THE GENIUS OF THE SCIENTIST:

"I found something useful in my philosophy book! If I ever forget the number that comes after 464, I can go to pg 464 and turn the page to see the next number!"

Well, since 464 is an even number, it's always going to be on the left side when you open a book. If you need to turn to the next page to see the next number, it's one f***ed up book you're holding.

QUOTE: Daniel Dennett, one of those famous philosophers of mind:

"I think that on the contrary, it is a pseudo-biological argument, one that by ignoring the actual biological details, misdirects us away from the case that can be made for taking one species--our species--right off the scale of intelligence that ranks the pig above the lizard and the ant above the oyster. Comparing our brains with bird brains or dolphin brains is almost beside the point, because our brains are in effect joined together into a single cognitive system that dwarfs all others. They are joined by one of the innovations that has invaded our brains and no others: language. I am not making the foolish claim that all our brains are knit together by language into one gigantic mind, thinking its transnational thoughts, but rather that each individual human brain, thanks to its communicative links, is the beneficiary of the cognitive labors of the others in a way that gives it unprecedented powers. Naked animal brains are no match at all for the heavily armed and outfitted brains we carry in our heads."

TO DAVID, AGAIN: Sadly, you miss the point. Even granting you that it is possible to replicate any particular experience via the physio-chemical structures of the brain (and rather than just take your word for it, I'd love to see a paper or book that demonstrates that this is the case), this does not explain away the experience of having that sensation. There are philosophical theories available that speculate as to how this is done (Idenitity theory, for one, and Dennett's Quining approach to phenomenology), but that requires slightly more sophisticated argumentation than just saying that the phenomenal content of experience is the particular brain states that go along with the experience. Is it not possible, to pick one argument for a rich mental life, that some physical process x merely correlates to the experience of a sensation, rather than causing that sensation? We can bring out Hume on induction if you're unconvinced that this may possibly be the case.

TO DAVID: That's because you're making the elemental mistake of confusing the physical facts with our phenomenological interpretation thereof. Assuming that it were possible to stimulate some portion of the brain to simulate the experience of tasting, say, an apple (which, I should add, science can't do, at least not now), there is no reason (or at least no obvious reason) to assume that will proivde us with the same experience as actually tasting an apple. I will grant you that there are reductionist theories of the mind that posit your belief in science will one day be justified, but most of them (Dan Dennett notwithstanding) recognize that the problem is more complicated than that, and that there's at least a phenomenological appearance that needs to be accounted for.

HAHA: I'm surprised no one has thought of this before: GoogleFight all your friends and see who comes out on top!

POLITICS AND HUMANITY: On Friday, sometime after 6:00 p.m., CNN showed footage of Sen. Tom Harkin making a statement about the death of Paul Wellstone. He walked up to the podium, took a look at the reporters, and broke down completely. After about 30 seconds, his wife had the sense to turn him around so he wouldn't be facing the cameras anymore. And he went on crying for several minutes, until, between his wife and his daughter, they talked him into composing himself. He turned around again, and faced the reporters. "Paul Wellstone..." he began, and then paused again. Here he was, about to talk about something publicly that he hadn't even finished dealing with privately.

He eventually regained his composure and finished his statement. But I think there was something telling in what he did.

Some other noteworthy things from this past weekend:

Norm Coleman, the Republican Senate candidate, announced he was suspending his campaign indefinitely, and would not resume until such a time as the Minnesota DFL had picked a replacement candidate

The Republican Party website (as well as that of the DFL) went dark

Talk of who would replace Wellstone began, I hesitate to say (and I hesitate because I think it reflects poorly on the people who were talking), in earnest not even hours after the plane crash. But the DFL wanted no part of it.

""We're just so deep in grief right now, we'll just have to worry about that tomorrow," said Bill Amberg, communications director for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party."

'People close to Mr. Mondale said he was not ready to rule out running but considered it unseemly to speak out so soon after Mr. Wellstone's death.

I think all of this is only right. Politics, even when it's about the most important issues in governance, is never the most important thing. I had someone remark to me on Friday afternoon that they were sad that Wellstone had died, but that Fritz Mondale might run as a replacement, and that'd be great, since it'd give the Democrats a good chance to win. This was vulgar and offensive, and I had no problem with saying so: the concern for the man was pro forma at best. My interlocutor responded that winning the election was the most important thing to Wellstone, and that moving as quickly as possible to pick a candidate was the best way to remember him.

But, as I said then and will say again now, if winning his election was the most important thing to Paul Wellstone, then he was a horrible, horrible man. There can be no doubt that his wife and his children were more important to him that any political office. The question, then, is what is it that every politician in Minnesota could see, that Tom Harkin and Jesse Helms saw, that all of the Democratic Party apparatchiks couldn't? Politics doesn't mean a damn thing if there isn't actual, meaningful human emotion behind it. And that emotion will be fused with a principle that may utilitize different methods and arguments, but will always be this: to do what is good and right for everyone. We ought to no more deny everyone connected with Paul Wellstone the time to know we are in solidarity with them in their pain, and to grieve, then we would have it be denied to us.

There is now an honest discussion going on over who will take Wellstone's place on the DFL ticket. That is as it should be: the election, while not the most important thing, was certainly an important thing to him, and we should know that the principles he believed in will never die, but will always require people willing to fight for them. But the people who talked of succession just hours after he died would do well to ask themselves what they are missing.

TRIBUTE: Peggy Noonan

ADDENDUM TO 'I JUST WANNA SAY:' I hate the fact that they played "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang after they won. If you were unconvinced of the Disney-Satan connection before, that should seal it.

TRIBUTE: I found this particularly unexpected and touching.

I JUST WANNA SAY: I hate the Angels. Not just in the way I hate the Diamondbacks, either: I really just hate Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling and, let's be honest, that's only because they're so damn good. But I hate everything* about the Angels: I hate that they're owned by Disney, I hate those thunder sticks, I hate the Rally Monkey (with a passion unmatched in this world and the next), I hate Garrett Anderson, Troy Glaus, and Troy Percival. I hate little David-fuckin'-Eckstein. And I hate their "we're the good guys... really!" attitude.

*Not actually true. They were originally owned by Gene Autry, and that's pretty badass for a baseball team.

PAUL WELLSTONE: Tapped

A COLD DAY. Paul Wellstone was a friend, not just to progressives and the working people in this country, but to this magazine and its staff. More than any other senator, he spoke truth to power. He spoke it eloquently, with a passion and conviction that often transcended the phony echoes of sound-bite politics. He never stopped, despite his physical pain, despite the exhaustion of his seemingly endless hours. He made decisions according to his moral values, not his desire to please the pundits or the party leadership. He was a fighter, and we must now fill his enormous void.

PAUL WELLSTONE: Mickey Kaus

Senator Paul Wellstone: They're probably already saying this on TV [and Noonan's already written it--ed .], but it was hard to dislike Paul Wellstone. He lacked the qualities that make a successful modern U.S. Senator: He wasn't a poser, a trimmer, a schemer, a dissembler, a self-aggrandizing egomaniac or a vicious infighter. He wasn't an a--hole.. Wellstone made his case -- usually with an emotional speech during which, when he got really excited, he'd bizarrely and charmingly start squatting up and down like a frog. Then he won or lost. Usually (but not always) lost.

