Junto Boyz: June 2004

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

MEDIA BIASED? OF COURSE! BUT FILM CRITICS TOO?
Rants and Raves From the Left on Moore's Film

Pretty funny. And true. If Fahrenheit 9/11 is a documentary, then The Passion of The Christ is too. Via WSJ's James Taranto, posted at Beautiful Atrocities:

Blogger Jeff Percifield collects blurbs from the same reviewers on Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" and Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," and the results are often hilarious, as the critics laud Moore for the same reasons they damned Gibson.

A.O. Scott, New York Times:

"Fahrenheit": "Mr. Moore's populist instincts have never been sharper. . . . He is a credit to the republic."

"Passion": "Gibson has exploited the popular appetite for terror and gore for what he and his allies see as a higher end."

Ty Burr, Boston Globe:

"Fahrenheit": "Should be seen because it takes off the gloves and wades into the fray, because it synthesizes the anti-Bush argument like no other work before it, and because it forces you to decide for yourself exactly where passion starts to warp point of view."

"Passion": "If you come seeking theological subtlety, let alone such modern inventions as psychological depth, you'll walk away battered and empty-handed."

David Edelstein, Slate:

"Fahrenheit": After the screening, a friend railed that Moore was exploiting a mother's grief. I suggested that the scene made moral sense in the context of the director's universe, that the exploitation is justified if it saves the lives of other mothers' sons.

"Passion": "A two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie--The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre--that thinks it's an act of faith."

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle:

"Fahrenheit": "[Moore] is an indispensable treasure, and his imperfections are part of the reason, because they mark him as real."

"Passion": "It's awful because everything he knows about storytelling has been swept aside by proselytizing zeal."

Geoff Pevre, Toronto Star:

"Fahrenheit": "A plea for America's deliverance. . . . It may not be an argument one agrees with, and it may be unbalanced and propagandistic, but it is both convincingly argued and sincerely motivated."

"Passion": "A work of fundamentalist pornography."

David Sterrit, Christian Science Monitor:

"Fahrenheit": "Is the label 'documentary' appropriate for this openly activist movie? Of course it is, unless you cling to some idealized notion of 'objective' film."

"Passion": "The highly selective screenplay includes only a few of Jesus' words, spoken in occasional flashback scenes."

James Verniere, Boston Herald:

"Fahrenheit": "At a time when the film industry is turning out sugarcoated, content-free junk, Moore has given American viewers a renewed taste for raw meat."

"Passion": "An exercise in sadomasochistic bullying."

GREAT UPDATE. Ed Koch blasts Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11. From AlwaysOn:

Fahrenheit 9/11 propaganda film cheapens debate, polarizes nation
Ed Koch, mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, tees-off on Michael Moore's "documentary."

...A year after 9/11, I was part of a panel discussion on BBC-TV's "Question Time" show which aired live in the United Kingdom. A portion of my commentary at that time follows:

"One of the panelists was Michael Moore, writer and director of the award-winning documentary "Roger & Me." During the warm-up before the studio audience, Moore said something along the lines of "I don't know why we are making so much of an act of terror. It is three times more likely that you will be struck by lightening than die from an act of terror." I was aghast and responded, "I think what you have said is outrageous, particularly when we are today commemorating the deaths of 3,000 people resulting from an act of terror." I mention this exchange because it was not televised, occurring as it did before the show went live. It shows where he was coming from long before he produced Fahrenheit 9/11."

"MY LIFE" BY BILL CLINTON... POWERPOINT VERSION

From Daniel Radosh at Slate.

MORE ON MOORE... MATT LABASH ON FAHRENHEIT 9/11

Matt from The Weekly Standard. Also, via Instapundit, a new book ("Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man" by David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke) on Moore that's now #8 in sales on Amazon. Check out the sponsored links this Amazon page:

Fat huge man
Date Hundreds of Thousands of Fat Singles, Admirers. Register Free!
www.LargeFriends.com

Juvenile, prankster... pretty funny. Anyways, like I wrote before I would love to see Moore debate anyone on the right with half of a functioning brain. His lies and distorted facts wouldn't hold up outside of the comfort his production sets and staged infomercials. I guarantee he would be reduced to a snivelling, shouting, bitter man that he is.

COOL APPLE NOT SO COOL... STEALING IDEAS?

Konfabulator vs. Dashboard:

"It doesn't make any sense to me," Arlo Rose, the developer of Konfabulator, told MacCentral. "Why would a company piss off a developer whose whole purpose is to try to get more people to come to this company's platform by doing cool things? If this is what they do with the products they think are the best, then why would anyone have any reason to develop more cool stuff? I certainly don't."

Jupiter Research senior analyst, Joe Wilcox, points out that the integration of technologies into an operating system is nothing new for Apple or Microsoft. Wilcox cites media players, instant messengers and photo management features, which are all part of Windows and Mac OS X -- their predecessors were either shareware or commercial products, Wilcox said.

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

MARTINA NAVRATILOVA IS A STUD... SEXIST REMARKS BY STICH

I was amazed at Martina's run at Wimbeldon. She lost in the second round in a match she could have also won. All at the age of 47. Amazing. She is a stud (gender neutral term).

Afterwards, Michael Stich, the 1991 Wimbledon men's champion says, "It shows there is no depth in the game at all."

Martina gracefully handled his sexist remarks with a great series of backhand whacks. It was better hearing her speak at a press conference on TV. Some of her choice replies to the "one-slam wonder":

"Goran Ivanisevic comes, wins two matches, hasn't played for a few years," she told reporters at Wimbledon. "Nobody's knocking the depth of men's tennis. Look at how I hit the ball, not the fact I'm 47.

"Michael Jordan comes back and kicks butt in the NBA. They're not questioning the level of NBA. They're saying how amazing Michael Jordan is. Want to talk about depth in women's tennis? Who did Venus Williams lose (to) today? Most of you reporters don't even know what Karolina Sprem looks like."

I completely agree with her. Martina's win is not a poor reflection on the state of women's tennis today. It is a confirmation of her greatness.

Friday, June 25, 2004

SENATOR ZELL MILLER SPEAKING AT CONVENTION

Well, that is the GOP convention. What a great Democrat!

SOUTH KOREA'S CENSORSHIP... MODERN DEMOCRACY?

I found out from The Marmot's Hole that the South Korean government is currently blocking access to Typepad and Blogspot blogs. This is primarily to prevent viewing of the beheading video of Kim Sun-Il. Messed up.

Another complaint from my four years in Seoul is that I could never access the Republican National Committee's site within Korea. Yo! Roh! DJ! I thought you guys were suppose to be more "democratic" and for the individual rights of the people.

IS THE LEFT BEING DUPED BY ITS OWN POLICY MAKERS?
Facts on Secretary Albright and the Clinton Administration's Positions

Obviously, a fair amount of high-level political people in the Democratic Party know or agree what President Bush did was the right thing to do, and a reason why many major Democrats have put in their support for Bush in 2004. The left's leadership has wisely politicized the war in Iraqi and led many people to believe they would have acted differently. Would they have? It seems after reading Albright below and other briefings and testimonies that they were on course to do the same. Whether Clinton would have actually executed on it is another story since he is swayed so much by the polls. If they executed on the same course, some can argue they would have done it more diplomatically, which I agree with if it was Clinton. And I will admit Cheney and Rumsfeld are coarse and can present themselves as assholes, so Bush's road to war in the global theatre was not laid out smoothly. But the principles of war and invasion were the same by some of the policy makers from the left, which I believe many Democrats and anti-war people on the ground-level do not realize or want to know... I mean finding out you've been manipulated by a political elite, no matter how dumb you are, is not a good feeling. It has been a great campaign by the Democrats and Iraqi will continue to be in the forefront of this election year. May truth prevail.

"[S]addam’s decision to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and U.N. special commission is a violation of the agreement he reached with Secretary General Kofi Annan less than six months ago and is a direct challenge to the authority of the Security Council. This is a confrontation between Iraq and the United Nations. It is up to Mr. Annan and the Security Council to make sure that Saddam reverses course and cooperates with UNSCOM. And if they fail to persuade him to back down, we will have laid the foundation for taking our own decisive action." - Secretary Of State Madeleine Albright, "The U.S. Will Stand Firm On Iraq, No Matter What," The New York Times, 8/17/98

"Our purpose now is to get the Security Council to face up to its responsibilities to the U.N. special commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. These organizations have been clearly mandated by the Security Council to carry out the necessary measures to disarm Iraq. If the Council fails to persuade Saddam to resume cooperation, then we will have a free hand to use other means to support UNSCOM’s mandate." - Secretary Of State Madeleine Albright, "The U.S. Will Stand Firm On Iraq, No Matter What," The New York Times, 9/17/98

“[T]he short-term goal at the moment through this military campaign is to degrade [Saddam Hussein’s] ability to develop and deploy his weapons of mass destruction, to degrade his command and control of some of his security areas in order to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors. … A medium-term goal is, in fact, to have him comply with the Security Council resolutions. And I believe that he can’t have two contradictory things, which is to have sanctions lifted and retain his weapons of mass destruction. … The only way here is for UNSCOM, a strong, professional, functioning UNSCOM with unfettered access to be able to continue to do its work; and, again … just keep in mind that it has not been able to do that. So if we can get a functioning UNSCOM back in, that is a plus. We will continue our policy of containment of Saddam through the economic embargo and, generally, in terms of keeping him in his box. Longer term, we have come to the determination that the Iraqi people would benefit if they had a government that really represented them. So we know that this is something that cannot be done overnight, and we are working with the various opposition groups on a longer range way of trying to help them help themselves to have a regime that represents them." - Secretary Of State Madeleine Albright, Press Conference, 12/17/98

"Fox News Sunday"
February 22, 1998:
FOX NEWS’ TONY SNOW: "A lot of people say, well, why should we go to war unless there’s an attack on us? Is Saddam going to attack us?"

BERGER: "Well, he’s going – the danger here is that he is able to have sanctuaries, safe havens, to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction, which he can use to threaten or intimidate his neighbors in a region of the world. And that’s something we simply cannot permit to happen. This is not in our own national interest. It’s not so much a question of him in the short term delivering these weapons to the United States, but that region of the world - for security, strategic, economic and other reasons – is extraordinarily important to the United States."

