***Dave Does the Blog

Baghdad Bob

Come join the zany crew at We Love the Iraqi Information Minister, a site dedicated to everyone’s favorite spinmeister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi Minister of Information (currently on administrative leave)….

(The above is their current IP; their domain at this writing points to their old, overwhelmed site.)

The site is dedicated to some of his more intriguing quotes, such as:

“There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!”
“My feelings – as usual – we will slaughter them all.”
“I blame Al-Jazeera – they are marketing for the Americans!”
“God will roast their stomachs in hell at the hands of Iraqis.”
“No I am not scared and neither should you be!”

You can view how Sideshow Mohammed might have reported on some of history’s other greatest battles, you can vote on who should play him in the inevitable Hollywood film, and you can even buy a couple of t-shirts. Joy.

Now if only he’d show up again.

The best part is this particular summary why everyone loves Baghdad Bob:

In an age of spin, al-Sahaf offers feeling and authenticity. His message is consistent — unshakeable, in fact, no matter the evidence — but he commands daily attention by his on-the-spot, invective-rich variations on the theme. His lunatic counterfactual art is more appealing than the banal awfulness of the Reliable Sources. He is a Method actor in a production that will close in a couple of days. He stands superior to truth.

Amen.

(via Doyce)

All your pr0n is belong to us

Hmm. Seems like the RAVE Act wasn’t the only bit of behind-the-scenes amending to the Amber Alert Bill which Congress did, indeed, pass. Among the other bits slipped in, subject…

Hmm. Seems like the RAVE Act wasn’t the only bit of behind-the-scenes amending to the Amber Alert Bill which Congress did, indeed, pass.

Among the other bits slipped in, subject to know public hearings or debates:

Some serious tinkering with federal sentencing guidelines, ostensibly related to child sex offenses, but (depending on who you talk to) possibly further limiting judicial discretion in a number of cases. Even Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that the provisions “would do serious harm to the basic structure of the sentencing guideline system and would seriously impair the ability of courts to impose just and responsible sentences.”
It’s now a crime to use misleading Internet domain names to trick people into seeing obscene material (which is already prohibited) or tricking minors into seeing material “harmful” to them. The text and an analysis of this part can be found here.
The bill also bans the distribution of “virtual” child pornography — legal pornographic images of adults that have been digitally altered to look like children having sex. The Supreme Court already struck down a similar law in the past.

Regardless of how you feel about the individual provisions, it’s dirty pool to slip them into a “national feel-good” law like the Amber Alert system bill while it’s in conference committee. If the idea has merit, it should be debated openly and passed the same way; if it’s politically difficult to get that done, maybe that’s a sign the idea shouldn’t be made into law.

That is sort of how a representative democracy is supposed to work.

What kind of man reads GQ?

Blather has the answer….

Blather has the answer.

Driving needs

Hmmm. This article is almost enough to make me search out a rear wheel drive for our next car. But — given my wussiness driving in slick conditions, and where…

Hmmm. This article is almost enough to make me search out a rear wheel drive for our next car.

But — given my wussiness driving in slick conditions, and where we live — not quite.

The great middle

From Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. No matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, if you are incapable of feeling at least a tiny amount of joy…

From Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

No matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on, if you are incapable of feeling at least a tiny amount of joy at watching ordinary Iraqis celebrate this, you are lost to the ideological left.
And let me also add, if you are incapable of feeling badly that we even had to use force in the first place, you are ideologically lost to the right.

And I would inform both of those groups to leave the room now and do not watch the program. It’s like ice-skating: We throw out the high score and the low score. The rest of the people, you’re welcome at the table.

A fine thought.

(via A Small Victory, via Treacher)

The War will be Trademarked

Okay, so not only was “shock and awe” an awful term, but, in reality, it was a war strategy that was not used (at least not as popularly understood). That…

Okay, so not only was “shock and awe” an awful term, but, in reality, it was a war strategy that was not used (at least not as popularly understood).

That isn’t stopping companies a-plenty from trying to cash in on the term , — especially if they can keep others from doing so.