You could be deeply annoyed by what he had to say -- in my case, his "compassionate" give-them-cash approach to welfare drove me up the wall. But that was what he thought. Wellstone didn't pretend to be for reforming welfare while secretly gutting reform in the statutory fine print, the traditional Washington "make-believe" approach. He didn't seek a middle ground that would offend the fewest number of people and guarantee his reelection. His openness and honesty constituted a temporary crack in the evolutionary laws, a quirk in which the proven Darwinian traits that make for success in the competition for national political prominence somehow didn't obtain. How the hell did this sincere lefty college professor get elected? If the culture of Washington power didn't value Wellstone, if the press whales considered him a bit cute and lacking in deal-making heft, that reflects more poorly on the culture of Washington power than on the senator.

The other reason for wishing Wellstone well -- my editors wanted me to write a piece making this point three weeks ago, which to my discredit I didn't get to -- was that he represented a political point of view that needed to be represented in the U.S, Senate and that, without him, probably won't be. It's not just that sometimes he might be right -- as with his annoying, unBeltwayish persistence in calling for universal health care after the flop of the 1994 Clinton plan. (Who knows, his vote against giving Bush authority to wage unilateral war against Iraq may also seem very right one day.) It's also that Wellstone forced everyone else to justify their positions in a new way, because he would come at them from a different angle of attack than, say, Tim Russert on Meet the Press. I wouldn't have wanted a Senate with 51 Paul Wellstones, simply because I don't agree with his views. But the Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body. Wellstone's views were and are important, and you wanted him around, as long as there was only one like him. There was.

PAUL WELLSTONE: John J. Miller

"Democratic senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash Friday in Minnesota.

He was the most liberal member of the Senate ? a title that had him beating out the likes of Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. At just under 5-and-a-half feet tall, Wellstone was a short man, but high on principle. Probably no other member of the Senate had been on the losing side of more 99-1 or 98-2 votes. None had voted more consistently against the Bush administration, according to Congressional Quarterly. Wellstone aspired to be a Barry Goldwater of the Left; the title of his recent book, The Conscience of a Liberal, is a deliberate echo of the conservative hero's own classic. Before the 2000 election, Wellstone was the clear favorite of his party's "progressive" wing ? i.e., anti-New Democrats who swear by The Nation ? to run for the White House. Yet he bowed out, citing a bad back, and stumped for Bill Bradley. Al Gore was simply too mainstream.

Wellstone may have sat at the far end of the political spectrum, but it was difficult to dislike him on a personal level ? even Right-wingers must admit that he would have made a good neighbor. Smiles and laughs came easily to him. His personal life, in fact, seemed quite conservative: He married young, had a few kids, and remained married to his wife, who was also on board the fatal flight, for 29 years. He could be feisty, but was rarely rude; even in Washington, there was still something of the college professor about him, acquired over the 21 years he spent teaching political science at Carleton College. When many Democrats talk about, say, extending unemployment benefits, their fists pound podiums, their ears billow smoke, and their faces turn red with rage. Not Wellstone. He spoke in measured tones, as if believing reasonable people will agree with him if they just listen long enough. He was an opponent of conservatism, but he was a decent man.

Today in Texas, President Bush acknowledged the death of Wellstone, his wife, an adult daughter, and five other people on board the plane: "Our prayers and heartfelt sympathy goes to their sons, their loved ones, their friends and the people of Minnesota. Paul Wellstone was a man of deep convictions. He was a plainspoken fellow who did his best for his state and for his country.''

Under Minnesota law, Wellstone's name must now come off the ballot; his party will have an opportunity to replace it. His reelection race was regarded one of the tightest in the nation this fall, though recent polls had him leading the GOP's Norm Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul."

that was one hell of a game, huh?

QUOTE: Andrew Sullivan:

"To me, this freedom is an irreducible core of what liberalism should be. It is about a person's right to think for herself with dignity and respect. It doesn't mean that you can't disagree vehemently with such a person, subject her views to withering scrutiny, rhetorical barbs or logical dissection. What it does mean is that you do not play the race card or any other card when engaging that person's views. And one of the key signs that much of today's left is actually, demonstrably illiberal, intolerant and reactionary, is the way in which this is now a common feature of leftist discourse."

FROM SCRAPPLEFACE:

" DNC Cuts Off N.Y. Welfare Recipient

(2002-10-23) -- The Democrat National Committee announced today it is ending the welfare program for a New York man who's desperately seeking a new job.

DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe said he feels sorry for H. Carl McCall, "but I've got to put the resources where we can win."

Mr. McAuliffe's treatment of the floundering Mr. McCall may be an early indicator of the new Democrat approach to social programs.

"You've heard of 'compassionate conservatism'," Mr. McAuliffe said. "Well, this is tough love liberalism. We can't throw money into losing efforts. Once Mr. McCall shows that he can raise his own money, and improve his job prospects, then we'll send some money his way. We only want to give money to people who don't need it.""

LINK: You know, it was a white man, wasn't it?

LINK: Jonah Goldberg on might and right.

LINK: Good news! It turns out everything important comes back to you eventually

LINK: Hoosier pride, anyone

Camille would find this morbid if I put it on my profile, so here it goes:

Whate'er she meant by 't, bury it with me,
For since I am
Love's martyr, it might breed idolatry
If into other hands these reliques came.
As 'twas humility
T' afford to it all that a soul can do,
So 'tis some bravery
That, since you would have none of me, I bury some of you.

-John Donne, "Funeral"

HITCH WATCH: He has an op-ed in the WaPo. Not much new ground broken, but this will probably have a bigger audience than, say, Vanity Fair, the only other place he writes for regularly. But, then again, I think he breaks a bit of new ground here:

"Now, however, the same people are all frenzied about an American-led "attack on the Muslim world." Are the Kurds not Muslims? Is the new Afghan government not Muslim? Will not the next Iraqi government be Muslim also? This meaningless demagogy among the peaceniks can only be explained by a masochistic refusal to admit that our own civil society has any merit, or by a nostalgia for Stalinism that I can sometimes actually taste as well as smell."

The upshot being that many leftists either hate the U.S. irrationally, love terror (in the worst possible sense), or are actually too ignorant to be capable of either-- which may be the worst possibility of all.

WELL: some of you may have followed the whole 'gay-bashing' ad run by Max Baucus scandal (for my part, I saw the add, and I think they were making fun of him for atrocious fashion sense and a silly career) would be interested to hear that the Republicans are doing their best to even the score:

" THE "VOTER FRAUD" FRAUD. Republican John Thune, South Dakota attorney general Mark Barnett, and a few well-placed friends at one Sioux Falls television station have been working hard to gin up stories about a supposedly massive voter fraud operation tied to Democratic Senator Tim Johnson. For the most part, they've been getting away with it. But now David Rooks, the estimable Rapid City Journal columnist, has taken a look , and he smells something fishy -- on Thune's part, that is. (Pardon the mixed metaphor). He rightly notes how pro-Thune reporters and officials have used vague allegations and when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife formulations to make it sound like something is really afoot:

Best I can tell, an Oct. 11 Rapid City Journal Web page headline fired the first shot: "Massive voter fraud investigation under way in state." Hmm, massive? Was this just the overheated phrase of an overworked headline writer that slipped by the sober gaze of a distracted but ordinarily wiser editor, I wondered?