GOTTA LOVE BILL SIMMONS... ON THE NBA DRAFT

ESPN's Bill Simmons is hilarious. Read it only if you're an NBA fan, interested in yesterday's draft, and patient enough to read through a play-by-play commentary. Some of his best lines:

Bilas also graded potential picks in a number of categories, including "Intangibles," from 1 to 5. As Jacko said, "How do you rank intangibles from 1 to 5? Intangibles are the great unknown. And yet he ranks them. Is he clairvoyant?"

My dad's take on Stephen A.: "I feel like I'm being yelled at."

"ROMANCE 101"... SHOUTOUT TO ALBERT AND JENNIFER

My friend, Albert, and his wife were in Modern Bride (No, not Albe & Jennifer... another couple with the same names I know). The link was sent from another mutual childhood friend. Anyway, Albert is a solid guy. We grew up in the same church from our junior high school days, and then we were at Columbia together while he was getting his Ph.D. and I was studying public policy. He transferred to the University of Chicago and is finishing up his degree in Korean History. He was in Korea last year with me and we met every couple months to eat and debate on the merits of Bush's foreign policy. Of course, I favored Bush and he despised him, but it was always enjoyable and enlightening.

SOUTH KOREAN INVESTIGATION ON HANDLING OF HOSTAGE CASE

Horrible if the Foreign Ministry dropped the ball on this one. Let's see what happens. I also assume Kim Sun-Il probably would have been beheaded anyways. A clip from a Yonhap wire below for additional info:

The AP report triggered controversy over a possible South Korean government attempt to cover up the kidnapping. Its Foreign Ministry has claimed that it was not aware of his capture until Arab TV station Al-Jazeera aired a videotape of his detention on June 20.

On Thursday, the Foreign Ministry strongly denied the allegations of a cover-up.

"Absolutely no reason to cover up," Shin Bong-kil, a ministry spokesman, told the Yonhap News Agency. "Is there any reason to cover up?" Shin said that his ministry has requested AP's Seoul bureau to inform it of details of the press queries it claims it had made regarding the tape. He called it an "urgent" issue for South Korea.

THIS PRESS RELEASE CRACKS ME UP... GO TORT REFORM!

Pleasse. Talk about frivolous legal actions. Gosh, I really hope Bush, if re-elected, pushes for tort reform on a federal level.

NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD CALLS FOR PROSECUTION OF PRESIDENT BUSH FOR ROLE IN TORTURE
2003 State of the Union Address Contained Implicit Admission

New York, June 18, 2004--The National Lawyers Guild calls for the prosecution of President George W. Bush with a "command responsibility" theory of liability under the War Crimes Act. Bush can be prosecuted under the War Crimes Act or the Torture Statute, if he knew or should have known about the U.S. military's use of torture and failed to stop or prevent it. A comment in the President's January 2003 State of the Union Address contained an implicit admission by Bush that he had sanctioned the summary execution of many when he said: "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries, and many others have met a different fate." "Let's put it this way," he continued, "they are no longer a problem for the United States and our
friends and allies."

The Defense Department and the Justice Department each commissioned documents attempting to justify the use of torture under the President's war-making power, notwithstanding the Constitution's clear mandate that only Congress can make the laws. The Defense Department memo said that as commander-in-chief, the President has a
"constitutionally superior position" to Congress. This blatant disregard for the tripartite Separation of Powers doctrine is also contrary to the landmark ruling in the Korean War case, Youngstown Sheet & Tire Co. v. Sawyers, in which the Supreme Court held, "In the framework of our Constitution, the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker."

The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was ratified by the United States and is thus part of the supreme law of the land. Congress implemented U.S. obligations under this treaty by enacting the Torture Statute, which provides 20 years, life in prison, or even the death penalty if death results from torture committed by a U.S. citizen abroad. The USA PATRIOT Act added the crime of conspiracy to commit torture to the Torture Statute. The Convention Against Torture prohibits the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering on a person to (a) obtain a confession, (b) punish him or (c) intimidate or coerce him based on discrimination of any kind. To violate this treaty, the pain or suffering must be inflicted "by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."

The Istanbul Protocol of 9 August 1999 is the Manual on the Effective Investigation and Documentation of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It sets forth international guidelines for the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. Included in the Protocol's list of torture methods are rape, blunt trauma, forced positioning, asphyxiation, crush injuries, humiliations, death threats, forced engagement in practices violative of religion, and threat of attacks by dogs. The photographs and reports from prisoners in Abu Ghraib include all of these techniques. Moreover, the Defense Department analysis maintained that a torturer could get off it he acted in "good faith," not thinking his actions would result in severe mental harm. If the torturer based his conduct on the advice of these memos, he could according to this argument, have acted in good
faith.

Referring to the 9/11 Commission's preliminary reports issued this week, National Lawyers Guild President Michael Avery said: "The Justice Department memorandum reads like a pre-trial brief on behalf of the Nazi defendants in the Nuremberg trial. It's rife with justification after justification for the use of torture."

Bush implicitly admitted sanctioning willful killing, torture and/or inhuman treatment in his 2003 State of the Union Address. The Constitution mandates the impeachment of a President for high crimes and misdemeanors. There is no higher crime than a war crime. Willful killing, torture and inhuman treatment constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, which are considered war crimes under The War Crimes Act of 1996.

The National Lawyers Guild, founded in 1937, comprises over 6,000 members and activists in the service of the people. Its national office is headquartered in New York and it has chapters in nearly every state, as well as over 100 law school chapters. Guild members provide legal support to progressive demonstrations throughout the country, and well understand the nationwide trend toward increasingly repressive measures deployed against political protesters.

REPORT ON CHINA BY BCG & KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON

Check it out. You can download the complete report in PDF format by following the link below:

China and the New Rules for Global Business

-First in a series of four special reports on China-
Opportunity or Threat? Global Firms Must Learn to Leverage China
With a population of more than 1 billion and an immense supply of low-wage workers, China is coveted both as a consumer market and a superb location to manufacture and source products. But is the conventional wisdom correct? Experts at Wharton and BCG say it is essential that companies view China as a core component of their globalization strategy and not just a low-cost country for sourcing.

Sourcing: How China Compares With the Rest of the World
From machine tools to computer parts to home furnishings, companies in the U.S. and Western Europe see China as the producer of choice for components or finished goods. Among low-cost countries, China's industrial output is the largest—and it's growing the fastest. What makes China so attractive, and how should companies choose the right sourcing locations for different parts of their value chain? Experts from Wharton and BCG offer some advice for corporate decision makers.

Big Global Banks Want to Make Big Bucks in China ? Wish Them Luck
When China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, it agreed, among other things, to begin liberalizing its rules for foreign financial companies. By 2006, it will have to give them full access. Rolling out financial products and services and helping China's banks with their transition to a market economy, however, is easier said than done, according to BCG consultants and Wharton professors.

Watch Out: Will China's Rising Upstarts Upstage Global Multinationals?
When Motorola arrived in China in 1987 with pagers and cell phones for trendsetting city-dwellers, it easily dominated the Middle Kingdom's market. Soon Finland's Nokia came along to claim the No. 2 spot. Recently, though, Chinese companies like Ningbo Bird have begun to fight back for market share, a prospect that frightens the foreign incumbents. Can the upstarts upstage the MNCs? Experts at Wharton and BCG weigh in on the battle.

NANOTECHNOLOGY IS THE NEXT TRILLOIN-DOLLAR INDUSTRY

Steve Jurvetson on Nanotechnology.

JACK RYAN DROPPING OUT OF ILLINOIS SENATE RACE

After his divorce records were unsealed, it was revealed that his ex-wife, Jeri Ryan (TV star of "Boston Public" and "Star Trek: Voyager"), stated Ryan took her to various sex clubs which was a factor in their divorce. Amid this scandal, Ryan has been pressured to quit his bid for the Illinois U.S. Senate seat.

It's a sad day for the Republican Party in Illinois. Figures it was another Ryan. First, corrupt George Ryan, former Governor of Illinois, destroys the crediblity of the whole party, and now Jack knocks it back again after months of trying to rebuild the party's image.

PLAXO, MORITZ, & 2 MILLION... GOOD STORY
"Could Plaxo follow the Yahoo, Google fairytale script"... NOT!

Good story though from Bambi at CBSMarketWatch.com on AlwaysOn.

KERRY PITCHES TO SILICON VALLEY

From News.com... "Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry called for tax cuts on long-term investments in start-ups and other small businesses, as part of a speech focusing on his proposed technology policy."

HERE COMES HOTMAIL... EMAIL SERVICE WAR

Following Google and Yahoo!, Hotmail will now offer 250MB of storage for free.

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

TECHNO REVOLUTION... KOREA
Special Report from News.com... Rocket Fuel: Consumer Electronics

Good series coming from News.com:

"South Korea's Digital Dynasty"
Electronics fuel rise of new tech powerhouse
June 23, 2004

On the brink of financial collapse only a few years ago, the Seoul government and national conglomerates have battled back to become a major force in the global technology economy.

MORE ON MICHAEL MOORE... LIAR, LIAR EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE
Critic From the Left Speaks Out... Vanity Fair's Christopher Hitchens

Like I posted before, Michael Moore disgraces his profession. If you're going to criticize someone, at least be honest about it. Yeah, many people twist minor words here and there, but Moore's blatant lies and distortions are a stain on American filmmaking. The Nation's Stuart Klawans gives a fluffy praise and defense of Moore's film while Slate's Christopher Hitchens writes a solid piece:

Unfairenheit 9/11
The lies of Michael Moore.

By Christopher Hitchens
Monday, June 21, 2004

...To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

...It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few.

...In a long and paranoid (and tedious) section at the opening of the film, he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11. I banged on about this myself at the time and wrote a Nation column drawing attention to the groveling Larry King interview with the insufferable Prince Bandar, which Moore excerpts. However, recent developments have not been kind to our Mike. In the interval between Moore's triumph at Cannes and the release of the film in the United States, the 9/11 commission has found nothing to complain of in the timing or arrangement of the flights. And Richard Clarke, Bush's former chief of counterterrorism, has come forward to say that he, and he alone, took the responsibility for authorizing those Saudi departures.

