Odd Link of the Month

"Warm and Fuzzy TV, Brought to You by Hamas" - New York Times:

Hazim Sharawi, whose stage name is Uncle Hazim, is a quiet, doe-eyed young man who has an easy way with children and will soon preside over a children's television show here on which he'll cavort with men in larger-than-life, fake-fur animal suits on the Gaza Strip's newest television station, Al Aksa TV.

But Captain Kangaroo this is not. The station, named for Islam's third holiest site, is owned by Hamas, the people who helped make suicide bombing a household term.

"Our television show will have a message, but without getting into the tanks, the guns, the killing and the blood," said Mr. Sharawi, sitting in the broadcast studio where he will produce his show.

"I will show them our rights through the history," he said, "show them, 'This is Nablus, this is Gaza, this is Al Aksa mosque, which is with the Israelis and should be in our hands.' "

[...]

When asked if the animals will have names, Mr. Sharawi looked slightly nonplussed and said: "Bob. Bob the Fox, for example."

[...]

The show, which will be broadcast on Friday mornings, the beginning of the Muslim weekend, will be preceded by an hour of cartoons, including a serialized life of the Prophet Muhammad, and that universal send-up of deadly conflict, Tom & Jerry.

The Three Best Web Videos You'll Watch Today

1. Jeremy Shockey's Premature Celebration.

2. A Great Moment in Bengals Fandom, not brought to you by NFL Films.

3. Screw It, Here's a Manatee.

Unintentional Irony Alert

This article is rich: "GOP furious at closed Senate session"

Reid demanded the Senate go into closed session. With a second by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the public was ordered out of the chamber, the lights were dimmed, senators filed to their seats on the floor and the doors were closed. No vote is required in such circumstances.

Reid’s move shone a spotlight on the continuing controversy over intelligence that President Bush cited in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

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The subtext of this is that if they really wanted the public to know what went wrong, there should be more openess, not less.

Refusing to oppose loose nuclear weapon development at all costs does not an anti-nuclear crusader make.

“At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its director general.”

Or the nuclear ambitions of Iran. The only reason that ElBaradei isn't exiled to Zimbabwe is that North Korea withdrew from the NPT, making it none of the IAEA's problem. When Iran has nuclear weapons a year from now and you see the beginning of the complete nuclearization of the Middle East, this will look like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Neville Chamberlain.

One Day All My Comments Will Come Home to Roost
Ep. 1

On this post I left a comment about this article which I am reprinting here not because I think this is a complete critique of the article (it definitely isn't), but because I think that this is likely not a case of an idealogically-biased professor, but more likely a professor who set off to prove a point empirically and found out about halfway through that it is very difficult to make an argument for or against his hypothesis on empirical evidence. However, momentum continues to move an object in the absence of an opposite sustained force, so the result of his labors was the Foreign Affairs article. Also, the final paragraph is my theoretical justification for the hypothesis that democracy in the Middle East will reduce terrorism.

I read that article. On the first reading it sounded like it might be true, on the second reading I saw that a lot of the statistics were interpreted to be more general in conclusions than they actually were and not much effort was made to discuss any contradictory evidence.

A big problem was that the author failed to really describe what sort of terrorism he was trying to show was not reduced by (or the spread of? Another vaguity.) democracy, in that he focused a lot on domestic terrorism, while ignoring international terrorism, and assumes that all terrorism can be viewed as equivalent regardless of ideology and history (Thus he references studies that deal mainly with terrorism in the '80s and does not consider whether the results are applicable to terrorism today). He also views terrorists as if they were a static ethnic group rather than a fluid organization.

The author also incorrectly connects anti-Americanism with support for terrorism, and assumes that just because democracies are antri-American, they are more likely to directly support terrorism, which is clearly not the case with Germany and France. In my opinion, the most significant problem with his article is the failure to look at whether democracies are less likely to be sources of financial support and manpower for terrorist organizations that commit attacks mainly outside that nation, due to vigorous anti-terrorist law enforcement by the government.

I say all this about his article, but I do not think the author has an ideological axe to grind. He supports democratizing the Middle East, cites statistics showing that arabs support having democratic governemnts, and gives some unrealistic suggestion on how to (slowly) promote liberal democracy.

I think it is likely that, given that he is a political scientist, he saw the common idea that democracy in the middle east will reduce terrorism, and he decided to try to disprove it. Along the way he realized that actual detailed research on this is sparse, which he actually says in the article, and ends up grasping at straws to build his case. He doesn't give up on the paper because of all the time he has already spent working on it, and ends up with a loosely-supported paper arguing his initial hypothesis. However, he does write PolSci papers well, so even though his argument is not strong, the paper appears good. What I'm saying is that I think that if you were to ask him two years from now if spreading democracy will reduce terrorism, he would tell you that he's not sure one way or the other.

