Moving Target

2004-01-20T09:43:00.000-05:00

Moving Target has Moved!!!
Check out my new (and vastly improved) site:

Autonomous Source

Thanks to Blogspot for hosting my blog for more than a year, and thanks to PicServer for hosting my pictures. It's been fun, but the best is yet to come.

2004-01-19T20:26:00.000-05:00

Comix time! Peter Bagge was the creator of the classic underground comic Hate which he unfortunately ended a few years ago. He's the type of guy that must go through life constantly getting whiplash from the eyes rolling back in his head so fast -- he's a nasty cynic. He sees the stupidity in people's motivations that we sometimes miss and lays it out very clearly. Reason has a whole mess of his work for their magazine online. Go on, you deserve a laugh.

2004-01-19T10:22:00.000-05:00

Who the enemies are. People that think like this. Note that the website is based in France.

(from Andrew Sullivan.)

2004-01-19T08:11:00.000-05:00

The People's webcam. So have you heard about the Tholos yet? Reason has a small piece on it but the Economist covered it better (link unavailable for non-subscribers):

The Tholos, named after a Greek temple from the Mycenaean period, is a 3-metre high, 360-degree screen that sends and receives images between two locations, in effect providing a window between the two cities. If you're in London, you'll be able to walk up to the screen and have a chat with someone in Vienna, as though you were meeting in the town square. A panoramic view of the other city will be visible in the background, and it will always be on.

This elaborate project was devised by Tholos Systems, a company based in Vienna. It incorporates the latest high definition television (HDTV) technology, with rear projection, high-resolution cameras, and specially coated screens to prevent graffiti. But it's not all 21st-century technology. The Tholos also uses a projection technique borrowed from a device over a century old: the zoetrope. The mechanical shutters in front of the HDTV equipment will switch between a camera facing outwards and a projector showing an image from the distant city. As in a zoetrope, these shutters operate at a high speed that makes the switching invisible to the human eye.

None have been built yet, but the idea is to place them in the centers of the great cities of Europe to help work towards the vision of European unity. And unlike most grand schemes of this nature, they won't cost the EU any money; they'll be paid for by advertising that will interrupt the connection from time-to-time.

From what I've been able to find out, there haven't been any firm plans made to deploy any of these things yet. Possibly there are people that feel giant TV screens blaring ads for cell-phones in front of the great cultural monuments of Europe is a little gauche. Perhaps the creators of this technology are aiming for the wrong customers.

The US, I think, would be far more accepting of this technology. Stick one in the Mall of America connecting with one in Disneyworld. Put one in New York, New York, Las Vegas linking to Times Square. Create smaller versions of the system and sell them to swanky nightclubs and restaurants. Lots and lots of possibilities.

I'm looking forward to seeing one on my next trip to Vegas. They better get cracking.

2004-01-18T22:08:00.000-05:00

Gotta look out for that Cosmic Justice... A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Cosmic Justice giving a good solid thwack to a woman in the supermarket who felt she could intervene in the correcting of my child. Well I got my own taste of it the other day when I was again at the supermarket, though this time I was at the giant Loblaws and was without babies.

I picked up my shopping cart, and for some reason I looked at the handle and saw these words, "This cart is different. Please leave adequate room to manoeuvre." I'd shopped here for a long time and used the same oversized carts each time. I had never noticed this warning before. And I thought -- what a stupid warning!

I went into full curmudgeon mode then. I muttered to myself about lawyers' paranoia about liability. I fumed about the contempt corporations have for people's common sense. And then I turned a corner too wide and knocked over two dozen jars of baby food.

The funny thing (well, the other funny thing) is that it wasn't until I was warned to be careful that I no longer was. This means something, but I'm not sure what.

2004-01-18T11:23:00.000-05:00

The Pianist. My wife and I watched The Pianist last night. We'd wanted to see it earlier, but when you're at the video store and trying to decide between the typical Hollywood pap and a bleak portrayal of man's capacity for cruelty, the Hollywood pap has a distinct advantage. This is not an easy movie to watch. It will make you angry and it will make you weep. And for me, it kept me up for much the night, unable to sleep and running the scenes over and over in my mind.

The movie is based on the biography of Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew who was Warsaw's greatest pianist and who managed to survive the Nazi obliteration of the Jewish presence in that city. We are taken through his experiences during the war years in an episodic fashion, never really getting to know him but perhaps feeling his suffering all the more because of this. In fact, you could say that the movie isn't really his story, it's the story of what happened in Warsaw -- he is the witness through who's eyes you see it. The movie is long, but it never really dwells on one period of time. You feel the pace of the crushing vise of the Nazi machine. First there are minor indignities, then economic hardship, then forced relocation, then major indignities, then random violence and forced labour, and finally full systematic genocide. Szpilman escapes this of course, and manages to survive through the intervention of the Polish underground, some lucky breaks and his own determination.

This movie demands you to ask -- Why? If the leaders of the free world during the 1930s had any backbone, the events in this movie would not have happened. Germany was weak, and was acting in an aggressive manor. Hitler had broken the treaty of Versailles, giving France and England the moral and legal right to end his regime. But instead they appeased him and tried to reason with him, and the results were too horrific to comprehend. Facing down brutal totalitarian regimes is the only sane response to them, a fact which is still poorly understood by many.

2004-01-17T15:03:00.000-05:00

InstaChicken. A couple of days ago I was surfing the web when my wife mentioned that her parents were coming over for dinner Friday and wanted to know if I had any ideas on what we should make. Normally when she says something like this (and it's more frequent than you might imagine) I have absolutely no idea of what to have for dinner at some time in the distant future. That is because I am a man, and men don't think about food until they're hungry. I really have no idea why after so many years she still asks these kind of questions.

But this time I said that I would cook a roast chicken with vegetables. I was browsing Instapundit at the time and was reading his chicken recipe. It sounded really good. Michelle was very surprised I had an answer but was willing to let me handle it.

The chicken was delicious -- really moist and tender. The vegetables were firm and not soggy. And there was just the right amount of gravy at the bottom of the pan to make the meal perfect. The four of us ate every scrap of meat on the chicken and all the vegetables. The only change to the recipe I would suggest is to cook it for less time, depending on the size of the bird.

Thanks, Glenn!

2004-01-17T12:05:00.000-05:00

Bad Babies! It seems my children have a disrespectful attitude to one of the great statesmen of our nation. I can't imagine where they picked it up...

2004-01-17T11:51:00.000-05:00

Envy and Pride at the root of the world's problems? If you were to ask most of the international crew that claim to be working for the benefit of humanity what is the root cause of the cause of suffering, they would probably pick poverty or greed. Most suffering can be ameliorated by material goods, so it is clear that the lack of these goods or the hoarding of wealth by an elite will cause suffering. The rich nations must give more to the poor.

If you were to ask the anti-globo wackos that claim to be throwing rocks and chanting insipid rhymes for the benefit of humanity, they would point the finger at corporations. Clearly, because corporations have money and power and the poor of the world don't, they are the problem. (Okay, it's not that clear, but that's what they say...)

If you were to ask the libertarians what the problem is, they would say it is bad, corrupt governments. They soak up what wealth there is in a society and use it to maintain their power. Without the freedom for people to use wealth as they see fit, it cannot grow and spread around.

All three seem to agree that money is at the heart of the problem. It's just who's at fault that's open to debate. But Victor Davis Hanson feels pride and envy are the real source of the problem.

Where Americans see skill and subtlety in taking out Saddam Hussein and a costly effort to liberate a people, many Iraqis, even as they taste freedom, drive new cars, and see things improve, talk instead of humiliation, hurt pride, or anger at their own impotence — whether whining over the morticians' make-up work on Qusay, or ashamed about Saddam's pathetic televised dental examination. Iraqis scream on camera that we should not stay another minute, but even more often whisper that we better not leave yet. Too often they seem to be mostly angry that we, not they, took out Saddam Hussein. While the tyrant's departure was a "good" thing, it would have been even better had he killed a few thousand Americans in the process — if only to restore the sort of braggadocio lost by the Baathist flight and antics of a mendacious Baghdad Bob.

Israel suffers from the same dilemma of dealing with others' hurt pride as we do. It created a relatively humane society throughout the West Bank from 1967-1993 — and raised the standard of living, and promoted individual freedom for Palestinians in way impossible elsewhere in the Arab world. But all that won no gratitude; instead, it stoked the fury arising from Arabs' sense of weakness and self-contempt. In the world of the Palestinian lobster bucket, Israel's great sin is not bellicosity or aggression, but succeeding beyond the wildest dreams of its neighbors. How humiliating it must be to be incapable of even muttering the word "Israel" (hence the need for "Zionist entity"), but nevertheless preferring an Israeli to a Palestinian ID card.

Indeed Anwar Sadat, by his own admission, went to war in 1973 not to liberate outright the Sinai (that was militarily impossible), but to show the Arab world he could surprise — and for three to four days even stun — the Israelis, and thereby restore the wounded "pride" of the Egyptians. We think that the total encirclement of his Third Army was a terrible defeat — saved from abject annihilation by American diplomacy and Soviet threat. Egyptians saw it instead as a source of honor that it even got across the canal.

To all the examples he uses you could throw in the two world wars and a whole lot of smaller wars, as well the petty economic nationalism that spurs people to support policies that are to their detriment. Lots to think about in this article.

2004-01-15T15:00:00.000-05:00

Speaking of family values... I just read a good article on the problems with men today. There's lots to disagree with, a bit too much assumption-taking, but lots of food for thought too. As someone who is now an important male role model, I took quite a bit away from it.

(from Instapundit)

2004-01-15T14:50:00.000-05:00

Going a bit too far. As anyone who looks in here regularly knows, I'm a bit of a fan of George W. Bush. This is almost entirely due to his foreign affairs policies, which have broken through the ossified state things were in a few years ago and allowed some hope for the worst parts of the world.

But in domestic affairs he's been a bit more disappointing -- lots of pork, pandering to special interests and budget deficits. These things don't really worry me since I'm not American, but it would be nice if the US could lead by example and show the world that people can get by with less government.

But this is a bit much:

George W. Bush's plan to spend US$1.5-billion promoting heterosexual marriage won applause yesterday from conservative and Christian groups whose support is key to the Republicans' election hopes in 2004.

I don't really understand the need of governments to get involved in people's lifestyle choices. I'm all for heterosexual marriage (and gay marriage too) but having the government promoting it is social engineering. Not good.

2004-01-15T10:43:00.000-05:00

Hello, Poison Control? I was putting the dishes away and the babies had been quieter than usual for a few minutes. This usually means trouble, so I went to see what was up. Max and Talia were happily pulling out the detritus from under the front baseboard heaters. But what's that? Max has a poinsettia leaf in his mouth!

Everyone knows poinsettias are incredibly poisonous. Even my wife the doctor regretted that someone had got us a plant for Christmas and we had allowed the deadly thing in our home. And now the worst has happened -- Max has chewed up a leaf! It was all soggy when I pulled it out of his mouth! OMG! Where's the number for Poison Control?

But wait a second. If it was such a deadly poison, it wouldn't be sold. Max looks fine. Let's take a look on the internet. Snopes says they're not poisonous at all; it's just an urban myth. Whew!

Now we have something new for lunch today.

2004-01-15T07:44:00.000-05:00

Maybe we should do it. A friend of mine thinks the idea of landing humans on Mars is an unimaginative idea. He's got nothing against all the money that will be spent, but asks why can't it be spent on something more exciting -- like a city on the bottom of the ocean, for example? But Lileks says going back into space will be exciting:

I wonder if we can embrace a big idea again. The moon shot was nonpartisan -- Kennedy dialed the number, Nixon talked to the astronauts. Politics stopped at the ionosphere's edge; it was an American gambit. I'd like to think we can do that again. I want to watch the Moon Channel with my daughter in 2010.

2004-01-15T07:10:00.000-05:00

Reforming the education system in Iraq. Behind all the headline-making news in Iraq -- news that indicates the Americans are deep in a Vietnam-style quagmire -- work is going on to rebuild and create the institutions necessary for a democratic society. Opinion Journal has a good article on the rebuilding of the education system by the senior adviser on education for the Coalition Provisional Authority.

You can imagine how difficult something like this is. Saddam's regime had imposed its stamp throughout the schools in order to indoctrinate the population. Certainly you can get rid of his nonsense, but what do you replace them with? Don't you run the risk of trading one form of indoctrination with another? Education -- messing with kids' heads -- is a sensitive issue for everyone. I was relieved when I read this:

The White House had specifically told my colleagues and me to concentrate on getting the children, teachers and textbooks back in the classrooms. We were wisely admonished by White House officials to offer our best advice when asked by Iraqis, but to avoid directly imposing extensive reforms on the Iraqi schools. We followed this suggested course. Thus, we helped remove totalitarian teachings from the classrooms, helped the schools and ministry resume operations, and kept our advisory office small. Now Iraqis themselves are restructuring the ministry organization, considering decentralization plans, and holding forums on curriculum reform and the future of Iraq's school system.