...children are flying little kites, shoppers are smiling in the sunshine, and the gentle rhythms of life are undisturbed. Then—wham! From the night sky come the terror weapons of American imperialism. Watching the clips Moore uses, and recalling them well, I can recognize various Saddam palaces and military and police centers getting the treatment. But these sites are not identified as such. In fact, I don't think Al Jazeera would, on a bad day, have transmitted anything so utterly propagandistic. You would also be led to think that the term "civilian casualty" had not even been in the Iraqi vocabulary until March 2003. I remember asking Moore at Telluride if he was or was not a pacifist. He would not give a straight answer then, and he doesn't now, either. I'll just say that the "insurgent" side is presented in this film as justifiably outraged, whereas the 30-year record of Baathist war crimes and repression and aggression is not mentioned once. (Actually, that's not quite right. It is briefly mentioned but only, and smarmily, because of the bad period when Washington preferred Saddam to the likewise unmentioned Ayatollah Khomeini.)

That this—his pro-American moment—was the worst Moore could possibly say of Saddam's depravity is further suggested by some astonishing falsifications. Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (full article)

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

SUN-IL KIM BEHEADED... PRAY FOR HIS FAMILY

Savages finally did it. Prayers go out to his family.

PLUG FOR INNOTIVE... INFOCOMM 2004 "GOOD BUZZ" AWARD

Good news for the company, Innotive Corporation, I helped out for nine months while I waited for my girlfriend in Korea to finish up her time with her firm. They received recognition at InfoComm 2004, the audio visual technology industry's annual meeting. I thought they should have won something at Comdex too since the conference was more relevant to the core technology, but sometimes the dice doesn't roll your way. Their software product is one of the few "wow" technologies you encounter. When I gave presentations, so many people would be amazed at the functionality of the product... "powerpoint on steriods," "it's right out of 'Minority Report'," etc. Press release from Insight Media follows:

Insight Media, the leading source of intelligence about the microdisplay industry, is happy to announce the winners of the InfoComm 2004 "Best Buzz" awards. They honor what people were talking or "buzzing" about at the exhibition.

The Good Buzz awards are selected in the same way. Those honored with this award created good buzz for their products or services, but were not as widely recognized as those honored with a Best Buzz award.

Top honors for "Best Buzz" at InfoComm 2004 go to:

· Sony for its demonstration of a 4K x 2K resolution projection system using its SXRD technology. The showing of 8-megapixel images was indeed impressive, but as Sony acknowledged, the system needs improved uniformity, contrast and electronics before being ready for commercial use.
· Texas Instruments for the introduction of the SXGA+ (1400 x 1050) DLP chip set. This new 4:3 aspect resolution chip set will replace SXGA products, and TI announced that four companies at InfoComm (Christie, Coretronic, projectiondesign and Barco) would start to use the chip set in products this year.
· projectiondesign and Christie for the F3 and DS+60 single-chip front projectors. Using an innovative dual-lamp design and the new 1400 x 1050 DLP chip set, this platform offers 5000 or 6000 lumens using 250W or 300W lamps. This essentially doubles the previous single-chip DLP brightness record.
· MicroDisplay Corporation and Uneed Systems for its demonstration of single-chip LCOS-RPTVs. Both 43- and 52-inch RPTVs with 1280 x 720 resolution where shown on the floor, with 1920 x 1080 resolution demonstrators in a suite. Expect the 720p versions to be on sale this fall at very competitive pricing.

Receiving "Good Buzz" awards at InfoComm 2004 were:

· Daktronics, Barco Events, Lighthouse and DynaScan Technology for impressive demonstrations of rapidly advancing LED technology. Daktronics (www.daktronics.com) used its new 3 mm pitch LED modules to build a 5(H) x 10(W) foot wall of LEDs that offers 1024 x 576 resolution with very good brightness, high density, and over 1 trillion colors. Barco Events (www.events.barco.com) constructed a giant 14.7(H) x 26.6(W) wall that offers 1296 x 720 pixels of resolution. Video run on this wall created an impressive effect - even next to a pair of stacked Barco projectors that offered 2048 x 1020 resolution and 50,000 lumens! DynaScan (www.dynascanusa.com) showed several of its rotating LED cylinders with a tight 2+ mm pitch. The 360-degree displays are eye-catching and show much improved image quality compared to previous demonstrations. Lighthouse (www.lighthouse-tech.com) showed outdoors LED panels that offer a very bright 5000 nits.

· Innotive Solutions for its "Minority Report" demo. Adding a touch screen and user interface to a Panasonic PDP allows the manipulation of graphic image databases using finger movements - an interface that should be extendable to perform the image manipulation tasks the way Tom Cruise did in the movie Minority Report.

· Digital Projection for its demonstration of a 10-megapixel display. Using five DLP projectors, each with 2048 x 1024 resolution, Digital Projection had the largest (35'W x 16'H) and most impressive display at the show. With 10 megapixels all beautifully edge blended, this caught the eyes of everyone.

· Mercury Online Solutions/Fred Systems for its software and digital media processors for digital signage. This is one of the most comprehensive software solutions we have seen for scheduling and delivering digital multimedia content on a worldwide basis, with uptime of all displays in the network at better than 90%, compared with a typical 50 to 60%.

· X3D Technologies for its eye-catching 3D display. The company showed a modified 50-inch plasma panel, which does not require any special eyeware to see the 3D image. X3D develops and licenses 3D software and hardware to the advertising/signage, PC and broadcast industries, and plans to help roll out 500 such systems in theaters this year.

· Kimoto for its unique film-based screen to create 3D images. Leveraging it s expertise in polyester-based off-axis diffusion screens for projectors, the company showed a 3D system that attracted a lot of attention. The screen is a translucent white board on one side and offers a 3D display on the other using a standard projector.

Monday, June 21, 2004

CLINTON DEFENDS SUCCESSOR'S PUSH FOR WAR... THERE GOES THE LEFT'S ARGUMENT
More from Captain's Quarter... Interesting String of Posts

"Clinton, who was interviewed Thursday, said he did not believe that Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons but out of a genuine belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction remained unaccounted for." (full article)

Also a post from Captain's Quarters on how this throws a wrench into many liberals' assertion that Bush misled the general population on the reasons for war. Why would he do this? Especially now?

SOUTH KOREAN CAPTURED BY SAVAGES

Another kidnapping by terrorists.

Saturday, June 19, 2004

BONDS SAYS BOSTON IS TOO RACIST FOR HIM... ME TOO

A couple days ago I heard about this and saw a segment on ESPN with two Boston reporters discussing racism in Boston. ESPN gave some interesting facts and views prior to the interview citing Bill Russell's struggles with racism while living in Boston, the Dee Brown incident (black man at an ATM drew the attention of four cops with guns drawn), and how Boston was the last city to have a black man on a major league baseball team. One reporter was taking the position that the Boston Bonds was referring to is an image from the 1950s and 1960s, and how many professional athletes live there without complaints. The other reporter, who was black and an author on racism in Boston, talked about "pre-Mo Vaughn" and "post-Mo Vaughn." How Mo Vaughn was the first black athlete the city embraced. It seemed he was taking a soft approach and holding back during this discussion.

The reality is how much of the general population's racist views that many minorities encountered have changed over the last decade? Did they all of a sudden go to courses on racial sensitivity? Were they required by the city to have at least one black friend? Another perspective the first reporter failed to mention was the difference between the treatment of recognized professional athletes by the general population of Boston and the average black man. Dee Brown, former Boston Celtic point guard, was "an average black man" one weekend morning in an affluent Boston suburb when he decided to take out some money from an ATM machine. A few minutes later he was surrounded by four police officers with their guns drawn. Messed up.

This issue strikes a cord with me because Boston was the only major city I visited where I had a blatant racial incident. During grad school, I played on the club volleyball team and we went up to Boston for a tournament. The night before we played, some of us decided to go hangout at a bar. In Harvard Square (yes, in Harvard Square), we walked around and saw a bar with their doors wide open and it was fairly packed, so we decided to check it out. We got to the doors where the host look at us and said, "We're closed."

Our group was comprised of six Asian Americans and one caucasian. One of my teammates said, "But your sign says you're opened and for a few more hours?"

"We're closed."

None of us were in the mood to deal with such crap so we walked away and went to another bar. Typically, I might have started a ruckus, but I wasn't with close friends and I didn't feel like expending my energy for such a situation that evening. But it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth for the city of Boston.

Barry Bonds on Boston:

The Boston Globe reported in Friday's editions that Bonds said the town was "too racist for me" and that he would "never play there."

Friday, June 18, 2004

KOREA TELECOM LAUNCHING CONVERGED WIRELESS SERVICE

Nice. Good way for KT to help its wireless division, KT Freetel (KTF), cut into SK Telecom's market share. Wonder if AT&T or anyone else will follow this path in the U.S. From FierceWireless:

Korean government approves KT converged wireless service

The South Korean government has approved KT's plans to launch a new landline/wireless converged telecom service. The new converged service, called "One-phone" or "MU," will allow subscribers to connect to a fixed-line network when at home but automatically roam to a mobile network when outside using a variety of wireless technologies including Bluetooth. KT said the service will offer more competitive rates than traditional wireless services. One-phone uses a specially designed handset by Samsung that also includes a built-in digital camera and multimedia applications. KT will kick off a trial of the service next week with plans to launch One-phone commercially in August. KT is the largest landline carrier in South Korea with 21 million customers.

Landline carriers like KT are looking to converged wireless as a way to help them both retain existing customers and compete with wireless carriers. The U.K.'s BT is developing an even more comprehensive converged telecom initiative called Project Bluephone, which will eventually bundle landline broadband, wireless and wireline VoIP, and cellular voice and data into a single service with access from one handset.

GOOD NEWS FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND THE HEART OF INNOVATION

This battle is still not over on the issue of expensing options. The Stock Option Accounting Reform Act still has to pass through the full House and Senate. An article on the event below and another view from American Venture magazine.

Panel moves against FASB

TheDeal.com
by Donna Block in Washington
June, 15 2004

The House Committee on Financial Services overwhelmingly passed controversial legislation Tuesday, June 15, that would curb the Financial Accounting Standards Board's authority to require the expensing of stock options. (full article)

LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN'S TOP TEN

Top Ten Real Reasons John Kerry Is Running For President

10. To bring renewed tedium and uncertainty to the Democratic party

9. Vows to be the greatest horse-faced President since Polk

8. Couldn't live with himself if he didn't hold a higher office than Schwarzenegger

7. Needs an excuse to get out of a wedding in February

6. Get elected, eat a ton of waffles, become the fattest President

5. Long days on the campaign trail beats sitting around being nagged by the wife to put away the socks

4. An unusually persuasive horoscope told him he should

3. Did you know if the President kills some guy in a bar fight the FBI will make it cool?

2. A leader who supports both sides of every issue is a friend to all Americans

1. Show the world not all Democrats are ass-grabbing womanizers

CALL FOR PAUL VOLCKER TO RESIGN... WATER GETS DIRTIER
Oil for Food Scandal is a Farce... From Roger Simon

The Wall Street Journal's Claudia Rosett digs deeper.

