Ad infinitum
Madison Avenue is waking up to the limitless new opportunities in digital media.
December 15, 2003
While digital technology continues to rock the music and film industries, major players in the advertising world are paying close attention and smartening up.
Advertisers are devising innovative ways to target messages to specific audiences by embracing, rather than fleeing, new technologies. They are particularly keen, for instance, on understanding the role of commercial-skipping digital video recorders (DVRs) like TiVo, as well as the potential of placing ads on video games and throughout the Net.
One reason for the new interest: desperation. TV ads, once a stalwart of the brand-building community, no longer pay the same dividends. Younger people are watching less television than previous generations. According to October/November figures from audience monitor Nielsen Media Research, 7 percent fewer men between the ages of 18 and 34 were watching TV than in the same period of 2002. This is a new breed, raised on computers, movie rentals, dozens of cable channels, and video games.
Madison Avenue advertising executives won't let this audience go without a fight. Why? Studies from sources including Advertising Age and the International Advertising Association indicate that consumer-buying habits of men under 35 are malleable and more receptive to advertising-inspired brand switching. (After 35, these studies say, brand loyalty is set in everything from deodorant to cars.)
Nielsen says the tune-out trend is highest among men between 18 and 24. That group is more likely to play video games or watch DVDs than kick back with TV programming. Advertisers are, in turn, adjusting their approach to fit the lifestyle of their audience. Case in point: as network TV ratings fell, annual video game sales have more than trebled from $6.5 billion in 2000 to a projected $20.8 billion in 2003, according to NPD Group and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. Agencies are in turn following the money beyond TV, collaborating with video game manufacturers to pay for product placements in the games. That is good news for video game makers, which are expected to rake in more than $700 million in advertising fees annually by 2005, according to data from Forrester Research and Jupiter Media. That is seven times more than in 2002.
Satellite and cable TV companies dependent upon TV viewers are also keeping a sharp eye on rapidly increasing DVR penetration (see chart). Many plan to provide the service in a two-pronged attack designed to both woo more customers and convince their current base to upgrade to premium services. This will further boost a mounting market; Nielsen says that DVR ownership grew by 50 percent over the last year to about 4 percent of U.S. households.
Advertisers are eager to tap into the underdeveloped potential of this growing audience. TiVo, one of the leading DVR platforms, is working with advertisers and audience measurement services to gauge viewer habits in extreme detail. Unlike Nielsen's TV ratings, which measure viewing in 15-minute chunks, TiVo can break down data to the second. Advertisers get a clearer picture of ad campaign successes - and failures.
In 2004, advertisers utilize DVR technology to determine the specifics (houses, zip codes) of who watched, or skipped, their ads. They may also monitor which commercials are watched repeatedly, to better clue in on what is entertaining - and effective. With DVR technology, consumers can also request longer versions of commercials. It is an advertiser's dream to spotlight special interest while increasing the cost-to-success ratio. Whether they are offering extended trailers of the next Lord of the Rings movie or ads for a new make of car, advertisers are managing DVRs as an advertisement delivery medium.
Meanwhile, the Internet will remain the king of targeted digital advertising in 2004. In a recent Forrester survey of 95 U.S. marketers and advertising agencies, Internet advertising captured the two highest planned growth areas next year with more than 60 percent of surveyors saying they planned to increase spending on digital advertising. More than 50 percent of respondents said they planned to spend more money on Web advertising, while only 20 percent planned to increase spending on traditional advertising print and broadcast.
The main driver is targeted search, a niche developed by Google, Goto.com, and Overture. Two years ago, advertisers were complaining that print-style Web banner advertising was ineffective. Today, they have been won over by the manner in which the Internet provides quick response from a targeted search, something neither print nor TV can offer.
The advertising industry is set to lead the media sector in 2004. Ad buyers at established firms are facing the global challenges of a digitally altered media landscape head on, intent on taking advantage of new opportunities to reach both specific niche and more broad-based target audiences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLAYERS
Google, Yahoo: The titans of targeted search should reap most of the benefits as this already-profitable business grows.
Comcast, EchoStar, Hughes Electronics/News Corp, Time Warner: Look for these cable and satellite TV providers to push DVRs and more digital programming services to boost revenues.
Scientific-Atlanta: Looks to be the big set-top box winner as the two top cablers, Comcast and Time Warner, push DVR technology in 2004.
Atari, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Vivendi Universal Games: Video game makers are set to increase revenues from in-game advertising product placement.
ALSO IN MOTION
Anti-spam crusaders: The election year prompts state and federal lawmakers to press passage of tougher anti-spam laws.
Search turf wars: Google and Yahoo, the current leaders in search-based advertising, face new competition from Microsoft, which plans to launch a similar service.
Interactive marketing: Interactive TV has been promised for years, but now with DVRs, digital cable and satellite infrastructures have finally emerged.
|
Short NYC Trip for Short Films... Loving the Big Apple
I got into New York City yesterday for a meeting with Resfest. It is "an annual, global festival dedicated to showcasing innovative film, music, art, design and technology." Basically, it's a digital film festival that tours 18 cities worldwide. I was introduce to them by my friend Bernie, who is the creative director for MTV Korea, but assists Resfest's Korea tour and its head, Jay. Anyway, the software company I've been helping out for the past several months has a cool product for people in the design and digital production industries, so I thought Resfest would be a good potential customer and partner. If you see the software product, it's pretty cool. It definitely has a rare "wow" effect on people since it allows for very fast zooming along with the integration of multimedia into one document or presentation. When we use a touchscreen plasma display monitor to scroll through our newspaper demo, people say it looks like the scene in Minority Report. We're moving along the newspaper with our fingertips, zooming to an incredible resolution (from a 30 page layout zoomed down to a few sentences), and people see the electronic text document with flash, video, and sound running concurrently inundating their senses.
Part of the reason I wrote about Innotive's software product is because I came across the Red Herring's top ten tech trends for 2004 and number one made me think of another application for this software product in advertising.
I'm in NYC only for a couple days, so I decided not to call so many people and pack my schedule. It's one of my close friend's birthday today, so I'm just going to chill this weekend and mainly concentrate on eating... greasy Chinese food, falafel from a street vendor, maybe a good Italian place, maybe Brazilian BBQ...
RED HERRING'S TOP TEN TRENDS 2004
No. 10: Outsourcing backlash (Management)
Once popular with cost-conscious IT execs, outsourcing has been shown to be full of security holes.
No. 9: Fear factor (Security)
In a dangerously unstable world, security gets smarter and more tightly integrated into the fabric of networks and machines.
No. 8: Back to the bootstrap (Venture Capital)
Angel investors are back, funding the small startups that will be tomorrow's giants.
No. 7: Copywronged (Intellectual Property)
Hollywood fends for its meal ticket as consumer appetite for digital content grows.
No. 6: Digital immediate gratification (Culture)
In the move to all things digital, consumer electronics are changing the way we live - and think.
No. 5: China syndrome (Regions)
Multinationals will have to be quick learners to stake a claim to the country's high-tech bonanza.
No. 4: On the cheap (Computing)
Low-cost everything is the order of the day.
No. 3: Fat chance (Health)
Obesity becomes a big problem - and big business.
No. 2: Making the triple play (Communications)
The battle for voice/video/data subscribers gets nasty.
No. 1: Ad infinitum (Advertising)
Madison Avenue is waking up to the limitless new opportunities in digital media.
Top 10 trends: Ad infinitum
Madison Avenue is waking up to the limitless new opportunities in digital media.
December 15, 2003
While digital technology continues to rock the music and film industries, major players in the advertising world are paying close attention and smartening up.
Advertisers are devising innovative ways to target messages to specific audiences by embracing, rather than fleeing, new technologies. They are particularly keen, for instance, on understanding the role of commercial-skipping digital video recorders (DVRs) like TiVo, as well as the potential of placing ads on video games and throughout the Net.
One reason for the new interest: desperation. TV ads, once a stalwart of the brand-building community, no longer pay the same dividends. Younger people are watching less television than previous generations. According to October/November figures from audience monitor Nielsen Media Research, 7 percent fewer men between the ages of 18 and 34 were watching TV than in the same period of 2002. This is a new breed, raised on computers, movie rentals, dozens of cable channels, and video games.
Madison Avenue advertising executives won't let this audience go without a fight. Why? Studies from sources including Advertising Age and the International Advertising Association indicate that consumer-buying habits of men under 35 are malleable and more receptive to advertising-inspired brand switching. (After 35, these studies say, brand loyalty is set in everything from deodorant to cars.)
Nielsen says the tune-out trend is highest among men between 18 and 24. That group is more likely to play video games or watch DVDs than kick back with TV programming. Advertisers are, in turn, adjusting their approach to fit the lifestyle of their audience. Case in point: as network TV ratings fell, annual video game sales have more than trebled from $6.5 billion in 2000 to a projected $20.8 billion in 2003, according to NPD Group and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. Agencies are in turn following the money beyond TV, collaborating with video game manufacturers to pay for product placements in the games. That is good news for video game makers, which are expected to rake in more than $700 million in advertising fees annually by 2005, according to data from Forrester Research and Jupiter Media. That is seven times more than in 2002.
Satellite and cable TV companies dependent upon TV viewers are also keeping a sharp eye on rapidly increasing DVR penetration (see chart). Many plan to provide the service in a two-pronged attack designed to both woo more customers and convince their current base to upgrade to premium services. This will further boost a mounting market; Nielsen says that DVR ownership grew by 50 percent over the last year to about 4 percent of U.S. households.
Advertisers are eager to tap into the underdeveloped potential of this growing audience. TiVo, one of the leading DVR platforms, is working with advertisers and audience measurement services to gauge viewer habits in extreme detail. Unlike Nielsen's TV ratings, which measure viewing in 15-minute chunks, TiVo can break down data to the second. Advertisers get a clearer picture of ad campaign successes - and failures.
In 2004, advertisers utilize DVR technology to determine the specifics (houses, zip codes) of who watched, or skipped, their ads. They may also monitor which commercials are watched repeatedly, to better clue in on what is entertaining - and effective. With DVR technology, consumers can also request longer versions of commercials. It is an advertiser's dream to spotlight special interest while increasing the cost-to-success ratio. Whether they are offering extended trailers of the next Lord of the Rings movie or ads for a new make of car, advertisers are managing DVRs as an advertisement delivery medium.
Meanwhile, the Internet will remain the king of targeted digital advertising in 2004. In a recent Forrester survey of 95 U.S. marketers and advertising agencies, Internet advertising captured the two highest planned growth areas next year with more than 60 percent of surveyors saying they planned to increase spending on digital advertising. More than 50 percent of respondents said they planned to spend more money on Web advertising, while only 20 percent planned to increase spending on traditional advertising print and broadcast.
The main driver is targeted search, a niche developed by Google, Goto.com, and Overture. Two years ago, advertisers were complaining that print-style Web banner advertising was ineffective. Today, they have been won over by the manner in which the Internet provides quick response from a targeted search, something neither print nor TV can offer.
The advertising industry is set to lead the media sector in 2004. Ad buyers at established firms are facing the global challenges of a digitally altered media landscape head on, intent on taking advantage of new opportunities to reach both specific niche and more broad-based target audiences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PLAYERS
Google, Yahoo: The titans of targeted search should reap most of the benefits as this already-profitable business grows.
Comcast, EchoStar, Hughes Electronics/News Corp, Time Warner: Look for these cable and satellite TV providers to push DVRs and more digital programming services to boost revenues.
Scientific-Atlanta: Looks to be the big set-top box winner as the two top cablers, Comcast and Time Warner, push DVR technology in 2004.
Atari, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Vivendi Universal Games: Video game makers are set to increase revenues from in-game advertising product placement.
ALSO IN MOTION
Anti-spam crusaders: The election year prompts state and federal lawmakers to press passage of tougher anti-spam laws.
Search turf wars: Google and Yahoo, the current leaders in search-based advertising, face new competition from Microsoft, which plans to launch a similar service.
Interactive marketing: Interactive TV has been promised for years, but now with DVRs, digital cable and satellite infrastructures have finally emerged.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
MICHAEL MOORE IS A DIMWIT
Who's Dumber?... Michael Moore or Bill Maher?
I remember a few months ago watching Jay Leno when Bill Maher was on, and Jay had to interrupt Maher a few times since his comments were so outlandish.
"Oh, come on now!" Leno would shout with smile and probably think to himself how vain and ridiculous Maher was.
Maher thinks he's so witty and intelligent it's amusing. He loves listening to himself speak. The reality is that what he says would raise an eye-brow with anyone of fair intelligence. It doesn't matter about my views or politics. I'm not afraid to identify a bright person or a smart point when I hear it no matter who it comes from. Like when Bill Bradley speaks or Noam Chomsky states a point, many times I acknowledge their intelligence or insightfulness. Maher brings nothing to the table. He's debating himself on-air most of the time without anyone to counter him. Do you smell poultry? I smell poultry. Same with Moore, brings nothing to the table. Who does he debate? An aging Charlton Heston or people he knows that wouldn't be able to hold a conversation at a state dinner or policy function. I would love either of them to debate, or even have a sit-down discussion, live on TV on any major political topic, which they frequent with extreme or simply asinine statements, with someone of decent intelligence. George Will, Jack Kemp, Bill O'Reilly,... heck even William F. Buckley, who I don't think is such a great debater. I would predict Maher or Moore would breakdown and resort to swearing, angry name-calling, and laughter without purpose... little babies that they are. All they do is hide behind their control of the stage and microphone and cover the truth of their lack of intelligence and fear of being known as stupid to the world. Up for the challenge guys?