I'm very excited by these types of stories. The thought of a free and democratic Arab country gives me a lot of hope for the future of the Middle East.

2004-01-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

Yecch. Particularly loathsome piece in The Toronto Star today which begins by denying that Bush is another Hitler, then going onto list all the (tired, made-up) similarities.

True, both came to power constitutionally (although under dubious circumstances and with the support of only a minority of voters). True, both masterfully used traumatic events at home (the 1933 Reichstag fire for Hitler; 9/11 for Bush) to make a frightened and resentful populace accept restrictions on civil liberties.

True, also, that the U.S. leader shares Hitler's taste for military costumes -- although to be fair to the German dictator, he did serve on active duty in wartime.

Like I said, yecch. I'd like to go over the whole thing and list all the half-truths and omissions, but there's no way I have the time. Let me just mention the most important way that Bush is completely unlike Hitler, and America is completely unlike Nazi Germany.

And that's America's attitude after 9/11. On that day (I am somewhat ashamed to admit) I was not able to feel sorrow for the incredible losses or anger at the terrorists that carried them out. I felt only fear that this event would harden the generous American spirit and turn them into the "frightened and resentful populace" the Star's writer assumes them to be. But that didn't happen. Within days Bush was at a mosque declaring that Islam was a religion of Peace and Muslims were not enemies of the United States. And Americans generally believed him, knowing that it was wrong to judge a religion by the actions of a fanatical few. All over the world there have been countless frothing, angry protests against Jews in the last few years (and of course during the Nazi period in Germany). I haven't heard of one similar public demonstration of hatred directed against Muslims in the US. Nazi Germany was built on resentment, ignorance and tribalism. I see none of those things affecting the decisions the US is making today, whether you agree with them or not. My 9/11 fears were unfounded.

(from Andrew Sullivan)

2004-01-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

So what are they like? Well, they're eleven months old today. Everyone tells me these days are supposed to fly by, but it seems like forever since we brought Max and Talia home.

Right now they're dressed in cute outfits and crawling around on the floor chasing the cats. They don't crawl like your traditional diaper commercial babies, instead they scoot about on their bellies, pulling themselves with their arms and extending and contracting their legs like swimming frogs. They learned from watching each other so they both crawl in the same way. I doubt their method will change before they start walking.

They crawl together. They do everything together. One follows the other until it's time for the other to follow the first. One will pick up a toy and the other will grab on to it as well. They don't fight over it (most of the time anyway) but they play together. Right now Talia is saying (in her high-pitched, sharp voice) "kha! khac!", which I think means "cat", and Max is repeating (in his deeper, softer voice), "cah!".

Yes they're talking -- a little anyways. Talia is the best at this, saying "mamama", and once (maybe) "papa". Max is a little quieter, but listens attentively when we talk. They're getting dangerously mobile too. Max has learned to pull himself up to a standing position using the coffee table, while Talia has mastered the art of stair-climbing.

Okay, Max has just crawled over to me and latched on. He wants up (and I let him up). Now he's on my lap and wriggling and squirming to get to the keyboard. I better post this and get their breakfast...

2004-01-13T08:32:00.000-05:00

Martin gets it precisely wrong. Paul Martin is again showing himself to be, well, an idiot:

"We have come to this summit because we recognize there is a feeling in many parts of Latin America that the formulas set out by the developing countries are not working for them and we believe that they do work if they are in parallel with enlightened social policies," he told a news conference. "After all, that is what we do at home and if we do it at home, why wouldn't we do it here?"

Although Mr. Martin's principal goal is to improve U.S. relations, he said he wasn't concerned if President Bush is at odds with Canada over his stand on social development.

Latin America tried the Bush approach but the "promised land did not open up," he said and noted: "The Canadian view is the right one and will be the one that is accepted."

"Enlightened social policies". "Social development". What are these exactly? How are they going to bring prosperity to the people of Latin America? Does Martin really think our health care system is the reason we have a high standard of living? If so, why is Cuba such an impoverished basket-case?

Martin is acting on (and apparently believing) the now commonly accepted anti-globo view that the problems in Latin America are due to "American-style capitalism" (and doesn't that phrase give you the heebie-jeebies?), when in fact they were caused by corruption -- which Bush is pushing to do something about:

"The best way to eradicate poverty is to encourage trade between nations. Trade gives people hope, it gives them opportunity. Obviously that must be coupled with anti-corruption measures," Mr. Bush said.

Capitalism does not cause poverty. Do you hear me, Paul? Capitalism does not cause poverty! If you believe it does, you will ruin what still works in this country. Examine the real causes of Latin America's decline in the last few years and you will see that too much government control combined with nationalist and protectionist policies are at the root of their problems. More of this poison is not going to help. Take Argentina for example. As I mentioned before, Argentina's currency problems were caused by excessive government debt taken on to prop up a currency that wanted to fall. Combine this with a "privatization program" that sold government assets to cronies who were then given protected markets and you have a recipe for disaster.

Could this country have traded a bad Prime Minister for an even worse one? Should we have picked Sheila to replace Jean? My head hurts, I'm going to go lie down.

2004-01-12T11:03:00.000-05:00

A little more economic doom 'n' gloom. Bill Fleckenstein has been a good read over the past few years if you were trying to make sensible investment decisions. He has been correct about most of the big trends, has given you his reasoning for his advice, has admitted when he was wrong, has stuck to fundamentals and avoided (and mercilessly derided) hype, and to top it all off has been a witty and fun read. But he has bad news for the markets in 2004:

The Fed, the money-management industry and the public, to some degree, are all in. Folks are either leveraged to the hilt in housing or real estate investments, and/or they are piling into stocks. In both cases, the rationalization is some variation of the greater-fool theory. It's being powered by all the liquidity spewing forth from the Fed, combined with the debt that's been created by the financial system, not least of which comes from the government-sponsored entities Freddie (Mac) and Fannie (Mae). So, we continue to build a bigger and bigger balsawood edifice, which is the current state of our financial markets. And we have this giant anvil dangling from dental floss above the balsawood structure, with the anvil being our burgeoning debt and collapsing currency.

The outcome of this whole tragedy to me is quite clear: I believe that stocks will at some point collapse. Fixed income in all likelihood (though this is less clear to me) will get shredded, thanks to what's going on in the dollar. The dollar will be further bludgeoned, and, I think, metals will go to places we can't even conceive of. What I do not know is the timing of all that. When will stocks start going down? When will the currency decline matter to the fixed-income market? When will the metals really go crazy?

Hang on to your hats!

2004-01-12T10:53:00.000-05:00

Going down, Mr. Greenspan? As I predicted quite a bit earlier, the value of the US dollar is falling sharply. This fall is measured against the Euro, not the Asian currencies as I was discussing, but there is a simple explanation for this. The Asian central banks are maintaining their interventionist ways with regards to the dollar -- thus preventing any major shifts -- but the smart money in Asia is buying Euros (and gold, which is also up bigtime) because they see the writing on the wall.

The article I referenced to note the dollar's decline is an interesting look into the attitude of the financial community towards currency fluctuations. Nothing in it discusses the reasons for the dollar's decline, it's just something that is happening. It notes that the low US interest rates have not helped, but of course forgets to mention that European rates are very low as well. But the majority of the article is about what the various governments can do to fix the situation. The idea that the currency market is a market and moves because of individuals working to maintain and increase their wealth is not touched on.

Prices are signals. Exchange rates between nations are very important signals; they speak very clearly about how money is moving between nations. Governments can build financial shunts and dams and pumps to try to alter the flow of this money, but they cannot change the financial gravity that drives the flow. And of course the biggest financial dam right now -- which for the sake of my metaphor I want you to imagine as the Hoover dam, throbbing and cracking with the weight of all the money behind it -- is the enormous reserve of US dollars held by the Asian central banks. How long can it hold?

2004-01-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

The big myth, neatly eviscerated. The primary model of political ideologies that has imposed itself on the public consciousness is very wrong. This is the idea that as you travel from the left to right on the political spectrum you travel from communism to socialist democracy to capitalism to fascism. Extreme capitalism -- by that I mean a society that allows individuals and corporations to deal with each other freely and with the minimum of government interference -- is as diametrically opposite as the policies of the Nazis as can be. (Whether this extreme freedom is good or not is another question.) Nonetheless, there is a strong, immovable notion amongst people who should know better that fascism and free enterprise are linked.

Edward Feser has a good piece out on TCS that shreds this myth. After the somewhat cheap "guess who?" beginning, he discusses the real philosophy and ideals of the Nazis.

The bafflement only grows when one considers that Hitler's movement was not called "National Socialism" for nothing, much as lefties like to ignore the fact. It is true that Hitler was personally far more interested in exterminating the Jews than he was in implementing any economic program; but it is also true that he and the other Nazis regarded capitalism as no less odious a manifestation of the power of "world Jewry" than, in their view, communism was. They hated capitalism for the very same reason they hated communism: its internationalism, its tendency to dilute one's allegiance to Nation and Race; Nazism was, one might say, the original anti-globalization movement. Hence the national in National Socialism: one's comradeship ought, in its conception, to be primarily with fellow members of one's Nation or Race, rather than with an international Class. But the socialism was no less important, and featured centrally in the minds of such prominent Nazis as Ernst Roehm, Gregor Strasser, and Joseph Goebbels. As Stanley G. Payne notes in his magisterial A History of Fascism 1914-1945: "Much was made by Marxist commentators, during the 1930's and for nearly half a century afterward, about the alleged capitalist domination of the German economy under National Socialism, when the truth of the matter was more nearly the opposite." The suggestion, sometimes heard from Leftists even today, that Nazism was an outgrowth of (or at least inherently sympathetic to) capitalism is thus a myth, another lie propagated from Moscow during the war years and faithfully parroted by Communists, their sympathizers, and their spiritual descendents. The truth is that Marxism on the one hand and fascism and National Socialism on the other are rival interpretations of the same basic socialist creed, their differences analogous to the differences between rival sects within the same religion. To the sectarian, such differences are all-important, and anyone who dissents from them is a heretic, worse even than a non-believer; to the outsider, they seem far less significant than what the various sects all have in common.

I've touched on this subject before, but I find it so perplexing that this myth is so blindly perpetuated that I feel it's important to bring up again.

2004-01-10T14:27:00.000-05:00

The useful problem that is Africa. Elizabeth Nickson had an interesting (though somewhat unfocused) column yesterday where she talked about the international apparatus that converts the West's guilt about the misery of the place into a way of life:

Has any of it done any good? Any progress at all? Not a whit. Despite decades of economic aid, most recipient nations are poorer now than they were before they first received development assistance. Our money goes to tyrants who build useless grandiose projects, pay off their cronies and buy weapons to oppress their people. Together with a vast bureaucracy filled with the profoundly self-protective elites of African nations, bolstered by tens of thousands of highly educated, middle-class Western project planners and managers, they spend over 80% of our foreign aid improving their personal standard of living. Twenty per cent gets through to actual needy people, and that only encourages the shameful, groveling dependence of Oprah's starving children.

I was thinking of this when I read that AIDS is probably less prevalent in Africa than previously thought. Some people are dismayed by this news. David Carr at Samizdata lays it out more eloquently than I ever could:

I know exactly who those 'dismayed' people are. They are the lobbyists, charity scammers, tranzi office-holders, preachy celebrities and other assorted NGO-fodder who have turned AIDS into an international fund-raising and foreign junkett circus. Joining them will be a host of African kleptocrats who know only too well that 'AIDS' is the magic word with which to open the purse-strings of Western treasuries.

Africa is a mess, no doubt about it. I read Robert Kaplan's descriptions of his travels there a couple of years ago and was truly horrified by the scale of the problems it faces. But these problems are not going to be solved by NGOs and rock stars. They will only be solved by giving power and opportunity to the people, and only after a considerable length of time. And by "power", I don't mean the type of democracy that seems to satisfy the internationalist do-gooder crowd, ie. time to vote, pick one: Thug A, Kleptocrat B. I mean power to own things and not have them taken away, power to make choices and not have them made for you, and power to speak, worship, or assemble as you wish.

And of course the other thing necessary for Africa to crawl out of its hole is for the rest of the world to lower the trade restrictions that prevent Africa from exporting what has historically been the first product of a developing economy: food. Yes, I'm looking at you Western Europe and the United States.