KICK ASS ARMCHAIR WARMONGER... MARK STEYN

Good commentary from Mark Steyn at the The Daily Telegraph:

But this is one leopard who won't be changing his spots. Fourteen months ago, there were respectable cases to be made for and against the war. None of the big stories of the past few weeks alters either argument.

The bleats of "Include me out!" from the fairweather warriors isn't a sign of their belated moral integrity but of their fundamental unseriousness. Anyone who votes for the troops to go in should be grown-up enough to know that, when they do, a few of them will kill civilians, bomb schools, abuse prisoners. It happens in every war. These aren't stunning surprises, they're inevitable: it might be a bombed mosque or a hospital, a shattered restaurant or a slaughtered wedding party, but it will certainly be something.

Okay, a freaky West Virginia tramp leading a naked Iraqi round on a dog leash with a pair of Victoria's Secret panties on his head and a banana up his butt, maybe that wasn't so inevitable. But, that innovation aside, the aberrations of war have nothing to do with the only question that matters: despite what will happen along the way, is it worth doing?

I say yes. It is already worth it for Iraq. (full article)

"NO ONE ASKED US" BY MAJOR STAN COERR

From LGF:

George Bush coalesced American support behind invading Iraq, I am told, using two arguments: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and the capability to deliver them, and Iraq was a supporter of Al-Qaeda terrorism, and may have been involved in the attacks of 9/11. Vicious words and gratuitous finger-pointing keep falling back on these points, as people insist that “we” were misled into what started as a dynamic liberation and has become a bloody counterinsurgency. Watching politicians declaim and hearing television experts expound on why we went to war and on their opinions of those running the White House and Defense Department, I have one question.

When is someone going to ask the guys who were there?

What about the opinions of those whose lives were on the line, massed on the Iraq-Kuwait border beginning in February of last year? I don’t know how President Bush got the country behind him, because at the time I was living in a hole in the dirt in northern Kuwait. Why have I not heard a word from anyone who actually carried a rifle or flew a plane into bad guy country last year, and who has since had to deal with the ugly aftermath of a violent liberation? (full article)

Thursday, June 17, 2004

AIR AMERICA AND THE EXTREME LEFT NEED TO REBUILD THEIR MESSAGE

As some of you know, Air America is going through some financial difficulty. It is simply not the mismanagement of their operations, but a misdirection of their energy. When a majority of their programming is filled with inflammatory language and blind one-sided rhetoric, it is simply not appealing to non-partisan people and the average American. This is proven in Air America's early failure in their ratings and the success of such media outlets as Fox News, which leads in national ratings across the board and in many of their shows.

Though many liberals mock the catch phrase of Fox News, "Fair and Balanced," their programming does not even come close to the critical style and rhetoric of right-leaning media outlets. This past week, one of my staunch Democratic friends agreed with me that journalists like Bill O'Reilly at least criticize their own and far more color-blind when it comes to issues of right and wrong. O'Reilly doesn't care if a person is Republican, right-wing, or the issue will damage President Bush, he will bring it out in the open and discuss in his raw, straightforward manner. How many times have you heard liberal journalists or media personalities criticize their own?

People are smarter than many liberals think. Most people do not want to listen to radio or television programming that is simply an advertisement for liberal thinking or political views. They want an informative and interesting discussion. Even a major left-leaning media company, such as CNN, has taken an approach to make it too one-sided. Before I left for Asia four years ago, I loved watching CNN's "Crossfire" because it was a solid, roundtable political show. I moved back to the U.S. a month ago and much has changed. Now I find "Crossfire" to be too politicized (sounds funny, but true). The format changed into short debate rounds, which I assume was an attempt to be more competitive with Fox but probably the wrong move. The studio audience could not be more biased. Their claps and cheers are far more frequent for Paul Begala and James Carville while the right-leaning co-hosts, Tucker Carlson and Bob Novak, sit there hoping for a few scraps after their lines. It is pathetic.

Even a couple nights ago I watched Hannity & Colmes where John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress, "took on Sean Hannity for distorting the truth" (from American Progress' email newsletter). If you watch the clip, it was barely anything. Why such inflammatory words when the substance is not there?

If it there was substance in some of the criticism from the left, I believe their words and style are creating a divide in America. Not the policies of this administration... not the war in Iraqi, which they foolishly or stupidly compare with Vietnam... not the right-wing whackos... it is the rhetoric from the left, especially the extreme left, that is hurting our nation. There is a better way to discuss and talk about issues. There is a better way to seek out solutions. Minus the hate. Minus the fear of listening to the other side. Minus the partisanship. Of course, the right side of the political spectrum is guilty of acting blindly and spreading vile rhetoric too, but the left's foundation seems to be built upon such divisive actions and words which has been a virus for our nation's health.

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

"UNDER GOD" ALLOWED BY SUPREME COURT

Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 02-1624. I'm glad this past Monday the Supreme Court "allowed millions of schoolchildren to keep affirming loyalty to one nation 'under God'."

Along the same lines, the ACLU was fighting to take off another cross from a county seal. This time it's Los Angeles county (i.e. "ACLU ought to fight real battles" by a liberal journalist). I always found it disturbing that the ACLU, which claims to fight for people's civil liberties, is so anti-Christian. I would like to know where this originated from. Obviously, the ACLU doesn't stand for the civil liberties of a huge percentage of Americans.

This reminds me of my college days at Wisconsin. As part of a Christian organization, we were not allow to receive financial support from the university, but other non-Christian religious groups did. Hypocritical? Contradictory? Yes. It was something that always made me shake my head that many institutions and people that establish their policies were supposedly pluralistic but blatantly anti-Christian. Why? Are Christians or the obvious Christian heritage of our nation like the "evil empire" in Star Wars? Are they the "establishment" that hinders social progress? A source of hatred and bigotry? It is just odd when you think about it. Obviously, it's not about the separation of church and state when other non-Christian, religious organizations receive money. And as you probably know, this was just not limited to my old college campus. Anyone from the ACLU want to answer these questions?

BONO IN PRIVATE EQUITY?

At first I thought it was April 1st when I read this headline, but I guess it's true. Weird. U2 was my favorite band from my junior high and high school days. One of the best ever.

U2's Bono joins new private equity firm

AltAssets
June 16, 2004

Bono, the lead singer for Irish rock group U2, is to serve as a managing director at a new Silicon Valley private equity firm. Elevation Partners, which was launched by former Silver Lake Partners' co-founder Roger McNamee and former Electronic Arts executive John Riccitiello in April this year, will invest exclusively in media and entertainment companies. (full article)

O.J. TEN YEARS LATER

Yeah, I know it's a week late, but I still wanted to post this link to Bill Simmon's article on the tragedy of the O.J. saga. It's sad that justice was not served and that his children have to see his mug and realize in their minds the possibility that he killed their mother. O.J. murderer and symbol of the unfortunate aspects of our legal system.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE DETROIT PISTONS!

Awesome win last night and awesome series. Also I agree with Eric Neel's Page 2 article how these are not the Bad Boys II but a new breed of Pistons. These guys anyone can respect their game and attitude. I don't think there is a guy on the team I can hate... unlike the Detroit of old. Anyway, congratulations again!

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

YAHOO! STRIKES BACK... AT GOOGLE

Sounds more appropriate if it was Microsoft, but Yahoo! is still the bigger dog on the block. My Yahoo! Mail Plus account just got upgraded from 25MB to 2GB and more in response to Google's soon-to-be released Gmail:

Dear Yahoo! Mail Extra Storage Subscriber,

Thanks for being a loyal Yahoo! Mail user. To show our appreciation, we've expanded your Extra Storage service to include all the benefits of the improved Yahoo! Mail Plus, at no additional cost. Yahoo! Mail Plus includes:

-Virus scanning and cleaning provided by Norton AntiVirus™* SpamGuard Plus, a personalized spam filtering system
-No promotional taglines in messages you send
-No graphical ads
-Total message size of 10MB, including attachments
-2GB of email storage

At the end of your current billing cycle, unless you cancel before that date, your Mail Plus service will auto-renew at $19.99/year**.

Thanks for using Yahoo! Mail, and we hope you enjoy the additional features now available to you. For more information, please click here.

Sincerely,
The Yahoo! Mail Team

KIM JONG IL LOOKING STRONGER... IS ROH HAPPY OR SAD?

From my friend, Mingi, at Time Magazine who contributed to this article:

Below is the cover story from this week's TIME Asia on the faltering US-South Korea alliance and the reason behind the downfall: Kim Jong Il's propaganda war. Read the entire story, because the end is too well-put, too sad and unfortunately, too true.

Kim's Great Game
The U.S. can't seem to stop him. Asia doesn't know if it loves or hates him. So the position of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il looks stronger than ever

TIME MAGAZINE
BY ANTHONY SPAETH
June 14, 2004

Lee Myong Sok grew up in the town of Dongducheon, just 20 km south of Korea's Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the grotesquely fortified no-man's-land rimmed with razor wire, heavy military hardware and tens of thousands of soldiers. When he was a boy, Lee lived on "army-base stew": leftover meals from U.S. military canteens, which he would throw into a pot with cabbage and water after discarding the stray cigarette butts. Today, as an operator of a bar in which Russian girls serve the drinks, Lee is still living off the American troops who serve as a "trip wire": if North Korea attacks, these soldiers will come under attack, guaranteeing U.S. involvement in the conflict. But now Lee is deeply upset at the news that Washington wants to pull out 12,500 soldiers, or one-third of the American armed presence in Korea, after 50 years of peacekeeping. The plan is to remove all the troops now stationed on the front line. "This is devastating," says Lee. Fifteen of Dongducheon's leaders shaved their heads last week and went to Seoul to hoist a protest banner outside the National Assembly building. The banner was written in their own blood.

