TradeSports is a site that lets you trade "futures" on sporting and political events. Current odds given for Hussein won't survive as Iraqi president to Jun2003 are 64%. (via Ipse Dixit)

The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook (via Ye Olde Blogge)

I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe:

Tuna Casserole

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish

Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustated.

Funny Dave Barry piece on the Stupidest State.

An outfit calling itself ''Morgan Quitno Press'' recently ranked the 50 United States in order of intelligence, and I am TICKED OFF. My state, Florida, came in 47th. Can you believe that? Forty-seventh! How dare they? How dare they suggest that Florida is more intelligent than three other states? No way!

The three states ranked as stupider than Florida were Mississippi, Louisiana and New Mexico. Granted, these are not gifted states. But stupider than Florida? Stupider than the state that STILL does not really know who it voted for in the 2000 presidential election? Stupider than the state that will issue a driver's license to ANYBODY, in- cluding people who steer by leaning out the car window and tapping their canes on the roadway? Don't make me laugh.

(also via Joanne Jacobs via Number 2 Pencil)

Joe Bob Briggs on why Lonnie Can't Do Squat.

OK, here's the latest big education mega-study. It's called the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a federally funded survey of 72,000 junior high and high school students. And the results, to sum it up, are that all schools should be smaller than 1,200 students, because if you get bigger than that, the students feel isolated and they're more prone to anti-social and self-destructive behavior. They need to feel "connected." In fact, "connectedness" is the new buzz word in education.

Well, OK, yes, sort of. But I would say that the reason schools should be as small as possible doesn't have as much to do with the kids feeling isolated as with the TEACHERS feeling isolated. The bigger the bureaucracy, the more you have to go along with the prevailing "one size fits all" theory du jour. The principal makes sure you don't spend any extra time with Penelope, because Lonnie's parents might come in one day and kick his butt.

We've actually done the same thing to teachers that we long ago did to judges -- we took all discretion and creativity out of the process. A judge is no longer allowed to say, "All things considered, we're gonna let this one slide," because he's not expected to JUDGE anymore. He just slaps down mandatory sentences that are set by a legislature that doesn't trust him.

In a similar way, teachers are assaulted daily with policies on diversity, multiculturalism, discipline, structure of teaching time, proper forms of address, all to make the classroom ever more formal and yet ever more "sensitive" at the same time. Somebody told me that high school band directors are no longer allowed to fling their batons at the trombone player when he lets out a big blat in the middle of a rest. Now THAT'S an educational loss that will damage our musical heritage for years to come.

(via Joanne Jacobs)

Paramount Pictures have been given first option for the rights to 'Godfather IV'. I'm excited. Yes I'm one of those folks who consider Godfather I/II along with Citizen Kane the greatest American films ever made and was aghast when I discovered my wife had never seen them when we first started dating (sort of like discovering you're dating an alien...I think I love this woman, but she's never seen the Godfather, how could we possibly be compatible). But it turned out to just be an oversight in her busy life before we met, she enjoyed them appropriately when I we watched them together for the first time on New Years eve with the movies Havana New Years eve scene occuring exactly at midnight with no planning on my part. We now watch them every year on New Years eve to recreate the first time we watched them together. I also liked Godfather III and think it gets a bum rap for not being as good as I & II, but it's a very high bar. On it's own, I think it was one of the best films of the year it was released, despite FFC's overloooking of his daughters acting deficiencies. Her's was a small part and the rest of the main characters Pacino, Keaton, Garcia, Wallach, Montegna and even Hamilton and Novello all gave fine performances.

Today down in Houston they had an auction of all Enron assets. Lots of good deals -- I picked up two senators and a congressman.
-- Jay Leno

Jonah Goldberg has an interesting essay about power, corruption and their relation.