For the do-gooders to preach free trade would go against everything they stand for, so it's not going to happen. I hope Dubya will initiate a movement towards this in his second term...

2004-01-09T23:48:00.000-05:00

By popular demand. I know most people don't come here to read my eccentric (for a Canadian) views on world events. You want baby pictures, I know. So here's a couple to get me off the hook for a while. We took the kids to dim sum last weekend; here's Max Max eating a bit of slimy mystery food:

And here's our little girl Talia making Musette's day just that little bit more miserable. Note the very impressive fence I built to protect the woodstove from our destructive children:

Okay, I should probably go to bed now.

2004-01-09T20:19:00.000-05:00

CBC Watch. I got out of the house for the first time in awhile and while in the car got a chance to listen to the CBC news. They had a story about a "non-partisan" group called the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that released a report critical of the US in Iraq. (Funny that groups that support the CBC's line are "non-partisan", while dissenters are regularly called "conservative" or "corporate-funded".) In the story they mentioned (as if it was old news) that the Americans had found no evidence of WMD programs in Iraq.

Sorry? No evidence?

This is how the truth is turned to lies by the media. At first the reports were that the US hadn't found large caches of weapons. (They did find samples of bio-toxins that could easily have been used to create larger supplies -- remember?). Then we hear that they hadn't found any weapons. And now the story Canada's most trusted news source is telling us is that there weren't even any weapon programs in Saddam's Iraq!

I wanted to find the story on the CBC's website, but there's nothing there. I did find the BBC's coverage of this story though (which calls the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace "left-leaning" -- funny that). But what I did find there is just as bad. Stories and background information on Iraq that goes out the way to portray the US negatively and omit any mention of the many benefits that the US is bringing to the country. The copy on their "Indepth: Iraq" sums it up:

Today the country and its people are scarred by more than two decades of war: an eight-year conflict with Iran that cost a million lives, the failed invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the crushing attack by U.S.-led forces in 2003.

Huh? If there is anything Iraq is scarred by it's the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein. But of course if they said that they would be acknowledging -- in a tiny, almost imperceptible way -- that the US had done something good by getting rid of him.

With its infrastructure all but destroyed and its leader deposed, Iraq is now the centre of a tug of war between the U.S. coalition and opposition forces. Only time will tell what the future holds.

"Infrastructure all but destroyed". Doesn't that give you the impression that the US carpet-bombed the place before moving in and have done nothing since arriving? Of course in the real world the US was exceptionally cautious about avoiding civilian destruction -- taking greater risks with its forces to do so -- and now, eight months after the war, Iraq produces more electrical power than it did before it. And this bit about the "tug of war" implies that Iraqis have no power or influence with the Americans. And "opposition forces"? You mean the guys blowing up the mosques and hospitals? What's the matter CBC? Aren't they "freedom fighters"?

Ugh. New Years resolution: avoid the CBC. It's just not worth the aggravation.

2004-01-07T12:28:00.000-05:00

Mars! I've (almost) given up on the idea that I'll ever go there, but at least I get to look at the nice photos of others:

2004-01-06T22:47:00.000-05:00

Stupid is as stupid does. There was a very (unintentionally) funny article published recently in a paper called (amusingly) the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. It's been ridiculed all over the internet, and rightly so. The writer of the article claims that people don't have the same political beliefs as him because ... they're stupid.

It's well past time that people confront this issue, no matter who's offended. We are on the way to becoming a nation of imbeciles. I'm certain that a plethora of "George W. Bush" jokes is already being circulated in every capital of the world. We can stop this sapping of our national integrity but we must do it soon, lest the morons become the norm and those of us who use our brains for more than memorizing advertising jingles are ourselves ostracized from society.

You must read the whole thing! This article is having such an effect on people that it's inspiring parodies.

It's well past time that people confront this issue, no matter who's offended. We are on the way to becoming a nation of imbeciles. I'm certain that a plethora of "George W. Bush" jokes is already being circulated in every capital of the world. Not only is this a national embarrassment, but it will likely prompt "George W. Bush" into an imperialist murder spree when he finds out that intellectually superior indigenous peoples are snickering behind his back. To stop this nightmare we must stop the "George W. Bush" and his zombie legion of imbecile empowerers.

This could be bigger than All your base are belong to us.

2004-01-03T17:38:00.000-05:00

A bit of Cosmic Justice. It's been a long time since I last took one of our babies to the super-market. It's not that it's so difficult, but that we don't need to. Through considerable organization, we have managed to do all our foraging without the necessity of dragging babies and tons of baby equipment with us.

But today I decided to take Max Max to the IGA to get a couple of things. Just for the fun of it. I seated him in the shopping cart baby chair and we started loading up. He was in a quiet, reverential mood, looking in awe at all the brightly coloured stuff. I couldn't even get him to look at me or smile. If I bent down and looked him in the eye, he'd crane his neck to look beyond me. He was enjoying himself.

When we got to the checkout line, Max grabbed a roll of film from a display. Actually, he didn't really grab it, he picked it up quite slowly and carefully, turning it in his hands as if it were a religious artifact. I took it away from him gently and put it back. This didn't seem to bother him too much, but it didn't discourage him either. He picked up another one.

At this point I made a parenting decision. I don't want to be one of those parents constantly slapping things out of the hands of their kids. If I'm going to scold them, it's going to be for things they do, not what they might do. He could look at this roll of film, but I would watch him to see that he didn't damage it.

But the woman in the line behind me felt differently. Her hand reached out and grabbed it from him and put it back. She said, "Merci!". I looked back and saw one of those matronly, arrogant women -- the type that would be engaged to Groucho if she were in a Marx Brothers' movie.

Now I must stop here and explain my views on boundaries. Other people's kids are other people's kids. It's not my place to discipline them or tell them what's right and what's wrong. If I was the only adult present and my friend's kids decided to set their dog on fire, I wouldn't interfere. Maybe they're allowed to set their dog on fire! I might offer some advice -- "I wouldn't set the dog on fire; I don't think it's very nice". Or I might get them to think about what they're doing -- "Are you sure you're allowed to set the dog on fire?". If these tactics didn't work I'd probably go get their parents. But I wouldn't grab the matches away and yell at them. I'd feel I was sticking my nose where it didn't belong.

I'm not saying this is the proper way of doing things. There's probably a good case to be made for community child-rearing. In the old days, parents didn't need to watch their kids every minute because they knew if the kids tried doing something dangerous or were displaying poor manners, any nearby adult would straighten them out. But I don't feel I can do that. The only exception would be if some kids were picking on another kid or destroying someone else's property. Then I would intervene.

Anyways, since I was standing with my child and had authorized his actions, in my mind she had no right to reprimand him. It was an intrusion into my sphere and was greatly resented.

To make sure Max couldn't get into any more trouble, she decided to move the display out of his reach. She lifted it up and -- wait for it -- hung it further up on the shelf -- oh, this is so good! -- but not carefully enough to prevent it from falling and littering the floor with dozens of rolls of film.

I was too busy unloading my cart to help her pick them up.

2004-01-01T11:25:00.000-05:00

Steyn's predictions for the new year. Mark Steyn did a fairly good job of predicting how 2003 would go, and now has some predictions up for 2004. My favourite concerns Osama Bin Laden:

He will continue to be dead throughout 2004.

2003-12-30T18:00:00.000-05:00

Guilty Westerner Disease and ROTK. Victor Davis Hanson has a great article up on the strange self-hatred that seems to guide the reasoning of the leaders of left-wing thought. He doesn't pull any punches:

Our Western intellectuals are sheltered orchids who are naive about the world beyond their upscale hothouses. The Western disease of deductive fury at everything the West does provides a sort of psychological relief (without costs) for apparent guilt over privileged circumstances. It is such a strange mixture of faux-populism and aristocratic snobbery. They believe only a blessed few such as themselves have the requisite education or breeding to understand the "real" world of Western pathologies and its victims.

He goes on to ask some very good questions, such as why does Europe largely oppose democratic and inclusive Israel, and why does anyone treat globetrotting, jet-set, anti-globalization gurus seriously?

The Western disease is on full display in this review of the Return of the King in Maclean's.

I felt I'd been through a fundamentalist crusade in which the forces of light, and the West -- a lot of earnest, attractive folks with blue eyes -- go to war against dark and ugly races. I half expected to hear Onward Christian Soldiers on the soundtrack.

This guy can't turn off his sophisticated and enlightened view of the world long enough to enjoy the story of various peoples banding together to prevent hordes of inhuman monsters from destroying their way of life. Reading between the lines, you can determine that the reviewer's real problem with the movie is that he feels those who are not quite as clever as him might be seduced by some of the ideas that the movie puts forth quite boldly. Ideas such as your duty to defend your civilization, that bravery in the face of impossible odds is a noble thing, and that there are some things worth dying for.

He probably also detests Aragorn's line, "Stand, men of the West!".

2003-12-26T20:53:00.000-05:00

Babies' First Christmas! Michelle was working the overnight Christmas eve shift at the emergency room, so I was alone when Max and Talia awoke at about 6:30. Without Mama to give them that first calming nurse of the day they can be pretty testy, so I climbed into my clothes without showering and quickly got them dressed and downstairs for some food. Alone with cranky, hungry children seemed a strange way to start Christmas, but things would improve.

After Michelle got home (and Max and Talia got their dose of Magic Milk) we cleaned up for our guests and dressed them in fancy clothes. Just look at our adorable little guys!

And here they are again with their Oma and Opa:

After all the tedious present unwrapping, Michelle treated us to her fantastic roast goose with prune stuffing:

Not as good as my lamb with kumquats last year, but still quite extraordinary.

Here's the crowd from last night. On the floor from left to right is Cam and Cleo, Michelle's sister and her husband here from Prince George, and Rene, Michelle's travel-bum brother of no fixed address. Seated from left to right are myself, the harried father, Max Max (looking quite exuberant), Michelle (also looking exuberant), Talia, and Oma Marjolein and Opa Robert. Behind the camera is Tu Yen (spelling?), Rene's old roommate (but no longer now that he's homeless).

I meant to write more but these pictures will have to suffice. This Christmas was pretty calm but I suspect next year will be a bit different.

2003-12-25T12:42:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas! I apologize for the lack of posting in awhile, but it's been crazy around here for the last few weeks. The babies are getting better at crawling and it seems a constant battle to prevent them from dangerous mischief.

(Speaking of dangerous mischief, Talia was just standing up and inching along the coffee table when she grabbed the bowl of oranges and learned the hard way that it would not support her weight. She is now howling away...)

Anyway, everyone is coming here soon for Michelle's roast goose. I'll try to post a cute photo of the kids later today.

2003-12-23T08:41:00.000-05:00

Holiday excursion idea! Driving around at night in a double-decker bus with your friends checking out the Christmas lights! Alcoholic beverages will be served! Does this sound like fun? Think again.

2003-12-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

The law of the good and the law of the right. I read this terrific article at Tech Central Station this morning and have been thinking about it all day. It's a very interesting way of looking at the strange political landscape of today that I hadn't thought about before. Great fuel for a long philosophical discussion over a few bottles of wine.

2003-12-15T18:04:00.000-05:00

Photoshopped Saddam Roundup! There's been quite a few photoshopped pictures of Saddam floating around the blogosphere the last couple of days. Nothing like mocking a cruel former tyrant...

Here's a typical one -- Saddam as a itinerant.

And then we have Saddam Claus (or is it Santa Hussein?).

I laughed quite a bit at this one. I think it probably captures Jacques' REAL reaction to Saddam's capture. (Scroll down for the picture.)

This one is really scary. (click on the 'altered appearance' link.)

And there's this amusing collection illustrating the life he was living before he was captured. Enjoy!

(From Instapundit and Dave Barry's Blog.)

2003-12-15T11:35:00.000-05:00

Saddam cares for his people. Some revealing quotes from the ace of spades in Time magazine:

When asked “How are you?” said the official, Saddam responded, “I am sad because my people are in bondage.” When offered a glass of water by his interrogators, Saddam replied, “If I drink water I will have to go to the bathroom and how can I use the bathroom when my people are in bondage?”

He must have been holding it in for some time...

2003-12-15T09:50:00.000-05:00

Another million dollar idea. My ideas for the Feeding Collar and Imobilizer were turned down by both Graco and Evenflo. "That's absolutely barbaric!", was what the woman at Graco said, if I recall correctly. Oh well. I didn't let that setback get me down and now have another idea that should net me those elusive tall dollars -- Baby clothes made of Swiffer fabric! Dress them up, let them crawl around for a couple hours, and your floor is swept! Then just drop the clothes in the washer! I'm gonna call Procter and Gamble right now...

