Day: May 23, 2002

I had no intention of jumping on the bandwagon, but I just reread his page and one entry struck me as just too damned stupid not to comment on.

From his May 23rd entry:.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS: In today’s climate in France that the burning down of the Israeli embassy was the result of an accident? About as likely as president Chirac’s suggestion that there are no anti-Semites in France.

Maybe somebody burned down the embassy on purpose. Maybe it was an accident. I don’t know. And neither does Sullivan. So with no facts at all (unless he’s got some and didn’t choose to share them with his readers), Sullivan flings out wild speculation and calls it punditry.

Yeah, I know, that’s redundant.

This is not helpful.

There are anti-Semites in France. If Chirac doesn’t think so, he’s an idiot. But for Sullivan to leap to judgment on something like this — for reasons that look suspiciously like the urge to toss off a snarky, catchy remark for the blog — just lends credence to the fools who want to call those who oppose genuine anti-Semitism conspiracy nuts.

And so next time there is a real incident that isn’t quite clear, that is in that grey area where the facts are coming to light but not yet crystalized… that next time, all the rational voices that try to convince the world that yes, there is a problem here will have just a tiny little bit less credibility.

But it made a stylin’ blog entry. Thanks Andrew.

Feeling like you’re not pulling your weight? Want to give something back? Well head on over to the project!

ECHELON@home is a distributed intelligence gathering system that harnesses the power of hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected computers in the search for terrorists, hackers, drug czars, foreign military operations, and general ne’er-do-wells.. You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes international and domestic emails, internet traffic, phone calls, cell phone calls, satellite communications, and more. There’s a small but captivating possibility that your computer will detect a crime and allow the NSA to report it.

(it would be a bit cooler if they at least managed to get nsa.org, but if you try there, you’ll find something equally strange.)

Richard Bennett ugly on Virginia Postrel for elitist tendencies:

She’s always struck me as a snob, mainly because of her practice of separating links to “pro” journalists from “merely amateur” bloggers. In the Blogosphere, nobody knows you’re a celebrity, Virginia, we only care about the content of your content.

If Bennett finds Postrel

Go this. And hope that he’s wrong. About some of it… about any of it.

If you figure out a way to convince me that he’s wrong, please, by all that is not holy, explain it to me.

(his archive isn’t working, so I’m referring to the “scary thought for the day”. Found via Instapundit, so not sure why I’m bothering. )

In defense of Ing

Mike Gannis writes:

I must forcefully disagree with your reader Mark Goble for criticizing the inclusion of Dean Ing on your Dream Team list. Ing has actually written a pretty good novel about how to deal with terrorists in the U.S. — “Soft Targets,” which also appeared as a novella in Jim Baen’s bookazine “New Destinies” in 1980 or thereabouts. IIRC, he was quite prescient and had a couple of good solutions to the problem of domestic terrorism. It’s been reissued, and seems to be still in print as a paperback — see link] for more info.

As I’ve indicated, I’m agnostic on Ing, having not read the fellow, but always glad to hear differing opinions…

More from the Dream Team

Benford (whose web site you can find here) responded to my e-mail regarding the Dream Team with the following note:

Good idea. Not really my area of expertise, but the most relevant story that applies is my “A Calculus of Desperation”, published about a decade ago, about a sophisticated form of bio warfare. It was reprinted by a Washington think tank and used in a conference on bio threats etc…

Okay, this is funny:

The London yoga center Triyoga came under strenuous neighborhood protest in March over the increasing noise level at its relaxation institute, according to a Reuters report; mellow music played at high volume, clients’ chanting, and group-breathing exercises (guttural sounds) were named as the major nuisances.

(From MSNBC.com’s of The Weird).

When did Onion stop being funny?

I headed over there in search of something amusing (the page is taking itself a bit too seriously today) and made it through their whole front with nary a chuckle. I think my mouth twitched once or twice in a near-smile, but that was about it.

I haven’t checked them out in a while, so I must have missed the steep decline. Come on, people, isn’t there somebody out there who’s in charge of telling me these things?