Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

CHARMING

As you may guess, Gentle Reader, I have been accumulating some links over the past few days and am now getting them out (Out, I say!). This one was just fun, in a grit-behind-the eyeballs kind of way.

Ever wonder how it is, exactly, that scumbags like Blackwater ended up guarding our diplomats in Iraq? Why not, you know, American soldiers? The NYT reports:

"It was the view of Donald Rumsfeld and [then-Deputy Defense Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz that this wasn't their problem," said a former senior State Department official. Meetings to negotiate an official memorandum of understanding between State and Defense during the spring of 2004 broke up in shouting matches over issues such as their respective levels of patriotism and whether the military would provide mortuary services for slain diplomats.

Rumsfeld: You want soldiers to guard you? Your diplomats aren't patriotic enough to protect! They don't even carry guns!

Me: hahahahahahaha posted by Carlton at 10:02 PM

PRIMARILY SPEAKING

Yeah, some of you are clamoring for me to jibber-jabber about the primaries. Frankly, I don't have the strength just yet. It's too early, and the whole circus is just a distraction from the fact that the still-active president that we have right now is going to attack Iran in order to show that he still has at least one horrifically bad idea up his sleeve. (If that happens, by the way, I think it will be the single thing for which this administration is remembered -- just not in a good way.)

Oh, the primaries. My totally non-expert opinion on the subject is that Hillary is going to win not just the nomination but the whole shebang, so the actual name of the malformed semi-primate the Republicans toss out for her to maul is not so important. But I could be wrong.

Of the Repubs who have some chance of winning the right to have his arms, legs and head ripped off by HRC and the rest used as a stool for her to stand on while getting sworn in . . .
I really have no idea. McCain appears to be sleepwalking, like not even he believes what he's saying any more. Giuliani is, from accounts that I have read, a raving, immoral, unknowledgeable, insecure, jealous, vindictive, irrational, authoritarian lunatic. Here's a sample of his thought process, from a speech he gave back in 1994:

We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or
50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the
oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our
background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people
can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority.
Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.
[ Interruption by someone in the audience. ]
You have free speech so I can be heard.

Yep -- we have rights for him to use. But he was mayor of a city that was bombed on 9/11, and he didn't fall down when the cameras were on, so the Republicans might just nominate him.

Fred Thompson . . . is this guy even alive? Check out the picture at this link and tell me what you think. And yes, he still thinks it is the "Soviet Union."

To be honest, my Republican money (which is all the good money, you know), is on Romney. Although Mitt seems not to understand the colloquial meaning of the expression "favorite book", and once tried to sound authentic and folksy by using the word "varmint" (audio/video) while wearing a $3,000 suit (estimated), he seems like the one least likely to plunge us into World War IV. McCain would do it to get re-elected (and lose), Thompson would do it while stroking the soft, soft skin of his new young wife, and Giuliani would do it just to show that he really is a tough guy after all.

I hope I'm right about Hillary, however. posted by Carlton at 9:15 PM

HOUSING

Want to know what's happened to housing prices over the past year? Here's a fun map:

The question is: what's up with Alabama?

posted by Carlton at 9:06 PM

LINKMASTER TO CLINKMASTER

Here's one that's short but profound: the gent in Britain that ran the TV-links website (the one where I watched S3 of Doctor Who LONG before it came on TV here) has been arrested.

The man was taken into custody on Thursday last week after an investigation by
the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and the local trading standards
office. Initial reports from FACT said he had been arrested for "offences
relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the Internet".

So, what was this site?

TV-links, by all accounts, was (it is no more) a place where users could post
links to content from TV shows, movies and so on, so that other web users could
view them. The site didn't host the material directly, but did, according to
reports, embed some video clips.

So, he was committing some kind of, like crime, right?

[S]ection 92 [of the applicable law] is very clear that:
"A person does not commit an offence under this section unless- (a) the goods are goods in respect of which the trade mark is registered, or (b) the trademark has a reputation in the United Kingdom and the use of the sign takes or would take unfair advantage of, or is or would be detrimental to, the distinctive character or the repute of the trade mark."
There has been no suggestion (so far) that TV-Links was involved in anything other
than providing access, via web links, to copyrighted material.

So, they are trying to make a case that he was committing a crime by linking? You know, I linked to that site just a few posts below this one. Did I commit a crime? Are the good people at FACT going to send the police after me?

And who is FACT, anyway?

When it was established in 1983, FACT’s primary purpose was to protect the
United Kingdom’s film and broadcasting industry against counterfeiting,
copyright and trademark infringements. FACT did this by representing the
interests of its members in the face of the steady influx of illegal – or
pirated - films and videos.