Today, the "power corrupts" syllogism has — like so many other things — been translated into a credo of personal morality. It insists that power makes you a bad person — i.e., self-aggrandizing, cruel, megalomaniacal, blind to all moral distinctions, and so on. And that just isn't true. If it were, history would simply be the story of bad powerful men. And, while there most certainly were plenty of bad powerful men, there was also, for instance, George Washington. He might have become a king if he'd wanted, but he chose not to. He could have stayed president for life, but he chose not to. And, as NR's Richard Brookhiser has chronicled, Washington remained a decent man, courteous to a fault in fact, as he grew in influence and power. Likewise, Abraham Lincoln — at whom certain libertarians love to throw the Acton quote — may have suspended habeas corpus, but the evidence seems fairly lacking that he was a corrupt man or that he grew more corrupt as he grew more powerful. Last I checked, Jimmy Carter didn't become noticeably more praetorian for having had the arsenal of democracy at his disposal.

Obviously, power can blur judgments. But if absolute power corrupted absolutely, that would mean that all absolute monarchs and absolute rulers were equally — and absolutely — corrupt and therefore indistinguishable from one another. I'm no great student of such matters, but I can't imagine it would be hard to disprove this. Couldn't some kings be more corrupt than other kings even though they held roughly the same amount of power?

In fact, this clichéd notion — that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is an iron law of history — implies almost exactly the opposite message to what Acton had in mind. He wanted historians — i.e., us, humanity, society, etc. — to distinguish between the moral choices of powerful men. He explicitly rejected the idea that all powerful men are good — or bad. Acton believed that some popes were good men, who wielded their power wisely, and that other popes were bad men deserving of the historian's obloquy. He would have been horrified to learn that people think he meant we should simply dismiss the whole lot of popes as equally contemptible.

Saddam has ordered all diplomats living abroad to send their children back to Iraq. Yes, we wouldn't want mass defections by Iraqi diplomats to tarnish the view of Saddam as U.S. persecuted scapegoat.

The fourth installment of David Frum's series is up.

The Sky is not Falling Great piece. (via BizarreScience)

The nadir was plumbed, as so often, on the Today programme when a well-meaning, tear-stained voice lamented the plight of the poor plants and anxious animals which could not be expected to cope with change. The comment was so wet that you could shoot snipe off it. Good grief! Nature has been coping with change since some archaic Nigella was stirring the primal amino acid soup while earthquake, fire and flood raged all around. “I just love those rich blue-green stromatolites, don’t you?” (Sly, girlish glance.)

So, a few benighted birds, such as the lesser-striped sporan, might have to migrate to live in Sweden: how dreadful. And think of our feathered friends from the South: they might have to seek asylum in Britain under Blunkett’s brutal regime, confined to a webfooted wilderness in the Fens. Meanwhile, back in the hedgerow, spring was dangerously early this year and the autumn colours are not quite the same. “We’re all doomed!” as Private Fraser would intone, with twisted mouth and goggle eyes.
...
But the 22-carat gold nonsense starts when our politicians declare that we can manage climate change to produce “a sustainable climate” — the world’s most outrageous oxymoron. I have this preposterous vision of a quixotic Michael Meacher, accompanied by a faithful Sancho Prescott, tilting at the Sun, capping exploding volcanoes, diverting conveyer-belt ocean currents with snorkels to the fore, and, like Superman, heaving meteors back into space. The idea that, by fiddling about with a couple of politically chosen gases (carbon dioxide and methane), we can make climate do what we want is one of the most dangerous myths of our post-industrial age.

Perhaps I should play Lex Luther, Superman’s alter ego. If you really want to mess up the world’s climates, especially in the Tropics, then cover the Tibetan high plateau with black plastic sheeting and see what that does to the subtropical jet stream, the monsoons, and Lois Lane’s hairdo and make-up.

Very funny court transcript via Eugene Volokh (who says it's a joke, but still very funny).

Wisdom of Homer Simpson


Homer: Marge, I can't wear a pink shirt to work. Everybody wears white shirts. I'm not popular enough to be different...

Funny chart of what the Europeans think of each other. (via LordMage)

It reminds me of an old joke with many variations:

Heaven has Italian lovers, French chefs, German engineers, Swiss bankers, English police.

Hell has Italian bankers, French engineers, German police, Swiss lovers and English chefs.

