WATCHED 13 Going On 30 this weekend with the Insta-Wife and Insta-Daughter. It got lukewarm reviews, but I was willing to watch it anyway because it has Jennifer Garner. It was a lot better than I expected, and a good film for a pre-teen to watch. When you’re 13, it pays to think about how you really want to turn out when you’re 30.
Archive for 2004
November 21, 2004
RATHERGATE UPDATE: Or non-update, as the case may be. It has now been two months since CBS President Andrew Heyward promised that the investigation would be over and public in “weeks, not months.”
It’s been months, now. Just another statement from CBS that turned out to be false?
Meanwhile, CBS remains an object of mockery like this from Dave Barry in the Baltimore Sun: “Yes, it is a tragic but statistical fact that every Thanksgiving, undercooked turkeys claim the lives of an estimated 53 billion Americans (source: Dan Rather). Sometimes the cause is deadly bacteria; sometimes – in cases of extreme undercooking – the turkey actually springs up from the carving platter and pecks the would-be carver to death.”
Then there’s this, from Jack Colwell: “Dan Rather received a Turkey of the Year Award for his exclusive on discovery of the original recipes from the time of the Pilgrims for the first Thanksgiving dinner. The Pilgrims apparently printed them on an hp deskjet printer.”
Not good for the brand.
THE NEW REPUBLIC’S REIHAN SALAM rounds up some Democratic contenders for 2008 and leads with Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen:
The Democratic governor of Tennessee is a star. Let’s start with the obvious: He is the Democratic governor of Tennessee. What’s more, he was elected in 2002, a year during which the Republican tide was tsunami-like. What better way to widen the electoral battlefield than to nominate a proven vote-getter from deep in the heart of Red America?
I’ve said here repeatedly that Democrats wanting to win a national campaign should look at what Phil Bredesen has done in Tennessee. He’s not a terribly charismatic orator — but unlike, say, Al Gore or John Kerry, he does very well on conservative talk radio, and he’s not afraid to appear and field questions. Interesting to see that people outside the state are noticing. And I may be wrong, but if the budget deficit matters in 2008 — and I think it will — then Bredesen, who has managed to trim spending and put Tennessee into surplus without increasing taxes, will look especially good.
IVORY COAST SHOOTING UPDATE: Aaron at Freewillblog has compressed the video (formerly in unwieldy MPEG format) into something easier to view on the Web. More on the subject here. Despite cautions not to make too much of the video without other evidence, Aaron thinks it’s pretty clear that this was an unprovoked massacre on the part of French troops. I’d certainly like to see some reporting from the scene.
THE NEW PROPERTY: Mickey Kaus has some insightful thoughts on Bush’s “ownership society.” Highly recommended, whether you’re a Bushie or an anti-Bushie.
PARIS (AP) – Major economic powers agreed on Sunday to write off billions of dollars of debt for Iraq in a deal that marked a significant step in U.S. efforts to help put the Iraqi economy back on its feet.
Under the agreement, the Paris Club of 19 creditor nations will write off 80 percent of the $42 billion that Iraq owes them, the group’s chairman, Jean-Pierre Jouyet said.
The Paris Club includes, the United States, Japan, Russia and European nations. . . . The deal represented a considerable concession from France, just as French President Jacques Chirac’s government is pushing to rebuild ties with Bush’s administration that were damaged by disagreements over the U.S.-led Iraq war. France opposed the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
At a guess, this may explain why the Administration hasn’t been playing up the “UNSCAM” oil-for-food scandal.
MODERATE MUSLIMS STEP FORWARD:
Some 20,000 people took to the streets in the western German city of Cologne on Sunday, waving German and Turkish flags, to protest against the use of violence in the name of Islam.
The marchers had two starting points — a mosque and a cathedral — and converged in the middle of the city for the event organized by the Islamic-Turkish Union with the slogan “Hand in Hand for Peace and Against Terror.”
It’s a start.
UPDATE: More pics here.
“BUSH’S INVASION” — of Kosovo?
USING THE CONTROVERSY OVER ALEXANDER THE GREAT as a jumping-off point, The Belmont Club looks at the unwisdom of getting one’s history from Hollywood.
BILL WHITTLE’S NEW BOOK IS OUT: Really, what more do you need to know?
INSTAPUNDIT’S AFGHANISTAN PHOTO-CORRESPONDENT sends this picture, and reports:
Our coalition of Rumanians, New Zealanders, British, Americans, Slovaks and Poles was no match for the Afghanis on Sunday. Not in any sort of fighting, mind you, but a soccer match. Our base put a Coalition team together and played a select team from Parwan Province. The Coalition was bested 3-1. However, the Rumanians did salvage something for us – their goalkeeper was a crowd favorite with his play and some theatrics thrown in for good measure.
One of our officers, 1LT Joshua Walters, a soccer coach when back in the States, was the driving force behind this event [he is even helping the area schools with a coaching clinic and organizing a league they can run throughout the whole province]. Local people told us this was the first time in over 25 years they had a public sports event with a crowd. While I am no great fan of soccer itself, I did see that the people here were absolutely delighted with the whole event. So I guess losing wasn’t so bad after all.
Sometimes it really is about how you play the game. Or even that you bother to.
SIGHTED ON PAGE SIX: “Ann Coulter and ‘Kaus Files’ blogger Mickey Kaus sharing a warm goat cheese salad al fresco at Baraonda.” Poor Mickey can’t escape the ‘stalkerazzi.’
CHIEF WIGGLES is correcting Tom Brokaw and NBC on some important matters.
