PERUVIAN EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS loot, fight for food. Perhaps, like New Orleans, these reports are exaggerated. But — as noted here repeatedly in the past — it’s quite important to be prepared to go at least a week without outside assistance. Two weeks is better.
Archive for 2007
August 19, 2007
MEGAN MCARDLE: “Did John Quiggin just write that it doesn’t matter whether the New Republic ran a false story?”
LOTS MORE HURRICANE-BLOGGING at WX-Man, and at Seablogger. Also Eric Berger and Dr. Jeff Masters.
UPDATE: A further roundup here. And InstaPundit’s Cayman Islands correspondent John Thompson emails: “Bright and sunny this morning, if a little windy. The track map has improved for us, but looks pretty bad for Jamaica.” Yeah, the eye should miss Cayman with any luck. Jamaica’s situation is looking poor.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Dean wobbles a bit to the left: Will it thread the needle between Jamaica and Cayman? That would be nice.
YOUR CONGRESS AT WORK: Thanks, guys: “The dispute illustrates how lawmakers, in a frenetic, end-of-session scramble, passed legislation they may not have fully understood and may have given the administration more surveillance powers than it sought. . . . It is possible that some of the changes were the unintended consequences of the rushed legislative process just before this month’s Congressional recess, rather than a purposeful effort by the administration to enhance its ability to spy on Americans. ‘We did not cover ourselves in glory,’ said one Democratic aide, referring to how the bill was compiled.”
Is it too much to ask that they read and understand legislation before they vote on it?
ANOTHER UPDATE: Oops!
Plus this: “I admit that I’m completely at a loss to describe accurately the quality of American political life today.”
MORE: Mark Kleiman is suprised that I disapprove, because I’m “a founding member of the partisan lynch mob devoted to forcing such errors.” Actually — as Mark would know if he actually paid attention to what I write, instead of the gibbering voices inside his head — he’d know that I’ve opposed the Patriot Act from the beginning. (See this, too). Nor did any “partisan lynch mob” or the gang at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue force Congress to give the Bush Administration more power than it asked for, which was the whole point of the story. Oh, well — I guess I should just be glad that Kleiman’s not engaging in tabloid speculation about my sex life. So far, anyway . . . .
RASMUSSEN: “Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters nationwide favor cutting off federal funds for ‘sanctuary cities’ that offer protection to illegal immigrants. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 29% are opposed. . . . By a 56% to 31% margin, voters want the government to continue building a fence along the Mexican border.” It’ll be interesting to see how both parties approach this.
JOHN TIERNEY: Just in case we’re living in a computer simulation, leave your messages for the designer here.
Best so far: “Kudos on Jessica Biel.”
I JUST ORDERED A NEW COMPUTER FOR THE INSTA-WIFE, and I went out of my way to get XP instead of Vista. Looks like I’m not alone in my doubts. Vista booster Jim Louderback of PC Magazine is disappointed: “I’ve been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn’t work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly. . . . I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won’t bore you with the details. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain’t cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled!”
August 18, 2007
DEAN UPDATE: A HURRICANE WATCH in the Cayman Islands. But Dean is still heading straight for Jamaica.
UPDATE: More here: “According to the 8:00 PM EDT intermediate advisory, the aircraft reconaissance flight currently in Hurricane Dean just reported a minimum central pressure of 920 millibars — down 10 mb from the last reading. Dean is strengthening again.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: The island of Little Cayman is being evacuated, with inhabitants sheltering on Cayman Brac. Caves in the bluff (“the brac”) are the traditional place to ride out a hurricane.
MORE: A prayer for Jamaica.
MORE STILL: The Caymans have upgraded to a hurricane warning. Plus, extra flights leaving Grand Cayman. Also, where to secure your car. You can see why that matters here. And a roundup of Cayman press notices here.
And good news for us — but not for Mexico — Dean likely to miss United States.
(Bumped).
JOURNALISTS BEHAVING BADLY: And blaming blogs.
BRIDGES AND TAXES: A look at the politics of transportation spending.
SOME OF THE WORLD’S weirdest animals.