For the elders of Dongducheon, the departure of American soldiers is a pocketbook issue: the town survives by providing Yankee grunts with Pringles, Budweiser and raunchy nighttime entertainment. For the rest of the region, it's something far more significant: another indication that the status quo on the Korean peninsula for more than half a century, written in the blood of the Korean War's more than 2.5 million victims, is rapidly evolving. North Korea is no longer the region's pariah, a hermetically sealed place with whose leaders no others wanted to deal. On the contrary, South Korea is now dominated by a leftist-nationalist President and a political party whose members often see the North as a potential friend or partner, and only sometimes as an enemy that vows to invade and conquer them in a "sea of fire." (The two countries are still technically at war.) Last week, Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi gave an astonishingly positive account of his recent meeting with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, saying that "I personally felt that North Korea was interested in moving forward in a positive way." (See following story) Beijing said last week that it did not share Washington's assessment of the north's nuclear programs. These changes in attitude toward Pyongyang are being played out against the backdrop of a revised American military posture on the peninsula and strains in the U.S.-South Korea alliance. Echoing the famous complaint about Washington's China policy in the late 1940s, South Korean conservatives are already starting to ask: "Who lost the U.S.?" (full article)

Saturday, June 12, 2004

AS U.S. MILITARY PULLS OUT, MIXED VIEWS IN SOUTH KOREA

Overview of some thoughts in Korea.

WMD UPDATE... SADDAM SHIPPED OUT WMD BEFORE WAR AND AFTER

From Power Line... UN inspectors discover more proof on WMD. Where are the major media outlets on this?

SPORTS IS THE GREAT EQUALIZER AND UNIFIER
In the U.S., Korea, and the World

A few days ago I watching ESPN's "Outside The Lines" that featured Mississippi State's head football coach Sylvester Croom. It chronicled his early days as a black athlete since he was one of the first under Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant at the University of Alabama, and then profiled his career as a coach in the NFL and collegiate ranks.

At one point during the show, he was discussing the impact of sports during the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation. He said if it was not for sports desegregation would not have been successful for another 100 years. Croom explained that sports is the great equalizer among people of all colors because it brings respect and unity to each other. Some might hear this and quickly brush aside the insightfulness or validity of this statement, but I believe there is some truth to Croom's perspective.

We can easily turn to the movie "Remember the Titans" for a documented example. You can also look at your own life's examples whether you grew up in organized sports or have your children playing in various leagues, and identify the bonds created across race and social boundaries while you sweat and push during practice, cheer for your teammates, or win a close game. You learn the importance of teamwork and how important it is to support one another to accomplish a goal through sports.

When I lived in Korea for four years, I had various criticisms of the society and especially the education system. One criticism I had was the lack of support and teamwork that was intertwined into the corporate culture. I theorized that this was due to the lack of balance between high school students' studies and their extra-curricular activities. Students in Korea only study and do not have time for anything else. There are no organized sports for the majority of students. Those that participate are considered poor students or a select few with a possible future in the professional realm. I believed this lack of infrastructure and support for extra-curricular activities, especially team sports, had a negative effect on Korean society. One change they should implement in the Korean education system is to provide structured non-educational programs for youth.

Beyond America's cultural imperialism of its entertainment and consumer goods industries, the love and desire to play sports should be exported to the youth in nations where there can be a positive impact. The value and bonds playing sports create can change lives and impact societies. Just ask Sylvester Croom.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

AWESOME WIN... LAKERS' WEAKNESSES REVEALED
Kobe vs. MJ?... Pleassse

I loved tonight's win by the Pistons, which confirmed the excellence of their defense and the holes in the Lakers offense. In a world of what ifs, which I know Lakers fans are going through right now (e.g. what if Malone was healthy, what if Shaq actually worked hard during the offseason), I still think if Cassell, CWebb, or Bobby Jackson were healthy it might have been the Wolves or the Kings in the NBA Finals instead this lucky group of superstars.

What's all this talk about Kobe or MJ at 25 after game 2? Figures John Salley would knock on MJ since he did walk off the court when the Bulls finally beat his Pistons. What about Jim Grey's stupid question for Billups after tonight's game? Asking if they had something like the 'Jordan Rules' to stop Kobe. Good response by Billups to ignore it and just discuss how they played their normal defense. What game were you watching Grey? Never liked him and the hole gets deeper. Prince just did an excellent job on Kobe and the help defense was great.

Would MJ ever have been shutdown like that? Never. By Prince. Not. As I've always said, MJ would dominate more during these days of no hand-checks. Kobe's dribbling skills are better than MJ's but Jordan's quickness and hangtime are by far better. Also Kobe's ability to break a double-team doesn't compare with MJ's. Even during his early days, he was constantly doubled and even triple-teamed and he still average 37.1 during his third year. And the 'Jordan Rules'? If you remember or watch old clips, the rules basically were to hack Jordan a third of the time with flying elbows, body slams, and whacks on the arm. Old school junkyard basketball that Kobe will never see under the current NBA rules that favor freestyling and penetration.

Anyway, I totally agreed with ESPN's Ric Bucher's article on what was all the talk about how the Pistons would recover from such a loss after game 2 by most of the media, and he's a pretty good analyst for even picking the Pistons to win the title back in April:

What is all this talk about "how do the Pistons recover" and "the landscape has completely shifted" as a result of losing Game 2 in overtime? I could understand such sentiment if Detroit had lost Game 1 or if the Lakers hadn't pulled out the stops to win Game 2. But stop kidding yourselves. Shaq played 48 minutes, coach Phil Jackson gave a rookie (Luke Walton) 26 minutes out of pure desperation and Karl Malone risked a lifetime limp to keep going and still it was only barely enough. The Pistons were down 11 and had all of their big men in foul trouble and methodically chipped away until the Lakers had to pick themselves up off the mat with a Kobe Bryant 3-pointer from 28 feet. The Pistons clearly demonstrated they are the mentally tougher, defensively stronger team for all of Game 1 and most of Game 2 and yet they're the ones who are, or should be, reeling? (full article)

DJ KIM SHOULD PASS A MEMO TO ROH

If DJ truly feels grief over Reagan's death and acknowledges what the U.S. has done for him and South Korea, he should talk with President Roh about appreciating the relationship it has with the U.S. and how this was essential for South Korea's success in the 20th century.

Former S. Korean President Credits Reagan

The Associated Press
June 10, 2004

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung sent condolences Thursday over Ronald Reagan's death and thanked Reagan for persuading the country's former military regime to spare his life.

In a telegram to former First Lady Nancy Reagan, Kim, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said he "was gripped with grief" over Reagan's death.

"President Reagan was a strong and courageous leader. He tore down the long-standing walls of confrontation between the East and the West and led the world to historic change toward democracy and freedom," the telegram said.

"In particular, when I was sentenced to death by the military regime in 1980, he worked not only to save my life but also for the democratization of South Korea," said the 79-year-old South Korean leader. "I still remember this with gratitude."

As an opposition leader championing democracy, Kim survived imprisonment, house arrest and four alleged assassination attempts during South Korea's era of military rule.

In 1980, the then military junta sentenced him to death on treason charges but reprieved him under U.S. pressure.

Kim was elected president in 1997 and ruled South Korea for five years until February 2003.

In 2000, he held an unprecedented summit with North Korea. He won that year's Nobel Peace Prize for opening the doors to detente with the isolated communist state, as well as for his struggle for democracy.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

WIRELESS PHONE SALES UP 34 PERCENT FROM 2003

Report from Gartner. Nokia lost market share while Motorola is up a little.

MORE ON RONALD REAGAN

Have to post these articles up after my rant against Ted Rall:

"President Reagan wrought a restoration more than a revolution." (The Wall Street Journal Editorial)

"How Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II won the Cold War." (John Fund On The Trail)

Andrew Sullivan, "Reagan's Greatest Victories" (Time Magazine)

Thanks From a Grateful Country
For a man who changed the world, Ronald Reagan sure was modest.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY PEGGY NOONAN
Monday, June 7, 2004

He was dying for years and the day came and somehow it came as a blow. Not a loss but a blow. How could this be? Maybe we were all of us more loyal to him, and to the meaning of his life, than we quite meant to be.
And maybe it's more.

This was a life with size. It had heft, and meaning. And I am thinking of what Stephen Vincent Benet, a writer whom he quoted, wrote on the death of his friend Scott Fitzgerald. "You can take off your hats now, gentlemen, and I think perhaps you'd better."

Ronald Reagan was not unappreciated at the end, far from it. But he was at the beginning.

His story was classically, movingly rags-to-riches; he was a nobody who became a somebody in the American way, utterly on his own and with the help of millions.
He was just under 10 when the Roaring Twenties began, 16 when Lindbergh flew the ocean; he remembered as a little boy giving a coin to a doughboy leaning out a window of a troop train going east to the ships that would take them to the Marne and the Argonne Forest.

Ronald, nicknamed Dutch, read fiction. He liked stories of young men battling for the good and true. A story he wrote in college had a hero arriving home from the war and first thing calling his girl. Someone else answered. Who is calling? "Tell her it's the president," he said. He wrote that when he was 20 years old.

Many years later, in middle age, he was visited by a dream in which he was looking for a house. He was taken to a mansion with white walls and high sparkling windows. It was majestic. "This is a house that is available at a price I can afford," he would think to himself. And then he'd come awake. From the day he entered the White House for the first time as president he never had the dream again.

His family didn't have much--no money, no local standing--and they were often embarrassed. Jack Reagan was alcoholic and itinerant, a shoe salesman who drank when things were looking up. They moved a lot. His mother was an Evangelical Christian who was often out of the house helping others or taking in work at home. (Like Margaret Thatcher's mother, and Pope John Paul's too, Nell Reagan worked as a seamstress at home, sewing clothes for money.)

Dutch and his brother Moon were often on their own. From his father he learned storytelling and political views that were liberal for the time and place. In old age he remembered with pride that his father would smack him if he ever said anything as a child that showed racial or religious bigotry. His mother gave him religious faith, which helped him to trust life and allowed him to be an optimist, which was his nature.

He wanted to be an artist, a cartoonist, a writer. Then he wanted to be a sportscaster on radio, and talked his way in. Then he wanted to be an actor. He went to Hollywood, became a star, did work that he loved and married Jane Wyman, a more gifted actor than he. They were mismatched, but she proved in her way to be as old-school as he. In the decades after their divorce and long after he rose to power, she never spoke publicly of him, not to get in the news when her career was waning and not for money. She could have hurt him and never did.