2003-12-14T12:47:00.000-05:00

Martin signals he intends Canada to remain in the Axis of Weasels. Paul Martin has made his first international policy comments today on the capture of Saddam, and sided with the Weasels. "What's important is he be tried before a tribunal that is just, that is credible and that has international recognition," he said. This is diplomatic codespeak for saying he prefers flying the fucker to The Hague, giving him a carpeted cell and access to the media, and letting the UNicrats decide what to do with him. He said this knowing full well that the US is already working with the Iraqi Governing Council to set up a tribunal run by Iraqis.

I really, honestly thought he might have more sense. But the Liberal instinct to follow the same misguided policies Chrétien followed is too strong, I guess.

2003-12-14T08:53:00.000-05:00

They Got Him! Saddam Hussein has been captured in Tikrit. Alive. Right now CBC radio is spinning this as an unjustified political win for Bush and Blair. Unjustified because they still haven't found any WMD, which was (according to the clever people working for our state broadcaster) the only reason offered by the coalition for liberating Iraq. The more things change...

UPDATE: I'm still listening to the CBC. I have to say that the rest of the news coverage was pretty good, it was only the snotty London correspondent that had to drench the story in her editorial bias. But now I'm listening to Michael Enright interviewing a "Peace Studies" professor, who is actually pretty knowledgeable and fair. I can't say as much for Michael Enright though, he's talking about the capture as a "propaganda coup" and has mentioned (as if it were common knowledge) that the pulling down of Saddam's statue a few months ago was "choreographed".

2003-12-12T07:58:00.000-05:00

Today's the day! I can't believe this day has finally arrived. We get rid of Jean Chrétien today! I would have preferred that he left in a humiliating electoral loss, but I'll take this anyway. I'm not too hopeful about the new guy, but he's at least started out okay -- getting rid of most of the ancient, sycophantic seat-warmers that Jean had installed in cabinet.

In celebration of this event, I have dug up from my archives this soundclip of our former great leader attempting to communicate. Enjoy!

UPDATE: Mark Steyn has dug up some great old columns about Jean. Well worth a look.

Tall and tan and old and wrinkly, the boy from St. Maurice goes walking and, when he passes, each one he passes goes: "Aiiiiiiiiii!"

2003-12-11T18:15:00.000-05:00

Finally! The pictures from Paraguay! Well, I promised I'd eventually post these pictures from my September travels, so here they are. Exotic, dangerous Ciudad del Este. This first shot is taken from the bridge going into town. Obviously, I took this shot as I was leaving because as I entered I was much too busy hanging on for dear life to take pictures.

The next shot is of a typical street scene. Unfortunately, it doesn't really capture the insane bustle of the town, but it's the best I've got.

Here's my wine connoisseur friend trying to prevent his jaw from dropping at the quantity and quality of wine available at the Mona Lisa.

And it's not all drugs, guns and money laundering in Ciudad del Este, they sell vegetables too!

2003-12-08T16:35:00.000-05:00

Those witty tax people. I was in tears from laughing at this response from a tax official to an angry taxpayer. Best quote:

You can rest assured that "sucking the very marrows of those with nothing else to give" has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn't render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.

Okay, so it's not a real letter. It's still pretty funny.

2003-12-08T12:03:00.000-05:00

My world is shrinking. Much as I would love to write a long screed on one of the many, many things that piss me off, or perhaps a love note on something that makes life worth living, I haven't the time. Babies, babies, babies -- that's my life right now. Four walls and a lot of toys. I'm not complaining; my little isolated world can be just as frustrating and wonderful as the rest of the world. I'm not missing all that much.

Am I?

Talia is crawling now, though not very well, and Max dabbles in this activity a bit too. You might think that new mobility would mellow my little girl, but you'd be wrong. She's just as restless and quick to anger as before. She's got at least three teeth coming in right now, so I guess she's allowed. Max still just likes to sit and take everything in. Thank heavens for little boys. I've mostly baby-proofed the main living area, building a gate for the stairway and a little fence to protect the woodstove. But they'll find some way to get into trouble, I'm sure.

Here's a pic from this morning:

2003-12-05T13:22:00.000-05:00

A barbarous consumer wasteland? Still unconfirmed. I'm working hard to keep on top of that trampled shopper story I mentioned last week. I seems the woman and her sister have made a bit of a career out of stunts such as this. If the 'trampling' turns out to have been a scam, will all those clever people -- who are always so quick to believe the worst about the masses (and Wal-Mart shoppers) -- take back their pontificating nonsense? Just asking.

2003-12-04T20:02:00.000-05:00

Get Fuzzy in Canada. My favourite comic, Get Fuzzy, has been visiting Canada for the past couple of weeks in an blatant attempt to get syndicated in new papers. Start here and keep following the Next Day link. Best line: "The government is secretly putting dog hormones in the water supply in an attempt to make Americans mindlessly obedient."

2003-12-03T12:08:00.000-05:00

It's official: Canadians are the world's biggest suckers. Russia now appears to be unwilling to sign the Kyoto Protocol, officially killing the deal due to lack of international support. Nonetheless, Canada will attempt to bind our economy to the treaty, even if nobody else does.

The deal negotiated by Canada in the Kyoto Protocol was a very bad one. European delegates dominated among the formers of the document and managed to work in very favorable terms for themselves. For example, the year chosen as a baseline for carbon emission levels was the year before Britain shut down its very dirty coal-fueled power plants. Europe is allowed to 'pool' their emission levels, so all of Europe basically started with credit for substantial cuts -- without having to do anything. As well, there are no provisions in the Accord for accounting for growing populations. Europe, with a declining population again comes out on top, while our growing country pays more. Canada also didn't manage to get credit for the massive carbon sink our forested nation is.

The US and Australia realized Kyoto was stacked against them and wisely rejected it. Europe makes only token contributions. 'Developing' countries such as China and India are largely exempt, and now Russia has skipped out. Canada says it will comply -- even though the treaty will not become international law due to the lack of countries complying. What suckers we are!

Global warming may or may not be real, but even if it were, the Kyoto Protocol would have almost no effect, even if other countries were pulling their loads. Our country, which has already spent C$3.6 billion 'studying' the issue, and is the same country that spent over C$1 billion in an attempt to count firearms, is going to try to regulate all chemical combustion occurring in our borders.

Madness.

2003-11-29T17:58:00.000-05:00

Buy Nothing Day slow to catch on in the States. A woman was trampled and seriously injured at a Friday sale offering US$29 DVD players. The clever people are seeing this as being very symbolic of something, I'm sure.

2003-11-29T08:45:00.000-05:00

Buy Nothing Day. Yesterday, as I went downtown to forage for supplies, I saw a cluster of those bedraggled anti-everything nihilists holding a banner proclaiming Buy Nothing Day. They had also plastered their signs on every second lamppost. I naturally felt a bond with these idealists leading the assault on our commercial system, so aside from $180 worth of groceries, a computer game, a fast-food meal, $20 worth of tea, a movie ticket (The Missing, which is very good), and a $90 bottle of Scotch, I didn't buy anything. Fight the Power!

Next year they should have a Breathe Nothing Day. I'll fully participate in that as well.

2003-11-26T13:41:00.000-05:00

Ah, the subtle art of political commentary... A cartoon of a nude Prime Minister Ariel Sharon eating the head of a Palestinian baby against the backdrop of a burning Palestinian city has won first prize in the British Political Cartoon Society's annual competition.

(from Instapundit.)

2003-11-26T10:16:00.000-05:00

Scamming the scammers. Through Samizdata, I've learned of an exciting internet sport known as scam-baiting. How it works is that instead of deleting those Nigerian scam emails, you answer them and try to string along the scammer for as long as you can (usually by promising you are about to send the money). Part of the fun is making these con-men do demeaning things. 419eater is a site that archives some of the email exchanges, and they really are extremely funny (crude too). Check out the photo of the scammer tricked into holding a sign saying, "I shag sheep".

2003-11-26T09:46:00.000-05:00

Cat in the Hat should be put to sleep. Judging by the comments at IMDB and some of the reviews, this movie ranks on Hollywood's all time stinkers list. I never planned to see it and certainly won't see it now, but am bothered that it even exists. Seuss himself was very much against the unchecked commercialization of his work during his life, but after his death his estate has sold his images and stories for as much cash as they could get. I've nothing against people making money, but what these people don't realize is that they're destroying their brand (their only asset) by cranking out all this junk. Sad.

The only Dr Seuss movie worth seeing is The 5000 Fingers of Dr T, a live action movie written by him in the 50's. A very unusual film.

2003-11-25T22:06:00.000-05:00

A Day in the Life, Part II. Okay, here it is, more information than anyone needs to know about a typical day for me. This is mostly so I can remember these days in the future, but I got good feedback for the last time I did this, so maybe there is amusement to be had in reading it.

3:37 Normally it is the babies that first wake me in the morning. But today my stoopid dog -- who yesterday had ripped open a briefly unattended garbage bag and devoured the contents -- needs to be taken outside. Now! Or else! And out I go, wearing nothing but my bathrobe. And it's windy and cold out...

4:42 I'm still awake for some reason. It could be because The Beastie Boys' Brass Monkey is looping endlessly through my head. Stoopid dog. Stoopid Beastie Boys.

5:05 I am not awoken by Talia's screams because I am still awake. It's too early to get her up, Michelle and I agree, so we let her continue and hope she'll give up soon.

5:25 Talia wins the battle of the wills. I go in the babies room to see if I can calm her down -- but she's not getting a nurse! I try to settle her in her bed by putting her on her back and putting her cover over her. She's not interested and keeps screaming. I pick her up and sit on the couch with her. It's still dark and we can see the stars through the window. It's the first time she's seen the stars (or at least really looked at them) and I point out Orion to her, which is just above the horizon. I whisper some more things to her and she starts to rub her eyes. Back in bed for her, and I'm skeptical she'll go back to sleep, but back to sleep she goes. For all of Talia's noise, Max never even woke up.

6:00 The alarm goes off. Time for Michelle to get up and get ready for work. She'll give the babies their first nurse and put them back to sleep. I get to stay in bed.

7:15 Michelle leaves the house, waking me and Max up as she does so. Luckily we both manage to fall back to sleep.

8:10 I wake up and realize the kids are still asleep. I use this time to grab a shower and get dressed. As I dress I hear them making noise, talking to each other. "Dah, dah, dah, DAH!", Talia says. "Buh!", Max says. Talia giggles.

8:16 Get the guys up. Change them both and take them downstairs (one at a time). Only wet diapers this morning, no poopies.

8:20 I sit them on the floor so I can squeeze in some breakfast. A large coffee accompanied with some Honeycomb cereal. They're happy and playing. I get a bit of time to surf the web.

8:52 I make a fire in the woodstove. Max likes to watch me make fires.

9:05 It's breakfast time for the kids. Today's menu: cereal and pear sauce. Max has developed an annoying and messy habit at mealtimes of sticking his tongue out and blowing a raspberry when he has a mouth full of food; and today he's at it again. He thinks this is very funny and I try to counter with my most blank and serious look so he won't be encouraged to continue. Unfortunately, it is very funny so I'm not so sure he's receiving the message correctly.

One scoop of pear sauce went in Talia's mouth just as she was about to sneeze. She put some good distance on it when it came out again.

9:32 The babies are cleaned up and playing on the carpet.

9:48 Talia has had enough time on the floor and wants to sit next to me on the couch and try to poke at the laptop keyboard. She'll scream if she doesn't get this so I let her get away with it. Max is lost in his little world.

10:22 Teletubbies starts at 10:30 and they enjoy watching it. Their diapers were both poop free this morning, so they've probably made up for that by now. I should change them before the show. I pick up Max and take a good sniff at his backside. Nothing. I take him up to check anyway. Still nothing. I take him to the basement and set him in front of the TV with a few toys. He gets a few minutes of Paper, Scissors, Glue before Tinky-Winky, La-La, Dipsy and Po come on.

I take a sniff of Talia, and yes, we have a poopie. Upstairs for a change and then downstairs for Tot-TV. (She had a small green and solid poopie, in case you're interested. She usually has such wonderfully coloured and textured modern art poopies, so this was a little unusual.)

I never imagined myself to become one of those parents sticking their noses into their children's backsides and inhaling. But of course I never imagined I'd ever know the names of all the Teletubbies either...

10:52 Blue's Clues (which I like) is on at 11:00, but these guys need a nap. Talia has grown cranky as the show progressed and was only quiet when sitting on my knee. Now she's starting to complain again. Into bed with both of them. Another sniff of Max's rear -- still nothing. He's been a little plugged lately so I'm a bit worried.