I read on. Apparently not. Right up front we learned the FBI has been hot on the case for two whole weeks. Up front as well we're told state Attorney General Mark Barnett was "in conversation with (the U.S. attorney) on a daily basis." A little further into the story, however, we read: "The investigation currently focuses on a single person (italics mine) who is from South Dakota." But Barnett cautioned, "It could expand."

Wait a minute: A single person? Massive voter fraud? Give me a break. There's something massive here, alright. But wait -- oh yeah -- "it could expand." Cue eerie violin soundtrack, fix close up on face of Mark Barnett: "A single person -- but it could expand." Nefarious laughter, fade to black.

This is a classic. Kudos to Rooks for taking on his own publication. Let's hope some of the national outlets that have picked up this story take a hard look at what's really going on here."

LINK: Ariel Cohen on the Euroffs, wrong as always

LINK: I find the possibility of this very interesting.

QUOTE: Jay Nordinger, always on the case:

"I have a correspondent who works for UBS, in Europe. UBS is the largest Swiss bank, owning Paine Webber and other companies. They’ve just opened a new office in Bahrain, and an interesting invoice surfaced, from a German furniture company. I am in possession of a copy of that invoice. Stamped on it are the following words:

“We herewith confirm that [the] above-mentioned goods are not of Israeli origin, nor do they contain to any degree Israeli components, nor have they been imported from Israel.�

Lovely. My correspondent says, “To sum it up: Fifty-seven years after Auschwitz, a Germany company (no less) issues a paper certifying that its products are Judenrein. Shouldn’t there be some outrage? Or at least some concern?�

Yes, but not in Bahrain — where they like — no, where they demand that their furniture be Jew-free.""

WELL, WHO'D'VE THOUGHT?: I agree with Clarence Thomas about something. From the WaPo today:

"Breyer also wrote separately to say the court should consider a second death penalty case that asks whether it was unconstitutional to leave inmates for decades on death row. He said Florida inmate Charles Foster has spent more than 27 years in prison and "if executed, Foster, now 55, will have been punished both by death and also by more than a generation spent in death row's twilight. It is fairly asked whether such punishment is both unusual and cruel."

Justice Clarence Thomas disagreed, writing his own opinion to say that Foster "could long ago have ended his anxieties and uncertainties by submitting to what the people of Florida have deemed him to deserve: execution.""

QUOTE: From Marty Peretz, Editor of The New Republic:

"You will soon hear plenty about Oriana Fallaci's new book The Rage and the Pride (Rizzoli), and you can read in the October issue of Commentary a remarkable narrative by Christopher Caldwell about the great stress it is causing European intellectuals. Long ago, Fallaci was a contributor to TNR and a personal friend. What we quarreled over, I do not remember. But I do remember that she was a hero to all of my progressive friends for tangling, in question-and-answer format, with the Shah, Henry Kissinger, and others. I suspect they will be much less happy with her latest work. Her controversial new feuilleton is not about Islam and Israel, although Israelis will understand its anger. It is about Islam and the West, Islam and modernity, Islam and joy and joylessness, Islam and curiosity, Islam and women. Her book is--how shall I put this?--idiosyncratically translated, idiosyncratically punctuated, and certainly idiosyncratically argued. It is extreme, and some of the extremes tarnish its message. But Fallaci was always willing to go to the edge, where truth borders on hysteria. That was her strength then, and it may be her strength now.

What the world is experiencing these days may not exactly be a clash of civilizations. But there is no doubt that large segments of the Islamic world are at war with the tolerance and liberalism of the West, with its curiosity and its learning. The warriors aim to demoralize the West and those--including those Muslims--who find Western ways to their liking. But the West still does not grasp the danger. European leaders blithely assume that mass Muslim immigration does not threaten Western values, and those who suggest otherwise--such as Holland's Pim Fortuyn--are derided and shunned.

I was reading The Rage and the Pride when I heard news of the nearly 200 dead in Bali, a confirmation of Fallaci's dread. This was not an attack on Jews or Americans but on Hindus and Christians, Australians and Europeans. It is not accidental, as the Marxists used to say, that the target was a nightclub--a place where people of different races and religions were dancing and drinking, lusting and even lovemaking. For these sins, as punishment to the sinners and as augury of the blazing sword to come, was the conflagration visited on Bali. This is not just a war between Islam and the Jews or Islam and the West. This is a war of cosmic losers against all that offends them. It is a war of zealot Muslims against everyone else. We are all feeling and fearing what Fallaci calls "the bad smell of a Holy War," a war with real weapons, and its consequence is incinerated flesh."

LINK: Positively chilling. Those of you against war in Iraq might do well to get an idea of the sort of enlightened behavior Saddam extends to people he actually wants to say good things about him:

" The American correspondents I spoke with corroborated that they were under constant surveillance. One producer describes making a satellite telephone call from a corner of the Al Rasheed Hotel's garden, far from her minder and any other apparent eavesdroppers. As she left the garden a man approached and told her, "Never do that again." Hammer spoke in French with a friend by satellite phone in his hotel room; the next morning his minder greeted him, "Vous parlez français, aussi?" When one correspondent unplugged a television, a repairman knocked on his door a few minutes later asking to fix the set. "They're obviously watching me in bed," he said. "And I'm pretty sure that they're watching me in the bathroom. I've never wanted to leave a place so badly."

Even when reporters faithfully follow the regime's instructions, the Ministry of Information still torments them. Arnett describes constant harangues from ministry officials, even about colleagues over whom he had no control. They'd complain, "What the hell is Larry King saying? Can't you shut him up?" Other reporters describe fierce tongue-lashings for having crossed prosaic red lines. The Iraqis won't abide references to the "regime" (they prefer "government") or to "Saddam" (they prefer "President Saddam Hussein").

Sometimes the officials go beyond angry lectures. According to a network source, on about four separate occasions in 1996 the Iraqis roused MacVicar from her hotel room at 2 a.m. and drove her to the Ministry of Information, where officials screamed that she was working for the CIA. The French documentary filmmaker Joel Soler told me how his minder took him to a hospital, ostensibly to examine the effects of sanctions, but then called in a nurse with a long needle. "He said, 'Now we'll do a series of blood tests.'" Soler jumped on the table screaming: "I said, 'I'm calling my ambassador.' If I'd been American, forget about it." There's the horror story of The London Observer's Farzad Bazoft, an Iranian-born British journalist. A few months before the Gulf war, the Iraqis tried Bazoft behind closed doors on charges of espionage. They then hung him. As he turned over Bazoft's remains to the British Embassy in Baghdad, Information Minister Latif Nassif Jassim told journalists, "Mrs. Thatcher wanted him alive. We gave her the body.""

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA: this is the funniest thing I've seen all week. I'd love to know where Camille finds these...

LINK: Our own good friend David Hucul has an excellent take-down of the anti-war left, well worth reading in it's own right. There is, though, one point I would like to expand upon:

"3). We don't have 100% proof that Iraq has WMDs."