There's also a good piece in the London Times by William Rees-Mogg:

In all politics, and in particular in American politics, events change attitudes. The South should not have fired on Fort Sumter in 1861; the Germans should not have sunk the Lusitania in 1915; the Japanese should not have attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941. By the same logic, Al-Qaeda should not have destroyed the Twin Towers in 2001. Before these acts of aggression, negotiation was still open; the American determination had not crystallised.

After they had occurred, the destruction of the aggressor became inevitable. In each of these wars, the initial challenge came from the other side. But once Americans are convinced that they face an implacable enemy, that has a revolutionary effect. The aim of terrorists is to radicalise their own potential followers; 9-11 radicalised the American people, despite their anxieties.

Some of the opponents of the war argue that al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussain are two separate groups, but al-Qaeda is indeed an enemy of Saddam Hussain. The Americans I was meeting do not see it like that. They regard all Islamic terrorism as forming a single threat.

Americans do not know, or much care, what precise relationship exists between al-Qaeda and the Bali terrorists. They see them both as being in the same line of business, and do not doubt that some links exist between them. They see Saddam Hussain in the same light. He is the brutal dictator of an Islamic country; he had repeatedly supported terrorists and used terror himself. To allow him to develop weapons of mass destruction would, they think, be as irrational at allowing al-Qaeda to do so.

This diagram has been distributed to operators at the Rockville command center

Ass -> <- Elbow

This from a recurring series of 'anecdotes' about that psychotic despot, er, great and benevolent leader Kim Jong Il from the Korean Central News Agency

Anecdotes about Kim Jong Il

Pyongyang, October 22 (KCNA) -- Kim Jong Il visited newly built furnace no. 6 of the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Works in May Juche 55 (1966). While looking at furnace men working in front of the furnace, he was afraid that their working site was dusty.
He asked an official whether the gas-absorbing system was established or not at the furnace.
Hearing an answer from the official that it was planned to complete and establish the gas-absorbing system, he said that it should be done first before anything else.
So, the operation of the new furnace was suspended until it was equipped with antipollution facilities.
It was happened in the summer of 1965 when Kim Jong Il gave on-the-spot guidance to the expansion project of the Chongsu Chemical Factory. He learnt that officials were interested only in the expansion project of the carbide workshop, indifferent to the black smoke shot up from the chimney of the factory.
Returning from the guidance tour, he told officials they, fully responsible for the destiny of the people, could not allow air pollution even a bit but provide the people with pollution-free living conditions.
What he said reflected his strong sense of responsibility for the destiny of the people.


It's obvious why Jimmy Carter liked him so much though, they had the same minutae-oriented, micromanagement approach to governing. Kim has also been known to have 'lusted in his heart' after a pretty woman or two and also to have come from humble beginnings (born in a log cabin according to official accounts. Of course ol' Jimmy didn't let the economy get so bad that large portions of his population were starving, but then again he was only in office for four years and if you extrapolate his economic performance over the same period as Kim Il Sung/Kim Jong Il have ruled N. Korea he might have achieved similar results.

This is what the MSNBC summary has to say, I guess things have gone downhill since 1966.

Human rights: From 2001 U.S. State Department report
"The Government's human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit numerous serious abuses. Citizens do not have the right peacefully to change their government. There continued to be reports of extrajudicial killings and disappearances. Citizens are detained arbitrarily, and many are held as political prisoners; prison conditions are harsh. The constitutional provisions for an independent judiciary and fair trials are not implemented in practice. The regime subjects its citizens to rigid controls. The leadership perceives most international norms of human rights, especially individual rights, as illegitimate, alien, and subversive to the goals of the State and party. During the year, the Government entered into a human rights dialogue with the European Union; two meetings were held, but no significant results were reported. The Penal Code is Draconian, stipulating capital punishment and confiscation of assets for a wide variety of "crimes against the revolution," including defection, attempted defection, slander of the policies of the party or State, listening to foreign broadcasts, writing "reactionary" letters, and possessing reactionary printed matter. The Government prohibits freedom of speech, the press, assembly, and association, and all forms of cultural and media activities are under the tight control of the party."