Michael Moore's invective and half-truths play right into the hands of the Republicans
by Damian Thompson
THE TELEGRAPH, LONDON
If the title Stupid White Men doesn't mean anything to you, then you can't have been anywhere near a bookshop last year. Either that, or you are so used to picking your way through the piles of Michael Moore books that you no longer notice them, or the accompanying recommendation: "Staff pick! Really cool - the book that exposes Dubya as a fascist."
Moore is the American slob in a baseball cap who likes to hint - only hint, mind - that President George Bush had a hand in the September 11 attacks.
Moore has a huge following on campuses on both sides of the Atlantic: he, more than anyone else, has persuaded British students that the occupant of the White House is, like, just such a moron.
Stupid White Men was the bestselling non-fiction hardback in Britain last year after the Atkins New Diet Revolution; it's now top of the paperback list. Bowling for Columbine, the feature-length documentary in which Moore blames a high school massacre on the Republicans, won an Oscar.
Moore's new book, Dude, Where's My Country?, offers his most sophisticated critique to date of American foreign policy: "We like dictators! They help us get what we want and they do a great job of keeping their nations subservient to our galloping global corporate interests."
It takes Moore just a couple of paragraphs to absolve Osama bin Laden of the destruction of the World Trade Centre. "How could a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan have plotted so perfectly the hijacking of four planes and then guaranteed that three of them would end up precisely on their targets?" he asks.
Viewers of Bowling for Columbine may find this puzzling, remembering the film's insistence that "Osama bin Laden used his expert CIA training to murder 3000 people". But Moore regards consistency as the hobgoblin of little minds. And besides, his fast-morphing conspiracy theories are all built on the same, unshakeable foundation.
Everything in the world is the fault of stupid white Americans - in which category he apparently includes the September 11 plane passengers: he has a stand-up routine in which he suggests that if the victims had been black, rather than white "scaredy-cats", they would have had no trouble overpowering the hijackers.
The American right used to dismiss Moore's material as unfunny agit prop, unworthy of attention. That is not quite fair. Bowling for Columbine is a brilliantly constructed documentary; it's hard not to cheer when Moore embarrasses the Kmart chain into banning the sale of live ammunition to teenagers. The books are dismal by comparison, but even they evince the odd chuckle.
With sales of Stupid White Men creeping up towards 4 million, the right has changed tactics. Its new approach is to denounce Moore as a liar - a more promising line of attack. And it is certainly true that Bowling for Columbine turns out to contain more half-truths than an Enron corporate video.
For example, Moore says that Lockheed Martin manufactures "weapons of mass destruction" in Littleton, Colorado, the town where the Columbine killings occurred; he even grills a company executive in front of a scary-looking rocket in the local factory.
Lockheed Martin doesn't make weapons in Littleton; it makes weather and communications satellites that are launched by rocket.
Then there's the scene in which Moore opens an account in a rural bank and is given the free shotgun offered to new customers. "Don't you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns in a bank?" he asks.
It's a good question. And the answer: the bank doesn't normally do anything of the sort. Customers have to wait six weeks for background checks. According to the bank, the scene was staged at Moore's request.
Even the documentary's title is dodgy. It's based on reports that the Columbine killers went bowling on the morning of the massacre. Police investigators later concluded that the reports were untrue. The film makes no mention of this.
So generous is Moore's notion of artistic licence that the internet is crawling with websites exposing his "lies". Some of his critics have gone further and attempted to turn his methods on himself.
A documentary maker, Michael Wilson, has been following Moore, badgering him for an interview - just as Moore used to do to bloated chief executives. But Moore isn't talking.
Meanwhile, Dude, Where's My Country? is sitting happily in the bestseller lists. Moore's fans don't care how many fast ones he pulls because, hey, he's a funny guy. There is nothing the right can do to dent his popularity. And perhaps it shouldn't even try.
The truth is that George Bush owes Moore a debt of gratitude. He wouldn't be President today if it weren't for the Green candidate, Ralph Nader, who vacuumed up votes that would otherwise have gone to Al Gore.
Moore was Nader's biggest celebrity backer. So we can be reasonably sure that at least 538 Florida students voted Green because Mike told them to, thereby handing Dubya his winning margin.
And the next time? Strange though it might seem, Moore may help Bush achieve a second term. There he stands, inciting his audience to ever greater heights of Bush-hatred. The snag is that although this goes down a treat in cappuccino-sipping Berkeley, it doesn't play so well among blue-collar voters who think Saddam Hussein deserved to get his arse kicked.
Histrionic invective directed against relatively popular sitting presidents rarely pays off, as the McGovernites discovered in 1972 and the Clinton-haters did in 1996. The sheer incontinence of the attacks on Bush by Moore and his Hollywood friends could help deliver the midwest to Bush.
And Bush knows it, too. There's a curious passage in Stupid White Men in which Moore confesses that on the rare occasions he has met George W. or Jeb Bush, they have teased him in an almost affectionate fashion.
Indeed, the more vigorously Moore attacks the President, the better Bush's approval ratings. Funny, that. And Moore's lifestyle has been awfully lavish of late. One doesn't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it makes you think, doesn't it?
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Who's Dumber?... Michael Moore or Bill Maher?
I remember a few months ago watching Jay Leno when Bill Maher was on, and Jay had to interrupt Maher a few times since his comments were so outlandish.
"Oh, come on now!" Leno would shout with smile and probably think to himself how vain and ridiculous Maher was.
Maher thinks he's so witty and intelligent it's amusing. He loves listening to himself speak. The reality is that what he says would raise an eye-brow with anyone of fair intelligence. It doesn't matter about my views or politics. I'm not afraid to identify a bright person or a smart point when I hear it no matter who it comes from. Like when Bill Bradley speaks or Noam Chomsky states a point, many times I acknowledge their intelligence or insightfulness. Maher brings nothing to the table. He's debating himself on-air most of the time without anyone to counter him. Do you smell poultry? I smell poultry. Same with Moore, brings nothing to the table. Who does he debate? An aging Charlton Heston or people he knows that wouldn't be able to hold a conversation at a state dinner or policy function. I would love either of them to debate, or even have a sit-down discussion, live on TV on any major political topic, which they frequent with extreme or simply asinine statements, with someone of decent intelligence. George Will, Jack Kemp, Bill O'Reilly,... heck even William F. Buckley, who I don't think is such a great debater. I would predict Maher or Moore would breakdown and resort to swearing, angry name-calling, and laughter without purpose... little babies that they are. All they do is hide behind their control of the stage and microphone and cover the truth of their lack of intelligence and fear of being known as stupid to the world. Up for the challenge guys?
Michael Moore's invective and half-truths play right into the hands of the Republicans
by Damian Thompson
THE TELEGRAPH, LONDON
If the title Stupid White Men doesn't mean anything to you, then you can't have been anywhere near a bookshop last year. Either that, or you are so used to picking your way through the piles of Michael Moore books that you no longer notice them, or the accompanying recommendation: "Staff pick! Really cool - the book that exposes Dubya as a fascist."
Moore is the American slob in a baseball cap who likes to hint - only hint, mind - that President George Bush had a hand in the September 11 attacks.
Moore has a huge following on campuses on both sides of the Atlantic: he, more than anyone else, has persuaded British students that the occupant of the White House is, like, just such a moron.
Stupid White Men was the bestselling non-fiction hardback in Britain last year after the Atkins New Diet Revolution; it's now top of the paperback list. Bowling for Columbine, the feature-length documentary in which Moore blames a high school massacre on the Republicans, won an Oscar.
Moore's new book, Dude, Where's My Country?, offers his most sophisticated critique to date of American foreign policy: "We like dictators! They help us get what we want and they do a great job of keeping their nations subservient to our galloping global corporate interests."
It takes Moore just a couple of paragraphs to absolve Osama bin Laden of the destruction of the World Trade Centre. "How could a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan have plotted so perfectly the hijacking of four planes and then guaranteed that three of them would end up precisely on their targets?" he asks.
Viewers of Bowling for Columbine may find this puzzling, remembering the film's insistence that "Osama bin Laden used his expert CIA training to murder 3000 people". But Moore regards consistency as the hobgoblin of little minds. And besides, his fast-morphing conspiracy theories are all built on the same, unshakeable foundation.
Everything in the world is the fault of stupid white Americans - in which category he apparently includes the September 11 plane passengers: he has a stand-up routine in which he suggests that if the victims had been black, rather than white "scaredy-cats", they would have had no trouble overpowering the hijackers.
The American right used to dismiss Moore's material as unfunny agit prop, unworthy of attention. That is not quite fair. Bowling for Columbine is a brilliantly constructed documentary; it's hard not to cheer when Moore embarrasses the Kmart chain into banning the sale of live ammunition to teenagers. The books are dismal by comparison, but even they evince the odd chuckle.
With sales of Stupid White Men creeping up towards 4 million, the right has changed tactics. Its new approach is to denounce Moore as a liar - a more promising line of attack. And it is certainly true that Bowling for Columbine turns out to contain more half-truths than an Enron corporate video.
For example, Moore says that Lockheed Martin manufactures "weapons of mass destruction" in Littleton, Colorado, the town where the Columbine killings occurred; he even grills a company executive in front of a scary-looking rocket in the local factory.
Lockheed Martin doesn't make weapons in Littleton; it makes weather and communications satellites that are launched by rocket.
Then there's the scene in which Moore opens an account in a rural bank and is given the free shotgun offered to new customers. "Don't you think it's a little dangerous handing out guns in a bank?" he asks.
It's a good question. And the answer: the bank doesn't normally do anything of the sort. Customers have to wait six weeks for background checks. According to the bank, the scene was staged at Moore's request.
Even the documentary's title is dodgy. It's based on reports that the Columbine killers went bowling on the morning of the massacre. Police investigators later concluded that the reports were untrue. The film makes no mention of this.
So generous is Moore's notion of artistic licence that the internet is crawling with websites exposing his "lies". Some of his critics have gone further and attempted to turn his methods on himself.
A documentary maker, Michael Wilson, has been following Moore, badgering him for an interview - just as Moore used to do to bloated chief executives. But Moore isn't talking.
Meanwhile, Dude, Where's My Country? is sitting happily in the bestseller lists. Moore's fans don't care how many fast ones he pulls because, hey, he's a funny guy. There is nothing the right can do to dent his popularity. And perhaps it shouldn't even try.
The truth is that George Bush owes Moore a debt of gratitude. He wouldn't be President today if it weren't for the Green candidate, Ralph Nader, who vacuumed up votes that would otherwise have gone to Al Gore.
Moore was Nader's biggest celebrity backer. So we can be reasonably sure that at least 538 Florida students voted Green because Mike told them to, thereby handing Dubya his winning margin.
And the next time? Strange though it might seem, Moore may help Bush achieve a second term. There he stands, inciting his audience to ever greater heights of Bush-hatred. The snag is that although this goes down a treat in cappuccino-sipping Berkeley, it doesn't play so well among blue-collar voters who think Saddam Hussein deserved to get his arse kicked.
Histrionic invective directed against relatively popular sitting presidents rarely pays off, as the McGovernites discovered in 1972 and the Clinton-haters did in 1996. The sheer incontinence of the attacks on Bush by Moore and his Hollywood friends could help deliver the midwest to Bush.
And Bush knows it, too. There's a curious passage in Stupid White Men in which Moore confesses that on the rare occasions he has met George W. or Jeb Bush, they have teased him in an almost affectionate fashion.
Indeed, the more vigorously Moore attacks the President, the better Bush's approval ratings. Funny, that. And Moore's lifestyle has been awfully lavish of late. One doesn't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it makes you think, doesn't it?
Monday, January 12, 2004
A CHRISTIAN'S VIEW OF HOMOSEXUALITY
Deroy Murdock's Knock on Heterosexuals
With all the recent discussions and legal activities on gay marriage, it seems this might be a growing issue for the 2004 presidential elections. Since there have been various editorials and commentaries on gay marriage, I thought I would touch upon this issue and more so on a Christian's perspective of homosexuality.
First, I believe in the Bible as a whole and complete doctrine of the living God. I believe Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the Son of God, all have sinned before God, my savior who died for all my sins (past, present, and future), and rose from the dead to give me the gift of eternal life, which is free for all who believe this. As C.S. Lewis stated, I cannot simply believe Christ was a great philosopher or moral teacher because that would be to ignore the majority of His message that He was God incarnate. It was for these reasons that He was crucified on the cross and the Pharisees sought His death. So after studying the Bible and the historical components around Jesus Christ, C.S. Lewis concluded that you can only accept Christ as a liar, lunatic, or God incarnate, but not simply as a moral teacher or philosopher.
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg or else he would have to be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God, or a madman or something worse." - C.S. Lewis
Second, as a student of public policy and a person whose career will be in and out of government, I do not believe you can legislate morality. Moral change or conviction has to come from within a person. Your moral fiber or principles can be influenced by the people around you or whatever religious institutions you attend can have an indirect affect, but these choices are still decided by you. There is also a great danger in trying to legislate morality. Such behavior or values can become ritualized, dumbed-down, or insignificant in a person's life. For example, if some school district enforced a morning prayer for all students, I would be against this. Separation of church and state here is a value to hold, and from a practical view it would ritualize prayer for many of the students and hold little affect or influence in their lives moving forward. You can point to many of your Catholic friends who grew up in such a setting to see this effect. Many of my Catholic friends do not hold strong values or beliefs in their religious doctrine (more so family or cultural traditions) nor have they tried to practice their faith since the days of their youth.
