Tuesday November 30
74 In a Row
So Ken "Jeopardy" Jennings, after dominating the TV game show hosted by Alex Trebek for $2.52 million over six months -- the biggest quiz show money winner in history -- finally lost. He's an amazingly smart guy, filled with obscure trivia, but he's become arrogant and mightingly annoying after 74-straight games of winnning. And most of the competitors matched against him wouldn't even ring their buzzers!!. So long, Ken! Take the money and run -- far away.
Posted by glenn at Monday November 29
Product Life Cycle
iPod Adoption Rate Faster than Sony Walkman. This isn't really news, considering that the iPod, one of my personal favorite devices, has become a social icon in itself. But they will be studying this in B-schools for years, as the accelerating rate of "early adopters" for Apple's iPods outpaces anything about the product life cycle witnessed in American marketing before now. Seems like the iPod is one of the very few successful examples of the viral growth phenomenon talked about so often during the days of the Internet bubble.
Gay Marriage Without Dissent
Today the U.S. Supreme Court -- without any dissent, even from the most conservative justices -- refused to accept review of the Massachusetts decision requiring state officials there to recognize same-sex marriage. Although Supreme Court decisions in such certiorari proceedings are not precedential, it seems to me that this pretty much puts a nail into the coffin about whether the Court thinks the equal protection argument advanced in favor of gay marriage is invalid.
Just as the Court reached out in 2000 to decide Bush v. Gore, because it wanted to end the Florida recount, it could have done so with this case even though Massachusetts decided on state consitutional grounds. As the Court recognized in 2000:
That same logic would obviously work to federalize same-sex marriage as a constitutional issue. But the Supremes said no, meaning there are still (believe it or not) some political questions in which the Court wants to avoid meddling. Glory be, a real conservative decision from a Supreme Court that is in actuality as activist as they come.
Sunday November 28
What Is a Conservative?
Carl Frank, blogging under the pseudonym No Oil for Pacifists, says that liberals are "unable to understand" conservatives. Liberals "view Pat Buchanan as 'pillar' of the right rather than a pro-union, almost leftist, nativist," Frank opines.
This is just hogwash. First, smart liberals understand conservatives all too well; they just loathe them and yet cannot match their pragmatic, unprincipled approach to electoral politics. Second, Pat Buchanan -- he of the "culture war" in America -- is plainly even more conservative than most conservatives on the "moral values" questions that have dominated post-election debate in the U.S. Third, in 2000 Buchanan attacked George W. Bush, in a Blue Book his campaign published, arguing that Dubya was a closet liberal on such issues as abortion, muiltilateralism, and the like.
Indeed, just a glance at Buchanan's new book, titled Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, is enough to show that he's way to the right of the folks in the White House today. To say that Buchanan is "almost leftist" is precisely what Frank insists the left does -- "abandon[ing] politics and morality. They're just a sick and sinister mob." Take your own medicine, Carl.
Update: I've turned off HTML entries in comments on this blog, so you can read Carl's responses at Letter to Blogger Turning Blue and You Can Have Him. And I view this characterization as the ultimate compliment a conservative can laud on one who does not share their politicial religiosity -- "Glenn's no far-left extremist." Backhanded, but I'll take it. Thanks, Carl!
Tuesday November 23
Bad Moon Rising
This is about as serious a critique as one can make of the mess Michael Powell has created at the FCC over indecency. Michael Powell Exposed! The FCC Chairman Has No Clothes [washingtonpost.com].
Holy, cow, Tom Shales, this is really frank stuff for the Washington Post. Deserved, but direct. Way to go.
Monday November 22
Greek to Me
Controversy over Oliver Stone's depiction of Alexander the Great as a bisexual returns the filmmaker to the familiar role of so-called historical revisionist. The AC/DC of Alexander B.C [FilmStew.com]. But the Greeks were acknowledgly homosexual, so it's not difficult to surmise that Alexander -- without female companionship on military campaigns lasting years -- also partook. And what's the difference? It's a movie, for God's sake.