11:00 I have some time to myself! There's so many jobs that need to be done, but I'd rather read more of my blogs and do some writing on the tiresome piece you're currently reading.

12:10 They've had a good sleep and are awake in their cribs now. But they're not crying, they're playing and talking to each other. Max is saying, "brap!", and "aap!", and Talia is giggling at his wit.

12:20 Time to get them up. Better to take them from their beds when they're happy than wait until they demand my attention. Sniff. Still nothing going on in the poopie department in Max's pants but I change his wet diaper anyways. They sit on their carpet with their toys while I get their lunch together.

12:30 Lunch consists of squooshed peas, the pears they didn't finish for breakfast, and their favorite, plain yoghurt. I put on Southern Culture On The Skids' Dirt Track Date to accompany the meal. Max once again makes his annoying (but amusing) raspberries.

12:52 Lunch is finished. I put them in their jumpy things to await Mama's arrival. Boingy, boingy, boingy...

1:12 Talia is tired of jumping. (Max is still having fun -- boingy, boingy...) I take her out and whirl her around and dance to Whole Lotta Things.

1:20 She's stinky, so I take her upstairs for another new diaper. (Still green, but bigger and a little softer, if you must know.)

1:23 As I'm doing a check in Max's pants (still nothing!), Michelle calls and says she's going to leave soon. Both babies are starting to get a little frantic for Mama's Magic Milk, so I tell her not to dawdle.

1:50 Michelle arrives and the babies get their second nurse of the day.

2:10 Oma and Opa arrive for a visit as Michelle and I are (finally) eating lunch.

3:00 Other people are here to look after the babies! I internally transfer away responsibility for their care (without mentioning it to them, of course) and get started on the One Concrete Thing I try to do every day -- today it's putting up the Christmas lights. I need to get extra bulbs, so off I go to the hardware store.

3:20 My lights this year are red, orange and yellow in a random pattern. Last year I had green and purple, but that looked too cold. I work in the basement putting new bulbs on seven strings of lights.

4:00 Oma and Opa leave just as I start hanging the lights.

4:10 Michelle takes the kids (and the stoopid dog) for a walk, as I continue struggling with the lights.

5:30 I finally finish the lights and come in with numb fingers as Michelle feeds the babies their dinner. What did they get? More peas, more pears, more cereal, and more yoghurt -- yum!

5:48 Another nurse for the kids as I warm my hands up doing the dishes.

6:02 Playtime with Mama and Papa.

6:20 Talia has had enough playtime and is already getting cranky. I take her up and get into the bath with her. I'm pretty tired by now and the bath feels great. I lie back and get a couple of those warm, tingly waves that roll up your spine and leave your mind in a semi-blissful fog. I could fall asleep right now but I'm supporting a naked little girl that is standing up, holding the edge of the tub and bouncing up and down.

6:30 Talia is exchanged for Max -- who wants to stand up, hold the edge of the tub, and bounce up and down. I let him.

7:00 Both babies have had their final nurse and are tucked into bed. Michelle has been into Georgian food lately (Georgia the home of Stalin, not the Georgia where NASCAR racing is popular) and makes Labda and some kind of stir-fried cabbage for dinner.

8:00 We're both beat. We decide to go to bed early, and after doing the dishes, feeding the animals, walking the (stoopid) dog, cleaning the cat box, and putting the toys away, we do.

10:01 I'm still writing this long and tedious chronology. But now I'm done and am going to sleep.

I've got the Teletubbies theme looping endlessly through my head.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Max had a nice poopie as I hung out the lights. I wouldn't want anyone to needlessly worry.

2003-11-25T09:42:00.000-05:00

A year of blogging. My blog is one year old today. Granted I never really started writing regularly until January, but if a date has to set to the beginning of this blog, November 25 is it. I'm going to celebrate by compiling another Day in the Life, featuring all the little events today. Let's get self-indulgent!

2003-11-24T09:45:00.000-05:00

European report on anti-semitism buried for stating an uncomfortable truth. The EU's Monitoring Centre on Racism has released three reports since 9/11 on anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe. But it has decided not to release a report on anti-semitism because the study concluded Muslims and pro-Palestinian, leftwing and anti-globalization groups were behind most of it.

I think this perfectly illustrates the lengths people will go to prevent their illusionary view of the world from being muddied by something as unimportant as reality. The ugly anti-semitism of the middle east is slipping into Eutopia, but they would prefer to ignore it.

2003-11-24T09:29:00.000-05:00

Bush deserves better press. Few people will remember anything about Bush's trip to the UK than a number of career protesters shouting and chanting and parading around their creative signs and props. That's a shame, because he made some strong statements that deserve a listen, whether you are a supporter or a detractor:

Your nation and mine, in the past, have been willing to make a bargain, to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Long-standing ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time, while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold. As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found.

We've heard much high-minded rhetoric in the past from previous US presidents and other world leaders and rightly should be skeptical of more of it, but Bush has actually done something to suggest he means what he says. Unlike those others, he has shown he is willing to take the risks and make the sacrifices that are necessary. Two countries have now been freed from authoritarian regimes, and the oppositions in others still existing is being emboldened.

You might think that those protesting would be in favour of rejecting those former cozy relationships with tyrants, but it's pretty obvious that they are rooting for the festering status quo.

2003-11-20T22:10:00.000-05:00

'Blame America' troops out in force in the UK. Lots of grins to be had in reading this report from the anti-American protests in London. With pictures!

2003-11-20T18:05:00.000-05:00

Permalinks now working. I finally figured out how to fix the html in my blog template to get the permalinks to work. Now, should I ever somehow write something that someone finds interesting, they will be able to link to it. Imagine!

I'd like to say that it was due to the help of the Blogger support people that I was able to fix this, but I can't -- they only gave me a link to a help page (that wasn't much help). They were great with my partial page loads problem, though, so they've earned a bit of slack, I guess.

2003-11-20T15:02:00.000-05:00

My second visit Planetside. In this visit I really enjoyed myself. I started to get a feel for how the game worked and why there were so many people willing to subscribe to it. At the end of the session (only an hour long) I actually considered joining myself for a few months.

I started out in the same base as I ended in last time. Trouble was, in the day between visits, this base had changed hands and now was held by one of the enemies. I was in an enemy base and no one was here. I wandered around inside and found no defenders and no security guards to check my ID. Creepy. But it made sense -- why would anyone want to play on guard duty? But outside was different. There were automated defenses set up all around and I found myself under attack.

Fighting little gun turrets didn't interest me, so I accessed the 'instant action' feature that transfers you automatically to a place where a battle is taking place. After a delay period (in which I was crouched behind a barrier) I joined a large force attacking another base. This base was on a volcanic continent and the terrain was completely different from where I had come from. It was very mountainous and rocky and again quite beautiful. A huge battle was going on here, larger than the one I had been in before. Aircraft were sailing overhead, flack bursts all around, tanks were firing, tracers were flying madly out of the base. There was a lot of messages scrolling up in the chat window making requests, announcing successes -- though it looked chaotic, there was some kind of order here.

Someone asked if I wanted to join a squad, I accepted, and my display changed to show status bars for the twenty other members of my team with numbers on my minimap to designate where they all were. I admitted to my new friend that I was a complete newbie and didn't know what was going on, and he just said if I needed any help, just ask. What a nice guy! My team was moving into the base and I followed.

It was now mostly a mop-up job on the base. Control was largely in the hands of the Terran Republic but nothing was operational. I gathered by reading the chat that the base had to be 'hacked' into so that our side would own it. Players who had the hack skill initiated this, but then there was a delay before the change-over took effect. To prevent the hack from being cancelled, players from my squad took defensive positions outside all routes to the computer room. These guys knew what they were doing!

Eventually the base was in our hands and defenses were set up in it. I was just wandering around and then noticed that there weren't too many others nearby. The next base had been targeted and we were moving out. Someone said something about transports and I decided to get on one. There were some trucks in the courtyard and I climbed in.

We were in a convoy to the next enemy base. I could look around but not fire my weapon; this vehicle was completely defenseless. But aircraft covered us from above and tanks drove on our flanks, so I felt a little safer. I got out near the next base by a smaller structure that had been captured. This would serve as a respawn site for those lost in the coming battle, so that our force would not be diminished. I was interested in taking the next base, but it was late and time for me to go to bed.

2003-11-20T11:18:00.000-05:00

Mike Fumento vs the blogs. Michael Fumento is a journalist that uses hard research to take the unpopular side of many public science issues. He was among the first to doubt the 'heterosexual AIDS crisis' back in the late 80s, has debunked 'Gulf War syndrome' and 'multiple chemical sensitivity', and now writes about the wrongs of the Atkins diet and SARS hysteria. He seems to enjoy ripping apart the arguments of his foes and has a large and humourous archive of email 'debates' he has had.

Recently in (ironically) the 'bloggish' section of his site (no direct link, you'll have to search), he wrote some things about blogs that got some blog people upset:

In reality, with very few exceptions (perhaps ten at most), nobody gives a squat about what bloggers say except other bloggers. That, indeed, is why they can't publish anywhere but on their own sites and are obsessed with linking to other sites in hopes of a reciprocal link. Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, Drudge, and a few others can actually influence outsiders. Others have no influence beyond their readers but they still have lots of readers because they have interesting things to say. But other than that, bloggers are basically in a giant chat room and may as well be discussing the meaning of Star Trek Episode VI while typing in Klingon. That's why they call it a "blogosphere;" they're in their own tiny little universe.

Essentially these guys are Karaoke singers. Yes, blogging has lowered the bar -- so low that literally any idiot with a keyboard can boast that his material is on the Internet. He is beholden to no one for quality or accuracy, and need not have a single reader.

As you might imagine, this got a few people upset, so much so that his latest hate mail archive is mostly on this topic. No punches pulled here! He rips the bloggers apart with the same glee he does with Erin Brockovich supporters.

So the burning question that no one wants to know the answer to is: what do I think of this? I have to say he's partially right -- in general, most blogs are of little interest to anyone except other bloggers and bloggers' friends. But rather than the Karaoke singers that Fumento characterizes us as, I would say we're more like the would-be folk singer at the back of the cafe or the painter trying to sell her work on the streetcorner. I think everyone has a need to express themselves in some way, and just because their works are not going to be played on the radio or hung in a museum shouldn't (and generally doesn't) dissuade people from doing it.

Our culture is richer not just from those who's works are remembered in history books or celebrated by the media, but by the jazz enthusiasts playing for free at a bar, and the woman who puts so much time and effort into the window display of her vintage clothing store. All of these small things -- created by uncelebrated individuals -- add more to anyone's experience of the world we live in than a Brittany Spears -- or a Michael Fumento. Style in music, architecture, design, art and literature are the results of the collective, unorganized work of many people. Now journalism is getting this treatment as well through small, insignificant-on-their-own blogs. The promiscuous linking of blogs that Fumento sees as a desperate search for hits (which it often is) is also a new way of filtering ideas. Blogs that Fumento acknowledges have actual clout, such as Instapundit and Andrew Sullivan, would be nothing without the rest of the blogosphere.

I'm a big fan of Fumento's, but I'm surprised that an advocate of free markets is so dismissive of what is really a free market in ideas. Thoughts that have appeal and value are passed around, debated and expanded on while those that don't remain in obscurity. I'd rather have things this way than have editors at a handful of news agencies determine what they feel I should be told about.

2003-11-19T20:30:00.000-05:00

Back online. The wonderful wireless router that I praised so highly back in the summer had become a monster that was trying to drive me insane. For the last couple of days my little network was crashing so often that there was no point in rebooting everytime. Amazon readers report the same problems I've been having. So I finally got rid of it. I've got a brand new Netgear box and evrything is humming. For now.

2003-11-18T13:34:00.000-05:00

My first visit Planetside. If you were to climb into the Way-back Machine and travel to, say 1981, and visit the 16 year-old sad nerdling with the bad haircut that would someday be me, and tell him about the computer game Planetside, he would be so excited that he would be roused enough from his typical inertia to overpower you and steal your Way-back Machine to come to the future and play the game himself. The only thing it lacks in satisfying all the fantasies of teen-age male nerds are aggressive, beautiful women that are fascinated by teen-age male nerds.

Planetside is, essentially, a massive, sprawling, non-stop pick-up game of cops-and-robbers. Sony has created a virtual world with its own rules and history and allows (for a price) nerds from all over the world to enter, pick up powerful virtual weapons, join one of the three teams, and start fighting. There's a free, 7-day demo for those of us who don't want to hand over our credit card number. I decided to download the 1.4 Gbyte (!!!) file program and give it a whirl.