Today, the Federation is still the leading
representative trade body that is committed to protecting the interests of the
audio-visual industry in the fight against pirate film and DVDs and the
increasing threat from online piracy.

So what we have here, folks, is a private, industry-funded trade organization sending the police after people. For linking on a website. Which isn't even a crime.

Some good questions:

Is the message that it's less criminal to host illegal content on YouTube than
it is to to link to it from a site such as TV Links? Or is it just that FACT
(Federation Against Copyright Theft) and the police won't tackle anybody with
enough high-powered lawyers to fight back?

This worries me. And now I can't watch Doctor Who. posted by Carlton at 8:40 PM

ROBO-BOOGIE

Minor news item: a robotic military anti-aircraft gun went berzerk in South Africa, killing a bunch and wounding a bunch more.

One female soldier, evidently filled with esprit de corps, went toe-to-toe with the mechanical killing machine:

But the brave, as yet unnamed officer was unable to stop the wildly swinging
computerised Swiss/German Oerlikon 35mm MK5 anti-aircraft twin-barrelled gun. It
sprayed hundreds of high-explosive 0,5kg 35mm cannon shells around the five-gun
firing position.By the time the gun had emptied its twin 250-round auto-loader
magazines, nine soldiers were dead and 11 injured.

Robots, automatic 35mm cannon . . . it's only a matter of time folks. (youtube clip) posted by Carlton at 9:38 PM

WAITING FOR A CAB

Which needs to show up pretty darn soon, really. Or else I'm screwed. posted by Carlton at 9:42 AM

HARMONIC CONVERGENCE?

My wife has a new job, which she really likes. Her boss is a woman originally from Norway, who has a very distinctive Norwegian first name. Upon hearing it, I recall that I knew a woman (slightly) with the same (or a very similar) name when I was at Indiana University -- my acquaintance was in the harp program at IU, which is evidently world-famous.

So I googled "My friend's name" + harp. It turns out that she's some kind of minor harp celebrity in the Classical/New Age scene. How about that? posted by Carlton at 9:38 AM

IT WOULD HELP IF THE LINK WORKED

Rate your students, at left. posted by Carlton at 9:37 AM

SHORT HIATUS

I realize that I have just gotten back online, but Uncle Sam sees fit to send me off to do a work-related thing in the middle of our fair country for the next few days. I don't blog about work much, or at all, which is probably how it should be. But let me say this: when there are fifteen people in my office who are at least as qualified as I am to do these sorts of routine trips, yet I get stuck doing four of them in three months, something is amiss. posted by Carlton at 9:19 PM

NEW LINK

I don't teach any more, and may never again, but I've been reading and enjoying the blog Rate Your Students (link at left). If you teach, or ever did, or are a student, or ever were, I recommend it.

I liked teaching and hated the students (even the hot girls who came to class naked). What does that say about me? posted by Carlton at 7:03 PM

QUOTABLE QUOTY-QUOTE

From Kevin Drum:

In tomorrow's edition of [Department of the Obvious]: our foreign policy should probably consist of more than war, the threat of war, and contempt for anyone who questions war. There will be a quiz at 11.

Ya think? posted by Carlton at 6:58 PM

HMMMM

Its funny, but I don't really feel like I've gotten warmed up to this thing like in the past. Give it time, I guess. posted by Carlton at 12:20 PM

GRAEME FROST

Who is he? Quoth Krugman:

Two weeks ago, the Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address
was delivered by a 12-year-old, Graeme Frost. Graeme, who along with his sister
received severe brain injuries in a 2004 car crash and continues to need
physical therapy, is a beneficiary of the State Children’s Health Insurance
Program. Mr. Bush has vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have expanded that
program to cover millions of children who would otherwise have been uninsured.

The Dems used a charismatic kid to make a point. Classic political theater, right? Except this time, the mindless attack dogs on the right identified the kid (and his family) as Enemies Who Must Be Destroyed. Led by Michelle Malkin, they "investigated" the family's finances, the schools the kids attend, how much their house is worth, etc. The Frosts were phonies and liars, rich cry-babies who want the government to give them handouts because they are too cheap to get their own health insurance. Malkin herself visited the Frost's home and business property.

They turned out to be wrong, of course. From TIME:

It turns out, however, that not everything about the Frosts' life pops up on a
Google search. While Graeme does attend a private school, he does so on
scholarship. Halsey Frost is a self-employed woodworker; he and his wife say
they earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year to provide for their family of six.
Their 1936 rowhouse was purchased in 1990 for $55,000. It was vacant and in a
run-down neighborhood that has improved since then, in part because of people
like themselves who took a chance. It is now assessed at $263,140, though under
state law the value of that asset is not taken into account in determining their
eligibility for SCHIP. And while they are still uninsured, they claim it is most
certainly not by choice. Bonnie Frost says the last time she priced health
coverage, she learned it would cost them $1,200 a month.

