How Creepy is Pat Boone?

Glad you asked. Here's a new measure: he now writes for WorldNetDaily.

If you don't know WND, suffice it to say that the most linked-to story on their entire site is headlined "Soy is making kids 'gay'." Really.

Anyway, Pat has just posted his version of the fable of Snow White.

To give you a flavor, the Seven Dwarfs are:

... bound by strange, liberal and sometimes seditious beliefs. Some of them were teachers and others members of what was called a "civil liberties union."

Read as you can stand and then head on over to Sadly, No! for a much needed antidote.

Microsoft the Munificent

Feel the love from Redmond:

There is no extra charge for the downgrade rights.

You just have to buy Vista and realize how crappy it is, first.

Full story.

Can We Call a Brief Timeout?

(Updated below)

PZ Myers calls attention to another way to look at the cost of Bush's Endless War^TM:

Hmmm. Estimates of the cost of the war in Iraq range from $4.4 to 7.1 billion per month. If I assume about $5 billion, it looks like we're throwing away about $7 million per hour in that effort; so it looks like a little bit more than a half-hours worth of bloody war costs us $4 million. So let's just stop for about 40 minutes, OK?

What was the point of that calculation? The government is threatening to shut down the Arecibo Observatory unless they can cough up $4 million dollars for its operating budget for the next three years. Wow.

When you hear "Arecibo telescope," you might think, "Isn't that the one that looks for ETs?" And you'd be right. But only partly.

From a WaPo link in PZ's post (emph. added):

But among astronomers, Arecibo is an icon of hard science. Its instruments have netted a decades-long string of discoveries about the structure and evolution of the universe. Its high-powered radar has mapped in exquisite detail the surfaces and interiors of neighboring planets.

And it is the only facility on the planet able to track asteroids with enough precision to tell which ones might plow into Earth -- a disaster that could cause as many as a billion deaths and that experts say is preventable with enough warning.

You know, I hate to hurl back in the face of our beloved Vice President the words "One Percent Doctrine," but …

---

Update

2007-09-25 15:23 EDT

Jesus' General has another nice perspective, for a different trade-off.

What's In A Name?

Do you know Mitt Romney's real first name? I just found out. Thus, an update of the original movie poster seems appropriate.

Oh, The Irony

Via Andrew Sullivan, here's a laugher from life online:

Sana Klaric and husband Adnan, who used the names "Sweetie" and "Prince of Joy" in an online chatroom, spent hours telling each other about their marriage troubles, Metro.co.uk reported.

The truth emerged when the two turned up for a date. Now the pair, from Zenica in central Bosnia, are divorcing after accusing each other of being unfaithful.

Andrew doesn't say so, but I wonder if he noted this story as part of his ongoing campaign to show how the threat of gay marriage is ruining the institution.

(Quibblers with the last line should re-read the title.)

I like my version better

Click to zoom.

(h/t: C & L, via Bitch Ph.D.)

Can't Make This Stuff Up

Opening sentences from Section 2 of the George W. Bush entry:

Economic Issues

Though the liberal media continues to disparage Bush's handling of the economy, they often neglect to report the many aspects of the economy that Bush has improved. For example, during his term Exxon Mobil has posted the largest profit of any company in a single year, and executive salaries have greatly increased as well.

Care to guess the source?

And before you enemies of freedom get any revisionist history ideas in your heads, pay close attention to the top of the page:

(Click image to zoom)

Way, WAY Inside the Beltway

Doesn't McCain's weak explanation of why he's an unbaptized Baptist:

I didn't find it necessary to do so for my spiritual needs …

remind you of another famous line from another infamous Washingtonian?

I had other priorities …

Has Firefox Gone Microsoft?

The newest version is 2.0.0.7. The year is 2007. Sounds a lot like Office 2007, doesn't it? Coincidence???

I think so.

Turns out to be a security patch, to fix a hole in QuickTime. (More details.)

I didn't get an auto-notification, but that's probably due to my browser having been open since before the patch was posted. You can always use Help -> Check for Updates, if you're as impatient or paranoid as I am.

Half-Buried Lede

The lede from a story in Saturday's NYT:

One of the most influential business books ever written is a 1,200-page novel published 50 years ago, on Oct. 12, 1957. It is still drawing readers; it ranks 388th on Amazon.com's best-seller list.

Twenty-eight paragraphs later:

Every year, 400,000 copies of Rand’s novels are offered free to Advanced Placement high school programs. They are paid for by the Ayn Rand Institute …

I shrugged.

The story is currently the fifth-most emailed. It is unclear whether all transmissions are stemming from the ARI, or if some have also come from the Cato Institute.

Free At Last

There's been a lot of buzz about the impending death of the pay wall known as TimesSelect. I have resisted the temptation to report the rumors, although I have been reading them avidly for months. (Thanks, Google Alert!)

Now: It's. Official.