As a Christian, I consider homosexual acts as sin. A sin as much as when I lie, get drunk, and place the things of this world above God within my heart. Even though I am "redeemed" now through faith in Christ, I still sin and will struggle with my sinful nature until I die. I personally consider my independent spirit from God worse than most sins anyone else can commit, but all sins are like blades of grass to God above. Especially once you believe in Christ and His actions, all your sins are forgiven past, present, and future, which is called God's grace. And this includes homosexual acts, which I admit there are "Christians" out there that forget this and weigh it more than other sins for whatever reasons. There are groups within the Christian faith that hate gays and lesbians, but I personally question the validity of their faith and their knowledge of the Bible. "Hate" is probably a good red flag for starters. It's like when the KKK justifies their hatred and beliefs on Christian doctrine. Or other individuals or groups have a hatred towards Jews "because they killed Jesus." Ummm... Jesus was a Jew and so were His disciples. One of my role models, Paul the Apostle, was a Jew. Actually he was a "Hebrew of Hebrews" (Philippians 3:3-6).
So as a heterosexual sinner I am no better than a homosexual sinner. What is the difference within the Christian doctrine? None. Are there such things as "greater sinners" in Christianity? No, everyone is a sinner before God. No less, no more. I remember explaining some of these points to one of my good friends, who's active in the gay community, and he was initially surprised to hear such things. He said it was refreshing to hear such a perspective as a gay man from someone he knows is a "devout Christian." I believe majority of Christians, if not all, who believe in the Bible as a whole and are knowledgeable take this view or cannot argue against this beyond their personal discomfort or cultural biases.
"Where was the social-conservative outrage at Seinfeld's dreadful actions? Can anyone on the religious Right seriously argue that the real risk to holy matrimony is not men like Seinfeld and women like Sklar but devoted male couples who aim neither to discard one another nor divide others?"
So Deroy Murdock's article below highlights a good point that maybe the "religious right" or "social conversatives" should focus their energies elsewhere towards the greater problem of heterosexual marriage. Maybe he knows this already, but some of the "religious right" or "social conversatives" were against the mockery of marriage that Britney Spears, David Lettermen, or other people committed. Of course they are, especially the Family Research Council, but you have to pick your battles. That battle is so widespread and a whole another problem in itself it would be very difficult to tackle. From the Christian perspective, divorce is only condoned when adultery is committed, so the examples that Murdock brings up might not be relevant towards some of the fears against the institution of marriage. Their fears and thoughts are already based on those examples that he brings up, or similar examples from the past. They already know that marriage has become a weaker institution in America, and has become a disruption of healthy family lives. There are many studies I can point to that reveal the various direct and indirect social ills and individual problems that develop from single-family homes and irresponsible marriages by heterosexuals. So gay-marriage strikes another fear into these people's hearts on top of the existing problems. Maybe some of their reasons against gay-marriages are from ignorance, and maybe some of it is from concerns about how it can affect the fabric of American family culture. Or maybe I'm giving too much credit to the "religious right" or "social conversatives", which is a vast, nebulous group in America. Maybe many of these campaigns against gay-marriage are driven by fear and ignorance, or a need for some non-profits and political groups to "do something."
Anyway, the practical effect of a law supporting gay-marriages would be in question for me. I don't think it would increase homosexual acts in our society, which is one reason I'm against legalizing drugs because I know it would increase drug use which as a clear adverse effect on our society, so I'm not completely decided on this issue of gay-marriage. On principle then I should support laws against lying in non-professional settings, against any form of drunkness, adultery,... even against my own arrogance before God. I have to think about this some more...
(continue on latter post: "case against gay marriage")
A Mockery of Marriage
The things heterosexuals do.
National Review Online
Deroy Murdock, Contributing Editor
January 09, 2004
Social conservatives are working overtime to argue that gay marriage would imperil straight matrimony. They say that if Jack and Joe were united, till death do them part, they would jeopardize husbands and wives, from sea to shining sea.
"We will lose marriage in this nation," without constitutionally limiting it to heterosexuals, warns Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. The Traditional Values Coalition, meanwhile, sees "same-sex marriage as a way of destroying the concept of marriage altogether."
It would be far easier to take these claims seriously if gay-marriage critics spent as much energy denouncing irresponsible heterosexuals whose behavior undermines traditional marriage. Among prominent Americans, such misdeeds are increasingly ubiquitous.
Exhibit A is musical product Britney Spears's micromarriage to hometown pal Jason Allen Alexander. The 22-year-olds were wed on January 3 in Las Vegas. Clad in sneakers, a baseball cap, ripped jeans, and a navel-revealing T-shirt, the vocalist was escorted down the Little White Wedding Chapel's aisle by a hotel chauffeur. Spears and Alexander, who wore baggy pants and a zippered sweater, soon were wife and husband.
Almost as soon, their marriage was annulled. Clark County Judge Lisa Brown accepted Spears's request and ruled that "There was no meeting of the minds in entering into this marriage contract, and in a court of equity there is cause for declaring the contract void."
The revolving-door couple's 55 hours of marital bliss were based neither on love nor shared commitment, but because "they took a joke too far," explained Spears's label, Jive Records.
Whatever objections they otherwise may generate, gay couples who desire marriage at least hope to stay hitched. Britney's latest misadventure, in contrast, reduced marriage from something sacred to just another Vegas activity, like watching the Bellagio Hotel's fountains between trips to the blackjack tables.
Consider David Letterman. His hilarious broadcasts keep Insomniac-Americans cackling every weeknight. Last November 3, he got a national standing ovation when his son, Harry Joseph, was born. Those who rail against gay marriage stayed mum about the fact that Harry's dad and mom, Regina Lasko, shack up. What message is sent by this widely hailed out-of-wedlock birth?
And then there's Jerry Seinfeld. This national treasure's eponymous TV show will generate belly laughs in syndication throughout this century, and deservedly so. The mere sound of those odd bass notes on Seinfeld's soundtrack can generate chuckles before any dialogue has been uttered.
But while Seinfeld boasts millions of fans, Eric Nederlander is not among them. Shortly after the Broadway theater heir and his then-wife, Jessica Sklar, returned from their June 1998 honeymoon, she met Seinfeld at Manhattan's Reebok Club gym. He asked Sklar out, she accepted and, before long, she ditched her new husband and ran off with the comedian.
Where was the social-conservative outrage at Seinfeld's dreadful actions? Can anyone on the religious Right seriously argue that the real risk to holy matrimony is not men like Seinfeld and women like Sklar but devoted male couples who aim neither to discard one another nor divide others?
Of course, not every American is an overexposed pop diva, network talk-show host, or sitcom multimillionaire. For rank-and-file heterosexuals, marriage can involve decades of love and joy. In 51 percent of cases, people stay married for life. Such unions are inspiring, impressive, and deserve every American's applause.
On the other hand, 49 percent of couples break up, according to Divorce magazine. The Federal Administration for Children and Families calculated in 2002 that deadbeat parents nationwide owed their kids $92.3 billion in unpaid child support. In 2000, 33.2 percent of children were born outside marriage. Among blacks, that figure was 68.5 percent. A 1998 National Institute of Justice survey found that 1.5 million women suffer domestic violence annually, as do 835,000 men. So-called "reality" TV shows like Fox's Married by America and its forthcoming My Big Fat Obnoxious Fianc? turn wedding vows into punch lines. In nearly every instance, heterosexuals ? not homosexuals ? perpetrated these social ills.
Gay marriage is a big idea that deserves national debate. Nonetheless, social conservatives who blow their stacks over homosexual matrimony's supposed threat to traditional marriage tomorrow should focus on the far greater damage that heterosexuals are wreaking on that venerable institution today.
Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.
|
Deroy Murdock's Knock on Heterosexuals
With all the recent discussions and legal activities on gay marriage, it seems this might be a growing issue for the 2004 presidential elections. Since there have been various editorials and commentaries on gay marriage, I thought I would touch upon this issue and more so on a Christian's perspective of homosexuality.
First, I believe in the Bible as a whole and complete doctrine of the living God. I believe Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the Son of God, all have sinned before God, my savior who died for all my sins (past, present, and future), and rose from the dead to give me the gift of eternal life, which is free for all who believe this. As C.S. Lewis stated, I cannot simply believe Christ was a great philosopher or moral teacher because that would be to ignore the majority of His message that He was God incarnate. It was for these reasons that He was crucified on the cross and the Pharisees sought His death. So after studying the Bible and the historical components around Jesus Christ, C.S. Lewis concluded that you can only accept Christ as a liar, lunatic, or God incarnate, but not simply as a moral teacher or philosopher.
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg or else he would have to be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God, or a madman or something worse." - C.S. Lewis
Second, as a student of public policy and a person whose career will be in and out of government, I do not believe you can legislate morality. Moral change or conviction has to come from within a person. Your moral fiber or principles can be influenced by the people around you or whatever religious institutions you attend can have an indirect affect, but these choices are still decided by you. There is also a great danger in trying to legislate morality. Such behavior or values can become ritualized, dumbed-down, or insignificant in a person's life. For example, if some school district enforced a morning prayer for all students, I would be against this. Separation of church and state here is a value to hold, and from a practical view it would ritualize prayer for many of the students and hold little affect or influence in their lives moving forward. You can point to many of your Catholic friends who grew up in such a setting to see this effect. Many of my Catholic friends do not hold strong values or beliefs in their religious doctrine (more so family or cultural traditions) nor have they tried to practice their faith since the days of their youth.
As a Christian, I consider homosexual acts as sin. A sin as much as when I lie, get drunk, and place the things of this world above God within my heart. Even though I am "redeemed" now through faith in Christ, I still sin and will struggle with my sinful nature until I die. I personally consider my independent spirit from God worse than most sins anyone else can commit, but all sins are like blades of grass to God above. Especially once you believe in Christ and His actions, all your sins are forgiven past, present, and future, which is called God's grace. And this includes homosexual acts, which I admit there are "Christians" out there that forget this and weigh it more than other sins for whatever reasons. There are groups within the Christian faith that hate gays and lesbians, but I personally question the validity of their faith and their knowledge of the Bible. "Hate" is probably a good red flag for starters. It's like when the KKK justifies their hatred and beliefs on Christian doctrine. Or other individuals or groups have a hatred towards Jews "because they killed Jesus." Ummm... Jesus was a Jew and so were His disciples. One of my role models, Paul the Apostle, was a Jew. Actually he was a "Hebrew of Hebrews" (Philippians 3:3-6).
So as a heterosexual sinner I am no better than a homosexual sinner. What is the difference within the Christian doctrine? None. Are there such things as "greater sinners" in Christianity? No, everyone is a sinner before God. No less, no more. I remember explaining some of these points to one of my good friends, who's active in the gay community, and he was initially surprised to hear such things. He said it was refreshing to hear such a perspective as a gay man from someone he knows is a "devout Christian." I believe majority of Christians, if not all, who believe in the Bible as a whole and are knowledgeable take this view or cannot argue against this beyond their personal discomfort or cultural biases.
"Where was the social-conservative outrage at Seinfeld's dreadful actions? Can anyone on the religious Right seriously argue that the real risk to holy matrimony is not men like Seinfeld and women like Sklar but devoted male couples who aim neither to discard one another nor divide others?"
So Deroy Murdock's article below highlights a good point that maybe the "religious right" or "social conversatives" should focus their energies elsewhere towards the greater problem of heterosexual marriage. Maybe he knows this already, but some of the "religious right" or "social conversatives" were against the mockery of marriage that Britney Spears, David Lettermen, or other people committed. Of course they are, especially the Family Research Council, but you have to pick your battles. That battle is so widespread and a whole another problem in itself it would be very difficult to tackle. From the Christian perspective, divorce is only condoned when adultery is committed, so the examples that Murdock brings up might not be relevant towards some of the fears against the institution of marriage. Their fears and thoughts are already based on those examples that he brings up, or similar examples from the past. They already know that marriage has become a weaker institution in America, and has become a disruption of healthy family lives. There are many studies I can point to that reveal the various direct and indirect social ills and individual problems that develop from single-family homes and irresponsible marriages by heterosexuals. So gay-marriage strikes another fear into these people's hearts on top of the existing problems. Maybe some of their reasons against gay-marriages are from ignorance, and maybe some of it is from concerns about how it can affect the fabric of American family culture. Or maybe I'm giving too much credit to the "religious right" or "social conversatives", which is a vast, nebulous group in America. Maybe many of these campaigns against gay-marriage are driven by fear and ignorance, or a need for some non-profits and political groups to "do something."
Anyway, the practical effect of a law supporting gay-marriages would be in question for me. I don't think it would increase homosexual acts in our society, which is one reason I'm against legalizing drugs because I know it would increase drug use which as a clear adverse effect on our society, so I'm not completely decided on this issue of gay-marriage. On principle then I should support laws against lying in non-professional settings, against any form of drunkness, adultery,... even against my own arrogance before God. I have to think about this some more...