By the way, I'm not sure there is any evidence to generalize that democracy will always cause less terrorism, but I can't see how the publc in a truly open democracy in any Muslim nation, given a true look at terrorist organizations operating in that nation, will tell their government to do anything but stomp the mother******s. Why I say this has nothing to do with whether they think the US and Israel is right or wrong and everything to do with the fact that in general, people that haven't been deluded into thinking that black is white by people of authority will take a look at what the terrorists in their midst have done and see that the people behind al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda in Iraq, etc. are simply psychopathic murderers, and every one of them should be killed.

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Also, this is the first part in a continuing series. Really, it will be different than my Kerry-Bush internal poll series.

Thoughts on Pornography

Some conservatives claim that community standards should be determined by states and not by the Supreme Court.

My solution: the Coors approach.

Playboy-only east of the Missisippi, Penthouse-only west.

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Also, may i note that I find the courts finding of an exception in the First Amendment for "obscenity" to be ridiculous in the extreme. First of all, can it honestly be said that any work in existence is completely lacking in artistic value (On reflection, a select few). Also, if I was to call for the extermination of an ethnic group, that would not be obscenity, because it does not appeal to "prurient interest." (Unless there are some sick genocidophiliacs out there, whatever that means.) Therefore, distributing pornography is potentially an obscene act and may be illegal, inciting mass murder, not an obscene act and is not illegal aas incitement unless it is likely to cause "imminent lawless conduct." So according the Supreme Court, pornography that lacks artistic value can be banned, which has no measurable effect on people's lives, while you can call for genocide in the near-future, and it will not be illegal incitement because there is no "imminent" danger that genocide will happen. As far as whether this will affect people's lives, ask the Tutsis.

Personally, if I ever see a sane person calling for genocide while walking down the street, I'm going to break his nose. Then I'll defend myself by claiming that I was acting in defense of the people who the person was inciting genocide agasinst. And now I'm just rambling. Goodnight.

"I Wonder If It Will Be Friends With Me?"

"Oh no, not again."

"FARK.com: Which movie best defines 80s theater: 'The Goonies' or 'Wargames'?" - Became a discussion of '80s films

This was a fun thread to read. And I think it is a testament to how much the '90s sucked that I don't even remember the '80s, yet i still think its movies were a lot cooler.

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"...It's night, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it!"

Life During Balltime

You make me shiver, I feel so tender
we make a pretty good team
Don't get exhausted, I'll do some driving
you ought to get you some sleep

Burned all my notebooks, hoo! what good are notebooks?
They won't help me survive
My chest is aching, burns like a furnace
the burning keeps me alive*

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When the Eagles see you in the playoffs again, you'd better watch your back on the field, Mathis.

Update (9/14): Or maybe I should have just told you to watch out for your knee in practice.

Dead Pool Update

I managed to not pick Rehnquist in Laurence Simon's Dead Pool. Go me. All I need now is the Queen of England to die and I'll be set in the category of famous deaths I did not predict would happen.

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It seems that the strength of last year's Dead Pool roster was greatly dependent on Palestinian leaders dying at a record pace.

The Not-News From Lair Simon

The IFOC News: New Orleans Threatens To Pull Out Of New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS (IFOC) - The City of New Orleans threatened to pull out of New Orleans if it didn't get a promise in writing from the Saints franchise for a better stadium by the start of professional football season.

"The Superdome's time has come and gone," said Mayor Ray Nagin. "This multipurpose facility was supposed to act as a football, baseball, convention, and refugee center, but by trying to do them all at once under the same cracked roof, it just isn't serving all of these purposes adequately."

No one does satire quite like Lair does. Very funny.

My One And Only One Post About Cindy Sheehan

This is all I have to say about this subject:

Casey Sheehan voluntarily signed up for the army in 2000, at age 20. In August 2003, half a year after the war in Iraq began, he re-enlisted. He was 24.

In March 2004, his unit moved to Iraq. On April 4th, he was killed in a battle with al-Sadr's personal army.

He signed up for the army as a legal adult in almost every way. At age 24, having graduated from college and knowing that he was likely to be deployed to Iraq, he made the decision to re-enlist. In Baghdad, he volunteered to go out on his last combat mission.

If you're in the military, you have to know that every day you go out into combat it could be the last day. Casey Sheehan knew what he was doing and what the risks were when he re-enlisted, and he sure as hell knew when he volunteered to go on his last mission. There were only two people who directly brought about his death. One was the Iraqi who fired an RPG at his humvee. The other was the person who re-enlisted, himself.

Cindy Sheehan doesn't have the fucking right to use his name in her anti-war campaign.

Terminator Got it Wrong

Skynet wasn't a defense network, it was a credit-reporting agency.

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"Credit-tracking computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a credit risk, not just the ones who had missed repayment. Decided our fate in a microsecond: default."

Burn in hell with the Hamassholes, you fucking murderer.

All of the weekdays I came in and worked 8 hours. Did I ever not come in?
Do you get full value on your service? I want full value on my fucking paycheck.

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I will dig a hole
Save my pennies for a rainy day
I will dig a hole
Saving pennies for a rainy day

I'm not scared

I will build a wall
Sensing trouble from a mile away
I will build a wall
Saw it coming from a mile away

Carnival of the Cats #70 is up at L'Oubliette.