He volunteered for action in World War II, was turned away by doctors who told him with eyesight like his he'd probably shoot his own officer and miss. But they let him join behind the lines and he served at "Fort Roach" in Los Angeles, where he made training and information films. After the war, Ronald Reagan went on the local speaking circuit, talking of the needs of veterans and lauding the leadership of FDR and Truman. Once a woman wrote to him and noted that while he had movingly denounced Nazism, there was another terrible "ism," communism, and he ought to mention that, too. In his next speech, to industry people and others, he said that if communism ever proved itself the threat to decency that Nazism was, he'd denounce it, too. Normally he got applause in this part of the speech. Now he was met by silence.

In that silence he built his future, becoming a man who'd change the world.

The long education began. He studied communism, read Marx, read the Founders and the conservative philosophers from Burke to Burnham. He began to tug right. The Democratic Party and his industry continued to turn left. There was a parting.
A word on his intellectual reflexes. Ronald Reagan was not a cynic--he did not assume the worst about people. But he was a skeptic; he knew who we are. He did not think that people with great degrees or great success were necessarily smart, for instance. He had no interest in credentialism. He once told me an economist was a fellow with a Phi Beta Kappa key on one end of his chain and no watch on the other. That's why they never know what time it is. He didn't say this with asperity, but with mirth.

He did not dislike intellectuals--his heroes often were intellectuals, from the Founders straight through Milton Friedman and Hayek and Solzhenitsyn. But he did not favor the intellectuals of his own day, because he thought they were in general thick-headed. He thought that many of the 20th century's intellectuals were high-IQ dimwits. He had an instinctive agreement with Orwell's putdown that a particular idea was so stupid that only an intellectual would believe it.

He thought that intellectuals, like the great liberal academics of the latter half of the 20th century, tended to tie themselves in great webs of complexity, webs they'd often spun themselves--great complicated things that they'd get stuck in, and finally get out of, only to go on and construct a new web for mankind to get caught in. The busy little spiders from Marx through Bloomsbury--some of whom, such as the Webbs, were truly the stupidest brilliant people who ever lived--through Harvard and Yale and the American left circa 1900-90.

As president of the Screen Actors Guild he led the resistance to a growing communist presence in the unions and, with allies such as William Holden, out-argued the boutique leftism of the Hollywood salons. But when a small army of congressional gasbags came to town, Ronald Reagan told the House Un-American Activities Committee that Hollywood could police itself, thank you. By the time it was over, even his harshest foes admitted he'd been fair. In the '90s, an actress who'd been blacklisted, her career ruined, was invited by historians of Hollywood to criticize him. She said yes, she remembered him well. He was boring at parties. He was always talking about how great the New Deal was.

He wanted to be a great actor, but it never happened. He was a good actor. He married Nancy Davis, a young actress who'd gone to Smith. On their first date, she told me once, she was impressed. "He didn't talk, the way actors do, about their next part. He talked about the Civil War." They had children, made a life; she was his rock.

In 1962 he became a Republican; in 1966, with considerable initial reluctance, he ran for governor of California. The establishment of the day labeled him a right-wing movie star out of touch with California values; he beat the incumbent, Pat Brown, in a landslide. He completed two successful terms in which he started with a huge budget deficit, left behind a modest surplus, cut taxes and got an ulcer. About the latter he was amazed. Even Jack Warner hadn't been able to give him an ulcer! But one day it went away. Prayer groups that did not know of his condition had been praying for him. He came to think their prayers healed him.

In his first serious bid for the presidency, in 1976, he challenged his own party's beleaguered incumbent, the hapless Gerald Ford. Ronald Reagan fought valiantly, state by state, almost unseated Mr. Ford, and returned from the convention having given one of the best speeches of his life. He told his weeping volunteers not to become cynical but to take the experience as inspiration. He promised he wouldn't go home and sit in a rocking chair. He quoted an old warrior: "I will lie me down and bleed awhile / And then I will rise and fight again." Four years later, he won the presidency from Jimmy Carter after a mean-spirited onslaught in which he was painted as racist, a man who knew nothing, a militarist. He won another landslide.

Once again he had nobody with him but the people.

In his presidency he did this: He out-argued communism and refused to accept its claim of moral superiority; he rallied the West, rallied America and continued to make big gambles, including a defense-spending increase in a recession. He promised he'd place Pershings in Europe if the Soviets would not agree to arms reductions, and told Soviet leaders that they'd never be able to beat us in defense, that we'd spend them into the ground. They were suddenly reasonable.
Ronald Reagan told the truth to a world made weary by lies. He believed truth was the only platform on which a better future could be built. He shocked the world when he called the Soviet Union "evil," because it was, and an "empire," because it was that, too. He never stopped bringing his message to the people of the world, to Europe and China and in the end the Soviet Union. And when it was over, the Berlin Wall had been turned into a million concrete souvenirs, and Soviet communism had fallen. But of course it didn't fall. It was pushed. By Mr. Know Nothing Cowboy Gunslinger Dimwit. All presidents should be so stupid.

He pushed down income taxes too, from a high of 70% when he entered the White House to a new low of 28% when he left, igniting the long boom that, for all its ups and downs, is with us still. He believed, as JFK did, that a rising tide lifts all boats. He did much more, returning respect to our armed forces, changing 50-year-old assumptions about the place of government and the place of the citizen in the new America.

What an era his was. What a life he lived. He changed history for the better and was modest about it. He didn't bray about his accomplishments but saw them as the work of the American people. He did not see himself as entitled, never demanded respect, preferred talking to hotel doormen rather than State Department functionaries because he thought the doormen brighter and more interesting. When I pressed him once, a few years out of the presidency, to say what he thought the meaning of his presidency was, he answered, reluctantly, that it might be fairly said that he "advanced the boundaries of freedom in a world more at peace with itself." And so he did. And what could be bigger than that?

To be young and working in his White House at that time in human history, was--well, we felt privileged to be there, with him. He made us feel not that we were born in a time of trouble but that we'd been born, luckily, at a time when we could end some trouble. We believed him. I'd think: This is a wonderful time to be alive. And when he died I thought: If I'd walked into the Oval Office 20 years ago to tell him that, he'd look up from whatever he was writing, smile, look away for a second and think, It's pretty much always a wonderful time.
And then he'd go back to his work.

And now he has left us. We will talk the next 10 days about who he was and what he did. It's not hard to imagine him now in a place where his powers have been returned to him and he's himself again--sweet-hearted, tough, funny, optimistic and very brave. You imagine him snapping one of those little salutes as he turns to say goodbye. Today I imagine saluting right back. Do you? We should do it the day he's buried, or when he lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda. We should say, "Good on you, Dutch." Thanks from a grateful country.

TED RALL IS A TOOL... A LOSER WITH NO SOUL

Last night on Hannity & Colmes I watched Ted Rall being interviewed and was amazed at how idiotic a person can be. I swear people whose core is driven by hate and the inabilty to effective work with people from conflicting values and views must have IQs way below 100... or just a messed up childhood. Rall penned a column during this time of mourning stating, "His clown-like dyed hair and rouged cheeks disgusted us. We hated him during the dark days he made so hideous, and, with all due respect, we hate him still." This is the same person that similarly mocked Pat Tillman in his death.

Rall's comments remind me of old clips from KKK leaders spewing their words of hate with the scent of death. When you listen to some of these KKK members or modern day skin-heads, you realize that their level of thinking is simplistic and unable to accept a reality beyond their world. Rall is simply an idiot seeking the spotlight by promoting his vile hate and poor artistic work. My other minor theory is that he's of average intelligence, but was scarred during his childhood. Maybe an awkward child ridiculed into a bitter existence with inner demons feeding his hate.

I might disagree with Clinton and aspects of his presidency and I might even indireclty blame him for some of the deaths in Bosnia due to his inaction, but do I hate him? Would I spit on his grave? Or do I realize the complexity of policy decisions and respect the differences in values? Even if he was a man of selfishness and greed, do I hate him to the point of disrespecting him in his death? Even if a person was filled with such hate and evil, like Ted Rall, I do not think such words or actions would be appropriate during a time of mourning.

Hannity & Colmes transcript:

RONALD REAGAN: My fellow citizens, those of you here at this hall and those of you at home, I want you to know that I have always had the highest respect for you, for your common sense and intelligence and for your decency. I have always believed in you and in what you could accomplish for yourselves and for others.

And whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will report that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunities arm steadying your way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Is this an appropriate time for critics of the former president to voice their dissent? Our next guest certainly thinks so. He's penned a column condemning Reagan's legacy, "His clown-like dyed hair and rouged cheeks disgusted us. We hated him during the dark days he made so hideous, and, with all due respect, we hate him still."

Joining us now columnist and political cartoonist Ted Rall. I don't see where the respect is.

TED RALL, COLUMNIST AND POLITICAL CARTOONIST: There is no respect for a man who...

COLMES: So why say with all respect? Isn't that hypocritical? Because you're not showing any respect.

RALL: It's called sarcasm, Alan.

COLMES: Look, Ecclesiastes says for everything there is a season and I think there's a time. I've spent many years being critical of Reagan's policies, and I'm sure the time will come once again to debate those things.

RALL: Clearly, I mean, I'm just...

COLMES: You need to understand my question.

RALL: Sure.

COLMES: Is there no appropriate time to hold your fire and to show some grace, at least, if for no other reason, than to respect the office of the presidency?

RALL: I think I respect the office of the presidency to the extent to say that President Reagan is entitled to the flag at half-staff, the state funeral, all that kind of thing.

COLMES: That's kind of you. (transcript)

TERRIBLE TUESDAY... LAKERS WIN AND I GET A SPRAIN

Yesterday I sprained my ankle playing basketball. This really sucks because I was getting my legs and rhythm back... blocking a lot of shots and hitting my jump shot. I heard my ligaments crackle when I went down on someone's foot and I knew it was a bad sprain. First ankle sprain in about three years. Today I went to get acupuncture on my ankle, so it will heal faster. During my college years, when I was more reckless and played volleyball too, I sprained my ankle often enough to learn how effective acupuncture is on certain injuries.