(continue on latter post: "case against gay marriage")
A Mockery of Marriage
The things heterosexuals do.
National Review Online
Deroy Murdock, Contributing Editor
January 09, 2004
Social conservatives are working overtime to argue that gay marriage would imperil straight matrimony. They say that if Jack and Joe were united, till death do them part, they would jeopardize husbands and wives, from sea to shining sea.
"We will lose marriage in this nation," without constitutionally limiting it to heterosexuals, warns Family Research Council president Tony Perkins. The Traditional Values Coalition, meanwhile, sees "same-sex marriage as a way of destroying the concept of marriage altogether."
It would be far easier to take these claims seriously if gay-marriage critics spent as much energy denouncing irresponsible heterosexuals whose behavior undermines traditional marriage. Among prominent Americans, such misdeeds are increasingly ubiquitous.
Exhibit A is musical product Britney Spears's micromarriage to hometown pal Jason Allen Alexander. The 22-year-olds were wed on January 3 in Las Vegas. Clad in sneakers, a baseball cap, ripped jeans, and a navel-revealing T-shirt, the vocalist was escorted down the Little White Wedding Chapel's aisle by a hotel chauffeur. Spears and Alexander, who wore baggy pants and a zippered sweater, soon were wife and husband.
Almost as soon, their marriage was annulled. Clark County Judge Lisa Brown accepted Spears's request and ruled that "There was no meeting of the minds in entering into this marriage contract, and in a court of equity there is cause for declaring the contract void."
The revolving-door couple's 55 hours of marital bliss were based neither on love nor shared commitment, but because "they took a joke too far," explained Spears's label, Jive Records.
Whatever objections they otherwise may generate, gay couples who desire marriage at least hope to stay hitched. Britney's latest misadventure, in contrast, reduced marriage from something sacred to just another Vegas activity, like watching the Bellagio Hotel's fountains between trips to the blackjack tables.
Consider David Letterman. His hilarious broadcasts keep Insomniac-Americans cackling every weeknight. Last November 3, he got a national standing ovation when his son, Harry Joseph, was born. Those who rail against gay marriage stayed mum about the fact that Harry's dad and mom, Regina Lasko, shack up. What message is sent by this widely hailed out-of-wedlock birth?
And then there's Jerry Seinfeld. This national treasure's eponymous TV show will generate belly laughs in syndication throughout this century, and deservedly so. The mere sound of those odd bass notes on Seinfeld's soundtrack can generate chuckles before any dialogue has been uttered.
But while Seinfeld boasts millions of fans, Eric Nederlander is not among them. Shortly after the Broadway theater heir and his then-wife, Jessica Sklar, returned from their June 1998 honeymoon, she met Seinfeld at Manhattan's Reebok Club gym. He asked Sklar out, she accepted and, before long, she ditched her new husband and ran off with the comedian.
Where was the social-conservative outrage at Seinfeld's dreadful actions? Can anyone on the religious Right seriously argue that the real risk to holy matrimony is not men like Seinfeld and women like Sklar but devoted male couples who aim neither to discard one another nor divide others?
Of course, not every American is an overexposed pop diva, network talk-show host, or sitcom multimillionaire. For rank-and-file heterosexuals, marriage can involve decades of love and joy. In 51 percent of cases, people stay married for life. Such unions are inspiring, impressive, and deserve every American's applause.
On the other hand, 49 percent of couples break up, according to Divorce magazine. The Federal Administration for Children and Families calculated in 2002 that deadbeat parents nationwide owed their kids $92.3 billion in unpaid child support. In 2000, 33.2 percent of children were born outside marriage. Among blacks, that figure was 68.5 percent. A 1998 National Institute of Justice survey found that 1.5 million women suffer domestic violence annually, as do 835,000 men. So-called "reality" TV shows like Fox's Married by America and its forthcoming My Big Fat Obnoxious Fianc? turn wedding vows into punch lines. In nearly every instance, heterosexuals ? not homosexuals ? perpetrated these social ills.
Gay marriage is a big idea that deserves national debate. Nonetheless, social conservatives who blow their stacks over homosexual matrimony's supposed threat to traditional marriage tomorrow should focus on the far greater damage that heterosexuals are wreaking on that venerable institution today.
Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.
PAUL O'NEILL & HOWARD DEAN... BITTER TWINS
What's Up With These Angry Old Men?
"Mr. O'Neill was also surprisingly indiscreet. In our dinner conversation he told me things about his disagreements with the administration that I was surprised a cabinet officer would reveal. I was impressed by his candor but not by his wisdom. He was saved from my publishing them only by his offhand request in the middle of the meal that they be off the record. "
What's up with Paul O'Neill? Whatever you want to call him... back-stabber, bitter old man, not a team player, truth-teller... it's just not cool in my book what he's doing in a public forum. Like I wrote about wisdom, immaturity doesn't disappear with age for many people. He's like the kid in grade school that didn't get to play with the cool kids, so he tattles on them to the teachers but with a stretch of the truth and a smile on his heart. What a dork. I personally don't like dorky people, and Paul O'Neill is a dork.
JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S OPINION JOURNAL
Rage of a Relic
Paul O'Neill is angry that the world has passed him by.
Monday, January 12, 2004
I once had dinner with Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury secretary who is now making headlines with a scathing portrayal of his days in the Bush administration prior to his firing in December 2002. Bush critics will hail Mr. O'Neill as a truth-teller, White House aides are already calling him a back-stabber. In fact, Mr. O'Neill is a relic. The man I broke bread with was clearly a product of the Nixon and Ford administrations, in which he had served, and simply hadn't adapted to the post-Reagan Republican Party.
Mr. O'Neill came into the Bush administration on the recommendation of three old friends from the Ford years: Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan and Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. O'Neill, a moderate Republican, quickly discovered that his friends had changed in the intervening quarter century. He got little sympathy when he sought them out to express his dissatisfaction with the conservative tilt of the Bush administration. "The biggest difference between then and now," Mr. O'Neill told reporter Ron Suskind, "is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl [Rove], Dick [Cheney], Karen [Hughes] and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics. It's a huge distinction."
This analysis reveals either Mr. O'Neill's naiveté or poor memory. Richard Nixon's was one of the most cold-bloodedly political administrations in American history, imposing wage and price controls despite overwhelming economic evidence that they would harm the economy and trundling Henry Kissinger before TV cameras just before the 1972 election to announce that "peace was at hand" in Vietnam. The Ford administration adopted gimmicky tax rebates, passed out silly "Whip Inflation Now" buttons and ruthlessly squashed the insurgent challenge of Ronald Reagan when he challenged Mr. Ford in the Republican primaries.
Mr. O'Neill was a fish out of water in the Bush administration. Time magazine reports that he considered himself, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman and Secretary of State Colin Powell to be "three beleaguered souls . . . who shared a more nonideological approach [but] were used for window dressing." Mr. O'Neill tells Mr. Suskind, the author of a new book that tells Mr. O'Neill's side of his tour at Treasury, that the three moderates "may have been there, in large part, as cover" for the administration's conservative agenda.
But it wouldn't have taken much for Mr. O'Neill to figure out that on issues his new boss would more resemble Ronald Reagan than Nixon, Ford or the first George Bush. All he had to do was pay attention to Mr. Bush's record in Texas and his 2000 campaign. When Mr. O'Neill accepted the job as Treasury secretary he knew it entailed being a loyal member of a team, dissenting in private if he disagreed with the president's views.
Instead, Mr. O'Neill early on seemed to become a public spokesman for every cause except his boss's policies. He questioned the need for a strong dollar, sending the currency into a nosedive. His tour of Africa with rock star Bono veered into advocacy for action on AIDS, not exactly a brief of the Treasury Department. He also emerged as an aggressive advocate of action on global warming. At the first meeting of the president's cabinet, Mr. O'Neill passed out copies of a speech he gave in 1998 in which he said that there were two issues that transcend all others: "One is nuclear holocaust. . . . The second is environmental: specifically, the issue of global climate change and the potential of global warming."
Mr. O'Neill was also surprisingly indiscreet. In our dinner conversation he told me things about his disagreements with the administration that I was surprised a cabinet officer would reveal. I was impressed by his candor but not by his wisdom. He was saved from my publishing them only by his offhand request in the middle of the meal that they be off the record.
After the president's first tax cut became law in mid-2001, Mr. O'Neill also made clear his antipathy towards further reductions. This was in line with his past stands: backing the first President Bush's politically and economically disastrous tax increase of 1990 and lobbying President Clinton for energy taxes.
His opposition to lowering taxes came to a head after the 2002 midterm elections, when Republicans scored historic gains in Congress by running, in part, on the promise of more tax cuts. Mr. O'Neill recalls a meeting with Dick Cheney, his old chum, in which he quotes the vice president as saying, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the midterm elections, this is our due."
To Mr. O'Neill this was shocking. He worried about "how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society" and wanted to explore reform of Social Security and the tax code instead. He now admits that the tax cuts he opposed helped spur the "terrific" state of the economy today, but he says he would have been happy with a little less growth. That's easy to say now, but a much harder stance to take a year ago when the economy was still sputtering.
When Mr. O'Neill was pushed out of his post at Treasury he returned home to Pittsburgh in a huff but nonetheless managed to remain gracious. "I was never angry with the president," he told a local TV show. "I'm determined not to say any negative things about the president and the Bush administration. They have enough to do without having me as a sharpshooter."
That was then and this is now. It now turns out Mr. O'Neill has talked nearly daily for the last year with Mr. Suskind, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, who has now written a new explosive book on President Bush's first term. Mr. O'Neill also turned over to Mr. Suskind a minute-by-minute accounting of his time in office along with CD-ROMs containing 19,000 pages of documents he took with him from Washington.
Mr. O'Neill may have been a team player during his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, but his tenure as the successful head of Alcoa, the aluminum company, seems to have instilled in him "CEO disease," the inability for someone who runs a large enterprise to adapt and subordinate a large ego to the interests of a group.
Far from being a truth-teller, Mr. O'Neill comes across in Mr. Suskind's book as a vengeful Lone Ranger, someone bitter because his advice was spurned but who stubbornly chose to stay in the job anyway. "He could have resigned quietly on principle," one White House aide told me. "Instead we had to push him out."
Mr. O'Neill may like to see himself as a contemporary Cyrus Vance, who in 1980 left as Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State over principled disagreements on foreign policy. But instead he resembles Don Regan, the temperamental White House chief of staff who, after President Reagan fired him, went on to write a tell-all book embarrassing his old boss with revelations about Nancy Reagan's fondness for astrologers. The book made Mr. Regan look small and it didn't do much damage to Mr. Reagan's reputation. The same will be true of Mr. O'Neill's poison-pen recollections.
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What's Up With These Angry Old Men?
"Mr. O'Neill was also surprisingly indiscreet. In our dinner conversation he told me things about his disagreements with the administration that I was surprised a cabinet officer would reveal. I was impressed by his candor but not by his wisdom. He was saved from my publishing them only by his offhand request in the middle of the meal that they be off the record. "
What's up with Paul O'Neill? Whatever you want to call him... back-stabber, bitter old man, not a team player, truth-teller... it's just not cool in my book what he's doing in a public forum. Like I wrote about wisdom, immaturity doesn't disappear with age for many people. He's like the kid in grade school that didn't get to play with the cool kids, so he tattles on them to the teachers but with a stretch of the truth and a smile on his heart. What a dork. I personally don't like dorky people, and Paul O'Neill is a dork.
JOHN FUND ON THE TRAIL
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S OPINION JOURNAL
Rage of a Relic
Paul O'Neill is angry that the world has passed him by.
Monday, January 12, 2004
I once had dinner with Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury secretary who is now making headlines with a scathing portrayal of his days in the Bush administration prior to his firing in December 2002. Bush critics will hail Mr. O'Neill as a truth-teller, White House aides are already calling him a back-stabber. In fact, Mr. O'Neill is a relic. The man I broke bread with was clearly a product of the Nixon and Ford administrations, in which he had served, and simply hadn't adapted to the post-Reagan Republican Party.
Mr. O'Neill came into the Bush administration on the recommendation of three old friends from the Ford years: Dick Cheney, Alan Greenspan and Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. O'Neill, a moderate Republican, quickly discovered that his friends had changed in the intervening quarter century. He got little sympathy when he sought them out to express his dissatisfaction with the conservative tilt of the Bush administration. "The biggest difference between then and now," Mr. O'Neill told reporter Ron Suskind, "is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl [Rove], Dick [Cheney], Karen [Hughes] and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics. It's a huge distinction."
This analysis reveals either Mr. O'Neill's naiveté or poor memory. Richard Nixon's was one of the most cold-bloodedly political administrations in American history, imposing wage and price controls despite overwhelming economic evidence that they would harm the economy and trundling Henry Kissinger before TV cameras just before the 1972 election to announce that "peace was at hand" in Vietnam. The Ford administration adopted gimmicky tax rebates, passed out silly "Whip Inflation Now" buttons and ruthlessly squashed the insurgent challenge of Ronald Reagan when he challenged Mr. Ford in the Republican primaries.
Mr. O'Neill was a fish out of water in the Bush administration. Time magazine reports that he considered himself, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman and Secretary of State Colin Powell to be "three beleaguered souls . . . who shared a more nonideological approach [but] were used for window dressing." Mr. O'Neill tells Mr. Suskind, the author of a new book that tells Mr. O'Neill's side of his tour at Treasury, that the three moderates "may have been there, in large part, as cover" for the administration's conservative agenda.