One day after the start of Gulf War II, Sony rushed to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in an attempt to register the phrase “Shock and Awe.” The electronics giant is planning to use the term as the title to a new, combat-themed video game.
Sony is one of 15 businesses that are trying to own the “Shock and Awe” phrase. A Texas pesticide company, an Ohio fireworks firm, a California t-shirt designer, and a New York maker of beer mugs and decorative plates all have filed applications.
The worst may be a Mansfield, Texas man who wants to control the “Shock and Awe” term, whether it’s used to name “inflatable bath toys,” “aftermarket automobile products,” “alcoholic beverages,” “smoking jackets,” or “television programming.”

And, in case you’re wondering, the domain name is locked up, too (and has been since January).

Next up: “Blitzkrieg Beer,” “Saturation Bombing Undergarments,” “Penetration in Depth Condoms,” and “Suppressive Fire Extra-Spicy Nacho Cheese Chips.”

(via BoingBoing)

I’ll take the next question

Esquire presents “Sex Tips from Donald Rumsfeld.” Anyone who’s listened to a any Pentagon briefings over the past few weeks should get a kick out of this. Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:…

Esquire presents “Sex Tips from Donald Rumsfeld.” Anyone who’s listened to a any Pentagon briefings over the past few weeks should get a kick out of this.

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: My wife and I are happily married, but the spark seems to have gone out of our sex life. How can we spice it up? —Harry Blumenthal, Bakersfield, California
Secretary Rumsfeld: There’s no great mystery here, Harry. It can’t be that hard to understand. You get in there, you do your job, you develop an exit strategy, and you get the heck out of there. That’s the way sex works. Why does everything have to be so difficult?

(via Andrew Sullivan)

What price the truth?

Eason Jordan, executive news director of CNN, writes of stories about Iraq that CNN intentionally quashed in order to protect his reporters and their Iraqi employees. I felt awful having…

Eason Jordan, executive news director of CNN, writes of stories about Iraq that CNN intentionally quashed in order to protect his reporters and their Iraqi employees.

I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein’s regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.

The stories include tales of torture, dismemberment, assassinations planned (and executed) and so forth.

At what point, one has to wonder, does an obligation to the truth outweigh the competitive advantage of having a Baghdad bureau? While Mr Jordan did, ultimately warn King Hussein about a threat Uday Hussein had made to him about assassinating the monarch, he evidently didn’t pass on the same warning to two of Uday’s similarly-threatened brothers-in-law, who were then lured back into Iraq and killed.

How much blood on the hands is it worth in order to “be there” with other news stories?

(via InstaPundit)

Natural selection

How Do You Use Magic? Grinthorn would be pleased. (via Brian and Scott)…

How Do You Use Magic?

Grinthorn would be pleased.

(via Brian and Scott)

Filter tips

Google is under fire for its opt-in porn filter. A new study says that it blocks a lot of non-porn sites. Some of the URLs listed in the listings below…

Google is under fire for its opt-in porn filter. A new study says that it blocks a lot of non-porn sites.

Some of the URLs listed in the listings below might be construed as sexually-explicit — for example, for the purpose of providing information about health or sexual education, or describing efforts to regulate pornography. However, most of the URLs listed seem to be misclassified by Google as sexually explicit. For example, it is unlikely that there is sexually-explicit content on thomas.loc.gov (the Library of Congress’s index of federal legislation), pmo.gov.il (the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office), nmsa.org (the National Middle School Association), or neu.edu (the main index page of Northeastern University), but all four are excluded from Google searches using SafeSearch.

I’m a lot less upset about this than some other recent porn filter news, largely because the Google setting is an opt-in sort of thing. People have to turn it on explicitly (so to speak), and it reasonably tends to be overly protective in (through automation) blocking sites. I worry a lot more about when filtering is required by law than when it’s something voluntarily turned on — and while clearly there’s room for improvement in Google’s algorithms, better “safe” than “sorry,” if you really want to block out stuff from Little Johnny’s Eyes — though the report notes a number of false (or questionable) negatives, too.

(If you’re curious, the report includes a form where you can try your own site or search term to see if SafeSearch blocks it.)