The Great Blue Hunter Is No More



My grandmother's cat, Mitzi, died a week ago.

Mitzi was friendly and aloof, confident and arrogant, distant and close. From when she was adopted into my grandmother's home after life on the streets of a small town, to her unavoidably too soon death at the age of 16, she was a cat that provided companionship to people, disliked other cats, and lived for the hunt. Perhaps her imperious nature, which combined with her almost flawless Russian Blue pedigree led to her nickname, "The Tsarina Mitzi," was responsible for her complete ease in the presence of any people, while also resulting in her condescending and disliking attitude towards other cats. Or maybe that was the result of her formative experiences when she was first brought to my grandmother's house.



There she met Angie, an aging cat that was both similar and different from Mitzi, in having equal dislike for people and cats. Mitzi outlived Angie, and also Gigi, a female cat that was adopted when she was not much older than a kitten. Gigi was treated with distaste by Mitzi, but was a joy to people with his youthful playfulness and friendly demeanor. Sadly, Gigi met a tragically early and random end. But Mitzi's life went on, and for a long time she lived without any other cats. It was during this time that the day of events occurred that made Mitzi's hunting legendary.

It was a summer day, and Mitzi was found in the morning to be stalking and playing with a "hop-toad" in the field behind her home. The hop-toad was rescued before Mitzi could, hypothetically, eat or kill it. Around noon that day, my family returned home to find Mitzi standing near the driveway with part of a 2-foot long green garden snake in her mouth, and the rest of it wrapped around her neck. That was, and still is, the only time I have ever seen a snake in the area of my grandmother's home. The snake was also rescued, and slithered away to hide in some bushes. Late in the afternoon, the penultimate event happened. Mitzi was seen from an enclosed porch to be walking up the lawn out of the woods while holding something in her mouth. As she came closer, I could see that it was a baby rabbit, about half a foot long. My brother's and I ran outside to try to save the rabbit. Seeing us running towards her, Mitzi dropped the rabbit and hid under a nearby tree. For half a minute, the rabbit lay on the ground feigning death. Then it got up and made what was indisputably the biggest mistake of its short life: it ran under the tree where Mitzi was biding her time. That day is the reason I believe that with Mitzi's death, the world has lost a feline hunter par excellence.



Mitzi is survived by three cats; JD, a cat that once belonged to my family, and two kittens that were adopted a few weeks before her death to give JD feline companionship Mitzi was loath to provide. In disgust at the presence of so many other cats in the household, in the last weeks of her life she disappeared for days on end three times, probably living off of her great hunting skill. The final time she returned, she must have known she would not live much longer, and in the final days of her life she returned home; not for food, which she was too sick too eat, but for the companionship of the people who cared for her. At the very end, she was purring.



What can be said about a cat that hated other cats, lived for the hunt, and enjoyed the company of people? That it lived a long life that was not long enough for the people that cared for it, but the lives of our pets never are. That it was a companion, a friend, just like millions of other departed pets. No, what made Mitzi unique, what made her special, was that in spite of her dislike of other cats, despite spending most of her life living in a house with other cats, despite her personal dislike of three of those cats, she was generally a happy cat, and despite her arrogant nature, she liked people. Mitzi wasn't a perfect cat, but she was a good one, despite her flaws. Perfect cats, if they exist, are not as special as the good ones, because it is their flaws, their "felinity," that makes a cat special, and it is how they work their ways into our heart even with their flaws, that endears them to us, and makes their loss so piercing.

Goodbye Mitzi.

This Day in Canadian History

The "Gimli Glider".

Canadians are great. They're government and health-care system may be completely fucked, but only in Canada could something like this happen, and it would end up as a case of SNAFU.

Trade-Offs

Laurence Simon has been thinking about how to maximize ease of grilling.

I moved the grill from the far end of the patio to just outside the living room sliding glass door.

I keep telling myself it is so I can grill when it rains and it makes dumping the ashes into the ash bucket easier, but the truth is I don't want to have to walk the extra twenty or so feet back and forth.

Some smoke comes in through the open door when I cook there.

Everything in life is a trade-off.

[...]

UPDATE:
I used bamboo skewers this time.

Coconut milk, ginger, shallots, chili powder, oil, peanut butter... makes an excellent messy glaze.

I burned my thumb.

My corn popped out of the holder as I was flipping it, and the whole place filled with smoke because I had moved the grill close to the door.

The grill's back in its old location. And it's staying there.

Now pass the aloe vera.

I think he's still in the trial and error phase.

In the Mail

Paul Anka's cover album, Rock Swings.

Paul Anka slices like a fucking hammer.

The Big Capsize

Laurence Simon's cat, Edloe, died. Go pay the furry grumpus your respects.

The Bomb, Somebody Set Up Us

Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's You !!
Cats: How are you gentlemen !!


Cats: The way to destruction, you are on.
Captain: What you say !!
Cats: No chance to survive, you have, your time...make.
Cats: HMMMM-HA HA HA HA ....

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In honor of the 5th birthday of the original internet phenomenon.

(Thanks to Laurence Simon for the original image hosting)