DID RUSSIAN HACKERS CRASH SKYPE? Skype denies it.
ARRH! Pirates for Freedom! “It strikes me that cowardly publishers ought to lose all moral rights to the copyrighted material they pull.”
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO statutes of limitations?
OBAMA: Read my lips: No new debates.
UPDATE: More from Marc Ambinder.
SCIENCE BOOKS for kids.
THE SURGE COULD LAST ANOTHER YEAR, as it seems to be working. “Citing statistics on captured militants and insurgent attacks, Odierno said he was ‘cautiously optimistic’ that U.S. forces were improving security in Iraq. Roadside bomb attacks have declined for the last two months and attacks against civilians were at a six-month low, he said.”
Meanwhile, people are starting to use the word “postsurge.” But I wonder if “Operation Fig Leaf” will succeed? “Embrace victory, call it defeat!”
UPDATE: A cautionary note: “While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.” That’s been a theme of many milbloggers. I hope it’s wrong, since otherwise it means that we will lose the war as a result of enemy psychological warfare and “lawfare.”
NOT STANDING UP FOR FREE SPEECH in academia.
PROFESSORS ON the battlefield.
THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE TRUSTEESHIP WARS between the Administration and the alumni have heated up — check out VoteDartmouth.org.
Some background can be found here.
IN THE MAIL: Joe Biden’s new book, Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics.
Also: “Joe Biden is a man of the people. From his quiet middle class beginning in Scranton PA. to his Catholic upbringing and coming of age in Wilmington DE. to his election at the age of 29 to the US Senate- this is clearly a man to be admired.” Reading these reviews, it is hard to understand why he’s not leading the polls.
POPULAR SCIENCE: Two Defective iPhones in Less Than Two Months: What’s Going on Here? “Considering all these frustrating weaknesses along with an incredibly high cost of ownership of some fairly buggy hardware, and I’m starting to wonder what kind of revolt lies in store for us when first-gen iPhone users’ warranties start to expire come July ’08.”
MORE KNIFEBLOGGING: I said that I’d gotten a lot of email, and I was telling the truth: I didn’t notice this email from Stephen Green endorsing the Global knives until I saw it on his site. It was a flood!
My question about ceramic knives brought some comments. Reader Tim Adamec wrote:
I’ve owned a couple of ceramic knives; they’re very sharp and explode in interesting ways when dropped. I think Frank Herbert modelled Kris knives in Dune after them: “May thy knife chip and shatter.”
Uh oh. But reader John Ramsey emails: “I have owned a Kyocera Chefs Knife for over 20 years, It’s a very light weight (easy on the wrist) very sharp and very brittle knife. About 4 years ago I knocked the tip off trying to work a turkey leg loose. Not the right tool for the job… Otherwise it has been fantastic. I have never sharpened the blade as I wouldn’t know how but it is as sharp as a razor after all these years. I bought my wife the paring knife for Christmas last year and she loves it.”
Meanwhile, reader Matt Johnson wonders why I haven’t mentioned Cutco knives:
I think I know now what it’s like to be a Ron Paul supporter.
But seriously, you have NO IDEA how freaking awesome these knives are. I’ve never sold these things myself, I just use them. I admit, they will offend a knife traditionalist but they also happen to be a better knife. There are just not that many products out there that are designed with a purpose and designed to solve so many problems and does its job so darned well.
A lot of other readers praised Cutco too. My only exposure was when my friend Doug Weinstein sold Cutco stuff door-to-door in college, which didn’t leave me with a favorable impression. That had more to do with their lame canned sales pitch (hand knife to prospect while intoning “Shake hands with a Cutco!” in a Ted Baxter voice) than with the product, though.
Final issue: I want stuff that’s dishwasher safe. Yeah, I know you’re supposed to wash good knives by hand, and I do, but in my house everything winds up in the dishwasher sooner or later, as others aren’t so careful. So I need stuff that can tolerate occasional dishwasher exposure without stains, loss of temper, etc.
Earlier knife posts, for those just coming into the discussion, are here and here.