I worked through some of the training missions (solo) and sent my character FibDynamo of the Terran Republic down to planet Emerald to join the fracas. And then the game crashed.

After rebooting my machine, loading new drivers on my video card, and rebooting my machine again, I tried again and was successful. I was in a "spawning tube" where players start or are revived after death. I got out, moved around the building, and made it outside. I was on a sanctuary continent where no fighting takes place. There was a building a little ways away that had "Shuttle" written on it. I figured that was my way to the action.

In the shuttle, I was given a look at the world map and allowed to pick where I would be dropped. The map showed some continents as being completely pacified and other being contested. I picked a spot next to some red forces (my team) and down I went.

Popping the hatch of my drop pod, I found myself in a rocky, scrub forest terrain. There were the towers of some buildings in the distance, and two moons in the blue and pink sky. I started walking towards the buildings. Beautiful surroundings. The trees were fully rendered with twisted trunks and sprouts of leaves. Looking at the ground you could see tall weeds and individual rocks. As I got closer to the buildings I could see shapes moving around. Other players were running around what I could now see was a fortress. By the green lettering on their names, I knew they were friendlies. My side was defending a base.

I went into the center of the base and was impressed by the number of other players there. There's a little mini-map window in the corner of the screen and on it I saw dozens and dozens of green dots moving around. As well as the foot soldiers (all wearing what appeared to be colourful leather motorcycle racing suits), there were tanks, troop transports and in the sky a couple of aircraft. Very cool, but what was going on?

From reading the chat window, I learned that the enemy was attacking from the NE. I wandered over in that direction, climbed onto the ramparts along the base and took a look. There was another mini-base nearby that was enemy controlled and was being used to launch an attack. It was screened by trees, but I could see the occasional tracers from shots being fired. I figured, let's join the party.

I headed out of the base and moved towards the action. The other base was on a hill, so I was not able to see what I was walking into. Overhead, aircraft passed over me. I could hear the sound of gunfire. Here I was, a total newbie, walking into battle with a weapon that was probably a popgun compared to what everyone else had. I made it to the crest of the hill. Hmm, enemy Tank -- not good. The smartest thing to do would have been to run. But I decided to take a shot at it; I had my AP ammunition loaded, after all. I did negligible damage to it and soon I was dead. But it wasn't the tank that got me, it was all the other bad guys standing around beside the tank.

I re-spawned back in the base, but it soon became apparent that we were losing this battle. Bad guys were everywhere and everytime I turned a corner there was someone taking a shot at me. I called it quits there, but will return to fight another day.

2003-11-18T12:48:00.000-05:00

Steyn on anti-Americanism. Dubya is visiting the UK this week and the crazed anti-Americans are pulling out all the stops to create the Mother-of-all-protests. Mark Steyn (as usual) does a wonderful job of pointing out the hypocracy and blindness of this ideology:

The fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lapdancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too Godless, America is also too isolationist, except when it's too imperialist.

2003-11-17T09:49:00.000-05:00

Lileks in Vegas! I'm a big Vegas fan. Been three times so far and have a feeling I'll make it four within the next year. I don't really gamble, so it's hard to say what I like about it. I think it's just the goofy ambiance of the place, but I have a hard time describing it. But James Lileks does a pretty good job.

2003-11-17T09:29:00.000-05:00

Getting the giggles with Talia. We have a nighttime routine worked out with the kids that is guaranteed to quiet them down before bed and ensures they will sleep through the night. Every time.

Well -- actually we're still working on this routine. So far we've got it so they usually will sleep through the night. Not quite good enough, but not bad either. Here's what we do. It all starts with the 6:00 feed. They have their full course meal with cereal, fruit, vegetables, and maybe some cheese or yoghurt. This is topped off by a nursing session which is not usually that intense because of the big meal they just had. Then there is a period of about a 45 minutes for them to enjoy the company of their parents as we eat our dinner. They sit at the table and get little bites of things so they can taste. Then it's bath time. Whoever is deemed the most tired will get to join me in the bath for about 10 to 15 minutes. After that they get an extended solo nurse with Mama as their sibling has their bath. Then it's into bed for a peaceful night's sleep.

Yesterday Talia was the first into the bath and the first to nurse and the first into bed. But she didn't want to stay there. About the time that Max had really tucked in and started to nurse furiously, Talia told us she wanted up. We tried to convince her to go to sleep, but she was quite opposed to this idea -- she wanted more to drink. I took her into our bedroom and plopped her on the bed so Max Max could finish his quiet time with Mama.

Talia loves animals. Max Max loves them too, but not like Talia. She shows her love by opening her eyes wide and giggling madly -- it's really a sight to see. Usually animals just pass within her field of vision and she just gets a few chuckles out of it, but last night all three of our cats were lying on our bed waiting for bedtime. She was already in a bit of an odd mood, and being placed in the center of three furry toys made her go bananas. She started giggling, laughing, SHRIEKING with glee at them. Our cats are not afraid of our kids and seem actually to be quite fond of them. Samba went up to Talia, rubbed against her and lay down in front of her. Talia went even more bananas and leaned forward and buried her face in the cat's fur.

I was not unmoved by Talia's excitement. I went from smiling to laughing out loud as she played with the cats. Her laughter was infectious and I found myself unable to stop. She was watching me and laughed even more. We had the giggles.

It eventually cooled down and she went to sleep after a quick nurse. Babies are funny creatures.

2003-11-16T23:29:00.000-05:00

Master and Commander. Michelle and I got out to see Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World on Friday. We're both very big fans of all 20 of Patrick O'Brian's books and were excited (and a little apprehensive) to see what a trip to Hollywood would do for Stephen and Jack.

Given the limitations of a movie, I think Peter Weir did as good a job as you could have done in putting them on screen. Most aspects of their characters were shown, and even viewers that haven't been exposed to the books could get to know them in their short time in the theatre. Jack was shown to be playful, intense, driven, stubborn, and heroic, while Stephen was dry, dedicated, distracted, and a bit of a fish out of water. All in all, a job well done.

The movie also captured the feel (as I imagine it) of a British warship at the beginning of the 19th century -- many superstitious men (and in this case, one hobbit) crowding a small space far, far from home. The ship was shown as a society with a political structure and a way of doing things that was more than just a some rules written in a book.

But there were a few liberties taken from the books. In the book The Far Side of the World, the enemy was not French but American (the Norfolk), and the story took place in 1812, not 1805. I'm not sure, but I also think the way they dealt with their enemy in the book was different than how it happened in the movie. The victory in the movie was similar to the victory in Master and Commander, the first book of the series.

Despite these minor problems, we both really enjoyed this movie. But you have to enjoy it for what it is. It isn't an action-adventure story along the lines of Gladiator, but more a careful study of the characters and the period.

2003-11-15T16:04:00.000-05:00

Nana comes to visit. Max and Talia with their Nana:

2003-11-15T15:13:00.000-05:00

Reuters denies existance of any terrorist attacks in Israel. According to Reuters chronology of the major terrorist attacks of the past few years, none have taken place in Israel. According to them, a bomb on a French supertanker that kills one is terrorism, but a suicide bomber killing over 20 during a passover meal is not. This is shameful, even for Reuters.

2003-11-12T08:47:00.000-05:00

More bad album covers. You know, I'd like to write some more interesting pieces on economics or on international affairs but I just don't have time. My babies have colds, my mother is visiting, my computers are giving me extreme grief. This in addition to all the regular stuff I've got to manage. I've barely had time to peek at the news.

But I have found time to find more bad album covers. This page and this one claim to have the worst of all time, but after looking at these from Sweden, I'm not too sure.

2003-11-06T22:04:00.000-05:00

Some people have forgotten why the 70's were the worst of all decades. This site, featuring horrible record album covers from the period, will remind you.

(from -- you guessed it -- Dave Barry's Blog.)

2003-11-06T13:43:00.000-05:00

Europe vs America. A couple week ago I noted a piece in the Globe about how the rift between the US and Europe is all the American's fault. Mark Steyn takes a look at the issue and (as you might expect) comes to a different conclusion.

2003-11-05T13:16:00.000-05:00

Million Dollar Idea. While feeding the babies recently, I came up with the idea that will keep me and my descendants living comfortably for years to come. It's called a Feeding Collar, and it will revolutionize the way babies are fed solid food in the same way that the bottle did for liquids.

Right now getting food into the tummies of babies and toddlers is a difficult task. Sitting in their high chairs, they can twist and dodge and throw up their hands to block to spoon. And after the food is smeared on their cheeks or their chin, they can get their hands into it when the parent is not looking and make an extraordinary mess in a very short amount of time. With the Feeding Collar though, such messes will become a thing of the past.

The Feeding Collar is a truncated stiff plastic cone that fits around the neck of the baby at the narrow end, and extends down the body to cover the arms and prevent hand access to the face. The wide end of the cone has a curl in which any food that drips off the face will be collected. Without the hands interfering with the process, mealtimes will be much easier and faster.

Some might argue that this is rather demeaning for the child to be restrained in this way. I would suggest that the Feeding Collar is no more demeaning than the playpen or those child leashes.

In fact, I'd argue that there is more restraint that could be added to the high chair. For those parent with really difficult children, the Feeding Collar can be used with attachments that will restrict body and head movement. I call it the Imobilizer, and it will be sold separately. It will be fully compatible with all name-brand high chairs.

I am testing the prototypes now. Look for the Feeding Collar and the Imobilizer in better big box retailers soon.

--

Of course I'm not serious about this. It's unfortunate that I have to point this out, but some people cannot understand this kind of humour. I don't want child protection services knocking on my door so I say again -- this is just a joke.

Feeding the babies is a pleasure and I look forward to it. They duck and dodge, I coax and counter. It's fun. There's usually a mess made, but it really isn't a big deal.

That's why I have the high pressure water hose in their holding pen.

2003-11-05T08:45:00.000-05:00

Almost Live. Here's a photo of the kids taken just a couple of minutes ago! Of course if this was a live photo you would see that they are now screaming for their breakfast. Gotta go...

2003-11-03T15:48:00.000-05:00

More odd Asian translations. Driving back from Loblaws this afternoon, I remembered a great site that featured comical Asian ads: Engrish.com. There's a few days of goofing off stored at this site -- enjoy!

I feel a piece of cigarette very gentle,
when I feel easy at home after the daily work.

2003-11-02T18:01:00.000-05:00

Chinese product poetry, translated. From Golden Ring Broad Beans:

When I was a child
My favorite was Golden ring Broad Beans
Carved into the shape of a ring
Fried crispy over slow fire
And processed with refined condinments
By nimble mum
Bravo! The taste
It is indeed beyond word
The cool breeze blows gently
Accompanies my grandpa sitting
In the field
Past stories flashed through my mind
Golden ring Broad Bean, when I see you
Each makes the mouth full of fragrance

Go out and get some now!

2003-11-01T20:02:00.000-05:00

Odds and Ends. I'm too zonked to write anything coherent so I'll just dash off a few notes about things I feel I should mention.

Donald Luskin, who I praised mightily a few days ago for his diligence in debunking Paul Krugman, has turned out to be a bit of a wacko. He's suing another blogger for allegedly claiming that Luskin was stalking Krugman. This is a really dumb thing to do and goes against the unwritten code of the blogosphere. Defend yourself with words, not lawyers. I know hardly anyone cares about this, but I don't like to be on record as praising someone this goofy. So I'm taking back my praise.

Talia is right on the verge of crawling. She has been rolling over and over for the past few days and tonight she started crawling backwards. It was very frustrating for her, but very amusing for me to watch her get further away from the toy she wanted to get to. But she will definitely have learned how to control this new mobility in a few days, so I guess I better finish getting the house childproofed.

Back in August I claimed that the S&P 500 would be down to around 850 by Halloween. It's actually around 1050 now, so I'm obviously way, way off. I still think the general direction of the market will be down, as there's still so many unresolved issues in this economy; but I guess one should never underestimate the effects of the current firehose blast of money from the Fed.

OK, that's it. I gotta go do things that don't take any brain power...

2003-10-29T15:16:00.000-05:00

My life: babies, babies, babies. I haven't written too much about my dear dependents lately, but I think that's because most of what I do during the day revolves around these little guys and I blog on other topics for a break. Also, it's hard to write about them because there's so much to say! I really don't know where to get started, but let's give it a try.

They're eight and a half months old right now; an age that I have been told by other parents is the best age. They are alert, interested, (and interesting), but not mobile enough to require me to follow them around all day. They can sit up and play by themselves or are happy to sit in your lap and enjoy your company.