Krugman, again:

All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern
right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on
character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a
Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy
on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old
child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a
fraud.
Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to
distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in
the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.

Well, the fact that the right wing crazies got all indignant and righteous about something that turned out to be, well, a lie is nothing new. Happens all the time.

My only comment is that, these days, it is quite possible to have a decent income, a home, cars, etc., and not be able to afford health insurance outside an employer-sponsored plan. I don't care about the other things; if you can't afford health insurance, you are poor. posted by Carlton at 9:52 PM

MORE ON TURKEY

From Juan Cole:

But no dispassionate observer could avoid the conclusion that the Congressional
vote condemning Turkey came at a most inopportune time for US-Turkish diplomacy,
at a time when Turks were already raw from watching the US upset all the apple
carts in their neighborhood, unleash existential threats against them, cause the
rise of Salafi radicalism next door, coddle terrorists killing them, coddle the
separatist KRG, and strengthen the Shiite ayatollahs on their borders.

No real comment, I just find this stuff very intersting. Scary, but interesting. posted by Carlton at 9:49 PM

ROUNDUP

So, what's going on these days? I haven't done this, howyousay, blogging thing is a while, so bear with.

1. File under "The Enemy of My Friend Is My Enemy, Unless He's Also My Friend": Turkey, our ally, prepares to invade Iraq, our client/puppet state, in order to settle some scores with the Kurds, our allies. It's safe to say that we would rather they didn't do this.

2. In order to placate the Turks, our allies, we are preparing to declare them guilty of genocide. That'll smooth things right over.

3. File under "Do Not Open Until Christmas -- Oh Why Not?": A private firm employed by the U.S. Government cracks into Obelisk, an al-Qaeda intranet with a cool name. This is something of a big deal, because it means we can know what they are doing without them knowing that we know what they are doing. We like that.

The firm scores a download of the next bin Laden video before anyone else even knows about it, and shares it with the White House, with the warning that it shouldn't be made public until after the video is released by the bad guys. (So, you know, they won't know that we know about their network -- this spy stuff sure is complicated!) Of course, some brainbox in the Executive Branch promptly leaks the tape to the press a day before it is released by al-Qaeda, exposing the fact that we have hacked into their system. Al-Qaeda subsequently takes down the entire system, leaving us in the dark again.

(Attention-payers may hearken back to a more innocent time, 2004, when we had broken some supersecret codes that the Iranians were using, and Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who was such a good friend that we were going to make him President-For-Life of a liberated Iraq, TOLD THE IRANIANS about it.)

What's that sound you hear? The sound of this administration squandering intelligence assets. Listen close: Squander, squander.

4. I won't insult my readers by pretending you haven't heard of the whole Larry Craig business. I will say that, having learned who he is and working very near the Capitol, I see someone who looks just like him every single day. It's never him, of course, but the number of tall old bald white guys with glasses on Pennsylvania Avenue is staggering. (They aren't all as staring and smiling as he is in that picture, though. Honestly, that picture scares me.)

5. If you're a fan of Doctor Who, you'll think this video is hilarious. If not, it's kind of meh.

6. Speaking of Doctor Who, this season (number 3 of the New Reckoning, maybe number 29 otherwise), it had some of the best and worst episodes of the new series, in my opinion. The Dalek two-parter (Muppets, I mean Daleks take Manhattan) was just . . . ill-advised. But Human Nature/Family of Blood was really good, as were the first two episodes (Utopia and The Sound of Drums) of the season-ending three parter. Then there was the season ender, which kind of sucked rocks. But Blink was actually kind of scary.

All can be viewed on your computing box here.

7. For those of you keeping track of my ongoing non-feud with Jacob, the guy who was recapping Who at Television Without Pity -- who was, in my opinion, making an awful hash of it -- is no longer doing so. He's still working there, however, and presumably still googling himself obsessively -- Hi, Jacob!

So, how are you all? posted by Carlton at 9:48 PM

NOT DEAD, JUST DORMANT

I see my fans have been clamoring. I haven't been blogging, obviously -- not out of laziness, exactly, but for a particular reason that I won't get into. I'm not certain that the particular reason has any more currency, however. If I find out that it doesn't, I'll gladly get back on the mic.

So stay tuned. posted by Carlton at 5:52 PM