Look at what happened with North Korea. We didn't do anything for precisely this reason-- why be antagonistic if we don't know for sure what they're doing? Now, of course, it is eminently possible that N. Korea does have the bomb. Now how do we deal with them? You'd have to be an idiot (or have no relevant knowledge on the history of the conflict between North and South there) to think we could now go in and displace the regime, or even be moderately bellicose. Simply put, if we were to do anything, North Korea could launch a retaliatory strike against Japan or South Korea. And we can't go in in the conventional manner, because N. Korea maintains too large of an army. Wouldn't it have just been easier to have done something before they had WMDs? Nah, because if we came to the conclusion, it might logically require us to do something in Iraq...

I'm sure that between this whole 'decent left' crusade of mine and my comment that pacifists are hiding ulterior motives, I must've said something that someone will find offensive and feel the need to respond to. I'll even give equal time: any good responses (hell, any responses) I'll go ahead and post. Y'all have my e-mail

"WHAT OTHER CHOICE DO WE HAVE?": The always amusing Dan Savage (of "Savage Love" fame) rips Leftists a new one on Iraq and places himself firmly in the 'decent left' category.

Me likey:

"These developments--a Republican administration recognizing that support for dictators in Third World countries is a losing proposition; a commitment to post-WWII-style nation-building in Iraq--are terrific news for people who care about human rights, freedom, and democracy. They also represent an enormous moral victory for the American left, which has long argued that our support for "friendly" dictators around the world was immoral. (Saddam used to be one of those "friendly" dictators.) After 9/11, the left argued that our support for brutal dictatorships in the Middle East helped create anti-American hatred. Apparently the Bush administration now agrees--so why isn't the American left claiming this victory?

Because claiming this victory means backing this war, and the American left refuses to back this or any war--which makes the left completely irrelevant in any conversation about the advisability or necessity of a particular war. (Pacifism is faith, not politics*.) What's worse, the left argues that our past support for regimes like Saddam's prevents us from doing anything about Saddam now. We supported (and in some cases installed) tyrants, who in turn created despair, which in turn created terrorists, who came over here and blew shit up... so now what do we do? According to the left, we do nothing. It's all our fault, so we're just going to have to sit back and wait for New York City or D.C. or a big port city (like, say, Seattle or Portland) to disappear."

"But wait! Taking out Saddam means dropping bombs, and dropping bombs only creates more terrorists!

That's the lefty argument du jour, and a lot of squish-brains are falling for it, but it's not an argument that the historical record supports. The United States dropped a hell of a lot of bombs on Serbia, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, Germany, Japan, and Italy. If dropping bombs creates terrorists, where are all the German terrorists? Or the Italian terrorists? Or the Vietnamese terrorists?"

*Reinhold Niebuhr produced the definitive essay on the relation between faith and pacifism during WWII. There is a strong Christian tradition for opposing all war, and it is legitimate to believe in that, so long as you accept that it requires that all war is always and everywhere wrong (which means no "WWII was a good war" cop-outs). The origin for this view is in the non-resistance of Christ, a doctrine that generally gets misinterpreted as non-violent resistance (a side point, but one frequently brought out by the anti-war left). Anyway, the upshot of Niebuhr's essay was that most people who oppose a given war are not thoroughgoing pacifists, and really just use pacifism as a way to cover-up their actual agenda.

HOW DAVID MISSED FALL BREAK:

davniner: you want the story of how i missed fall break
NotByronDorgan: sure
davniner: i'll sadly recount it for your personal amusement
NotByronDorgan: hehehe
davniner: during this fall "break" i spent the enitre time studying for my math 451 exam on monday
davniner: i had a whole system worked out
davniner: i started working during the afternoon on fri
davniner: i worked until i had to go to bed, but before i did, i would pick out some special hard problems from the book
davniner: the next morning i would get up at 10am and do those tough problems
NotByronDorgan: okay...
davniner: i did this during the whole break to get used to getting up and using my maximum brain power without being groggy
NotByronDorgan: weird... but okay
davniner: i even went to the grocery store and got those frozen frappucino thingies to give myself a caffiene jolt before the exam
davniner: (i am telling it in story format for effect)
davniner: anyways, the big day arrived on wed
NotByronDorgan: I noticed
davniner: i went in to class all ready to go
davniner: the prof walks in
davniner: she is carrying a cream-colored envelope
davniner: of course i was thinking: "ooh, those are the exams. i wonder if i can do well, i worked so hard, etc..."
davniner: she asked for our homework from the weekend which i of course had done
davniner: as i was passing the homework up, she opened the envelope and dumped out last week's homework into her hands
davniner: then she said words that will haunt me til the day i die
davniner: "not like any of you have forgotten, but your exam is next monday."
NotByronDorgan: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
NotByronDorgan: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
NotByronDorgan: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
NotByronDorgan: HAHA
NotByronDorgan: hahahahahaha
NotByronDorgan: hahaha... hahaha...
NotByronDorgan: haha... heeheehee... hehe
NotByronDorgan: woo!
davniner: I missed my fall break

BREAKING NEWS: Rogue regime has nuclear weapons program... if only someone had warned us about the danger that North Korea posed, especially with respect to WMD...

HAHA: from Juan Gato, via Tim Blair, who inmcidentally is doing the finest posting on the Bali terrorist bombing and the reaction in Australia. Got to love the blog-o-sphere:

"Amazingly I too received a letter signed, "Osama bin Laden, me! yes, that bin Laden." I feel it is my duty to the world to share this information.
To the Brothers of Battle from not beyond the grave!

This is Osama bin Laden, and I am most certainly not dead! Gloriousness and joy shall follow your efforts in the great battle against those who most certainly have not killed me!

I, who am not a smear on a rock somewhere, call you forward against the infidel drinkers of dog-alcohol who have hotter women who must be covered up.

I shall appear before you soon, because I am most certainly not dead, but only after this pimple on my living nose has subsided. But our fight shall never subside!

signed, Osama bin Livin' Laden

PS: NOT DEAD!"

[Nick counts in head] Me, David, Claire, Kim, possibly Dara still... um...

QUOTE: David:

"so you think you've had a bad day? i found out that i missed fall break today! Beat that! And yes, I do wish I was joking."

-I think I speak for all 5 people who read my blog when I say I'd like to hear the story behind that

QUOTES: From the aforementioned review by Jon Chait:

"The most hilarious evidence of Nader's stratospheric self-regard is his frequent insistence to the contrary. He fills his memoir with anecdotes of others offering him praise, and of himself demurring. He takes enormous pride in his humility. "Running for president requires a level and intensity of political ego that I do not find congenial," he writes at one point. Two paragraphs later, he recalls, "Friends chided me for rarely mentioning the achievements that I have registered over the years."...

The answer is that Nader's kamikaze effort against the Democrats was not as out of character as his anguished former allies supposed. There was a brief period in our political culture when a character such as Nader was able to produce an astonishing array of political triumphs. But his paranoia and irrationality, contempt for nuance and savaging of allies were there all along. Deliberately helping to elect Bush was in some ways a betrayal of Naderism, but in other ways its apotheosis. Whereas once Nader's style served the cause of social progress, it now serves the opposite.