But it wouldn't have taken much for Mr. O'Neill to figure out that on issues his new boss would more resemble Ronald Reagan than Nixon, Ford or the first George Bush. All he had to do was pay attention to Mr. Bush's record in Texas and his 2000 campaign. When Mr. O'Neill accepted the job as Treasury secretary he knew it entailed being a loyal member of a team, dissenting in private if he disagreed with the president's views.
Instead, Mr. O'Neill early on seemed to become a public spokesman for every cause except his boss's policies. He questioned the need for a strong dollar, sending the currency into a nosedive. His tour of Africa with rock star Bono veered into advocacy for action on AIDS, not exactly a brief of the Treasury Department. He also emerged as an aggressive advocate of action on global warming. At the first meeting of the president's cabinet, Mr. O'Neill passed out copies of a speech he gave in 1998 in which he said that there were two issues that transcend all others: "One is nuclear holocaust. . . . The second is environmental: specifically, the issue of global climate change and the potential of global warming."
Mr. O'Neill was also surprisingly indiscreet. In our dinner conversation he told me things about his disagreements with the administration that I was surprised a cabinet officer would reveal. I was impressed by his candor but not by his wisdom. He was saved from my publishing them only by his offhand request in the middle of the meal that they be off the record.
After the president's first tax cut became law in mid-2001, Mr. O'Neill also made clear his antipathy towards further reductions. This was in line with his past stands: backing the first President Bush's politically and economically disastrous tax increase of 1990 and lobbying President Clinton for energy taxes.
His opposition to lowering taxes came to a head after the 2002 midterm elections, when Republicans scored historic gains in Congress by running, in part, on the promise of more tax cuts. Mr. O'Neill recalls a meeting with Dick Cheney, his old chum, in which he quotes the vice president as saying, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the midterm elections, this is our due."
To Mr. O'Neill this was shocking. He worried about "how to use the nation's resources to improve the condition of our society" and wanted to explore reform of Social Security and the tax code instead. He now admits that the tax cuts he opposed helped spur the "terrific" state of the economy today, but he says he would have been happy with a little less growth. That's easy to say now, but a much harder stance to take a year ago when the economy was still sputtering.
When Mr. O'Neill was pushed out of his post at Treasury he returned home to Pittsburgh in a huff but nonetheless managed to remain gracious. "I was never angry with the president," he told a local TV show. "I'm determined not to say any negative things about the president and the Bush administration. They have enough to do without having me as a sharpshooter."
That was then and this is now. It now turns out Mr. O'Neill has talked nearly daily for the last year with Mr. Suskind, a former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, who has now written a new explosive book on President Bush's first term. Mr. O'Neill also turned over to Mr. Suskind a minute-by-minute accounting of his time in office along with CD-ROMs containing 19,000 pages of documents he took with him from Washington.
Mr. O'Neill may have been a team player during his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, but his tenure as the successful head of Alcoa, the aluminum company, seems to have instilled in him "CEO disease," the inability for someone who runs a large enterprise to adapt and subordinate a large ego to the interests of a group.
Far from being a truth-teller, Mr. O'Neill comes across in Mr. Suskind's book as a vengeful Lone Ranger, someone bitter because his advice was spurned but who stubbornly chose to stay in the job anyway. "He could have resigned quietly on principle," one White House aide told me. "Instead we had to push him out."
Mr. O'Neill may like to see himself as a contemporary Cyrus Vance, who in 1980 left as Jimmy Carter's Secretary of State over principled disagreements on foreign policy. But instead he resembles Don Regan, the temperamental White House chief of staff who, after President Reagan fired him, went on to write a tell-all book embarrassing his old boss with revelations about Nancy Reagan's fondness for astrologers. The book made Mr. Regan look small and it didn't do much damage to Mr. Reagan's reputation. The same will be true of Mr. O'Neill's poison-pen recollections.
Sunday, January 11, 2004
NEAL STARKMAN & MOVEON.ORG... INTELLECTUAL GIANTS
Junior High School All Over Again
Catching up on emails, as I wrote before, I love James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" and I came across his commentary on a guest column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as few days ago. The guest columnist, Neal Starkman, displays his intellectual giantness (or it is intelligencer?) by writing his column like a 12-year old boy (going down to his level? yes, i can.) on why people like President Bush. Also after you read his article you really have to question the Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial staff's judgement in printing it, but then I found out below that their staff actually wrote about Rachel Corrie (who Starkman refers to, but shows his true level of intelligencer since Corrie was left-leaning), who killed herself, and actually wrote her death was "leaving our lives a little richer." Excuse me? A little respect for a person's life is in order here. No wonder in how they actually printed Starkman's article now. Anyway, I'll take a stab and bet Neal Starkman is actually a friend of one of the staffers at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Moveon.org continues to prove my tool shed analogy with their founder, Wes Boyd, revealing to be one of the dullest of them all. His immaturity in not taking responsibility for the poor taste of ads on his website comparing President Bush to Hitler reminds me of junior high school all over again. Just read below.
Best of the Web Today - January 6, 2004
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By JAMES TARANTO
Dumb and Dumber
Is Neal Starkman as smart as he seems to think he is? If so, his article in yesterday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("intelligent as a post") is a spoof. And in that case, hooray for Starkman for a hilarious jape at the expense of the P-I's editors. In a deadpan tone, Starkman poses the question: Why do people like President Bush? Here's his answer:
It's the "Stupid factor," the S factor: Some people--sometimes through no fault of their own--are just not very bright.
It's not merely that some people are insufficiently intelligent to grasp the nuances of foreign policy, of constitutional law, of macroeconomics or of the variegated interplay of humans and the environment. These aren't the people I'm referring to. The people I'm referring to cannot understand the phenomenon of cause and effect. They're perplexed by issues comprising more than two sides. They don't have the wherewithal to expand the sources of their information. And above all--far above all--they don't think.
You know these people; they're all around you (they're not you, else you would not be reading this article this far). They're the ones who keep the puerile shows on TV, who appear as regular recipients of the Darwin Awards, who raise our insurance rates by doing dumb things, who generally make life much more miserable for all of us than it ought to be. Sad to say, they comprise a substantial minority--perhaps even a majority--of the populace.
This article has received a fair amount of attention from conservative bloggers, and the assumption seems to be that it's on the level. It may well be; certainly, as we've noted before, those on the political left flatter themselves that they represent the cognitive elite.
But the reference to the Darwin Awards makes us wonder. "The Darwin Awards honor those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it," according to the awards' Web site. In other words, they "honor" people who die as the result of their own stupidity.
Might Starkman have meant this as a sly reference to terror advocate Rachel Corrie, and thus a dig at the Post-Intelligencer, which lionized her last month? Corrie's story, of course, is classic Darwin Award material; she got herself killed because she thought standing in front of a moving bulldozer would be a good way to make a political statement. We don't know for sure what she thought of President Bush, but she did like to burn the American flag, so we're going to go out on a limb and guess she wasn't a fan of his.
Anyway, spoof or not, can't you just imagine the excitement Starkman's manuscript must have generated when it arrived in the Post-Intelligencer newsroom? We picture the editors sitting around, open-mouthed, exclaiming: "Duh, wow! This article is awesome! We really are intelligencer than everyone else!"
It's Your Fault We Called You Hitler!
The far-left group MoveOn.org has been holding a contest for anti-Bush television ads, and it's come under fire for a pair of ads posted to its Web site that compared the president to Hitler. Now MoveOn founder Wes Boyd has issued a statement. While he acknowledges that "we agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process," he says the real blame lies with the Republicans for drawing attention to them:
The Republican National Committee and its chairman have falsely accused MoveOn.org of sponsoring ads on its website which compare President Bush to Adolf Hitler. The claim is deliberately and maliciously misleading. . . . None of these was our ad, nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund.
There's a theme here, isn't there? First we have these ads comparing Bush to Hitler, which show a childish ignorance of history. They seem to be based on the syllogism: Bush is bad, Hitler was bad, therefore Bush was Hitler. (The S factor indeed.) The ads get posted to the MoveOn Web site because of a now-acknowledged lack of adult supervision--and then, rather than simply accept responsibility for this rather grievous error, Boyd lashes out at Republicans, as if his incompetence and his members' stupidity and viciousness were their fault.
This is politics as it might be conducted by 12-year-old boys. No wonder MoveOn types have latched onto Howard Dean, known for such juvenile utterances as "I am somewhat of a street fighter. If someone punches me I am apt to chase them down and I need to be restrained by the people who know better and have been in the game longer than I have." Is the Democratic primary race a political campaign or is it "Lord of the Flies"?
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Junior High School All Over Again
Catching up on emails, as I wrote before, I love James Taranto's "Best of the Web Today" and I came across his commentary on a guest column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer as few days ago. The guest columnist, Neal Starkman, displays his intellectual giantness (or it is intelligencer?) by writing his column like a 12-year old boy (going down to his level? yes, i can.) on why people like President Bush. Also after you read his article you really have to question the Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorial staff's judgement in printing it, but then I found out below that their staff actually wrote about Rachel Corrie (who Starkman refers to, but shows his true level of intelligencer since Corrie was left-leaning), who killed herself, and actually wrote her death was "leaving our lives a little richer." Excuse me? A little respect for a person's life is in order here. No wonder in how they actually printed Starkman's article now. Anyway, I'll take a stab and bet Neal Starkman is actually a friend of one of the staffers at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Moveon.org continues to prove my tool shed analogy with their founder, Wes Boyd, revealing to be one of the dullest of them all. His immaturity in not taking responsibility for the poor taste of ads on his website comparing President Bush to Hitler reminds me of junior high school all over again. Just read below.
Best of the Web Today - January 6, 2004
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By JAMES TARANTO
Dumb and Dumber
Is Neal Starkman as smart as he seems to think he is? If so, his article in yesterday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("intelligent as a post") is a spoof. And in that case, hooray for Starkman for a hilarious jape at the expense of the P-I's editors. In a deadpan tone, Starkman poses the question: Why do people like President Bush? Here's his answer:
It's the "Stupid factor," the S factor: Some people--sometimes through no fault of their own--are just not very bright.
It's not merely that some people are insufficiently intelligent to grasp the nuances of foreign policy, of constitutional law, of macroeconomics or of the variegated interplay of humans and the environment. These aren't the people I'm referring to. The people I'm referring to cannot understand the phenomenon of cause and effect. They're perplexed by issues comprising more than two sides. They don't have the wherewithal to expand the sources of their information. And above all--far above all--they don't think.
You know these people; they're all around you (they're not you, else you would not be reading this article this far). They're the ones who keep the puerile shows on TV, who appear as regular recipients of the Darwin Awards, who raise our insurance rates by doing dumb things, who generally make life much more miserable for all of us than it ought to be. Sad to say, they comprise a substantial minority--perhaps even a majority--of the populace.
This article has received a fair amount of attention from conservative bloggers, and the assumption seems to be that it's on the level. It may well be; certainly, as we've noted before, those on the political left flatter themselves that they represent the cognitive elite.
But the reference to the Darwin Awards makes us wonder. "The Darwin Awards honor those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it," according to the awards' Web site. In other words, they "honor" people who die as the result of their own stupidity.
Might Starkman have meant this as a sly reference to terror advocate Rachel Corrie, and thus a dig at the Post-Intelligencer, which lionized her last month? Corrie's story, of course, is classic Darwin Award material; she got herself killed because she thought standing in front of a moving bulldozer would be a good way to make a political statement. We don't know for sure what she thought of President Bush, but she did like to burn the American flag, so we're going to go out on a limb and guess she wasn't a fan of his.
Anyway, spoof or not, can't you just imagine the excitement Starkman's manuscript must have generated when it arrived in the Post-Intelligencer newsroom? We picture the editors sitting around, open-mouthed, exclaiming: "Duh, wow! This article is awesome! We really are intelligencer than everyone else!"
It's Your Fault We Called You Hitler!
The far-left group MoveOn.org has been holding a contest for anti-Bush television ads, and it's come under fire for a pair of ads posted to its Web site that compared the president to Hitler. Now MoveOn founder Wes Boyd has issued a statement. While he acknowledges that "we agree that the two ads in question were in poor taste and deeply regret that they slipped through our screening process," he says the real blame lies with the Republicans for drawing attention to them:
The Republican National Committee and its chairman have falsely accused MoveOn.org of sponsoring ads on its website which compare President Bush to Adolf Hitler. The claim is deliberately and maliciously misleading. . . . None of these was our ad, nor did their appearance constitute endorsement or sponsorship by MoveOn.org Voter Fund.
There's a theme here, isn't there? First we have these ads comparing Bush to Hitler, which show a childish ignorance of history. They seem to be based on the syllogism: Bush is bad, Hitler was bad, therefore Bush was Hitler. (The S factor indeed.) The ads get posted to the MoveOn Web site because of a now-acknowledged lack of adult supervision--and then, rather than simply accept responsibility for this rather grievous error, Boyd lashes out at Republicans, as if his incompetence and his members' stupidity and viciousness were their fault.
This is politics as it might be conducted by 12-year-old boys. No wonder MoveOn types have latched onto Howard Dean, known for such juvenile utterances as "I am somewhat of a street fighter. If someone punches me I am apt to chase them down and I need to be restrained by the people who know better and have been in the game longer than I have." Is the Democratic primary race a political campaign or is it "Lord of the Flies"?