Anyway, so I headed home early due to my injury and I got to watch the NBA finals game from halftime on. It was awesome and disappointing to watch the Pistons hang tough and get up by six points with 48 seconds left, and then to see them lose on a weak three-point play by Shaq and then an awesome three-point shot by Kobe. Once I saw the switch on the inbound play and saw Rip Hamilton on Kobe instead of Prince, I knew it was going in. I really don't think the Pistons should or will be negatively effected as some NBA analysts were stating after the game. They almost took two games at home from the Lakers. Now they should go back to Detroit with confidence that they can win it all. I don't believe I'm a fan of the Pistons now just because I'm anti-Lakers, but the character and composition of the team is far different from the days of Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, and Rick Mahorn. I really hated those guys. The new Pistons are respectable and enjoyable to watch, so I'm all for them now.

Monday, June 07, 2004

KLEINER'S ENERGY INVESTMENT... FROM FUTURE BOY

John Doerr's Stealth Energy Company
Ion America wants to bring the fuel cell to your home.

BUSINESS 2.0
By Erick Schonfeld
May 28, 2004

I first heard that John Doerr was funding a stealth energy company during a phone conversation a few months ago with Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future. Saffo asked if I knew anything about Doerr's new company, and said, "He is being very coy about this." The two had attended an event together at Stanford, and Doerr had started spouting about the potential of distributed energy and let slip that he was backing a fuel-cell company still in stealth mode.

This anecdote reminded me of Doerr's last engineering-intensive stealth company: Segway. I wondered whether this was another flop waiting to happen, or whether perhaps it could be the Netscape of the budding alternative-energy industry.

The second time I heard about Doerr's stealth company was from Bob Corker, the mayor of Chattanooga, Tenn. Corker was promoting the tech-friendliness of his fine city on a trip to New York when he mentioned a deal the city is trying to strike with a fuel-cell company called Ion America to pilot the technology in Chattanooga. "It is a distributive model," Corker told me. "It can use natural gas to produce hydrogen." He wants the company to not just pilot the fuel cell in Chattanooga but eventually manufacture it there as well. In fact, he's so excited about the prospect, he helped arrange a meeting between Ion America and a fellow Tennessean, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, to help the company "get federal funding." When I asked him whether this was the same fuel-cell company Doerr was involved with, he looked surprised and asked me how I knew that. Then he clammed up. But at least now I had a name.

Ion America is a startup developing fuel-cell technology in Mountain View, Calif. Besides Doerr's Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates is also an investor. Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers is on its board. And it even has a Washington lobbyist, Andrew Lundquist, who previously was the director of Vice President Dick Cheney's notorious energy-policy task force.

When I telephoned Ion America chief scientist Jim McElroy and asked him what he was up to, he said, "We are a company in stealth mode. No comment." He did, however, confirm what I'd suspected, which is that Ion America is developing what is known as a solid oxide fuel cell. This is not the same type of fuel cell that would run hydrogen-powered cars. Rather, solid oxide fuel cells are much larger and are meant to power buildings, or even whole neighborhoods. And they are likely to be commercialized much sooner than hydrogen fuel cells for cars.

Many companies -- from giant General Electric (GE) to tiny NanoDynamics -- are trying to develop a solid oxide fuel cell. If such fuel cells could produce 1 to 5 megawatts of power, they could form the basis for a dispersed power system. That is, instead of large, centralized power plants that require more and more transmission lines to feed our insatiable hunger for energy, smaller stationary fuel cells could power individual neighborhoods or homes. According to Saffo, Doerr's stealth company is making just such a "residential fuel cell." For the technology to be economically attractive, it would have to deliver energy at a cost comparable to that of hulking natural-gas power plants, which produce energy at 3 to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour.

However, much of the power plants' energy dissipates as it goes through transmission lines. So Ion America's fuel cells, which would be located closer to the actual point of demand and thus would lose less energy along the way, could probably get away with producing energy at twice the cost. With such a distributed model, energy production could also be added as it's needed, which is more economical than paying up front for a large power plant.

The concept of a solid oxide fuel cell has actually been around since the 19th century. One fuel it can use is natural gas. But instead of releasing energy from the gas through combustion, it releases the energy more slowly and with less waste by forcing oxygen ions through a solid ceramic membrane separating the gas from the oxygen. The huge desire for oxygen pulls the ions through the ceramic membrane, creating electricity. Interestingly, Ion America's founder and CEO, K.R. Sridhar, is a former aerospace engineering professor who developed for NASA a system to convert the carbon dioxide atmosphere of Mars into oxygen.

There are four potential advantages to a solid oxide fuel cell: It could create the basis for a dispersed energy system; it should be more fuel-efficient than a turbine-powered plant; it should produce virtually no greenhouse-gas emissions, since there is no combustion; and one of its byproducts is hydrogen. That hydrogen, by the way, could then be used as the fuel for those hydrogen fuel cells in cars. In this way, solid oxide fuel cells could help solve one of the biggest problems delaying the launch of the so-called hydrogen economy -- namely how to produce hydrogen.

It's too early to say whether Ion America will crack this nut. And even if it does, it still could end up as another Segway, selling the energy equivalent of a useless $4,500 scooter. The downside of solid oxide fuel cells is that they generate a ton of heat -- operating at 750 to 800 degrees centigrade. But a quick peek at some of the patent applications Ion America's scientists have filed shows that they are trying to come up with ways to regenerate energy from that heat or use it in other creative applications (such as heating the air in a blimp).

Even if Ion America emerges from its self-imposed silence sometime soon, don't expect fast profits. One indicator of progress is that it is advertising for a product marketing manager to "research and prioritize potential markets" and to "develop market entry strategies." For now, though, it seems like the startup is scraping by on VC largesse and government grants, including a $500,000 joint project with the Department of Energy and a recent $2.7 million contract from the Navy. It's amazing what a few high-powered friends in Washington can get you these days.

CHINA'S EXPANSION ON THE WATERS

Informative and interesting article from The American Thinker. Indirectly related, one reason why some Chinese officials do not want regime change in North Korea and a movement towards reunification of the Koreas under U.S. influence is because they do not want to lose an ally in their backyard.

THIRD OF U.S. TROOPS BEING WITHDRAWN FROM KOREA

I wonder if President Roh is happy about this.

Sunday, June 06, 2004

LAKERS GO DOWN... AWESOME, GO PISTONS!
Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon Gotta Get Out More... No Laker-Haters??

Tonight's NBA Finals Game 1 was awesome. A group of my friends and I got together to cheer against the Lakers, and the Detroit Pistons pulled off the upset.

The game was intense and awesome. The Piston's D was definitely proven to be as good as stated throughout the playoffs. Their big bodies and length gave most of the Lakers trouble. Tayshaun Prince's length gave Kobe problems, Rasheed Wallace on Malone, defense by committe on Shaq, their excellent rotation and help D, and their guards pressuring Rush and Fisher helped disrupt previously unchallenged three-point shooting. All this led to their win even with Rip Hamilton shooting poorly and creating so many turnovers.

In the fourth quarter, Kobe shot 2-for-7 while Shaq was 4-for-4. Twice I saw when Kobe could have thrown it into Shaq, but he swung the ball the other way. I don't know if this was a set play, but it didn't seem like it. What was he thinking? What were the others thinking? Shaq was 13-16 for the game, and was unstoppable tonight. They should have just kept feeding that machine. Kobe was 10-for-27 at the end of the game. Which one would you choose? I guess feeding Shaq still wouldn't have won the game, but it might have made it closer and given them a chance. The other Lakers definitely need to step it up for the Lakers to win Game 2 and the series.

On a side note, last week I was watching ESPN's SportsCenter with Dan Patrick where he was discussing who is "America's Team." They brought up the Yankees, Cowboys, Lakers and another team, which I don't remember. Patrick invited Pardon the Interruption's Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon to discuss this topic. When they were talking about the Lakers, Tony and Michael said they couldn't be "America's Team" because one main characteristic is that they have to be loved and hated by America and they said,"... the Lakers are not hated... they are loved... how could you hate the Lakers?" Immediately I said to myself, "What?? Where are they from? Who do they talk to?... Spending way too much time in the newsroom..."

Having close friends in most of the major cities and hanging out with a lot of people from Chicago and NYC, I know most of my friends hate the Lakers. HATE THE LAKERS, TONY AND MIKE. I was so surprised and annoyed by this assessment that I emailed Tony and Mike about their lack of ears on the street. I agree with them that the Lakers are not "America's Team," but not because they are not hated by anyone in America.

RAY BRADBURY ON MICHAEL MOORE

HatTip to Wonkette. "Michael Moore is a dumb [expletive], that's what I think," stated the author of "Fahrenheit 451." I couldn't agree more with him. Like I wrote before, I would love Moore to debate someone from the Right with at least half a brain, and just get stomped.

Bradbury Fired Up Over Moore
Famed sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury is not very happy with filmmaker Michael Moore.

The 80-year-old author is peeved that Moore's latest documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- which just picked up the highly coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival -- is trading on the title of Bradbury's famous 1953 novel "Fahrenheit 451."

"Michael Moore is a dumb [expletive], that's what I think," Bradbury told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter during a phone interview from Los Angeles. "He stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking my permission."Not one to hold back, Bradbury said he tried to contact Moore's production company to express his grave displeasure, but to no avail. It would be nice, he added, if Moore changed the title of his soon-to-be released film.

Saturday, June 05, 2004

248,000 NONFARM JOBS ADDED LAST MONTH... MARKETS STIRRING
ECONOMIC RECOVERY?... WE'VE ALREADY RECOVERED

Reports are out on the economic "recovery." What reports are these reporters reading from? We already were on the road to recovery. From The Seattle Times "Solid job growth adds fuel for more economic recovery." More here and here. Not good news for the Dems and Kerry. Guess they'll focus more on Iraqi now.

BETS ANYONE? BUSH OR KERRY?

From James Taranto's Best of the Web Today:

Bookies for Bush
Yesterday's item on Bush victory portents cited the Iowa Electronic Markets, which rate Bush the favorite. So, it turns out, do several bookmaking operations that take bets on the presidential outcome:

TradeSports.com (click on "Politics" in the left-hand navigation bar, then click on "US Presidential Elec") currently lists Bush as a 57.2% favorite--which means a bet of $57.20 wins $42.80 if Bush is re-elected.

Intertops.com has Bush at -155 and Kerry at +100, which means you have to bet $155 to win $100 on Bush, whereas Kerry is an even-money bet.