Money quote (was there ever a better chance to use this phrase?) from the first:

Those who have paid in advance for access to TimesSelect will be reimbursed on a prorated basis.

The NYT may be into me for a double sawbuck, but I'll file that one under "Don't hold your breath."

Nonetheless, I'm glad that the NYT has opened up access to some of their best. Now I can link to Paul Krugman and Frank Rich, and Selena Roberts and William C. Rhoden, and Clyde Haberman and Dick Cavett, and Gretchen Morgenson and Joe Nocera, with impunity, and retire the tiresome [T$] link. Maybe the sunlight will help Mo D will get her mojo back, and (okay, now I'm really dreaming) expose the need to put out to pasture The Moustache of Understanding.

I still think, as followers of the [T$] link will have noted, that what the NYT tried was a worthwhile experiment. TANSTAAFL, as the old master said. It may be that ad links will carry the day in supporting good reporting and commentary. I sure hope so. As amazing as Wikipedia and the blogosphere are, there's no lack of need for dedicated -- and supported -- reporting. As another old master said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." We need the pros.

I have not added the AdBlock extension to my Firefox browser, although I do employ Flashblock. I can tolerate some ads on a page I'm reading, and I think most others can, too. The problem is a matter of degree: intrusiveness and distraction.

I've just finished reading a collection of essays by E. B. White, The Points of My Compass. This is the best dollar I've ever spent (thanks, used book sales!). The essays were all composed in the late 1950s. One of them was about television ads, and it is amazingly resonant with today's Web.

It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Green-pan

I was all set to compose yet another screed on yet another former government official whose recent mea culpa provoked yet another response of "now he tells us."

But why compete with Mr. Krugman?

Money quote:

As it turns out, Mr. Greenspan's fears that the federal government would quickly pay off its debt were, shall we say, exaggerated. And Mr. Greenspan has just published a book in which he castigates the Bush administration for its fiscal irresponsibility.

Well, I'm sorry, but that criticism comes six years late and a trillion dollars short.

Ironic Sentence of the Day: 2007-09-17

From a NYT editorial calling for investigation into the 2002 phone-jamming case (remember that?):

It is shocking to think that anyone in the White House was involved in a dirty trick designed to prevent Americans from exercising their democratic rights.

Runner-up, from the same source:

Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House oversight committee, has a lot to investigate these days …

Seven Minutes of Pure Delight

A video well worth watching closely, even if it doesn't have actual moving pictures. Ladies and gentleman, Marcus Brigstocke:

(Embedded video not working? Try this link.)

For more minutes of pure delight, here's Marcus:

• On climate change
• On marriage
• On dealing with his ISP
• Doing live standup, part one and part two

PZ Myers, who introduced me to Marcus, hosts another short bit.

Another Benchmark Deemed Unimportant

No, no. Come back. This has nothing to do with Iraq.

This is slightly old news, but I just heard about it. The headline:

Dropouts

The United States has quietly withdrawn from an international study comparing math and science students.

Guess we didn't need to prove that we could whup Cyprus and South Africa again.

I'm a little dubious about linking to the full story, since this appears to be that source's notion of "fair and balanced" reporting [emph. added]:

Conspiracy theorists suggest that the U.S. government withdrew from the study without making any announcement because it anticipated another poor showing. "Maybe they don’t want to hear more bad news, says John Ewing, executive director of the American Mathematical Society.

I could probably find another source, but I'm too busy picking the first reason to bang my head on the desk.

And speaking of ducks ...

... even the branding now sounds lame.

Mission Accomplished

Stay the Course

Plan for Victory

And now (all new!!!):

Return on Success

Of course, I did not watch the latest "speech." But, despite the sinister machinations of the Liberal Media^SM to suppress The Truth^TM, somehow …

Message: I got.

You might, after nine or eleven beers, be interested in the official Spin Fact Sheet offered by the Bushies prior to the speech. Sample excerpts (I am not making the words, bolding, or excessive capitalization up):

The Way Forward … General Petraeus Believes We Have Now Reached The Point … So We Can Adjust Our Military And Civilian Resources Accordingly … If We Withdraw Prematurely, Violent Extremists Would Be Emboldened, And We Would Leave To Our Children A Far More Dangerous World.

Message: Ears hurt.

Maybe they shouldn't have let the grammar maven go.

Please Cull Again

Via KK:

(Suggestions for a more clever title for this post most welcome. Put 'em in the Comments.)

A Stench Republican

Okay, so the original story called him "a staunch Republican."

But Bill Maher had it right, as he so often does:

You knew he was a Republican, because even in death, he was still wasting gas.

Shrinking Vocabulary? Like, No.

(Update: minor typo fix)

Did you see, recently, a story about the declining vocabulary of today's high school students? I remember noting such a headline in the past few days, but didn't have the heart to read the story.

Fortunately, Cecil Adams is on the case. A nice piece of debunking.

Imagine No Longer

Rolling Stone has posted audio files made from tapes of an interview with John Lennon, done in December 1970. The interviewer is Jann S. Wenner, the co-founder of the magazine. Yoko Ono jumps in from time to time.