Saturday, January 10, 2004
CES WAS CRAZY
Jewel is Impressive Live
Today I decided to stay in the hotel room to rest, blog, watch the NFL playoffs, and wait for my younger brother and friends to arrive this afternoon. I don't need to or want to go to CES and deal with the mass of people floating around the Las Vegas Convention Center. They say there are over 115,000 people but it seemed like a lot more. I've never seen so many people at a convention since Comdex in 1999, when there were over 200,000 attendees.
Last night my friend, Felicia, came up from LA for a meeting with Microsoft. She was invited to their private CES private party and concert where Jewel was playing. She invited me as a tag-a-long. Mark, the doctor here, was too tired and decided to stay home. Anyway, I was impressed by Jewel. Her voice is wonderful. She has a strong, rich voice that carries well. She's also witty and sarcastic with a decent sense of humor. Good concert.
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Jewel is Impressive Live
Today I decided to stay in the hotel room to rest, blog, watch the NFL playoffs, and wait for my younger brother and friends to arrive this afternoon. I don't need to or want to go to CES and deal with the mass of people floating around the Las Vegas Convention Center. They say there are over 115,000 people but it seemed like a lot more. I've never seen so many people at a convention since Comdex in 1999, when there were over 200,000 attendees.
Last night my friend, Felicia, came up from LA for a meeting with Microsoft. She was invited to their private CES private party and concert where Jewel was playing. She invited me as a tag-a-long. Mark, the doctor here, was too tired and decided to stay home. Anyway, I was impressed by Jewel. Her voice is wonderful. She has a strong, rich voice that carries well. She's also witty and sarcastic with a decent sense of humor. Good concert.
DEAN STAFFERS LIE DURING IOWA CAUCUS
Maybe Howard Dean's staff should combine with Moveon.org's people, and create a kick ass organization representing morons in America or form a new company destined for failure.
DRUDGE REPORT
DEAN CAMPAIGN STAFFER ADMITS LYING, MISREPRESENTING HIMSELF AS IOWA VOTER
Kerry Campaign Iowa Director John Norris Demands Firing of Two Staffers
January 8, 2004
Dear Jeanni,
I'm distressed to learn that staffers from the Dean campaign are misrepresenting themselves as Iowa caucus-goers to gain advantage against our campaign. You should know this is not how we campaign in Iowa, and I demand that you take action to remove these staffers from the Dean campaign immediately.
Today, your National Campaign Manager, Joe Trippi was on CNN stating that people from outside Iowa were coming to the state to help Dean, and they never would lie in order impact the outcome of the caucus. If your hired staff are already misrepresenting themselves today in
communities like Creston, how can any Iowa voter trust that your campaign will prevent volunteers from engaging in the same illegitimate activity on January 19th.
The Iowa Democratic Party has fought for decades to preserve the honesty and purity of the grassroots caucus system. Today's revelations jeopardize that hard work, and no Iowa Democrat should stand for it.
On Tuesday, a young man came into our Creston office and said he was a resident of Red Oak, Iowa. He claimed he was in town for business, working at a local farm. He asked numerous questions about what our staff did, the territory they covered, and what type of folks we were calling in Creston. Our staff was immediately suspicious.
The next day, a different young man came into the office and identified himself as Mark Evans. He said that he was the new manager at the local HYVEE, and that he and his wife just moved from Georgia. He started Asking questions about our operation and began snooping around the office. Our staffers were confident they had seen him wearing a Dean sticker around town, so they asked him why he had come
into the office. He said that he was an undecided Iowa caucus-goer, and was interested in politics.
Today, this second man, "Mark Evans," returned to the Creston office and admitted that he and his friend had lied, and that they were employed by your campaign. He identified himself as Mitch Lawson, who moved here from Georgia to work for Dean. According to Mitch, "We came into your office to find out information and get your calling scripts from you."
In order for Iowans to trust that the caucuses will be free of further Dirty tricks, these two men should be asked to leave your campaign immediately. The sanctity of the Iowa Caucus depends on it. If your folks are lying today, what's to stop them from stealing the caucus from Iowa voters for Howard Dean on January 19th.
Sincerely,
John Norris
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Maybe Howard Dean's staff should combine with Moveon.org's people, and create a kick ass organization representing morons in America or form a new company destined for failure.
DRUDGE REPORT
DEAN CAMPAIGN STAFFER ADMITS LYING, MISREPRESENTING HIMSELF AS IOWA VOTER
Kerry Campaign Iowa Director John Norris Demands Firing of Two Staffers
January 8, 2004
Dear Jeanni,
I'm distressed to learn that staffers from the Dean campaign are misrepresenting themselves as Iowa caucus-goers to gain advantage against our campaign. You should know this is not how we campaign in Iowa, and I demand that you take action to remove these staffers from the Dean campaign immediately.
Today, your National Campaign Manager, Joe Trippi was on CNN stating that people from outside Iowa were coming to the state to help Dean, and they never would lie in order impact the outcome of the caucus. If your hired staff are already misrepresenting themselves today in
communities like Creston, how can any Iowa voter trust that your campaign will prevent volunteers from engaging in the same illegitimate activity on January 19th.
The Iowa Democratic Party has fought for decades to preserve the honesty and purity of the grassroots caucus system. Today's revelations jeopardize that hard work, and no Iowa Democrat should stand for it.
On Tuesday, a young man came into our Creston office and said he was a resident of Red Oak, Iowa. He claimed he was in town for business, working at a local farm. He asked numerous questions about what our staff did, the territory they covered, and what type of folks we were calling in Creston. Our staff was immediately suspicious.
The next day, a different young man came into the office and identified himself as Mark Evans. He said that he was the new manager at the local HYVEE, and that he and his wife just moved from Georgia. He started Asking questions about our operation and began snooping around the office. Our staffers were confident they had seen him wearing a Dean sticker around town, so they asked him why he had come
into the office. He said that he was an undecided Iowa caucus-goer, and was interested in politics.
Today, this second man, "Mark Evans," returned to the Creston office and admitted that he and his friend had lied, and that they were employed by your campaign. He identified himself as Mitch Lawson, who moved here from Georgia to work for Dean. According to Mitch, "We came into your office to find out information and get your calling scripts from you."
In order for Iowans to trust that the caucuses will be free of further Dirty tricks, these two men should be asked to leave your campaign immediately. The sanctity of the Iowa Caucus depends on it. If your folks are lying today, what's to stop them from stealing the caucus from Iowa voters for Howard Dean on January 19th.
Sincerely,
John Norris
MOVEON.ORG... BUNCH OF IDIOTS
Seeking More Money So They Can Waste More Money
Frustrated with the lack of domestic support, left-leaning website MoveOn.org has apparently been reaching beyond American borders to generate cash revenue over the internet!
Line above is from a Drudge report a few weeks back that I've been meaning to post. Moveon.org obviously isn't led by the sharpest tools in the shed. I'm guessing their shed is filled with a bunch of hammers, shovels, and rubber mallets. It seems with the $5 million they got from George Soros they allocated some of it for the nifty idea of having a short film contest "Bush in 30 seconds." Great fun, a few laughs, but if I was a donor would I want to see my money spent in this manner? What are they thinking? Maybe one of the staff was seeking to expand their personal career in film production? Maybe one or all of them are intellectual juggernauts like Mongo from "Blazing Saddles" and couldn't think of any other use of $5 million+ they raised? In all seriousness, if I was in their shoes, I would develop projects to convince the undecided or non-partisan voters/citizens not create laughs for fellow left-wingers or hardcore Democrats. Anyway, I heard about this site from my girlfriend who is a former Fulbright scholar, whose alumni receive a huge majority of left-leaning emails. Happy New Years to you too, Andre!
"Hello fellow Fulbrighters,
the German Fulbrighters may have seen the yesterday article in the online version of the Spiegel magazine about the organization moveon.org but for the rest of you a link to a very promising web site showing that the opposition to President Bush in the United States is still alive.
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/
A happy New Year to all of you.
Andre"
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON DEC 15, 2003 17:00:05 ET XXXXX
CAMPAIGN CASH RACE TURNS INTERNATIONAL; MOVEON.ORG CENTER OF INTRIGUE; CLARK SEEKS CANADIAN SUPPORT, WEBSITE SHOWS
**Exclusive**
Frustrated with the lack of domestic support, left-leaning website MoveOn.org has apparently been reaching beyond American borders to generate cash revenue over the internet!
The provocative international fundraising strategy threatens to embroil the presidential candidacies of General Wesley Clark and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean.
Both men are named on international fundraising websites suggesting donations to MoveOn.org.
MORE
Meanwhile, MoveOn.org, which has been running ads critical of the Bush Administration, has named an "International Campaigns Director," the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
It is not clear how much money has been raised -- to date-- from foreign sources, but political websites from London to Portugal to Montreal are directing their citizens to stop the American president George Bush by donating to MoveOn.org!
Wesley Clark's official campaign website has been offering a link to "Canada For Clark", which in turn advises Canadians: "Non-Americans can't by law, give money to any particular candidate's campaign. But we can support pro-democracy, progressive American organizations like MoveOn.org, which do their best to spread the ugly truth about Bush and publicize the Democratic message. Click here to donate to MoveOn.org."
The top traffic referrer to CanadaForClark.com is Clark's Official Campaign Website.
MORE
Dean04Worldwide.com is a noncommercial and volunteer website offered by Corinne Sinclair, a non-US citizen, based in London. Domain registration information indicates the website name servers are owned by PromoHosting.com, a website hosting service based in Portugal. Dean04Worldwide.com encourages non-Americans across the global to help Dean win the 2004 election.
A notice on the website explains how to provide funds to MoveOn.org, since non-Americans cannot donate directly to the Dean campaign.
Late last week, a Swedish website removed an "EU-MoveOn.org Fundraising Appeal," claiming MoveOn.org "No Longer Accepts Contributions From Non US Citizens/Permanent Resident Aliens."
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who has been headlining moveone.org events, is said to have vocalized serious concerns about the website accepting cash from foreign sources, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
MORE
"To avoid even the appearance of impropriety, we are not going to take contributions from overseas," Wes Boyd, one of the founders of MoveOn.org, explained this weekend.
Boyd refused to disclose how much revenue had already been generated abroad.
Developing...
|
Seeking More Money So They Can Waste More Money
Frustrated with the lack of domestic support, left-leaning website MoveOn.org has apparently been reaching beyond American borders to generate cash revenue over the internet!
Line above is from a Drudge report a few weeks back that I've been meaning to post. Moveon.org obviously isn't led by the sharpest tools in the shed. I'm guessing their shed is filled with a bunch of hammers, shovels, and rubber mallets. It seems with the $5 million they got from George Soros they allocated some of it for the nifty idea of having a short film contest "Bush in 30 seconds." Great fun, a few laughs, but if I was a donor would I want to see my money spent in this manner? What are they thinking? Maybe one of the staff was seeking to expand their personal career in film production? Maybe one or all of them are intellectual juggernauts like Mongo from "Blazing Saddles" and couldn't think of any other use of $5 million+ they raised? In all seriousness, if I was in their shoes, I would develop projects to convince the undecided or non-partisan voters/citizens not create laughs for fellow left-wingers or hardcore Democrats. Anyway, I heard about this site from my girlfriend who is a former Fulbright scholar, whose alumni receive a huge majority of left-leaning emails. Happy New Years to you too, Andre!
"Hello fellow Fulbrighters,
the German Fulbrighters may have seen the yesterday article in the online version of the Spiegel magazine about the organization moveon.org but for the rest of you a link to a very promising web site showing that the opposition to President Bush in the United States is still alive.
http://www.bushin30seconds.org/
A happy New Year to all of you.
Andre"
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON DEC 15, 2003 17:00:05 ET XXXXX
CAMPAIGN CASH RACE TURNS INTERNATIONAL; MOVEON.ORG CENTER OF INTRIGUE; CLARK SEEKS CANADIAN SUPPORT, WEBSITE SHOWS
**Exclusive**
Frustrated with the lack of domestic support, left-leaning website MoveOn.org has apparently been reaching beyond American borders to generate cash revenue over the internet!
The provocative international fundraising strategy threatens to embroil the presidential candidacies of General Wesley Clark and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean.
Both men are named on international fundraising websites suggesting donations to MoveOn.org.
MORE
Meanwhile, MoveOn.org, which has been running ads critical of the Bush Administration, has named an "International Campaigns Director," the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
It is not clear how much money has been raised -- to date-- from foreign sources, but political websites from London to Portugal to Montreal are directing their citizens to stop the American president George Bush by donating to MoveOn.org!
Wesley Clark's official campaign website has been offering a link to "Canada For Clark", which in turn advises Canadians: "Non-Americans can't by law, give money to any particular candidate's campaign. But we can support pro-democracy, progressive American organizations like MoveOn.org, which do their best to spread the ugly truth about Bush and publicize the Democratic message. Click here to donate to MoveOn.org."
The top traffic referrer to CanadaForClark.com is Clark's Official Campaign Website.
MORE
Dean04Worldwide.com is a noncommercial and volunteer website offered by Corinne Sinclair, a non-US citizen, based in London. Domain registration information indicates the website name servers are owned by PromoHosting.com, a website hosting service based in Portugal. Dean04Worldwide.com encourages non-Americans across the global to help Dean win the 2004 election.