Read the full 2001 U.S. State Department Report

Major environmental issues: Localized air pollution attributable to inadequate industrial controls; water pollution; inadequate supplies of potable water

Some 'reasoned' opinion from our 'good' friends the Saudis, quoted in todays Best of the Web:

"Allah decreed that the Jews would be humiliated; he cursed them, and turned them into apes and pigs."--Al-Jazirah, a Saudi newspaper, June 7

"We are proud that they define us as someone who strikes terror into the heart of the enemies of Allah and our enemies, but not according to the definition they [the Americans] want. America wants us to define terror according to its criteria. The American definition of terror is that anyone who resists America's colonialist and religious interests is a terrorist."--Saudi sheikh Mohsin Al-'Awaji, interviewed on al-Jazeera television, July 10

"It is enough to see a number of congressmen wearing Jewish yarmulkes to explain the allegations against us."--Prince Sultan bin Abd Al-Aziz, the Saudi defense minister, quoted in London's Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, June 23

"According to the Western view, flogging is illogical. Execution is unacceptable, and the same goes for amputating hands and stoning. These are things that in Muslim eyes are at the core of the Islamic faith."--Ghazi Al-Qusaibi, former Saudi ambassador to London, quoted in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, June 5

James Baker has a good op-ed in the WaPo on North Korea.

The leaders of North Korea starve their people to maintain the world's fifth-largest military force and with it personal power over a bankrupt country. They earn hard currency by selling advanced missile technology in violation of the international missile technology control regime. Potentially just over the horizon is the ultimate proliferation nightmare -- ballistic missiles fitted with nuclear warheads.

This is exceedingly dangerous and enormously troubling. What it is not, however, is surprising. Rather, it is the natural and foreseeable result of the 1994 Framework Agreement between the United States and North Korea.

The government of North Korea holds power by force. All it understands is force, strength and resolve. By acceding to blackmail threats and signing the Framework Agreement, the United States turned a policy based on strength into one based on accommodation, compromise and appeasement.
...
Given their track record before 1994, there was substantial reason to question whether the North Koreans would ever keep their side of the Framework Agreement. The worst part is that it sent this dangerous message to other would-be proliferators in capitals such as Tehran and Baghdad: "Sometimes crime pays."

But those who criticize have an obligation to suggest an alternative approach. So what should we do now? Instead of caving in to Pyongyang's belligerent threats, I think the United States should go to the U.N. Security Council and obtain political and economic sanctions against the North for breach of its solemn international obligations, much as we did against Iraq in 1990; beef up our forces in South Korea to whatever extent necessary; and quietly make it clear to the North Koreans that for more than 40 years the U.S. nuclear deterrent kept the peace in Europe against an overwhelming Soviet conventional superiority, and we are quite prepared to do the same on the Korean peninsula to fulfill our security obligations to South Korea and Japan.

David Frum has a very good series in the Telegraph debunking war myths. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Part 4 will appear tomorrow. (You may need to register to see all articles)

Wisdom of Homer Simpson

Marge: Homer, please don't make me choose between my man and my God, because you just can't win.
Homer: There you go again, always taking someone else's side. Flanders, the water department, God...

Excellent post by Rob Lyman on why he left the Left.