Sunday November 21
The Dead Kennedys
The folks at JFK Reloaded say their new PC game takes as a given that the Warren Commission's conclusion was right -- that the shots killing John F. Kennedy in November 1963 all came from the Texas School Book Depository building. Kennedy Assassination Re-Created in Video Game [CNN.com]. I don't think that's correct. When millions of players, like the CBS re-enactment in 1966, can't reproduce the supposed three shots, they'll have a little better appreciation for Oswad's repeated insistence that he was "just a patsy."
Friday November 19
Whip It
This story reports on how technology is now being used, after several thousands of years, to develop sex toys for men, not just for women. Pushing the Male Envelope [Wired News]. Thank goodness for sexual equality. We've come a long way, baby!
Thursday November 18
Top 500 Rock Classics
OK, so what sort of an insane "top 500" list for rock and roll would put The Eagles' Hotel California at number 49 and place The Who's My Generation -- admittedly, a masterful early rock anthem of youthful rebellion -- above their classic, powerful and clearly best piece, Baba O'Reilly? Rolling Stone Names "Top 500 Songs". And to top it all off, you can read about the list in news reports, but there's absolutely nothing on the Rolling Stone web site at all.
Rolling Stone used to be a great magazine. Since they started putting provocative sex kitten photos on the cover, however, I think Jan Weiner and company have just lost it. This list proves they're living so far in the past they don't even remember the '70s. A sad end to a once-proud legacy.
Monday November 15
Favre For President
This weekend my family and I traveled to the shrine of NFL football -- Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin -- to see already legendary quarterback Brett Favre lead the Packers to yet another last-minute victory. Rescue Act [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel]. It was quite an experience. Our view of the stadium (pre-game) is below, and more photos are posted on my Multimedia Pages. Go Pack Go!
Update: Those folks in Wisconsin really know how to drink beer. Perhaps as a result, their reputation for niceness and orderly behavior may be a bit of a myth, because 14 people were arrested and 29 ejected during the game.
Thursday November 11
I Wasn't Kidding
Yesterday I warned that the FCC's outrageously political "indecency" campaign would result in self-censorship by broadcast networks afraid of a mercurial and unpredictable regulatory response. Well, today that fear became a reality. ABC is airing Stephen Speilberg's Oscar-winning film, Saving Private Ryan, but nearly 65 local affilates -- including in such metropolitan areas as Boston -- have refused to broadcast the film, citing the FCC. The network has shown the movie on Veterans' Day for two years, without incident, but now it's being replaced by re-runs of The Andy Griffith Show.
So the lesson is that to comply with the FCC's views on "community standards," we're now retreating to the social standards of the 1950s. Booyah, what a step backwards. It's not even "Father Knows Best," but "Washington Knows Best." Veterans groups, Sen. John McCain and even the parental organizations that complained about Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" are up in arms, but once unleashed the scourge of censorship is damn hard to stop. Way to go, Mike!@!
Wednesday November 10
Indecency and the Consitution
A good sound bite from your faithful author. Viacom to Take "Hard Line" Over FCC Fines [Chicago Tribune]. As I've blogged before, the blatantly political use of indecency regulation only highlights the First Amendment risks -- censorship and all that -- which are inherent in an ad hoc approach to whether risque content passers muster on the airwaves. The courts, including the Supreme Court, will be hard pressed to justify this outrageously vague and selective enforcement, let alone the entire "scarcity" doctrine under which network TV is regulated but satellite and cable programming are not. Red Lion may finally have met its match. (If I post George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words" here, will Mike Powell come after me?)
The War Room
"Inside the Bush re-election 'Strategery Room' (named after a famous Bush malapropism), a sign above the door read: IT'S THE HYPOCRISY, STUPID, a reference to Mr. Kerry's constantly shifting positions" [timesonline.co.uk].