A notice on the website explains how to provide funds to MoveOn.org, since non-Americans cannot donate directly to the Dean campaign.
Late last week, a Swedish website removed an "EU-MoveOn.org Fundraising Appeal," claiming MoveOn.org "No Longer Accepts Contributions From Non US Citizens/Permanent Resident Aliens."
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who has been headlining moveone.org events, is said to have vocalized serious concerns about the website accepting cash from foreign sources, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
MORE
"To avoid even the appearance of impropriety, we are not going to take contributions from overseas," Wes Boyd, one of the founders of MoveOn.org, explained this weekend.
Boyd refused to disclose how much revenue had already been generated abroad.
Developing...
Thursday, January 08, 2004
I LOVE PEGGY NOONAN
CES Reflects a Changing in the Tech Industry
One of the conventions I'm attending is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2004. They say there will be over 100,000 attendees, which is slightly more than last year, and I believe them. With over a 150,000 hotel rooms in Las Vegas, I couldn't get a room for tonight after calling for the past two days over 30 hotels and checking five online travel sites. I initially had a hotel room reserved for the one day gap between work and my brother's bachelor party this weekend, but the online travel site that I reserved a room under two weeks ago (with a confirmation too!) emailed me two days after my purchase with a notice that they couldn't fulfill my request. So I checked some more sites a few more times before my arrival in Sin City and still couldn't get a room. I even called my travel service affiliated with my credit card, which even checked out motels in the area. I finally decided to just try again after I arrived since I thought I could at least get a room at a Super 8 or Days Inn. Nothing. Luckily, a friend of friend that I just met in Seoul a couple weeks ago lives in Las Vegas and offered me a place to stay for tonight. Thanks, Mark! (Mark is a doctor in Las Vegas and a pretty cool and chill guy)
Anyway, back to CES. It's interesting how this year's convention is larger but Comdex, the computer convention I went to a couple months ago, has experienced decline and is probably going to shut down soon (but more due to mismanagement not disinterest since 50,000+ is still a good number). After it's peak in 1999 with 200,000 attendees, this year Comdex stated there were about 70,000 attendees but it seemed like 50,000 or less. It's also interesting to note how Dell, Gateway, Apple and other former Comdex giants are focusing on CES and promoting there next line of products for the digital consumer. These computer companies are touting their new lines of digital music players, TVs, and other products that were traditionally reserved for the Sonys, Samsungs, and Phillips of the world.
On a different note, I pasted an editorial by Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan speech writer and contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal, below. I love her books and writing, and her editorial below reflects a part of how I feel about Dean. Read it if you want... of course my Dem friends will pass, so just my fellow Republicans and the politically neutral and open-minded should take a look.
Also for lunch today I went to the Oyster Bay Seafood Bar at the Aladdin Hotel. I ordered scallops wrapped with bacon and this was just awesome. Before I thought Tommy Nevin's in Evanston, IL (favorite Irish pub in Chicago) had great scallops wrapped with bacon, which they took off their menu a few years ago. But this restaurant's style was heavenly. At first I looked at a plate with four scallops and hoped for more. Then I took the first bite and it didn't matter about the quantity any more. Each scallop was hearty and fat with a thick slice of bacon wrapped around it with a buttery sauce poured over them. They were cooked just right because as you bit into each piece the scallop meat easily separated and the bacon was bitten into without having to jerk and pull it apart. Heavenly.
The Dean Disappointment
I want to like him. I really do.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Thursday, January 8, 2004
I want to like Howard Dean. I don't mean I want to support him; I mean I want to like him, or find him admirable even if I don't agree with him. I want the Democratic Party to have a strong nominee this year, for several reasons. One is that it is one of our two great parties, and it is dispiriting to think it is not able to summon up a deeply impressive contender. Another is that democracy is best served by excellent presidential nominees duking it out region to region in a hard-fought campaign that seriously raises the pressing issues of the day. A third is that the Republican Party is never at its best when faced with a lame challenger. When faced with a tough and scrappy competitor like Bill Clinton, they came up with the Contract with America. When faced with Michael Dukakis they came up with flag-burning amendments. They need to be in a serious fight before they fight seriously.
I do not know how Howard Dean will do in Iowa, but I am one of those who think the Democrats will nominate Mr. Dean, and so I would like to like him and be able to imagine that many others will. I also would like to like him because now and then he says something that shows promise. Yesterday when asked if he ever wonders what would Jesus do, he replied: "No." This was so candid, I loved it. In the same interview, when asked if his wife would join him on the campaign trail, he said, "I do not intend to drag her around because I think I need her as a prop on the campaign trail." Political spouses often are dragged around as props. It's not terrible to say so. It's refreshing.
But it is hard to like Howard Dean. He seems as big a trimmer as Bill Clinton, and as bold and talented in that area as Mr. Clinton. He says America is no safer for the capture of Saddam Hussein, and then he says he didn't say it. He floats a rumor that the Saudis tipped off President Bush before 9/11, and then he says he never believed it. When he is caught and has to elaborate, explain or disavow, he dissembles with Clintonian bravado. This is not a good sign.
He is not a happy warrior but an angry one. In the past I have thought of him as an angry little teapot, but that is perhaps too merry an image. His eyes are cold marbles, in repose his face falls into lines of mere calculation, and he holds himself with a kind of no-neck pugnacity that is fine in a wrestling coach or a tax lawyer but not in a president. We like our presidents sunny, easygoing and optimistic. They have access to the nuclear launch code, and we don't want them losing their tempers easily. Mr. Dean's supporters no doubt see him as optimistic, but optimists aren't angry.
There is a disjunction between Dean's ethnic background and his personal style. His background is eastern WASP--Park Avenue, the Hamptons, boarding school, Yale. But he doesn't seem like a WASP. I know it's not nice to deal in stereotypes, but there seems very little Thurston Howell III, or George Bush the elder for that matter, in Mr. Dean. He seems unpolished, doesn't hide his aggression, is proudly pugnacious. He doesn't look or act the part of the WASP. This may be partly because of his generation. Boomer WASPs didn't really learn How It's Done the way their forebears did. (Boomers of every ethnicity are less ethnic than their forebears.) George W. Bush is a little like this too--less polished, more awkward, than one might expect. At any rate there is some political meaning to this. It will be harder for Republicans to tag Mr. Dean as Son of the Maidstone Club than it was for Democrats to tag Bush One as Heir to Greenwich Country Day. He just doesn't act the part.
On the other hand, Mr. Dean's angry look and angry demeanor will not serve him well as he tries to carry the women's vote.
Howard Dean is as much like George McGovern as 2004 is like 1972, which is to say not much. But Mr. Dean is not Mr. McGovern in a more important way. Mr. McGovern was guided and inspired by his own sense of a particular ideology. He reflected it, and his young supporters, who that year took over the party, shared it. They stood for something. Mr. Dean's people--and Mr. Dean--don't seem to have anything as coherent as an ideology. Instead they have attitude.
Howard Dean's rise is about two things. The first is the war. Most of the other serious Democratic candidates were reasonable about it, if you will. Dean didn't bother to be reasonable, or to appear reasonable: Bush is a bum and his war is a fraud. This was pitch-perfect for a disaffected base made lastingly furious by the 2000 election. Having gained the advantage, Mr. Dean never let go. His imprint was set. He left his competitors stuttering, "But at the time the president's data did seem compelling, and so . . ." He forged on. His was the shrewdest, quickest read of the Democratic voter of 2004.
The second reason for his rise is that he is not an insider but an insurgent. He has an insurgent's attitudes and subtle disrespect (or sometimes unsubtle, as when he referred to members of Congress as cockroaches). The young and Internet-savvy found this approach attractive. (An essay should be written by a Democrat on what it was about the Democratic establishment--the men and women of the Clinton era, the party members in Congress--that elicited such contempt.) Mr. Dean's forces used the Internet with great and impressive creativity, and not only in fund-raising. Have you seen Flat Howard? It's a life-size Howard printout you can get off your computer. You tape the pieces together and have a life-size Howard Dean. They're ingenious and spirited in Dean-land.
Because Mr. Dean is operating as an insurgent, his supporters hold him to different standards. Is he inconsistent? No, he's nimble. Is he dishonest in his statements? No, he's just tying those establishment types in knots. Mr. Dean's supporters seem to like him not in spite of his drawbacks, but because of them.
Mr. Dean's problem in the future will not be so much credibly pivoting right on major issues as attempting to pivot into something like the normal range in terms of temperament, personality and the interpretation of things he's already said when he's popping off--and he pops off a lot. Some of the things he has said or suggested--Osama bin Laden shouldn't be presumed guilty, for instance--are the rhetorical equivalent of Michael Dukakis in the tank. He looked silly. He looked unserious. Mr. Dean is going to look that way, too.
I hope something surprising happens in Iowa, and New Hampshire, and in the South. I hope it becomes a real fight on the Democratic side, and I hope that fight yields up someone who is serious, substantive, and thoughtful. But that's not what I see coming. What I see coming is a Dean nomination followed by a rancorous campaign followed by a Dean defeat.
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag" (Wall Street Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.
|
CES Reflects a Changing in the Tech Industry
One of the conventions I'm attending is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2004. They say there will be over 100,000 attendees, which is slightly more than last year, and I believe them. With over a 150,000 hotel rooms in Las Vegas, I couldn't get a room for tonight after calling for the past two days over 30 hotels and checking five online travel sites. I initially had a hotel room reserved for the one day gap between work and my brother's bachelor party this weekend, but the online travel site that I reserved a room under two weeks ago (with a confirmation too!) emailed me two days after my purchase with a notice that they couldn't fulfill my request. So I checked some more sites a few more times before my arrival in Sin City and still couldn't get a room. I even called my travel service affiliated with my credit card, which even checked out motels in the area. I finally decided to just try again after I arrived since I thought I could at least get a room at a Super 8 or Days Inn. Nothing. Luckily, a friend of friend that I just met in Seoul a couple weeks ago lives in Las Vegas and offered me a place to stay for tonight. Thanks, Mark! (Mark is a doctor in Las Vegas and a pretty cool and chill guy)
Anyway, back to CES. It's interesting how this year's convention is larger but Comdex, the computer convention I went to a couple months ago, has experienced decline and is probably going to shut down soon (but more due to mismanagement not disinterest since 50,000+ is still a good number). After it's peak in 1999 with 200,000 attendees, this year Comdex stated there were about 70,000 attendees but it seemed like 50,000 or less. It's also interesting to note how Dell, Gateway, Apple and other former Comdex giants are focusing on CES and promoting there next line of products for the digital consumer. These computer companies are touting their new lines of digital music players, TVs, and other products that were traditionally reserved for the Sonys, Samsungs, and Phillips of the world.
On a different note, I pasted an editorial by Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan speech writer and contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal, below. I love her books and writing, and her editorial below reflects a part of how I feel about Dean. Read it if you want... of course my Dem friends will pass, so just my fellow Republicans and the politically neutral and open-minded should take a look.
Also for lunch today I went to the Oyster Bay Seafood Bar at the Aladdin Hotel. I ordered scallops wrapped with bacon and this was just awesome. Before I thought Tommy Nevin's in Evanston, IL (favorite Irish pub in Chicago) had great scallops wrapped with bacon, which they took off their menu a few years ago. But this restaurant's style was heavenly. At first I looked at a plate with four scallops and hoped for more. Then I took the first bite and it didn't matter about the quantity any more. Each scallop was hearty and fat with a thick slice of bacon wrapped around it with a buttery sauce poured over them. They were cooked just right because as you bit into each piece the scallop meat easily separated and the bacon was bitten into without having to jerk and pull it apart. Heavenly.
The Dean Disappointment
I want to like him. I really do.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Thursday, January 8, 2004
I want to like Howard Dean. I don't mean I want to support him; I mean I want to like him, or find him admirable even if I don't agree with him. I want the Democratic Party to have a strong nominee this year, for several reasons. One is that it is one of our two great parties, and it is dispiriting to think it is not able to summon up a deeply impressive contender. Another is that democracy is best served by excellent presidential nominees duking it out region to region in a hard-fought campaign that seriously raises the pressing issues of the day. A third is that the Republican Party is never at its best when faced with a lame challenger. When faced with a tough and scrappy competitor like Bill Clinton, they came up with the Contract with America. When faced with Michael Dukakis they came up with flag-burning amendments. They need to be in a serious fight before they fight seriously.
I do not know how Howard Dean will do in Iowa, but I am one of those who think the Democrats will nominate Mr. Dean, and so I would like to like him and be able to imagine that many others will. I also would like to like him because now and then he says something that shows promise. Yesterday when asked if he ever wonders what would Jesus do, he replied: "No." This was so candid, I loved it. In the same interview, when asked if his wife would join him on the campaign trail, he said, "I do not intend to drag her around because I think I need her as a prop on the campaign trail." Political spouses often are dragged around as props. It's not terrible to say so. It's refreshing.
But it is hard to like Howard Dean. He seems as big a trimmer as Bill Clinton, and as bold and talented in that area as Mr. Clinton. He says America is no safer for the capture of Saddam Hussein, and then he says he didn't say it. He floats a rumor that the Saudis tipped off President Bush before 9/11, and then he says he never believed it. When he is caught and has to elaborate, explain or disavow, he dissembles with Clintonian bravado. This is not a good sign.