Perhaps the most interesting question is how Nader's destructive accomplishments stack up against his constructive ones. We cannot know the answer to this question until the current administration departs office, but Bush will probably do more to set the country back than Nader did to move it forward. In weighing Nader's social-activist legacy against his Bush-electing legacy, one thing to keep in mind is that the former is more historically inevitable than the latter. If not for Nader, somebody else would have put seatbelts in cars; nobody else would have thrown the presidency to Bush.

Nader likely would respond, as he has frequently, that Bush's achievements will inevitably backfire as they provoke a massive popular reaction. But the existence of such a progressive revival remains largely speculative for now. And let us not forget that Nader's achievements did galvanize a massive reaction from business, which, largely in response to Nader and his movement, organized itself into a potent political force that dominates Washington to this day. If we are to subtract from Bush's achievements the hypothetical progressive backlash it will bring about, then we must discount from Nader's achievements the actual conservative backlash it did bring about. However one figures it, the conclusion is the same: When it comes time to write Nader's political obituary, the three-word headline will be, "He elected Bush."

NADER WATCH: Three things today-- first, this nice take-down of Nader's arrogance and stupidity. Second, the debate on Nader on The American Prospect... I note that Bob Kuttner seems a whole lot more vindictive than Jon Chait, and I'd speculate because Kuttner has to fight against common sense.
Third, the analogy, inappropriate, but definitely on to something (via Amy, since I give credit where credit is due): following Nader is like being an Apostle. You have no idea if your man is a lunatic or not...

QUOTE: Speculation on the Washington Sniper:

"Officers searching the area near the Bowie, Md. middle school where a 13-year-old boy was shot discovered a tarot card, on which was written the message: "Dear policeman, I am God." Found nearby was a shell casing of the type consistent with the ammunition used in each of the shootings. News reports have it that no other shell casings have been found, this despite intensive searches at all of the other murder scenes. It occurs to me that the recovered casing might be a red herring, not ejected from the murder weapon at all. The killer may well have plucked it from the ground at whatever firing range he used to hone his deadly skills, only to place it at this crime scene so as to divert investigative attention from himself, or even to pave the way for an eventual defense in court. Consider: If the sniper is so careful as to retrieve his expended casings at every crime scene but one, and at this one he not only leaves a casing behind, but with it what amounts to a calling card, does it not seem that he intended for both these items to be found?"

-Jack Dunphy on NRO

LINK: John Derbyshire laughs it up, in a way:

"So where am I on this "crunchy conservative business? I haven't a clue. See, I may be a naturalized American, but I still have those English genes (or is it memes? — but read on). One of the most English of mental characteristics is a deep resistance to large abstract theories about society and politics — to what the English, in fact, very tellingly refer to as "continental systems."

— Boswell: So, Sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement?

— Johnson: Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.

In its most extreme form, this native hostility to abstract system-building extends to all kinds of thinking, philosophical and religious, as well as political.

— I looked up the passage in Russell's book [Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, by Bertrand Russell]. If the antithesis to a 'some' statement is always an 'all' statement, then... [There follow 100 or so words attempting to grapple with one of Russell's logical arguments.] ...But I can never follow that kind of thing. It is the sort of thing that makes me feel that philosophy should be forbidden by law.
— George Orwell, letter to Richard Rees, 3/3/1949

— One angry lady demanded to know my definitions of "God" and "religion." (I don't have definitions. I'm an Anglican, for crying out loud.)
— John Derbyshire, "August Diary," NRO 8/30/2002."

LINK: Well, as it so happens, Zimbabwe receives a great deal of coverage in National Review. Goes to show those folks on the Right aren't totally evil...

LINK: cow joke, milk joke, or PETA joke? Decide for yourself.

LINK: The late Stephen Ambrose on nation-building.

"In his farewell address to the American people, Eisenhower spoke to the best instincts of the American spirit:

'We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.'

Such a world is still a long way away, but we are headed in that direction. If Eisenhower's world seems pie in the sky, consider the things that did not seem possible but then did happen, such as a whole new attitude in race relations among white and black Americans. The greater integration of women. Nelson Mandela walking out of prison. The radiant smiles of the women of Afghanistan as they removed their veils and lifted their faces to the sun.

Anything is possible. We must lead. We took the weight of the world on our shoulders when we won the Cold War. To everyone, everywhere, what a blessing. Around the world people say, "If there is going to be only one superpower, thank God Almighty it is the U.S.A." The responsibility that goes with being Number One should be apparent to all. We must be involved. It is our duty and our privilege. True, our grandchildren will still be struggling to fulfill Eisenhower's prayer ? but what we are doing gets them started."

LINK: I think this is pretty cool, as far as geeky things go

ALRIGHT, CLAIRE: Or Camille, or Amy etc etc, it's time for a really important decision: the University coat from J Crew or Banana Republic's wool/cashmere three-quarter coat. I'm leaning towards the BR coat myself, but I don't know...

THE CURSE STRIKES AGAIN: My Cards lost. Okay, that does it: I want the Angels to win the World Series. Go Halos!

QUOTE:

"If Saddam Hussein indeed has any weapons of mass destruction, invading Iraq will ensure that he use them. If he does not have such weapons, then invading his country will be unjustified."

-As to the first, the fact that we face a great evil prepared to behave in the manner of an even greater one does not negate our responsibility to rid the world of him. If anything, his willingness to use his WMD (assuming he has them) heightens our responsibility to remove him from power.

As to the second, the argument is so fatuous as to barely be worth responding to-- but we'll give it a go. Tell the Kurds and the Shiites, who have been regularly violently oppressed, that there is no justification for removind Saddam from power. Tell the student demonstrators in Iran who are looking for a reliable ally in their fight against the Muslim cleric extremists that there'd be no justification in proving that a secular, pluralistic Muslim state is a possibility.

Frankly, I'm unconvinced we even need to be teleological when it comes to Iraq. Unless you're prepared to argue that there is some good greater than Liberty, you have to accept that exchanging a less-free government for a more-free government is always and everywhere a good thing. The only two alternative views one can take, both of which are represented in this quote-- cowardice or love of tyranny.

QUOTE: ON war in Iraq:

"The world is about to witness possibly the greatest judgmental error in human history."

-Hmm. Munich 1938, anyone? The entire time period between the Council of Trent and the Treaty of Westphalia? Boer War? Verdun? The splitting of the Roman Empire? British taxation of American tea? The 3/5ths compromise?

REAL IM CONVERSATION: Not the porn thing, I'm afraid, but the bit that came after. Incidentally, Camille seemed awfully ready to assume the worst about that, didn't she?

NotByronDorgan: although [Kirsten Dunst] might be able to make a burlap bag sexy [I know it doesn't make sense-- just run with it. Trust me]
NotByronDorgan: or maybe Reese Witherspoon
ctowns87: oooooh
ctowns87: you like her?
ctowns87: [Comment Nick removes because he doesn't want to have to do more explaining]
NotByronDorgan: oh yes
NotByronDorgan: she's all kinds of hot
ctowns87: although contrary to your profile, i am not at all like that
ctowns87: true
ctowns87: i'm more attracted to her husband
ctowns87: who should have really married ME
NotByronDorgan: well, there's still time for them to split up
ctowns87: yeah
ctowns87: you can have one half and i'll take the other
ctowns87: hehehee
NotByronDorgan: it's a deal

DAVID'S AWAY MESSAGE:

"the challenge: math 451
the objective: A
the reward: buy self 2 video games
the motivation: divergent"

Far be it from me to play devil's advocate (snicker), but you could always buy yourself two video games anyway...

