Thursday May 12
ET Phone Home
Microsoft's Bill Gates says the raging popularity of Apple's iPod player is "unsustainable." Gates Sees Mobile Phones Overtaking iPods [Reuters.com].
Yeah, right. Just like the "Tablet PC" was going to make laptops extinct and Microsoft's "Media PC" is going to take over the family room entertainment centers of the world. Can I have some of what he's smoking?
Posted by glenn at Tuesday May 10
Liar Liar Pants on Fire
Michael Jackson's ranch manager conceded on Tuesday that he lied when he told police that the singer never slept with children. Jackson Defense Witness Admits Lying to Police [Reuters.com]. He also testified that Jackson had a collection of bondage dolls, after first denying that he had ever seen Jackson with "adult materials." And this was a defense witness! Reuters reported that:
"So, we're up to two?" a sarcastic [prosecutor Gordon] Auchincloss said, prompting an objection from defense lawyer Robert Sanger.
Marcus . . . appeared uncomfortable under cross-examination, often looking to Jackson before answering difficult questions.
Lawyers can't always control their own witnesses on cross-examination, but this is stupidity at its worst. Calling as a defense witness a person who lied to the police about the central witness in the case is really inexcusable. Of course, this may be all that Tom Meserau and his team have to work with. Not much.
Thursday May 5
Complete Games
Complete nine-inning games by baseball pitchers used to be common until the 1970s, when relievers, closers and the like overtook the sport. So it's refreshing that someone still can accomplish the task, like Livan Hernandez did last evening. Washington's Hernandez Goes the Distance in L.A. [WashingtonPost.com].
All that's left is for the anal-compulsive baseball stat freaks to tell us how far the percentage of complete games has dropped in the past four decades. (MLB Powerhouse reports that the last of the top 5 career leaders in complete games, Walter Johnson, retired from the old Washington Senators in 1927. And Baseball Reference says that Hernandez led the majors last year with nine complete games, while Steve Carlton and Fergie Jenkins led in 1971-72 with 30 each season.) Anyone?
Wednesday May 4
The Second Front
Now Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says in a classified report that the U.S. military's current commitments overseas may prevent it from adequately fighting future conflicts. Duh! Waging war on two fronts simultaneously has doomed armies from Napoleon to Hitler, so why should the United States be any different? Maybe the neocons running defense policy in the Bush Administration should have thought of this before embarking on the current, nation-building occupation of Iraq. At least Myers is honest. He's the one who admitted last week that the insurgency in Iraq hasn't lessened at all in the past year.
Sunday May 1
A Cowardly End 60 Years Ago
Yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of the death of Adolph Hitler, he of genocide, eugenics and the "Thousand Year Reich" that lasted all but a decade. On April 30, 1945, with Soviet forces just 300 meters from the underground bunker where Hitler huddled in the final months of the war and his armies decisively beaten, Hitler bade farewell to his staff and went into his private rooms. There the man who had plunged the world into conflict and sent millions of Jews to their deaths in the Holocaust poisoned a willing Eva Braun, his private mistress, and then shot himself in the head (after taking a cyanide capsule). Last Witness Remembers Hitler's Suicide [Mail & Guardian Online.za]. Hitler was a shaking, graying, sickly man who "sank into himself" in the final days before his suicide. Later, the bodies were taken into the courtyard and burned with gasoline to avoid identification.
Score of other German army and SS officers took the same way out -- like the Japanese later did at Iwo Jima and Okinawa -- offing themselves to avoid capture. For instance, Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and his wife poisoned their six children and killed themselves in the bunker after Hitler's death. (Of course, publicly his successor announced Hitler's death on German radio, claiming that "the Fuhrer" had died a hero and not mentioning suicide.)
It's always that way with tyrants, depots and their fanatical lieutenants. I think a big reason for fascism is the same big streak of cowardice that leads people like this to end their own lives rather than face the consequences of their actions.
Goodbye, Fuhrer. We will NOT miss you.