He is not a happy warrior but an angry one. In the past I have thought of him as an angry little teapot, but that is perhaps too merry an image. His eyes are cold marbles, in repose his face falls into lines of mere calculation, and he holds himself with a kind of no-neck pugnacity that is fine in a wrestling coach or a tax lawyer but not in a president. We like our presidents sunny, easygoing and optimistic. They have access to the nuclear launch code, and we don't want them losing their tempers easily. Mr. Dean's supporters no doubt see him as optimistic, but optimists aren't angry.
There is a disjunction between Dean's ethnic background and his personal style. His background is eastern WASP--Park Avenue, the Hamptons, boarding school, Yale. But he doesn't seem like a WASP. I know it's not nice to deal in stereotypes, but there seems very little Thurston Howell III, or George Bush the elder for that matter, in Mr. Dean. He seems unpolished, doesn't hide his aggression, is proudly pugnacious. He doesn't look or act the part of the WASP. This may be partly because of his generation. Boomer WASPs didn't really learn How It's Done the way their forebears did. (Boomers of every ethnicity are less ethnic than their forebears.) George W. Bush is a little like this too--less polished, more awkward, than one might expect. At any rate there is some political meaning to this. It will be harder for Republicans to tag Mr. Dean as Son of the Maidstone Club than it was for Democrats to tag Bush One as Heir to Greenwich Country Day. He just doesn't act the part.
On the other hand, Mr. Dean's angry look and angry demeanor will not serve him well as he tries to carry the women's vote.
Howard Dean is as much like George McGovern as 2004 is like 1972, which is to say not much. But Mr. Dean is not Mr. McGovern in a more important way. Mr. McGovern was guided and inspired by his own sense of a particular ideology. He reflected it, and his young supporters, who that year took over the party, shared it. They stood for something. Mr. Dean's people--and Mr. Dean--don't seem to have anything as coherent as an ideology. Instead they have attitude.
Howard Dean's rise is about two things. The first is the war. Most of the other serious Democratic candidates were reasonable about it, if you will. Dean didn't bother to be reasonable, or to appear reasonable: Bush is a bum and his war is a fraud. This was pitch-perfect for a disaffected base made lastingly furious by the 2000 election. Having gained the advantage, Mr. Dean never let go. His imprint was set. He left his competitors stuttering, "But at the time the president's data did seem compelling, and so . . ." He forged on. His was the shrewdest, quickest read of the Democratic voter of 2004.
The second reason for his rise is that he is not an insider but an insurgent. He has an insurgent's attitudes and subtle disrespect (or sometimes unsubtle, as when he referred to members of Congress as cockroaches). The young and Internet-savvy found this approach attractive. (An essay should be written by a Democrat on what it was about the Democratic establishment--the men and women of the Clinton era, the party members in Congress--that elicited such contempt.) Mr. Dean's forces used the Internet with great and impressive creativity, and not only in fund-raising. Have you seen Flat Howard? It's a life-size Howard printout you can get off your computer. You tape the pieces together and have a life-size Howard Dean. They're ingenious and spirited in Dean-land.
Because Mr. Dean is operating as an insurgent, his supporters hold him to different standards. Is he inconsistent? No, he's nimble. Is he dishonest in his statements? No, he's just tying those establishment types in knots. Mr. Dean's supporters seem to like him not in spite of his drawbacks, but because of them.
Mr. Dean's problem in the future will not be so much credibly pivoting right on major issues as attempting to pivot into something like the normal range in terms of temperament, personality and the interpretation of things he's already said when he's popping off--and he pops off a lot. Some of the things he has said or suggested--Osama bin Laden shouldn't be presumed guilty, for instance--are the rhetorical equivalent of Michael Dukakis in the tank. He looked silly. He looked unserious. Mr. Dean is going to look that way, too.
I hope something surprising happens in Iowa, and New Hampshire, and in the South. I hope it becomes a real fight on the Democratic side, and I hope that fight yields up someone who is serious, substantive, and thoughtful. But that's not what I see coming. What I see coming is a Dean nomination followed by a rancorous campaign followed by a Dean defeat.
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag" (Wall Street Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
BEST BUY?... FRY'S ELECTRONICS WILL SOON DOMINATE
Wanting to Leave Las Vegas
In Las Vegas for a couple conventions again this week. My colleague and I were so jet-lagged we both couldn't sleep Sunday evening and got up at 2:00am to watch a movie. I tried to sleep and I think he took a nap for an hour or so, but we basically just showered and changed at 6:00am and ate breakfast at 7:00am (kick ass buffet). We got so tired at our exhibit at 2:00pm, we began to count the minutes until 5pm when the show floor closed. He went back to the hotel room and slept from 6:00pm until 8:30am today. He said that he's always been blessed with the gift of sleep. I had to meet a friend for dinner, so I went to bed around 12:00am, got up at 5:00am, watched SportsCenter, went to sleep again, and got up at 8:30am. I'm all good today, but with my bro's bachelor weekend coming up I'm looking at 10 straight days in Sin City. I'm going to be so sick of neon lights and silicon products (e.g. chips and bags) by the end of those 10 days. I haven't blogged for a week again since I've been so busy, so I wanted to at least write a quick entry today.
Anyway, below is an article from Forbes on their company of the year, Best Buy. But for those on the west coast and into electronics, I think you'll agree with me that Fry's Electronics simply kicks Best Buy's butt. Fry's is slowly expanded eastward, so if the current situation continues I believe Fry's will overtake Best Buy within 3-5 years. Of course I'm sure Best Buy is aware of Fry's growth and will take the necessary actions to fend off the competition, but who really knows what will happen over the next several years.
Company Of The Year
Fun & Games
FORBES
Mark Tatge, 01.12.04
Who knew the digital revolution could be such a rush? Best Buy did--and it's selling more pricey gadgets and hookup services than anybody.
|
Wanting to Leave Las Vegas
In Las Vegas for a couple conventions again this week. My colleague and I were so jet-lagged we both couldn't sleep Sunday evening and got up at 2:00am to watch a movie. I tried to sleep and I think he took a nap for an hour or so, but we basically just showered and changed at 6:00am and ate breakfast at 7:00am (kick ass buffet). We got so tired at our exhibit at 2:00pm, we began to count the minutes until 5pm when the show floor closed. He went back to the hotel room and slept from 6:00pm until 8:30am today. He said that he's always been blessed with the gift of sleep. I had to meet a friend for dinner, so I went to bed around 12:00am, got up at 5:00am, watched SportsCenter, went to sleep again, and got up at 8:30am. I'm all good today, but with my bro's bachelor weekend coming up I'm looking at 10 straight days in Sin City. I'm going to be so sick of neon lights and silicon products (e.g. chips and bags) by the end of those 10 days. I haven't blogged for a week again since I've been so busy, so I wanted to at least write a quick entry today.
Anyway, below is an article from Forbes on their company of the year, Best Buy. But for those on the west coast and into electronics, I think you'll agree with me that Fry's Electronics simply kicks Best Buy's butt. Fry's is slowly expanded eastward, so if the current situation continues I believe Fry's will overtake Best Buy within 3-5 years. Of course I'm sure Best Buy is aware of Fry's growth and will take the necessary actions to fend off the competition, but who really knows what will happen over the next several years.
Company Of The Year
Fun & Games
FORBES
Mark Tatge, 01.12.04
Who knew the digital revolution could be such a rush? Best Buy did--and it's selling more pricey gadgets and hookup services than anybody.
Business & Technology, Politics, and Random Posts from the Left, Right, and Elsewhere
Place of Birth: Seoul, Korea
Hometown: Northbrook, IL USA
Lived in: Seoul, Chicago (Villa Park & Northbrook), Madison, WI, Springfield, IL, St. Louis, New York City, Chicago (Glenview), Seoul, San Francisco
Also blogs at: AlwaysOn, Coro Blog, SportsBlog
More on Bernard or Blogger profile or GoingOn profile or Linkedin profile
Max Yow
Homeland: Canada
Sports: combative sports, sports you play with a ball, sports with no swimming, sports you can play while drinking and smoking (pool, darts, bowling, video games).
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If you have questions, topic ideas, or whatever, just email bernard at bernard.moon@gmail.com. Thank you!
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forget the long tail!
(03/21/2006)
2084
(11/02/2005)
building the perfect team
(08/17/2005)
open it up, new york times, chicago tribune, san francisco chronicle!
(06/07/2005)
staring down the digital divide
(06/08/2005)
2005 world series of poker... tech style
(03/30/2005)
rss: real simple syndication or really saturated space?
(02/10/2005)
blogosphere: lost in translation?
(02/10/2005)
diamonds in the rough at redmond
(02/10/2005)
it's a wiki wiki world
(02/03/2005)
where technology is ubiquitous, opportunity abounds
(1/12/2005)
start of "reality media" column
(12/23/2004)
Tech
bill joy's apocalyptic vision, determinism, and commonality with stephen hawking
(07/22/2005)
google economy => blogosphere
(01/25/2005)
power of the long tail
(12/14/2004)
protectionist china... will chinese or u.s. companies lose out?
(3/15/2004)
skype... p2p telephony & a very cool company
(2/13/2004)
poor george glider is right
(2/9/2004)
it's not the deficit stupid!... tech is the primary driver for growth
(12/02/2003)
immature venture capital industry in asia (9/29/2003)
boom time memories... masayoshi son was the man
(7/1/2003)
Politics
south korea's recent idiotic policies against foreign direct investment
(09/09/2005)
my first op-ed
(11/30/2004)
100,000 protest against Bush for... what?
(11/23/2003)
Society
generalizations of east asians
(5/16/2004)
sports is the great equalizer and unifer
(4/20/2004)
defining wisdom... age is the lesser factor
(10/18/2003)
living together before marriage
(8/25/2003)
friendships, relationships, people in life... (7/7/2003)
sugar mommas
(6/13/2003)
need for laws and enforcement
(4/10/2003)
old shaq issue
(4/2/2003)
Religion
creationism & christmas
(12/23/2004)
the passion of the christ... misunderstood
(2/20/2004)
christian's view of homosexuality
(1/13/2004)
is man determined or free?
(8/18/2003)
destructive christianity
(5/3/2003)
Others
"Blah Blah Bernard Blah Blah" Changing to "Junto Boyz"... A New Direction
(4/20/2004)
art of asking questions
(9/18/2003)
ode to bacon
(8/13/2003)
big guys... eating stories iv
(7/27/2003)
big guys... eating stories i
(4/2/2003)
cnn
cnet
businessweek
economist
forbes
fortune
fast company
pe week wire
the deal
ecommerce times
ne asia online
pacific epoch
eweek
release 1.0
technology review
techweb
zdnet news
the american spectator
drudge report
foreign policy
frontpage
harvard political review
mother jones
national review
the new republic
the weekly standard
il conservative politics
the atlantic
the hill
roll call
george f. will
asianweek
financeasia
korea herald
the onion
cox & forkum cartoons
garage technology ventures
growthink research
entrepreneur.com
entrepreneur america
venture economics
venture reporter
vfinance.com
yahoo! small business
nationmaster
thomas, legislative info
american enterprise institute
brookings institute
carnegie endowment
cato institute
center for american progress
center for strategic & int'l studies
heritage foundation
hudson institute
national center for policy analysis
progress & freedom foundation
progressive policy institute
rand corporation
reason public policy institute
urban institute
columbia institute for tele-info
international justice mission
charles barkley's outrageous career
liquid generation
wikipedia
"You cannot go on explaining away things over forever or you will find that you have explained even explanation itself away. You cannot go on seeing through things forever because the whole point of seeing through something is to see something else through it." - C.S Lewis
December 11, 2005
"This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." - Western Union internal memo, 1876
December 4, 2005
"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individual. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful." - Marie Curie
November 27, 2005
"One cannot step into the same river twice." - Heratidus
November 20, 2005
"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment." - Robert Maynard Hutchins
November 13, 2005
"We are moving away from the old idea of leadership -- leadership has less to do (now) with heroism. We don’t look for... unblemished omnipotent heroes, but leaders who are complex, dependent, changeable... We do not need one dominant authority structure telling all our inner voices to shut up..." - Walter Truett Anderson
November 6, 2005
"To know oneself is to know one’s [country]. It is also... paradoxically a form of exile from that world... to know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility, and that virtue is not conspicuous in any national character." - Flannery O’Connor
October 30, 2005
"Men content themselves with the same words as other people use, as if the very sound necessarily carried the same meaning." - John Locke
October 23, 2005
"In order to thrive in a world of change and chaos, we will need to accept 'chaos' as an essential process by which natural systems, including organizations, renew and revitalize themselves." - Margaret Wheatley
October 16, 2004
"Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary." - Robert Louis Stevenson
October 9, 2004
"We will be better and braver if we engage and inquire than if we indulge in the idle fancy that we already know - or that it is of no use seeking to know what we do not know." - Plato
October 2, 2004
"Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions." - Oliver W. Holmes
September 25, 2004
"What you learn intellectually lies in the shallow pools among the wrinkles of your brain. What you learn through the skin of experience sinks deep into your roots." - Hank Taft
September 18, 2004
"In commanding us to glorify him, God is inviting us to enjoy him." - C.S. Lewis
September 11, 2004
"A society is judged by how it treats its least desirable people." - Anonymous
September 4, 2004
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to the future generations." - George Bernard Shaw
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