QUOTE: On the Hitch (your friend and mine), from Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"Just a short note of thanks. Christopher Hitchens' unswerving dedication to his conscience reinvigorated my own sense of purpose, long dormant through disillusionment. Thanks for honoring, if not the specifics of his stand, the courage he displayed in severing ties with The Nation. I served as a weapons specialist, of sorts, in the US Navy during Desert Storm/Shield. At the time, I truly believed in what we were doing; it seemed we could only be right. Then, as we returned to the States, and the post-deployment culture shock only further alienated us from our families and friends, we found, to our horror, that the war effort wasn't so monolithically supported as we'd thought. We'd had no clue that, while we were fighting, and some of our friends were dying, others picketed and rallied against us. At least it seemed they were against us. It was our blood, wasn't it? I first heard the phrase, "Blood for oil," after I'd already served my time in the Gulf. And as attrition and time chipped away my certainty, I began to lose that spark of patriotism that had been my impetus for serving my country at all. The last three years of my six year enlistment were hell. I didn't have anything to prop me up when things got hairy. America, and especially American politicians, just didn't seem worth dying for. I didn't want to bleed for oil anymore. I received my Honorable discharge in 1996. I'm sure my supervisors, not the same men who knew me during the Gulf War, breathed a deep sigh of relief and wrote me off as another one-hitch loser. Fine by me. I started a business. I raised a family. I stayed away from politics. Then came September, 11th 2001. Fanatical men shattered what small buffer of ignorant bliss I'd managed to maintain around myself and my family. Men no different than those we'd fought and beaten ten years earlier. And I once again felt I had to do something. I'm now in the hiring pools for both the Federal Air Marshal program and the Transportation Safety Administration's Airport Security Screener. That's my stand, and people like Hitchens remind me why I took it then, and why I do it now. Thanks."

MORE RANDOMNESS:

Gene Autry's Cowboy Code

1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.
2. He must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.
3. He must always tell the truth.
4. He must be gentle with children, the elderly, and animals.
5. He must not advocate or possess racially or religiously intolerant ideas.
6. He must help people in distress.
7. He must be a good worker.
8. He must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action, and personal habits.
9. He must respect women, parents, and his nations laws.
10. The Cowboy is a patriot.

QUOTE: I was going through some of my old text clippings on my desktop (witty IM banter, witty away messages, witty quotes that didn't make it into my blog), and I came across this very thought-provoking statement which accords with a couple of the arguments I've had over the last few days:

"As a former subscriber to The Nation, I think it's fair of me to note those criticisms, especially inasmuch as (whatever Becky might say to the contrary), I'm still a fairly traditional Democratic leftist. As much as there are very serious and important things that need to be done, both by the government and by the country as a whole, no one of any common sense whatsoever will respond to lectures about how irresponsible they are-- in other words, it's hard to conceive of Liberalism in America that doesn't start with the idea that Americans are idiots who need their hands held if they're ever going to behave like civilized people."

ACTUALLY: I'll go one further than that. If the Liberal project is ever going to mean anything vital (and, if only for my sake, I believe that it can) then it has to recognize that the center of Liberalism is a well-functioning, free society. And here it is not a matter of motes and planks: liberty is an objective good, as is the republican-democratic form of government, and we must be prepared to spread it as far as possible whenever such an opportunity arises.

QUOTE:

"[The Founders] did not mean to assert the obvious untruth that all men were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact, they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard for a free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly approximately, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere."
-Abraham Lincoln. Something to think about when considering war with Iraq.

LINK: For all of you U of M students: the anti-divestment petition

BUT, OF COURSE, I'd be remiss to neglect the many highlights of banter with Claire, especially since it's been about a year we've been talking online. My favorite is below. Happy anniversary, Clairie!

NotByronDorgan: well, you don't know how your story ends
NotByronDorgan: so it might be good
ctowns87: or maybe it will never end
ctowns87: and i will become and old spinster
NotByronDorgan: no, I can promise that won't happen
ctowns87: how do you know?
NotByronDorgan: because the odds favor I will be a bachelor for my entire life
ctowns87: lol
ctowns87: how do you figure?
NotByronDorgan: based on projecting past experiences into the future
NotByronDorgan: so, if you're not married at, say, 50, and I am also not married, I will marry you, if you like
ctowns87: lol
ctowns87: its a deal
NotByronDorgan: wonderful
ctowns87: if, at the age of 50, neither of us are married, i will marry you

REAL IM CONVERSATIONS: I need to start being more productive on my Friday nights... of course, I would've been if anyone I knew was in town. Oh well. Here are some things that I, or people I knew, said, that I thought were intriguing or amusing:

SPenny11: So how was your day?
NotTimMcCarty: I notice a theme. Do you perhaps have some hidden question you're trying to ask me?
SPenny11: Nope, why have I asked that a lot?
NotTimMcCarty: three times, I think. Not to be critical, I was just wondering if I was missing some subtext.

***

NotTimMcCarty: which leads back into my problem
NotTimMcCarty: I spent all of high school figuring out who I was, and I think I have a pretty good hold on it now
NotTimMcCarty: what the fuck did everybody else do?

***

SydneyM03: I realized a long time ago that my friends can usually be divided into two categories
NotTimMcCarty: go for it
SydneyM03: those who "live easily" and those who don't
SydneyM03: and it's not that people who live easily will definitely get all the breaks or have nothing but good things happen to them
SydneyM03: but for them life is, overall, good. continuing to live isn't even a question.
NotTimMcCarty: grr. Ah, misanthropy
SydneyM03: survival is more ingrained than being an instinct and because of that they can actually live
NotTimMcCarty: I see
SydneyM03: but this doesn't meann that they don't have problems
SydneyM03: it doesn't mean they don't get hurt
SydneyM03: but they expect life to continue no matter what so they deal with it differently

PERSONAL CONTENT: David, you may wish to avert your eyes. What ever happened to Sara Penny? Sigh...

LINK: ScrappleFace: reasonably funny, most of the time.

SURVEY QUESTION: Since I had an argument on this topic: were Nazis or Communists more evil, or were they both equally evil, and why? answers to notbyrondorgan on IM, if you like...

And, incidentally, when that guy is using the term 'substance,' he's referencing it in the Cartesian-Lockean sense, so it doesn't mean what you think it does. Granted, the point is still bullshit, but it's slightly more complicated bullshit. And, just so's you know, I am myself a dualist, but that guy sounds like he's doing a half-assed job explaining it.

QUOTE:

"If I ever meet this guy, I will push him to the ground. Here are several of the dumbest things he says in the 2/15 pages that I actually read of it. "

-Wait, let me get this straight... you didn't read the whole paper? What makes you qualified to pass any judgment on it at all? And what makes me suspect you probably didn't pay attention to the parts you read?

QUOTE:

"reading the worst characterization of science by a philosopher ever. Nick, I see why you dont understand what science is and is not. You have to read about science from outrageous sources like JP Moreland"

I'll grant your premise*. Then again, I have you in philosophy, politics, literature, theology, psychology, etc... so I suppose I can let you have science.