The report does give kudos to Google for make it clear when SafeSearch is turned on.

Regardless, and despite Google’s press flacks, I think most folks would agree with the study’s conclusions:

SafeSearch’s errors confirm the author’s sense, reflected in prior research, that accurate Internet filtering is an extraordinarily difficult task still well beyond the reach of current algorithms and methods.

Trouble a-brewin’

I’m generally against proselytization. I don’t mind people opening sharing the Good News of Christ (or the Mercy of Allah, or the Serenity of the Buddha, or the Unspeakable Horror…

I’m generally against proselytization. I don’t mind people opening sharing the Good News of Christ (or the Mercy of Allah, or the Serenity of the Buddha, or the Unspeakable Horror of Cthulhu) where it is welcomed, or sought after, but I’ve never been much for missionary work. I think we all have enough to do

On the other hand, I don’t automatically look for sinister motives from Christian churches that are seeking to provide humanitarian aid to, say, the people of Iraq. Heck, there was a solicitation for contributions at our church last Sunday — though it noted that the money gathered would be provided to aid agencies already on the ground.

But when some guy like Franklin Graham announces that he and his organization, Samaritan’s Purse, are going to Iraq to provide humanitarian aid, I get worried. After all, this is the same gent who stirred things up in a not terribly charitable way a while back:

Speaking after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Graham had commented, “I don’t believe this is a wonderful, peaceful religion.” The president of Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian relief agency, added: “When you read the Koran and you read the verses from the Koran, it instructs the killing of the infidel, for those that are non-Muslim.”
“NBC News” reported Friday that when asked to clarify his statement, Graham repeated his charge that Islam, as a whole, was evil. “It wasn’t Methodists flying into those buildings, it wasn’t Lutherans,” he said. “It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith.

That makes it a bit worrisome when he issues statements like this:

The group’s main objective is to help refugees and people who have lost their homes or are sick and hungry as a result of the war, Graham told Beliefnet. “We realize we’re in an Arab country and we just can’t go out and preach,” Graham said in a telephone interview from Samaritan’s Purse headquarters in Boone, N.C.
However, he added, “I believe as we work, God will always give us opportunities to tell others about his Son….We are there to reach out to love them and to save them, and as a Christian I do this in the name of Jesus Christ.

There is a Christian minority in Iraq (Tariq Aziz is, in fact, Christian), but it doesn’t sound like Graham is going there in solidarity to his brethren in Christ. And surely there will be those who use his presence there to demonstrate that the Iraq War was all a religious crusade to begin with.

Still, there’s not much to be done for it. I may find it morally and politically unfortunate, but it’s ultimately Graham’s freedom of religion to express it, and the freedom of speech and religion I hope the Iraqis will have to politely tell him to mind his own business.

And, after all, that’s better way to handle the situation than, say, in Saudi Arabia, a missionary nation itself, where conversion from Islam is a capital offense, overt practice of Christianity can lead to prison and deportation, and Christian missionaries (and Jews) are forbidden from entering.

And who knows? Maybe Graham will learn something in the process.

(via Words Mean Things)

Dogs in Elk

This was evidently originally a text exchange, but someone has been kind enough to tablefy it (for easier reading) and provide pumpkin-based illustrations. I present to you the saga of…

This was evidently originally a text exchange, but someone has been kind enough to tablefy it (for easier reading) and provide pumpkin-based illustrations. I present to you the saga of Dogs in Elk, which begins …

Okay – I know how to take meat away from a dog. How do I take a dog away from meat? This is not, unfortunately, a joke.

(via SfAD — hat trick!)

ADRENALINE RUSH!!! II

Ain’t It Cool News claims: “Firefly,” Joss Whedon’s widely adored but very cancelled Foxnet space Western, is coming to a DVD player near you — and it’s coming in fabulous…

Ain’t It Cool News claims:

“Firefly,” Joss Whedon’s widely adored but very cancelled Foxnet space Western, is coming to a DVD player near you — and it’s coming in fabulous widescreen!
According to a never-steered-Herc-wrong-yet source close to the project:
No release date yet, but Fox Home Entertainment will be releasing. It sports the entire season, including the unaired eps, in 16:9 glory and, most likely, in the “correct” order. With lots of goodies.