Cute, but turn-around is fair play. Enigmas get beaten, especially when they pull their punches and don't counter-attack. Kerry forgot the lesson of the Clinton '92 election, repeated the mistakes of Mike Dukakis in '88, and never learned the wisdom of running from the center. Johnny, we hardly knew 'ye -- or maybe the country knew all too well.
Monday November 8
Whimpering To a Close
The headline says it all. Microsoft Ends Decade of U.S. Antitrust Litigation [Reuters.com]. With the last deadline for an appeal to the Supreme Court now over, Microsoft has settled with its opponents and only the European Union case is left. The real question, though, is whether Redmond has changed its stripes? Otherwise the past will be mere prologue.
Friday November 5
The End of Arafat
One cannot begrudge Palestinians their desire to form a homeland state, but the demise of Yassar Arafat will be a welcome change. Arafat Hovers Between Life, Death in Coma. Arafat has single-handedly obstructed opportunities for Middle East peace for 20 years and is the force most responsible for terrorism, suicide bombings and related civilian atrocities in Israel. Good riddance.
Reliving the '60s
I've been convinced for a while that the neocons who dreamed up what has turned into a fiasco in Iraq -- Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rice and that entire crowd -- really want to refight the Vietnam War and the counterculture of the 1960s. Well, they lost then and simply can't turn back the clock. While Hugh Hewitt of the Weekly Standard essentially concedes that the real fight in this election was about the '60s, his contention that Kerry's defeat "ends" the '60s is just whacko.
The End of the Sixties. Sorry, Hugh. The '60s ended with Watergate and Nixon's resignation. Those "mistakes" of 1974 and 1975 were the very victory of the left that you still can't accept. The mistakes made then were by the establishment, not the anti-war movement. The counterculture won and Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rice missed out. They never grew their hair long, supported one president (Nixon) who broke the constitution and another (Ford) who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time, and now are doing it again.
So for 150,000 votes in a few counties in Ohio we've got to put up with this pious, contemptuous revisiontist history? Bullshit! To all those conservatives who still refuse to admit defeat in the '60s, I say get over it. You won Tuesday, fair and square, but only Chairman Mao could change history. America ain't Red China and thank God for that!!
Thursday November 4
Spinning the Ground War
The conservative take on Tuesday's election is based on the poular vote returns for President Bush. Like this argument from the Wall Street Journal's blog, OpinionJournal:
Yes, but it is equally true that more people voted against Bush than had ever voted against a sitting president in American history. And Kerry's 55.6 million votes were also "the most ever for a presidential candidate" and about four million more than had voted for Al Gore in 2000. So the glass is both half full and half empty.
Wednesday November 3
Dirty Dean Dozen
Apparently the most important character trait for being a politician is having the ability to look into the camera (or in this case, the blog) and lie through your teeth. Howard Dean's Democracy for America blog this afternoon carried a statement saying:
Ah, Howard, the Dems got trounced for the exact reasons you said in November they would. If there's a choice between two Republicans, this country goes for the real one every time. That was true even during the "liberal" years of Adlai Stevenson (i.e., President Eisenhower). And in my own backyard -- where Kerry carried Fairfax County, VA by 53%-47% -- the Democratic congressional candidate lost to a hugely unpopular incumbent by a whopping 64%-36%. That's not even a dent into the traditional incumbent winning margin and was almost the largest losing margin in the entire state.
Nothing has changed. Democractic politics are as bankrupt of ideas and principles as ever. One cannot lead this vast and diverse country just by being against things. Kerry and the Democratic ticket only made the case for why Bush was flawed, but provided little or no positive reasons to vote for them. They got exactly what they deserved.
Even worse, they won't even fight about it. Kerry's pablum position that he was conceding to "bring the country together" is hogwash. We're about to enter into a real culture war in America -- not the trumped-up one Pat Buchanan warned of in 1992 -- and it's not going to be pretty. So Kerry won't fight, while Bush is coming out swinging. Deja vue all over again.