*And we can only grant this premise if we assume that I have 1) Never read anything on science written by someone who was qualified and 2) Never taken a science class. Now I will be the first to admit, as regards the second, that I have done everything humanly possible to expunge the memory of, say, balancing chemistry equations, or remembering which enzymes the small intestine secretes; and I certainly expended ridiculous effort to avoid learning it all in the first place. But I did cover all of the relevant sciences in some detail.

To the first: I will grant that I understand less about contemporary science than I might if I were, for example, a physics major. But unless Mr. Hucul is utterly unwilling to admit that what science is has ever changed over time (and were he to do so, we could laugh him out of the room, so to speak), then it seems possible to argue that there are a number of theoretical perspectives one can take to science. Now, it might not be possible (and, indeed, I think this is the case) for us to get much beyond this first argument (for reasons too complicated to get into here), but it's still a valuable realization, and that, I think, it the claim that most of the philosophy of science I read has to do with.

QUOTE: Personal content, I'm afraid, David, so you may wish to move on. What comes before that last Martin Amis thing I quoted:

"Dear Jules

I was going to write to you and say something like:

Twelve years ago, you rang me up and said, "Mart, tell me to fuck off and everything if you want--but have you left Antonia?' As it happened, I went back to Antonia, that time, twelve years ago. But I liked the way you framed the question. It was characteristic.

I was then going to say something like:

Jules, tell me to fuck off and everything if you like--but try and stay my friend, and try to help me be a friend to Pat.

Now I have your answer before I asked my question. I will call you in a while-- quite a long while. I'll miss you.

Martin"

THE DECENT LEFT: Well, add Ron Rosenbaum to the list. Bonus points for referencing Robert Graves:

"Goodbye to the brilliant thinkers of the Left who believe it's the very height of wit to make fun of George W. Bush's intelligence--thereby establishing, of course, how very, very smart they are. Mr. Bush may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer (I think he's more ill-informed and lazy than dumb). But they are guilty of a historical stupidity on a far greater scale, in their blind spot about Marxist genocides. It's a failure of self-knowledge and intellectual responsibility that far outweighs Bush's, because they're supposed to be so very smart.

Goodbye to paralysis by moral equivalence: Remind me again, was it John Ashcroft or Fidel Castro who put H.I.V. sufferers in concentration camps?

Goodbye to the deluded and pathetic sophistry of postmodernists of the Left, who believe their unreadable, jargon-clotted theory-sophistry somehow helps liberate the wretched of the earth. If they really believe in serving the cause of liberation, why don?t they quit their evil-capitalist-subsidized jobs and go teach literacy in a Third World starved for the insights of Foucault?"

LINK: Andrew Sullivan takes on the 'anti-imperialists.'

" But is the United States these days anything like an actual empire? Being an empire, after all, does not merely mean that you are extremely powerful, militarily, economically or culturally. It means, if it is to mean anything concrete, the appropriation of others' territory, goods and people at the barrel of a gun. Even one of the milder empires in world history, the British Empire, was essentially an imposition of brute force on large parts of the globe in order to generate wealth and cheap goods for the domestic market. The people subject to such imperialism have no role in their own future, no sovereignty over their own country, no right to their own goods and services. Under any viable definition of imperialism, the colonies provide tribute to the center, as the fledgling American colonies once did to London. And they have no choice.

Once you spend a couple of minutes thinking about this, you realize that the notion of "Imperial America" is dangerous nonsense. Take Afghanistan. Has the United States annexed the country, as the Soviets and British once did? Have the Americans put large numbers of troops in there to control the entire country? Did they impose a government by force? Are they busy plundering the place for its natural resources? Nope. They liberated the country from an invader, they helped set up a domestic council for a democratic Afghanistan and, far from bilking the place for treasure, they have actually spent millions rebuilding the country, with no direct quid pro quo. An exception? Hardly. Remember Germany and Japan? How many imperial powers have sunk fortunes into colonies only to allow them complete independence, even to the point of resisting American foreign policy?"

LINK: I will leave it up to David to make fun of this. Can I call this racist?

KEITH RICHARDS GETS IT:

"There was a heavy air of devilry around the Stones in 1967-69: "Their Satanic Majesties Request," "Sympathy for the Devil," Altamont. Did you take it seriously?

I don't take any notice of that crap. "Sympathy" is quite an uplifting song. It's just a matter of looking him in the face. He's there all the time. I've had very close contact with Lucifer -- I've met him several times.

Evil -- people tend to bury it and hope it sorts itself out and doesn't rear its ugly head. "Sympathy for the Devil" is just as appropriate now, with 9/11. There it is again, big time. When that song was written, it was a time of turmoil. It was the first sort of international chaos since World War II. And confusion is not the ally of peace and love.

You want to think the world is perfect. Everybody gets sucked into that. And as America has found out to its dismay, you can't hide. You might as well accept the fact that evil is there and deal with it any way you can. "Sympathy for the Devil" is a song that says, "Don't forget him." If you confront him, then he's out of a job."

LINK: One more reason to be pro-war... or anti-Detroit, I suppose.

LINK: And why is it that we think engineers are smart? You can design the most sophisticated transportation systems known to man (prolly not, since it's Ford, but close enough for our intents and purposes) and not put enough space between the gas and the brake pedals. I'd bet you a philosopher would've noticed that.

QUOTE: ScrappleFace!

" Chirac: "Living in Fear" Not So Bad

(2002-10-07) -- U.S. President George Bush, in his speech to the nation on the Iraq situation tonight, said, "We refuse to live in fear." The remark was met with thunderous and prolonged applause from the live audience.

French President Jacques Chirac, in his response to the Bush speech said, "Living in fear is not so bad. Don't knock it until you've tried it. It's certainly cheaper than defending your nation against crazed dictators with weapons of mass destruction."

Chirac added that appeasement of tyrants is a good strategy, "especially if you have a bellicose ally who will come to your aide if appeasement fails.""

QUOTE:

"RIGHT ON, JONAH! [ Mike Potemra]
Your post on Jews and Evangelicals was an important contribution to the cause of religious understanding-especially the part at the end about how today's Christians are showing great improvement over their religion's past record of anti-Semitic excesses. The recent controversy among Catholics over whether the Church should formally proselytize Jewish people shows how far Christians have come: The debate is between A) those who believe Jews are entitled to be told what Catholics believe is the full truth (i.e., Christ and Catholicism) and B) those who believe God has a separate and valid covenant with the Jews that he will fulfill in His own way and in His own time. Neither side in that contentious debate shows any kind of disrespect or bigotry against Jews. (Gone-for good-are the days when the Catholic liturgy contained references to "the perfidious Jews.") This is yet another sign of progress--progress we should build on, instead of carping about theological fine print"

Sigh... Why do the things you really like have to go away?

QUOTE: Jay Nordinger:

"Finally, I was griping last week about the word 'homeland,' which I thought was a little un-American, and had a few unsavory associations. A reader says, 'It's my understanding that 'Homeland' is actually jargon from the missile-defense program. A Homeland Defense is a system defending a country, to differentiate from Theater Defenses, like Patriot missiles, Phalanx gun systems, etc., which protect a battlefield or a ship. You're right that it's better than 'Fatherland,' but you don't point out that it also beats 'Motherland,' which was the Commie fetish.