Doesn’t make up for cancelling the frelling thing, but …

(also via SfAD)

ADRENALINE RUSH!!!

Quoth Tolkien Online: According to an interview in the Official Lord of the Rings Fanclub Magazine, Peter Jackson has confirmed that The Two Towers Special Edition will come in at…

Quoth Tolkien Online:

According to an interview in the Official Lord of the Rings Fanclub Magazine, Peter Jackson has confirmed that The Two Towers Special Edition will come in at a whopping 222 minutes in length, a total of 43 minutes added to the film (that’s 24% more movie!). Nearly all of this new footage will consist of character scenes, including a good deal of Treebeard expansion and Huorns at Helms Deep.

Huorns! Excellent!

How many days until Christmas?

(via SfAD)

It still looks cool

I remember as a kid thinking that SSTs were the coolest things going, and being bitterly disappointed when the US backed out of efforts to build one — and…

I remember as a kid thinking that SSTs were the coolest things going, and being bitterly disappointed when the US backed out of efforts to build one — and that they weren’t much allowed to fly over US airspace, only over ocean. They were like something out of Thunderbirds, only real.

The combination of the crash in 2000, plus the general downturn in air travel and increasing maintenance costs, have led British Airways and Air France to announce the end of Concorde service this year.

Capable of speeds of up to 1,350mph, Concorde has been in passenger service since the first flight left London for Bahrain in January 1976. BA’s Concorde’s have carried 2.5 million passengers. In recent years both BA and Air France have concentrated their services on the transatlantic route to New York. The aircraft’s best transatlantic time was two hours 54 minutes from New York to London.

Three hours across the Atlantic. Wow.

Back in the 60s and 70s, we had flights to the moon, and super-sonic airline jets, and the development of the space shuttle. Maybe the era of big, flashy, fast aeronautical engineering projects like this is over. That would be a real shame.

(I’m sure that someone will make the point about the “breaking” of this historic Anglo-French effort, this “end” of “concorde” taking place in the current international context. Nah. It’s economics, that’s all.)

(via Ghost of a Flea)

Nitpicking

Michael Jantze’s The Norm pegs one of the few marital conflicts that Margie and I have. Except the genders are switched, of course….

Michael Jantze’s The Norm pegs one of the few marital conflicts that Margie and I have. Except the genders are switched, of course.

Ranting and RAVEing

As previously anticipated, Joe Biden has managed to slip the RAVE act into the conference committee version of the national AMBER Alert bill. No public hearing. No legislative committee hearing….

As previously anticipated, Joe Biden has managed to slip the RAVE act into the conference committee version of the national AMBER Alert bill.

No public hearing. No legislative committee hearing. No notice. Back-door politics at its worst.

Is it too late to hound your senators about it? Give it a shot.

(via InstaPundit)

You can’t make stuff like this up

Well, you could, but it wouldn’t be as funny. Hong Kong’s tourist board commissioned a series of magazine ads showing the beauty of the city. Their tag line? “Hong Kong…

Well, you could, but it wouldn’t be as funny.

Hong Kong’s tourist board commissioned a series of magazine ads showing the beauty of the city. Their tag line? “Hong Kong Will Take Your Breath Away“

Which probably sounded a lot more attractive before the SARS epidemic started …

(via Gweilo Diaries)

Motivation

The WaPo has an article on reactions on the “Arab Street” to the liberation of Baghdad. I found this one particularly … interesting: “No, no, no,” yelled Shaaban Mohamad, watching…

The WaPo has an article on reactions on the “Arab Street” to the liberation of Baghdad. I found this one particularly … interesting:

“No, no, no,” yelled Shaaban Mohamad, watching television at a Cairo bookstore. “If the U.S. really wanted democracy, they would have taken out just about every Arab leader we have. This is very suspect. The U.S. just wants to protect Israel and wants the riches in the region.”

A bit of a mixed message, don’t you think?