In these two quotes lies the essence what drove me from liberalism to conservativism. I am not a conservative because I'm a racist, because I enjoy pollution, because I think coal miners deserve to die in accidents, because I think poor people deserve to starve to death, or because I think war is wonderful and I want as many wars as possible to feed my twisted imagination. I share Gunnar Berge's belief that diplomacy is essential and that war should be a last resort. I share Greenpeace's love of the woods and water, and Martin Luther King's thirst for justice. I share Sarah Brady's abhorrence of violence and the ACLU's passion for freedom. I believe in charity and compassion for the poor and oppressed. But on a host of issues--gun control, Social Security, the environment, workplace safety, civil rights, I find the "liberal" arguments--as advanced by elected officials like Ted Kennedy, by NGOs like the Sierra Club, and by well-known pundits like Helen Thomas--to be rooted in fantasy and magical thinking. In a perfect world, no one would need to use a gun to defend themselves. Therefore, we must outlaw self-defense. In a perfect world, humans would have no impact on the natural enviorment, and would eat organic foods. Therefore, we must battle pesticides and fertilizer while simultaneously railing against deforestation which fertilizer makes unnecssary. In a perfect world, no one would be poor. Therefore, we must use the power of the federal government to give the poor money, and accuse anyone who thinks charity should be voluntary of wanting to throw children into the street. In a perfect world, Saddam would be a rational actor who negotiates in good faith. Therefore, we must pretend he is exactly what he most certainly is not. The U.N. is the "Parliament of Man" which somehow expresses the will of the world's people, rather than the self-interest of 190 governments, most of them dictatorial. I am a conservative because it appears that being a liberal requires a suspension of disbelief more extreme than the average James Bond flick.

Eugene Volokh has a good post on the gun-control movement in the U.S.

Self-defense and crime have been at the crux of the gun control debate for decades. They were certainly part of the debate about Columbine -- and maybe the reason that, "[d]espite the attention the tragedy received, no major gun legislation was passed," is that many voters thought that gun control isn't really going to stop people who are bent on mass murder and suicide. Maybe the reason that "Banning handguns was off the table. Americans didn't want to hear about gun control." is that Americans think gun control will only disarm the good guys and not the bad guys. Maybe the reason that "a 1982 initiative in California that would have banned the sales of new handguns in the state . . . failed," leaving "the gun control forces look[ing] out of step" is that people think that handguns are necessary for their self-defense.

Not a peep about this. Why not? Are the notions of guns being a self-defense tool, and of gun control being inadequate to fight crime, so alien that they don't even bear mentioning -- despite their centrality to the debate that the article is supposedly talking about?

Reason article by Joyce Lee Malcolm on the, er, unexpected consequences of Englands gun ban. It seems that when guns are outlawed only outlaws have guns. It is actually even worse than just a gun ban, self-defense of any form is discouraged and apparently prosecutable.

A pair of physicists have produced a study which suggests that the universe may stop it's accelerating expansion and begin to contract. So instead of the open-ended cold death we may be in for a flaming collapse in a mere 10-20 billion years.

The Wisdom of Homer Simpson

Homer: Marge, it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.

(Also be sure to check John Hawkins list of favorite Simpson's quotes here)

Live video of a working micromachine (MEM) from Sandia. The gear teeth are the size of red blood cells. Cool, huh?

Quantum mirages.

My cats have been catching and torturing chipmunks, moles and other small local fauna. I have to find out where to get one of these to teach them a lesson.

For more on Maureen Dowd's descent into incoherent raving, see Josh Chafetz at OxBlog who maintains a regular DowdWatch. Also be sure to check his Immutable Laws of Dowd.

After his ban on smoking in bars is passed, Mayor Bloomberg intends to tackle that next great threat to bar patrons, drinking. According to a spokesman for City Hall, studies show that not only is drinking alcoholic beverages dangerous to one's own health causing liver damage and health problems, but also increase the risk of auto accidents and can increase the risk of violence between bar patrons and employees. The Mayor's spokesman said the Mayor doesn't believe bar patrons or employees should have to put up with the health risks associated with being shoved or punched or even the psychological damage that may result from the trauma of being repeatedly asked "What'chu lookin' at?" or "Hey baby, what time d'you get off?". Studies have also shown links between alcohol consumption and increased levels of sexual harrassment and other inapproprate behaviour. Bar owners have complained that they will lose large portions of their business if alcohol consumption is banned in bars arguing that people come to bars knowing that alcohol is served there and are aware of the effects and that they could choose to go to a coffee shop or ice cream parlor if they chose to. The Mayor's spokesman said that bar patrons health and safety was of greater importance than their right to choose for themselves and that it was the government's job to look after them much as a loving parent takes care of a young child.

Juan Gato has received a letter from Osama bin Laden too! Osama assures Juan he's not dead.