BestBetting.com lists British bookies' odds on the two candidates. Kerry's odds range from 9-10 (a $100 bet pays $90) to 1.2-1 ($120), while Bush's range from 4-6 ($66.67) to 8-11 ($88.89).

RONALD REAGAN, THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR, PASSES AWAY
One of the Greatest Presidents Ever... He Changed Lives Worldwide

It is a sad day in history. More from CNN (Thatcher said Reagan won the Cold War "without a shot being in fired."). Praise from both sides of the aisle. Other views from Europe and Latin America. From Time Magazine's Tony Karon. Lastly, an article on the impact of the 'Reagan Revolution'.

Friday, June 04, 2004

CRAIG MCCAW'S NEW COMPANY... CLEARWIRE

McCaw is launching a new wireless broadband Service to compete against cable and DSL services. He's made some pretty good companies and bets with McCaw Cellular and Nextel.

FRIENDSTER TAPS SCOTT SASSA AS CEO

Good move by Friendster. I was wondering when they would make a move towards becoming a revenue generating business. Beyond advertising revenue, it will be interesting to see how these online social networks make money. Well, a lot of money. I assume Kleiner Perkins and Benchmark wouldn't have invested unless they saw a 10x potential. From Venture Wire Alert:

The Web site has tapped former NBC executive Scott Sassa to take over as chief executive. Sassa, 45 years old, held several top positions at General Electric Co.'s NBC from 1997 to 2003.

The recruitment represents the latest move by Friendster, of Mountain View, Calif., to transform itself from a quirky Internet start-up to a profitable online business. Last fall, Friendster - which helps connect people through friends they have in common - signed on former Internet executives as investors and raised $13 million in financing round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital. The social networking site, founded in March 2003, has more than 7 million members.

A LAPSE, NOT A STRATEGY... ANOTHER VIEW ON ABU GHRAIB

Emailed from Mingi at Time. I couldn't find the link on Google, so I'm just posting the whole article.

Abuses in Iraq - the history of conflict repeated.

By John Chalmers
REUTERS

BRUSSELS, May 13 (Reuters) - The torture and humiliation of prisoners in Iraq by U.S. soldiers is just another chapter in a long history of wartime atrocities, this time writ larger courtesy of the digital camera, the Internet and television.

"I have no doubt that what we are seeing is typical of almost any conflict anywhere," said Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at England's University of Bradford.

"It very rarely comes to the surface but if you look at French behaviour in Algiers, the British behaviour in Cyprus and... virtually any other state involved in significant warfare, conduct always and persistently slips."

Pictures of grinning U.S. soldiers abusing naked Iraqis at a prison once used by Saddam Hussein's torturers have been splashed across newspapers across the world. A U.S. general's probe into abuses recounted detainees being sodomised, beaten, kept naked for days and forced to masturbate while being filmed.

The scandal has revived memories of the 1968 My Lai massacre of hundreds of men, women and children in the Vietnam War, which savaged public support for the U.S. role in that conflict when it came to light 18 months later.

To some extent, the reports of abuse now under scrutiny echo routine charges made by Palestinians held in Israeli detention of hooding, sleep deprivation, nudity, cold showers and long periods of enforced standing.

An Israeli state commission enquiry into torture allegations in 1987 concluded that "a moderate measure of physical pressure" was permissible to glean information from detainees.

A LAPSE, NOT A STRATEGY
But experts said the handling of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad does not appear to have been sanctioned by senior officers and nor does it appear to have been part of an overall strategy.

"If you look at the sorts of atrocities that were carried out in Bosnia in 1992-95 you see similar sorts of patterns, although some incidents were far more brutal than anything we have so far witnessed in Iraq," said Rachel Kerr from the Department of War Studies at King's College, London.

"And the distinction is that it was for a political purpose, not something carried out by rogue individuals."

Kerr suggested the abuses reported in Iraq may simply be down to poor training and ill-discipline.

Critics also say that U.S. President George W. Bush's aggressive pursuit of "evildoers" following the September 11 attacks in 2001 - including denying detainees from Iraq and Afghanistan formal standing under the Geneva Convention - may have given soldiers a sense of "anything goes" in battle.

"Abu Ghraib wasn't the result of a couple of lone sadists in the military - it was a direct and easily foreseen consequence of detention policies that lack transparency and safeguards..." the American Civil Liberties Union said in a letter to Bush.

But as others condemned the reported abuses in Iraq this week, one U.S. Senator expressed outrage at the outcry and took aim at "humanitarian do-gooders" investigating American troops.

French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said it was to the credit of U.S. democracy that the images of torture had been revealed so quickly and become the subject of public debate.

This contrasted with what he said was the years-long cover-up of torture by French troops of Algerian prisoners during the Algerian war of independence.

"The great lesson from history is that... there is always this," he told Europe 1 radio. "No part of humanity is immune from this type of disgraceful behaviour. The devil is there, barbarity is in us all, and so also in an American soldier."

Thursday, June 03, 2004

TENET RESIGNS AS CIA DIRECTOR

All over the news today how George Tenet, a fellow SIPA alum, resigned from the CIA. My friend who knows Tenet said that he's a solid person and well-liked in Washington. The Dems have started to raise questions and make statements that accuse the Bush administration of using Tenet as a scapegoat for the various criticisms that they generated and pushed into the public spotlight. I don't believe this is the case because at the height of the 9/11 Congressional hearings President Bush could have bowed to the pressures and criticisms that the CIA and Tenet was receiving, but he stayed by his man and reflected the loyalty that is characteristic of his personality. Who really knows besides Tenet and his close associates the real reasons. Maybe information will surface that his resignation was connected to the recent accusations by Ahmad Chalabi that Tenet was responsible for the allegations that he leaked intelligence to Iran. Obviously not this action itself, but something deeper. Naw, I'm going down fantasy lane now.

Anyway, it's amusing how the Dems haven't coordinated their communications since some leaders are going down the scapegoat road, but Kerry himself is saying how he "called for Tenet's resignations months ago" with a I-told-you-so attitude. Makes me think about how Nader is doing his own thing and how segmented their political money is and how it's being spent. Today CNN reported that the Bush campaign has spent about $69 million on TV ads, about $43 million by the Kerry campaign, and almost $39 million by outside Democratic organizations such as Moveon.org, labor unions, and other non-profits. I hope they are coordinating all these activities tightly or bigger mistakes are bound to happen on the campaign trail.

"MONTHLY MAUREEN DOWD WATCH"

HatTip to Instapundit. Good article by Catherine Seipp at the Independent Women's Forum.

RICK WARREN... HUMBLE AND AWESOME LEADER

I just started to read "The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, so this is not a book review post. My friend, Hamon, got back from a pastoral training conference at Saddleback a couple weeks ago and he was talking about meeting Rick Warren. From his week at the conference, he said that he was impressed by his humility and vision as a pastor.

It can be easy to get caught up in creating and running a mega-church of 15,000 weekly attendees. I've seen some of this in Korea, where a few of the largest churches in the world reside. Some pastors begin to think that it's their church instead of the whole congregation's. Biblically a church is the body's not the pastor's.

Anyway, Warren's book was #1 on The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. I believe this is great and reflective of our society today. People are seeking for a purpose or purposes in their lives and Christianity is an answer for many. My initial read of the book is that it is very simple and straight-forward. It is almost like a Christian devotional book, so for those not open to Christianity, or especially anti-Christ, it probably will be offensive.

Hamon was telling me that with the financial gains from the book Warren gave back his salary to Saddleback Church from his 20+ years of service there, and he will not take anymore salary in the future. He and his wife will also set up a fund to help Christian organizations which is from 90% of his gains, and the remaining 10% will go to their living costs for the rest of their lives. Whatever way you cut it, these are very respectable actions that reflect the humility in their lives. Awesome.

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

IS THE PDA DEAD?... SONY PULLING OUT

Good thread from News.com on the PDA industry. As an early PDA user, from Palm to Handspring, I loved the convenience and functionality that my PDAs provided. Everything was novel and cool. Beaming contact info into another Palm to downloading new programs to the game modules. When I moved to Asia four years ago, I found out that within that part of the world PDAs barely made a dent, especially in the the countries I lived in or visited frequently (e.g. China/Hong Kong, South Korea).

I initially identified a few reasons from an eyeball perspective. There weren't as many professionals (e.g. consultants, bankers) on the go compared with the U.S. traveling from city to city. Also the flow of information traveled far more frequently between cellphones (i.e. voice and sms) and the PC (i.e. emails and chat) in Asia than the U.S. during those years. Related to this point, cellphones in Asia had far better functionality that provided some overlapping qualities PDAs had. As smartphones rapidly developed in Asia, the potential of the PDA market became more bleak. Now I doubt PDAs will ever take off in China or Korea.

I don't know about how PDAs are or will do in Europe or other markets. Anyone? But with cellphone technology and services finally catching up in the U.S., I assume the future for PDAs is very bleak now. A shrinking primary market with limited global growth in sight is not a happy future to gaze upon.

NEW IRAQI GOVERNMENT... BUSH PRAISES AND U.N. PUSHES

President praises while the U.N. pushes for changes in the U.S. proposal.

AL GORE... EXTREMELY POOR SPORT OR CRAZED BITTERMAN?

Did you see Al Gore's environmental speech using "The Day After Tomorrow" as a rallying cry against President Bush and support for environmental causes last week? I briefly saw it while channel surfing. He's now officially scarier than Howard Dean and definitely more whacked out than Ralph Nader. He still hasn't gotten over losing to Bush by a few votes nor how his own party pushed him out of contention after he embarrassingly took the issue to court. James Glassman has a piece here on Gore and Rachel Lucas has an amusing piece here.

MEDIA BIAS CONTINUED... HOW SILLY IT IS TODAY
"If Bush were President in WWII with the Current Media"

HatTip to MaroonBlog. From The National Debate Blog:

1939 March 15
THEN: German Troops Enter Prague; Czechoslovakia Dismembered
IF NOW WERE THEN: Bush Abandons Eastern Europeans to Nazis

1939 September 1
THEN: Germany Invades Poland
IF NOW WERE THEN: Bush Fails to Defend Poles

1940 May 27-28
THEN: Allies Evacuate Dunkirk
IF NOW WERE THEN: Bush Unfamiliar with History of the Normans (full post)