Four Dead in Ohio
Although readers of this blog know I am not enamored of either George W. Bush or John Kerry, last night's oddessy -- and the continued uncertainty of the electoral college resuilts -- kept me awake until the wee hour of 5:00 a.m. But regardless of who wins, nothing much seems to have changed. Indeed, because Dubya won the nationwide popular vote by about 3%, Republicans are now claiming a "mandate" for the President.
Bush was elected in 2000 by campaigning from the center ("compassionate conservative") but governed from the right. Seems like he's even more convinced to do so again, judging from what the Rs are saying on FoxNews and in other friendly forums. Todd Purdum gets it just right in this news analysis. President Seems Poised to Claim a New Mandate [NYTimes.com]:
The evidence is mixed, and second terms are notoriously unpredictable -- and disappointing. But Mr. Bush has never been a man to shrink from a fight. . . . Already, through his aggressive handling of terrorism and foreign policy, he has made himself not only the most polarizing president since Nixon but also guaranteed himself a prominent place in the history books, and historical debate, for years to come.
Meanwhile, as Rudy Giuliani and other major Republican figures insisted this morning that Kerry could not possibly pulll out Ohio, the Republican secretary of state there was a refreshing paradigm of nonpartisan statesmanship. J. Kenneth Blackwell said that Ohio law requires all "provisional" ballots to be counted 11 days after the election, and that's what should and would be done. The mantra he repeated on all the TV networks at 3:00 a.m. was that "everybody should take a deep breath and relax." Provisional Ballots Could Decide Election [Cincinnati Enquirer]. "What we're going to give you is a solid tabulation when we give it to you ... if it takes two hours, two days, or two weeks, the result we give you will be a good result that the voters of the state of Ohio can have confidence in," Blackwell calmly said.
Amen. A courageous man and someone who puts citizenship above partisanship. The election may be all over except for the counting, but the counting is what it's all about. Even though Kerry has almost surely lost, the efforts to force him to concede based on statistical probabilities are unseemly. We should all follow Blackwell's advice and relax.
Monday November 1
Blaming the Officials
It's appropriate that the Washington Post column by Mike Wise reporting on Sunday's loss by the Redskins -- now with a paltry 2-5 record seven games after the return of of legendary coach Joe Gibbs -- is named after this blog. Fear and Loathing in Landover [washingtonpost.com]. That's because I simply cannot stand the whining, mercurial fans that populate FedEx Field, with their constant booing of quarterbacks, fervent conviction that the Skins are cheated out of winning only by the officials, The Washington Redskins have been a bad football team for the last 10 years! The gonzo faithful who battle through the interminable traffic to take in the games cannot admit that because it would make their whole religious infatuation with this team transparently quixotic.
Mike Wilbon remarks that:
That's not right. This city has thrown more all-star QBs out of town than any other place in the NFL, at last three of which -- Stan Humphries, Brad Johnson and Trent Green -- have proven their worth by leading teams elsewhere to glory (and twice to the SuperBowl itsellf). In the just over 10-year season period starting with Norv Turner's 1994 coaching debut, the Redskins have used 16 different starting quarterbacks (actually, 23 in total, counting mid-season substitutions and roster reversals) playing for five different head coaches. Read 'em and weep:
- John Friesz
- Heath Shuler
- Gus Frerottte
- Jeff Hostetler
- Trent Green
- Brad Johnson
- Rodney Peete
- Jeff George
- Tony Banks
- Kent Graham
- Shane Matthews
- Danny Wuerffel
- Patrick Ramsay
- Tim Hasselback
- Mark Brunnell
Oh, and in the game itself this weekend, Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers played masterfully in the first half, softly dropping two long passes -- a skinny post and a go route -- into the arms of his sprinting wideouts right in front of our seats at the 20 yard line. In his first, and perhaps only appearance in DC, Brett showed why he is a lock for the Hall of Fame.