Michelle is working a half to two thirds of a full day now, four days a week. The kids don't seem to mind missing the mid-morning nurse they used to have, and we are thinking about getting rid of the mid-afternoon nurse as well. Just small steps on their paths to self-sufficiency.

When they are with me, I have to keep them occupied or they get pretty upset. I've had a couple of days when this happened, but I'm starting to get the knack for entertaining them. We've got down on the floor playing with toys time, jumping around in the jolly jumpers time, watching TV time, cuddle time, food time, nap time, and stroller time to keep them busy. As long as I read their moods correctly and pick the right activity, everyone stays happy.

Max Max is the sensitive one. He likes to cuddle more than Talia and is more aware of Mama or Papa's presence (or absence). He's starting to lift his arms to us when he wants to be picked up and seems happiest when he's being held. He also likes TV more than our little girl and can sit for up to a half-hour watching colourful puppets talk with squeaky voices while he sucks and chews on some toy. He's a big boy too. We haven't weighed them for a while, but at the last weighing Max was taller and heavier than most infants his age -- and remember he was born more than a month premature. He's very solid and stands quite well. I wouldn't be surprised if he skips crawling and goes straight to walking, as some children do.

Talia is a little more difficult than Max, but only because she is so driven, it seems. If I picture her in my mind, she is squirming in my arms, reaching for something with a determined look on her face. During any activity, she is almost always the first to say, "That's enough! I'm bored!", (but not in those words, of course). She's been moving towards crawling -- I can see it coming -- but she's not there yet. She moves quickly from a sitting position to lying on her stomach, then perhaps rolls onto her back and onto her stomach again, and then flaps her arms and legs before crying out in frustration. She can't quite get what comes next. To tell you the truth, I'm kind of dreading the day when she figures it out.

And what about me? How am I doing with all this? Well ... I'm having a lot of fun. Yesterday, Michelle was feeding them in their high chairs while I worked on assembling new IKEA furniture in the basement. I came upstairs to ask her something and Max saw me over her shoulder. His face went from his blank 'eating-machine' look to the broadest smile of pure joy. Just seeing me pop my head out of the basement. There's really nothing like it. Those of you who are thinking of having kids, don't put it off -- moments like that make it all worthwhile.

2003-10-29T10:14:00.000-05:00

The Hard Economic Truth. I've been writing a bit on the strange economic landscape we find ourselves in these days. I'm no economist, but it seems to me that a global economy where one part is doing the majority of the consuming and another part is doing the majority of the producing is unstable and destined to be upset. I've tried to figure out how this will happen using the paltry resources I have available and have been only partially successful.

But today I found an interesting piece by Jim Puplava that sums up many of the concerns I've had and lays out how the future might play out. It's not pretty. Here's a teaser:

Today's U.S. economy is made up of a series of bubbles and excesses left over from the 90’s that have grown even larger as a result of monetary and fiscal stimulus. Through their actions, policymakers have injected more money and credit, which have only exacerbated existing imbalances in the economic and financial system. Like a drug dealer dispensing heroin to addicted junkies, the Fed continues to pump even larger amounts of credit and liquidity into the economy and the financial system. Instead of allowing the credit bubble to deflate, the Fed has chosen a path of monetary inflation in order to keep asset bubbles from collapsing. It has now become a matter of inflate or die. The U.S. debt imbalances and liabilities have become so large that the only way out of this credit predicament will be partial default through dollar depreciation. The U.S. will do what other third world countries have always done. It will debase its currency. It remains only a question of how this debasement will take place. Will it be orderly or will it be chaotic and abrupt? I believe the latter is more likely.

I'd like to write more about this article, but if you haven't been able to tell by my reduced posting, I'm been kind of busy these past few days. You really should give it a read.

2003-10-27T10:40:00.000-05:00

Pictures down again. I might have to start paying money if I want to keep pictures on the blog. Tabernac.
UPDATE: It seems my photos have all been lost. Drat. I'll fix it in the morning.

2003-10-27T08:52:00.000-05:00

Is this blog devolving into an echo of Dave Barry's blog? No. I refuse to let that happen. But this is too funny to ignore.
(from Dave Barry's blog.)

2003-10-27T07:13:00.000-05:00

Does this sound familiar? From Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell:

It is, I think, true to say that the intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were more swayed by partisan feelings. The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.

(from Andrew Sullivan.)

2003-10-25T13:12:00.000-04:00

Japan is a very strange place. What other culture would expect this to help sell a product?
(from Dave Barry's blog.)

2003-10-24T18:20:00.000-04:00

Sony bends (over) for the separatists. Sony today announced that they will withdraw a level from an upcoming action game that depicts Quebec separatist terrorists running amuck in Toronto. Here's their statement:

Recognizing the importance of corporate and social responsibility, Sony Computer Entertainment America has decided to remove any reference to this group in the final version of Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain. We deeply regret any misunderstanding this may have caused.

Translation: we are a completely spineless company and can be pushed around by any special interest on any trivial matter.

You can wonder why the St Jean Baptiste Society and the Bloc Quebecois are getting so upset about non-existent terrorist group in a video game, but that's an easy one to answer -- a special interest group's only purpose is to be hyper-sensitive about anything on their 'turf'. The Quebec nationalists can be counted on to go into full righteous-indignation mode as surely as night follows day.

The real question should be is why a multi-national giant like Sony should cave to a bunch of crackpots. If you listen to the likes of Naomi Klein (and I certainly do not), companies like Sony are the dictators, not the dictatees. They're supposed to be the ones in charge, and are a danger to all of us due to their power and arrogance.

Of course the truth is that large entertainment companies like Sony are complete wimps to any sort of outside pressure. In fact, they don't even need the outside pressure, the entertainment industry is largely staffed with people that are quite capable of wimping-out on their own, thank you very much. As an example in the offensive-to-special-interest-groups category, there's The Sum of All Fears, where bad guys from the book, Islamic terrorists, are transformed into, um lessee ... (reaching into the bag of acceptable enemies) ... white supremacists. This after 9/11! I guess they didn't want to perpetuate a negative stereotype.

But the best example of the spinelessness of the entertainment giants is this year's TV lineup. Lame is the word on the street (not that I've seen any of it). After many years of examples of how shows that challenge the audience are the ones that succeed (with notable exceptions) they still chose to play it safe. And this year audiences are way down. Hey, do you think...?

Maybe I'm making too much of this. After all, it's just a videogame. But this kind of timid response to outside pressure sends a message to other content providers in the company -- keep it bland.

And bland is what we can expect.

2003-10-24T13:34:00.000-04:00

Steyn accuses Chretien of shrinking manhood disease. Mark Steyn was the best thing about the National Post until he left it earlier this year. Now the best thing about it is ... that it's lying in the driveway every morning. It's just because of inertia that I still have a subscription. And if they keep filling the paper with lame syndicated columnists like Maureen Dowd, Ann Coulter, and (grrr) Paul Krugman I think I'll have to actually pick up the phone and cancel.

But luckily Mark Steyn still writes about Canada for free on his website, while getting paid for his other work at prestigious papers around the world. Today he suggests that Chretien might have "caught something" from Malaysian PM Mahathir:

...in Khartoum what happens is that the foreigner shakes hands with the Muslim and the Muslim subsequently discovers that he has "lost his penis". But, in this distinctively Canadian variant, what happens is that the foreigner shakes hands with the Muslim and it's the foreigner -- the Canadian -- who discovers that his manhood has completely disappeared.

Read the whole thing.

2003-10-22T21:14:00.000-04:00

Krugman irritation is a common condition. A few days ago I mentioned how I was driven into an eyes-bugging-out rage by NY Times 'economist' Paul Krugman. He manages to do this to me almost every time I read anything by him because he has the most amazing ability to make the most outrageous claims sound plausable (to a reader that may not be sufficiently sceptical). He uses big words and mentions important sounding organizations, all to make the point he makes in every one of his columns -- that everything bad in this world is due to George W. Bush.

Think I'm joking? Remember Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir's claims of a Jewish world conspiracy? Bush's Fault. Remember that blackout a couple of months ago? Bush's fault. And of course when Krugman gets started on Iraq you'll read the most wacky conspiracy theories you can imagine. It would be funny to read if it wasn't coming from a Harvard professor writing for the world's most famous newspaper. People listen to this guy's nonsense.

Luckily, today we have the internet to take down pretenders and phoneys like Krugman. Reading those that confront his nonsense with facts and logic allow my eyes to stay safely in their sockets.

We have Arnold Kling writing an open letter to the annoying guy asking him why his arguments on economic policy mostly question the motives of the proponents (you know who) instead of the consequenses.

David Hogberg, Robert Musil, and Scott Wrightson all trash Krugman for his ridiculous comments about Mahathir.

Keith Burgess-Jackson, a Naderite, thinks Krugman's pathological Bush hatred has cost him his sanity.

And best of all, Donald Luskin writes a weekly column called the Krugman Truth Squad, in which he and his agents throw the light of reason on Krugman's twisted nonsense.

Knowing these guys are out there helps me sleep at night. The world is not as insane as I feared.

IRONIC NOTE: Krugman wrote a column last week in which he predicted a future crisis in the US similar to Argentina's. This is what I was trying to do a couple of weeks ago, but was forced to back down on due to lack of evidence (and Kruggy didn't sway me with his nonsense, either).

It's funny, but my generally pessimistic view of the world's economy intersects with Krugman's in some ways -- which actually makes me more infuriated with him. I see the world's present economic problems as a result of a lack of freedom and information -- the absolute essential ingredients for prosperity. He sees economic problems as a result of Bush and his evil capitalist cronies. But he's the one with the big media empire, so what do I know?

2003-10-22T20:10:00.000-04:00

'Bout time for a new picture... I haven't posted a shot of the kids for over a week! Here they are in their Halloween/winter clothes: Talia the pink blob and Max the bear. Bear outfit courtesy of Tante Cleo. Musette looks confused, as usual.

2003-10-20T19:09:00.000-04:00

Blame America! In the days before I achieved my serene and peaceful nature -- last week, for example -- I would have found the story entitled It's lonely at the top in today's Globe infuriating. I would probably feel that I had to write something about it that would appeal to other grumpy cranks of a similar disposition to me. It might have gone something like this:

David Malone is president of something called the International Peace Academy and writes a thoughtful article on the issues confronting the world after the UN - US rift over Iraq.

Ha Ha! Just kidding. Actually he just uses a lot of important-sounding talk to take a bunch of cheap shots at the US. He gives a one-sided accounting of the last ten years of UN - US bickering, completely refuses to even address the problems of the UN, and manages to blame every humanitarian crisis in the period on ... well, you know who.

He talks about "pronouncements from Washington" and uses the term "Washington commentators" when referring to those that feel the UN may no longer be relevant. He probably would like to blame the Bush administration for these ideas, but he can't -- Bush has had nothing but good things to say about the UN, and has frequently reiterated his belief in the organization. But "pronouncements from Washington" manages to make the accusation without the drawback of being factually incorrect.

Two things struck me in this article. The first is that the article only makes sense if you are of the unwavering opinion that the UN is always right and the US always wrong (if they disagree). He feels he doesn't have to provide any evidence of this, just as he wouldn't have to persuade a reader of a geography article that the earth is round. That's just the way it is and we all know it.

The second is that there is no argument made in the article. There are no predictions of the future, advice for the players involved, or discussion of the implications of the current situation. Just complaints.

It seems that's all the peace movement is capable of nowadays.

ONE MORE POINT: Not content to blame the Americans for all the recent problems in the world, Malone also uses this article to blame the Americans for the failure of the League of Nations. Funny, I thought it had something to do with the League purposefully looking away as Italy invaded Ethiopia. This action was a clear violation of the peace that the league set out to protect, and their inaction showed that the League was incapable of doing anything. Remind you of any other international diplomatic organizations?

2003-10-19T14:52:00.000-04:00

Stopping to smell the flowers. My blogging has slowed down considerably over the last week. I did this in an attempt (probably futile) to save my poor, battered sanity. At the time, I was getting a little preoccupied with blogs and blogging -- to the point that most of my idle thoughts were not of the pleasant aimless nature I'm used to, but instead were obsessed with 'feeding the blog'. And little pieces linking to other's work was not enough, I needed 'fresh meat'.

It was a bit after I read a column by that jackass NY Times economist, Paul Krugman, that I realized I needed a break. It infuriated me so much that the next hour all I could do was fume about it and formulate arguments against it. I was going to spend an hour or two to angrily refute his arguments. But then I came to my senses. Why should I care? This is just making me miserable!

And so I stopped. I remembered Lin Yutang's book, The Importance Of Living, a relaxing look at how to enjoy life. In it he said:

Never forget that there will always be plenty of fools around who are willing -- indeed, eager-to be busy, to make themselves useful, and to exercise power while you bask in the simple joy of existence.