UPDATE: Read this report, too. And don’t miss this Iraqi’s claim that Western media aren’t so much missing the story, as twisting it.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The Green Side has firsthand reporting from Fallujah. Chuck Yeager’s grandson makes an appearance.
And Power Line has thoughts on media coverage: “as always, the tone of the coverage of the Iraq war reflects the agenda of those who write the news.”
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: David Adesnik says the Washington Post has dropped the ball in today’s story on Iraq.
WHILE SOME OF US HAVE BEEN doing Friday cat-blogging, Fletch has been doing Friday buffalo-blogging. I really like this picture, too.
And while I’m mentioning Texas photoblogging, here’s a nice gallery of things you might see while driving around Texas.
FRENCH TROOPS FIRING INDISCRIMINATELY ON CIVILIANS? LGF has video.
UPDATE: More claims of a massacre here. Why isn’t this getting more attention?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Ed Morrissey cautions:
From what I’ve seen thus far, it appears to show French troops shooting indiscriminately at African civilians. A number of deaths appear to have occurred at this incident, including several women. In fact, it seems like most of the dead were women, but that may have been because the cameraman focused on those victims. And that, just like the Marine shooting the faker in the mosque last week, may be the problem.
The video is highly subjective. Just like with any home movie, it starts and stops at different times with no particular purpose, and no time sequences are shown. When the firing starts, you can’t see who’s shooting, where it’s aimed, or why. In fact, you never see soldiers shooting, at least in part II — you just hear the shots and see the aftermath. Just as with the video in Iraq, the entire presentation lacks context. Who starts the shooting? Did anyone in the crowd have weapons and fire back, or fire first? So far, I can’t tell.
Perhaps this might be the French Amritsar, but the video shown doesn’t prove it; it merely suggests it. Before we leap to conclusions, we need a bit more evidence than these videos provide.
I hope we’ll see some reporting on the subject. Certainly Reuters would be all over something like this if U.S. troops were involved. . . .
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s what Reuters has at the moment:
France vigorously rejected on Sunday charges by Ivory Coast’s president and its leading Roman Catholic cleric that French troops had beheaded young protesters there, dismissing the statements as outrageous disinformation. . . .Alliot-Marie accused Ivory Coast’s leaders of manipulating crowds of protesters in an extremely dangerous way.
“The racist and xenophobe statements made about us by Ivory Coast leaders are intolerable,” she said.
It’s datelined Paris, though, not Abidjan.
November 20, 2004
DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS.
UPDATE: Look, dudes, you were warned . . .
ANOTHER UPDATE: This may have been a bigger deal than the original reports suggested. Others, however, are invoking Bush’s rugby days.
TIMES VS. TIMES: IraqPundit says that the New York Times is missing what the London Times has figured out. Ouch.
OVER AT HIT AND RUN, THEY’RE DISSING Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 “best” rock songs. But over at SKBubba’s they’ve come up with their own top 500 list. I’m happy to see that Terry Hill made the cut. (SKB says that Jesse Fox Mayshark was the driving force behind this, which doesn’t surprise me.) See if you don’t think that the Bubba crowd has outperformed the Rolling Stone folks. Though, to my mind, “Slow Death” is the canonical Flamin’ Groovies song.
IS THE NEW YORK TIMES turning Oliver Stone into a cultural martyr? Ann Althouse thinks so. (And what a great quote from Stone: “I don’t want to corrupt history.” Heh. Indeed.) Meanwhile, people in Greece are unamused.
UPDATE: More on the whole Alexander-the-Gay business here at the Agora. Well, that fits!
CATS AND DOGS, living together.
RETAIL SUPPORT BRIGADE SITREP: Went to the mall today. It seemed quite crowded, quite early, for this stage of the shopping season, and judging by the packages and the lines people were buying things. I don’t think we’re headed for a recession.
Also went to Target, notwithstanding Hugh Hewitt’s objections. (What was I going to do — order my cat litter over the Internet? That’s so 1999.) They seemed busy, too, though they’ve licked the cashier-shortage problem. Yeah, they ought to let the Salvation Army ring the bells out front, but I just can’t get myself into a world-beating snit over it. I think I’ll have to side with Lileks and the Turkeyblog on this one. Nonetheless, I welcome Hugh’s protests as proof that, contrary to rumor, the Dayton Hudson conspiracy doesn’t really control the blogosphere.
Besides, if you really want to hurt Target, don’t call for a boycott. Just open up a Samuel’s across the street. Mmmm, Hebrew National and free wi-fi . . . .
DAVE BARRY: “Here’s a newspaper article on blogs, pointing out that they can be inaccurate. It mentions my name: Dave Berry.”
Dan Gillmor’s name is also misspelled. Heh. (Via Tim Blair).
SOME VERY NICE landscape photos from Brazilian photographer Alex Uchoa.
CNET HAS A LENGTHY REVIEW UP on the new Canon EOS 20D 8.2 megapixel digital SLR. Here’s another from Steve’s Digicams, and here’s one from DPreview. It looks quite good, though as I’m getting excellent 20×30 prints from my 6.3 megapixel Nikon D70, I’m not quite sure what I’d do with the extra megapixels. I’m sure I’d find something!
And though some emailers have accused me of being a Nikon snob and not giving the Canon cameras their due, I’m sure this is a great camera. I nearly bought the 10D rather than the Nikon, and I’m sure I would have been happy with it. The big deciding factor was that the Nikon’s bundled lens was better and — more important still — the Nikon just felt better in my hand. And that’s why I’d encourage people to try these things out in meatspace, and not just look on the web. I’m sure I would have been happy enough with the Canon, but the “feel” of equipment is important to me, and you can’t judge that sort of thing on the Internet. Er, yet, anyway . . . .