'Personally, I would prefer to call the thing 'The Department for Preventing People From F***ing With Us,' but don't know if it would fit on the letterhead.'

A man after my own heart -- and mind."

E-MAIL: from College Democrats, on the boycott of the Michigan Daily. Oh, the inanity!

"As the College Democrats try to figure out what we are going to do, here
is more information onthe Michigan Daily boycott (as some of you had asked
already) below.

Remember: we are not signing on to the groups at the end of the e-mail as
some people have been confused about, we are considering signing onto the
petition.

More info onthe College Dems position, etc. as we figure it out. (we being
the exec board, etc.)

I should be studying,

Rachel

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 00:30:47 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michelle Lin
To: "Undisclosed.recipients:;"
Subject: BOYCOTT the MICHIGAN DAILY

Please distribute widely. If you or your organization would like to
support efforts of students of color by signing the petition letter,
please email (aundrear@umich.edu)

----------------------------
October 1, 2002

ANN ARBOR, MI -- The Michigan Daily has held a reputation for 112 years of
editorial freedom, journalistic integrity, and has earned legitimacy from
the student body at the University of Michigan. During our tenure at this
prestigious university however, a shift has taken place within the
institution of this renowned publication. The Michigan Daily has become a
publication that manifests the institutional racism and ignorance that
plague communities of color, and threatens the progress of the campus
community at large.

Most recently, these manifestations have become more blatant and demeaning.
They include:

* The use of the term "Buckwheat" in a racist manner in the Arts section
(9/08/02).
* The misidentification of faculty, administrators, and guest speakers of
color in picture captions.
* A general lack of representation and coverage of minority events,
programs, and issues.
* The frequent misspelling of minority student names.
* The application of stereotypes to manipulate the perception of minorities.

Student leaders from communities of color have brought forth these issues
to the leadership of the Daily, requesting a written commitment to address
these issues. However, the Daily has been unresponsive to these concerns
and have ignored the requests.

Therefore, leaders, students, and we the undersigned organizations will
participate in a full-scale boycott of the Michigan Daily beginning October
1, 2002. We will refuse to read, submit letters or viewpoints to, and
respond to reporters' requests for comments from the Michigan Daily.
Furthermore, we implore advertisers to pull all ads from this publication,
and are calling on subscribers to cancel their subscriptions to the paper.
This boycott will continue unabated until the following demands are
satisfactorily met.

We demand:

* The development of minority staff members in order to prepare them for
leadership opportunities within the Michigan Daily.
* The creation of a comfortable and inclusive work environment for students
of color.
An increase in the accuracy in reporting minority issues, including the
identification of people of color in photos and the spelling of the names
of students of color.
* The production of a yearly report published by the Michigan Daily on
student of color affairs and resources.
* The creation of an advisory board to advise the Daily on internal and
external multiethnic affairs.
* The implementation of a strategic and aggressive recruitment plan
targeted at communities of color.
* The assignment of at least one reporter to each community within the
larger minority student community.
* The creation of a special feature within the Arts section to publish
listings and information of multicultural events.
* The creation of a committee paid by the Michigan Daily that would be
responsible for training all writers, photographers, and staff personnel on
cultural sensitivity.
* The creation of a standard in reporting the racial identification of
suspects in crime reporting; this standard must be publicly published
* The commission of a study that examines the depiction and representation
of minorities in the past 5 years; such report must be publicly accessible.


Signed,

Black Student Union
U-M American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Students Allied for Freedom and Equality
Minority Affairs Commission"

OH DEAR: This is big. And bad. Where am I supposed to go for pithy commentary now?

"In general, the urge for solitude is a sign that there is after all a spirit in a person and the measure of what spirit there is. So little do chattering nonentities and socializers feel the need for solitude that, like love-birds, if left alone for an instant they promptly die."
-Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

QUOTE: Did I quote this already?

"O Voltaire! O humaneness! O nonsense! There is something about 'truth,' about the search for truth; and when a human being is too human about it--"il ne cherche le vrai que por faire le bien"--I bet he finds nothing."
-Nietzsche

Ah, Midland...

THINGS THAT MAKE LIFE WORTH LIVING: Getting back in time to watch the D-Backs get swept by the Cards, who now get the 'I want them to win' kiss of death. Why, you ask? DK... how could you not want them to win?

Hilarious

HAHA: No. Seriously. This is funny.

QUOTE: A little J-P Sartre, shall we?

"Furthermore this absolute responsibility is not resignation; it is simply the logical requirement of the consequences of our freedom. What happens to me happens through me, and I can neither affect myself with it nor revolt against it nor resign myself to it. Moreover everything which happens to me is mine... but in addition, the situation is mine because it is the image of my free choice of myself, and everything it presents to me is mine in that this represents me and symbolizes me. Is it not I who decide the coefficient of adversity in things and even their unpredictability by deciding myself?
Thus there are no accidents in a life..."

QUOTE: Martin Amis:

"For the first time in these pages I sense the twist of rancour in me, and my hands, as I write, feel loath and cold. But I had to assert it, to my readers, and also to my friends. It was said that I turned away--and I don't do that. I won't be the one to turn away."

Oh! And new links at left!

THE DECENT LEFT: I've stumbled across a few good sites which promote the sort of cantankerous leftism that I'm quite fond of nowadays: The Christopher Hitchens Web, a nice resource for the latest from Hitch (for those of you too lazy to go to Arts and Letters Daily, or to read his contributions to Atlantic Monthly and Vanity Fair. And you will have to go back to The Nation's website to get "Of Sin, the Left, and Islamic Fascism," the Sept. 11 response that started it all.
Then, of course, there is this nice collection of reasonable Left-minded thought from the last year. And then there's always Salman Rushdie's interview in Salon.com today.
Oh, and Dissent finally revamped their site, so it works now. If you're not reading them every quarter (and you should be), you can pick up most of the important stuff here.

TO MR. HUCUL:

"Torch," as you may or may not know, is Sen. Robert Toricelli's nickname. Yelling "Torch!" everytime he came on the screen is akin to, for example, yelling "Nomaaaaaaaah!" when the esteemed shortstop of the Boston Red Sox comes up to bat-- perfectly natural if you're a nerd (and I've never denied that I am one). As to the first, I apologize for occasionally posting personal content, as opposed to my usual insightful and witty commentary on politics and culture. This has been known to happen when outside events intervene.
As for my blog taking awhile to load, you'll have to take that up with the good folks at Pyra, because I don't host my blog; therefore, I have no control over what loads, or how fast it loads. Having a faster internet connection might help, though.

AND there goes getting to yell "Torch!" every time he walked across the screen on CSPAN-2. Rats.

LINK: I like the end result, but I have to agree with Fred Barnes: replacing Toricelli on the ballot is, at best, highly unethical and counter to the democratic spirit, and at worst, highly unconstitutional. Supreme Court won't overturn, I think, because New Jersey law is less than clear, and intervening in this situation would be too obviously political and not at all based on the strength of the law. Of course, I'm not Rhenquist... I could be wrong.