I've got an ambitious streak that -- while generally dormant -- has arisen at various moments in my life to make me suffer horribly. I'm putting it back to sleep now before it causes too much trouble.

I contemplated giving up on my blogging ways, but instead I'm going to change them. Less of what I think should be in the blog, and more of what I want in the blog -- if that makes any sense. More fun stuff, less angry crap. Though I'm pretty sure I can't rule out the angry crap completely...

2003-10-19T13:45:00.000-04:00

The Lesson Not Learned, Part III (cont'd). In the last installment, I had been trying to link the present-day currency manipulations between the Asian nations and the US to the disastrous Argentine currency peg of a few years ago. Well, all those who were terrified of an economic apocalypse can rest easier now, as I can't make the connection.

It's not for want of trying. The last week or so had me digging around and trying to understand some economic concepts I was a bit foggy on. But the conclusion I have come to is that the differences between the two situations are more significant than the similarities.

What I had been worried about was that when the US dollars held by the Asian countries devalued (which is still going to happen), it would cause huge shocks to various balance sheets (government and private) in the region. But since the governments of the region will never lose the ability to buy US dollars (because they can always print more money), the effect will not be that devastating. And the Americans, who owe the world so much money, will effectively get their loans reduced by the devaluation. There'll be a shake up, and there will probably be a lot of unforeseen consequences, but the global economy will probably be able to absorb it.

But this is an unprecedented situation. As I talked about in TLNL, part II, no one really knows how this will play out. But if I get hear something interesting, or get some half-baked idea about it, you can read about it here.

2003-10-18T09:18:00.000-04:00

The state of fascism today. The word fascism actually once had meaning beyond an insult for one's political foes. Michael Ledeen discusses what the goals and ideals were of the mid-century's version of it, and points out where that vision is reappearing.

2003-10-17T12:48:00.000-04:00

So that's how it happened! Finally, a dramatic video of Roy getting munched by the tiger:

(via Dave Barry's blog.)

2003-10-16T11:57:00.000-04:00

Big Fat Liar. Michael Moore's latest book is out, and as usual with his work, it's full of lies.

2003-10-14T10:14:00.000-04:00

TLNL still coming. Even though all my readers put together probably wouldn't be enough for a baseball team, I still feel bad when I say I'll do something and I don't deliver. I intended to finish TLNL part III today, but my little attention sponges (who are eight months old today!) will not leave me in peace. Right now Max is complaining that he has been in the Jolly Jumper for too long and Talia is leaning over my arm and clawing at the keyboard. No time for writing right now.

Oh yeah, those pictures of Paraguay are still coming as well. I just have to find them and get them to a friend that has a functioning scanner. Sometime this year, for sure.

2003-10-13T11:45:00.000-04:00

Thanksgiving babies. I'm a lucky guy, there's no doubt about it. Here's a Thanksgiving day photo of my two treasures.

2003-10-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

Arnie is loved all over the world! I just love this photo...

2003-10-11T22:02:00.000-04:00

Unknown Musical Geniuses, Part III. Orb are usually stuffed in the ambient bin by those that do the classification at music stores. Ambient, as far as I can tell, is mellow electronic music that you can't dance to but instead play in the background at your weekly drug party. It's far out! It's spacey! It's like ... really, really far out, man.

This describes Orb perfectly. But you don't need to be part of the drug scene to enjoy this music. Since we've had the kids, I no longer host gatherings where we snort LSD and shoot marijuana in our veins. But I still can put my feet up and listen to the watery weirdness of Orbus Terrarum. This album chugs along at a dreamlike pace, taking you through surreal, abstract sonic landscapes. New rhythms wander in, hang around for a while, change a bit, then wander out. Sampled voices occasionally appear and make puzzling statements. The final destination is Slug Dub, a seventeen minute long piece about some slugs that are eating all the lettuce. A nice trip.

Other albums from Orb are not quite as bizarre as Orbus Terrarum. U.F.Orb is a more danceable album with a strong reggae flavour. Orblivion is a colourful but creepy album that I will always associate with the end of the Millenium. And then there is the double CD, The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, featuring the eighteen minute long (wonderfully titled) a huge ever growing pulsating brain that rules from the centre of the ultraworld -- which samples the highly-annoying 70's hit by Minnie Ripperton, Loving You.

If Orb was played up as being serious art -- say the way the Future Sound of London present themselves -- I'd have a hard time enjoying them. But there is a playfulness that comes into their music that can't be ignored. It's fun, weird music that is not pretentious at all (well OK, maybe a little bit). But it's not for everybody. In fact, no one I've played this music for has really expressed too much interest in it. But that's why they're unknown geniuses, I guess.

2003-10-11T11:33:00.000-04:00

Best strip out there right now. The comics page has held few laughs for me since The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were retired. Bland, really bland, is the only way to describe most of what passes for 'the funnies' these days. Get Fuzzy is an exception. It's a character-driven strip with a cat, a dog, and the owner, that consistantly makes me laugh out loud. Michelle demands that I display the comic below, which literally had her ROFL.

2003-10-10T09:59:00.000-04:00

The Lesson Not Learned, Part III. The issues I covered in the last TLNL have been floating up into the public's consciousness lately. At a gathering of friends last week someone actually brought up the US's efforts to normalize trade with China as an opening conversational gambit. At first I attributed this to his awareness of my blog (and was a bit flattered), but then I realized he had heard about this issue independently. This is not someone normally interested in economic issues.

Unfortunately, most of the coverage of this issue is either the notion that the policy statement from the G-7 supporting 'global rebalancing' is unwarranted government interference in the economy, or that the saber-rattling by the US towards China is just typical American bullying of a developing nation. As my friend at the party said, "what China is doing is not against the law."

What both sides don't seem to realise is that the continued prevention of a freely operating foreign exchange market (which has actually never really existed) will only make a bad situation worse. Pressure is building up between China and America through the continued trade of real goods for promises (US dollars). Trying to manage this pressure -- maintaining the status quo -- will only delay the reckonning, and will make it much worse when it comes.

In a way, the relationship of the US with China is similar to the relationship Argentina had with the rest of the world before the economic crisis hit it a couple of years ago. Argentina's currency was artificially set to a higher level. This resulted in a huge and growing trade deficit -- people in Argentina found it cheaper to import goods than make them themselves. And since the Argentine exporters were put at a disadvantage because of their higher costs, they either scaled down production or went out of business. People appeared wealthy, but not much productive work was going on. Taking a snapshot of the country in the days before everything came apart, you'd have to ask yourself, "who's paying for this lifestyle?"

In Argentina's case, it was done through borrowing by the government. The citizens traded amongst themselves with pesos and used them to import goods. Letting all those exported pesos float on foreign exchange markets would drive down its value, so the Argentine government bought them up using borrowed American dollars. As long as this currency peg was in operation, these actions by the government could not be seen as a problem (if you were careful to see only what you wanted to see). On their balance sheets, a debt in American dollars was countered by a credit in pesos. And a peso was worth a dollar. Accounting equilibrium was maintained.

The problem only became manifest in the long term when the interest on those American dollars started weighing more heavily. And since lending pesos just caused those pesos to be cashed in for dollars, the government found itself on a slippery slope to disaster. Each day they were going further into the hole and there was nothing they could do about it. All the talk about tougher budgets possibly fixing things was nonsense because the budget gap was caused by the support of a dead-end currency regime. Ending the peg -- and taking the disasterous hit to the government's books and the country's standard of living -- was inevitable. But it was easier -- both for the cowards in the governments and the technocrats at the IMF -- to delay. But we know today of course that they couldn't delay forever.

How does this relate to the US and China? Well, I'm getting there -- but I have children to attend to right now. I'll try to pick this up this afternoon...

2003-10-09T11:43:00.000-04:00

BlogsTrudeaupia. I'm an engineer, and engineers like toys. The latest toy I've been messing around with is the tracker on my blog. That little symbol under the counter on the left? That's the tracker. It gives me (or whoever else clicks it) info on who's visiting the site. It's pretty nifty, and it's let me find out where some of the people who are not relatives looking for baby pics are coming from.

One of the sources is BlogsCanada, a directory of, well -- blogs in Canada. I'm listed as a Nunavut blogger, though I haven't been there for a more than a month (and have no intention of going back). But what struck me on the site was the description of Canadians on the home page:

We wax poetic about multiculturalism and the colours in our neighbourhoods. We consume hydro and we take our shoes off at the door, eh?

We're gun-hating, Celsius-loving, maple-leaf-on-our-backpacks, standing on guard Canadians. We know we're a lot better off than you-know-who but we're just too darned polite to crow about it.

In a word -- bleah. What an awful view of Canada! Is this site taking money from Heritage Canada? I mean it's all there -- the Americaphobia, the smugness, even the "eh" thing! Brrr. (And I really hate this maple-leaf-on-the-backpacks thing. You know the only reason it's so important to these people is not to proclaim that they're Canadian, but to assure everyone that they're not American.)

The country BlogsCanada is describing is not Canada but the place known as Trudeaupia (coined I believe by Mark Steyn). Trudeaupia is a Canadian version of the idealists' vision of the 'social democracies' of Scandinavia. It's a multi-ethnic, harmonious land where people are tolerant and caring and have everything taken care of for them by a strong central government filled with dedicated bureaucrats who know what's best. Trudeaupians care for the environment and want their country to do whatever the UN tells it to do. And Trudeaupia is nothing like the United States! No way! For example, guns are disliked in Canada! And, and ... it uses the metric system!!

One of the reasons I blog is that I'm disgusted with the Trudeaupian worldview that washes over the Canadian population through the CBC and the Official News Organ of the Liberal Party of Canada. I don't want to be on the list of Trudeaupian bloggers. Why on earth would I want to contribute to Sheila Copps' vision of this country?

I don't even take my shoes off at the door.

2003-10-08T13:31:00.000-04:00

The terrorist-media feedback loop. I've been concerned for a while that the media's laser-like focus on the problems in Iraq was acting as an encouragement to those who would like to prevent that country from becoming free and prosperous. I'm not the only one -- Ralph Peters gets angry.

2003-10-08T08:08:00.000-04:00

Congratulations, Governor Ah-nold! I was very pleased this morning when I woke up and saw the landslide victory for the big guy. Right now, all around the world the clever people are bashing out opinion pieces on how this is the beginning of the end for America. But see it more as an important reminder for the entrenched political class that the people still wield the power. If only we could have a similar reminder occur here in Canada.

That said, I think Arnold has a big job to do in California. The state is in a serious mess financially and it cannot be remedied with a big shootout with the bad guys. But if anyone can tackle the entrenched special interests that have been preventing change so far, it's him.

For more unqualified praise for Arnold, check out Andrew Sullivan.

UPDATE: One of the big reasons for Arnold's victory is the public's disgust with how the media have treated his candidacy. The late-hit smears from the L.A. Times is the most obvious example, but check out this quote from a CNN news story (since removed):

Schwarzenegger, who, like Hitler, is a native of Austria ...

Unbelievable.

2003-10-06T15:20:00.000-04:00

Comments now available. I met one of my many readers at a party this weekend and she was outraged (well, mildly reproachful) at my one-sided view of the world. She wondered why I couldn't be more fair and offer views on both sides of whatever stupid topic I happen to be writing about.

Sorry, but I have children to raise and I don't have the time for that kind of balanced coverage. Plus it wouldn't be fun to write. But now there is an option for those who disagree -- write a comment. I can't get away with my ignorant, arrogant crap if my clever readers are there to call me on it. Let's hear what both of you have to say!

UPDATE: Those goddam comments messed up somehow and were screwing up the whole page. Not that anyone was commenting anyways. So for now on, if you take issue with what I say, just send me an email.

2003-10-06T12:47:00.000-04:00

The poetry of George W. Bush. Laura Bush revealed some of her husband's love poetry the other day:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Oh my lump in the bed
How I've missed you.

Roses are redder,
Bluer am I,
seeing you kissed
by that charming French guy.

The dogs and the cat,
they missed you too.
Barney's still mad you dropped him,
he ate your shoe

The distance, my dear,
has been such a barrier.
Next time you want an adventure,
just land on a carrier.

The clever people are outraged:

It is just silly and a little bit embarrassing. I am surprised she would make it public. As a little gesture between a husband and wife it is fine. But I can't speak to its literary merits because it is not literature. It does not come anywhere near. It is not even up to the standard of Hallmark.

I studied the British Romantic Movement -- early 19th century -- Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Byron. This is just sentiment and flabby sentiment at best.

This latest scandal of Bush will certainly hurt his chances when he runs for re-election next year.