The interview, as you might imagine, is a bit low fidelity. As a voiceover notes in the lead-in to Part 1, Lennon was miked, but Wenner was not. Whoever remixed it did a nice job of boosting the volume when Wenner speaks, and I found that after a minute or two, this was not a distraction. Mostly, the only thing you notice is a jump in tape hiss when Wenner is speaking.

The interview may be a bit hard to listen to in other ways. It takes some time for Lennon to settle down and open up. After a few minutes, though, he stops sounding like he's just going through a "Tonight Show" promo bit, and honesty starts leaking out.

And then, it may get harder to listen to. The interview was done shortly after the Beatles had broken up, and a lot of bitterness comes across. There's also a boorish claim or two, some defensiveness, a few moments of stridency, and the occasional eye-roller that makes you say, "Just started doing therapy, have you?" If you still have stars in your eyes about the Beatles -- or any of them in particular -- and you'd prefer not to have your illusions shattered, don't listen to it.

No. That goes too far. It's not that awful. Or even that dishy. I'd say it's what a gifted artist sounds like if he hasn't had media training. I found it to be quite a listen. By the end (okay, as of mid-way through Part 3), I still find John Lennon an admirable human being.

(h/t: The Guardian)

Thought for the Day: 2007-09-10

I just read of a panel discussion held in Colorado whose subject was the number of levels of reality present if Stephen Colbert were to interview Sacha Baron Cohen.

-- John Allen Paulos

_____

NB: edited slightly. Details in Comments.

Thought for the Day: 2007-09-08

In a post detailing the twisty path that is Charles Krauthammer's thinking, Matthew Yglesias concludes:

And such is the war in Iraq as seen through neocon lenses. Mistakes are always in the past. The current policy is always working. When the mistakes are being made, those who point out the mistakes are tarred as near-treasonous. Then, after another year or two of pointless, futile bloodshed, it's conceded that mistakes were made in the past. But now we're right on track. And the liberals, once again, just don't get it.

More good insight from Matt on the Iraq mess can be found in the second half of his latest appearance on BloggingHeads.tv. As I said in the Comments for that episode, "I think Matt made the most coherent argument against staying the course that I have ever heard."

Giuliani Seen As Consistent On Secrey, Wiretapping

From tomorrow's NYT Magazine:

The campaign is unusually guarded with routine information, giving out only Giuliani's public schedule, and almost no one associated with the campaign will talk to a reporter without a press aide listening in on the line.

I think we can guess the real slogan of Giuliani-for-President. All together now, people. "Four more years! Four more years!"

Great cover shot for the mag, too.

4-Year Old Seen As Nation's Most Insighful Political Analyst

Littleton, NH -- The world of campaign punditry was rocked by rumors of mass layoffs today, after a local resident managed to express the country's feelings about Mitt Romney in less than one second, without uttering a word.

(Photo credit: Cheryl Senter/NYT)

Further Proof of the "Liberal Media"

Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter who left the paper amid tumult over her role in the Plame/CIA leak case, has accepted a position at the the conservative Manhattan Institute in New York City.

(source)

Oh, wait. That's right. I forgot. She was the only non-liberal, so we had to force her out.

(Oops. Was I supposed to let that out?)

(h/t: Digby)

Okay, this is almost embarrassing ...

... but I can't resist linking to Dawkins reviewing Hitchens.

I have no idea why this review was just (5 Sep 2007) published. Maybe God is Not Great just got released in the U.K.?

Whatever. The review is as much fun as you'd expect.

No. It's even better than that.

(h/t: Pharyngula)

Excerpts You Haven't Yet Seen

Brando. Masterful.

Charlie Savage on Fresh Air

I've written about Charlie Savage before. He's the national legal affairs correspondent for the Boston Globe. He is tireless in documenting the Bush Administration's signing statements and the other legal shenanigans they indulge in, in their pursuit of the idea of the "unitary executive."

Savage was interviewed by Terry Gross on today's Fresh Air. (Audio link available on this page.) If you want an understanding of the machinations behind the scene in the White House, including before 9/11, I highly recommend you listen to it.

One bit of discomfort for all true-blue Americans: Savage does add a bit of ammunition to the meme that John Ashcroft was actually, occasionally, trying to the right thing. Just keep this in mind: if John Ashcroft was the good guy in this Administration, what, exactly does that say about the rest of this bunch?

Coincidentally (*wink*), Savage has a new book out, released today. It's called Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy. I'm proud to call attention to it.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the Democrats missed many chances to argue against the quest for imperial power. All they had to do was to ask the Limbaugh crowd, "How are you going to feel when President Hillary has these powers?"

Here's hoping the Dems run the table in 2008, and make as a first order of business undoing the sinister legal framework that has been installed without many people noticing.

Hey, I can dream, can't I?

Sailboat Fuel

You probably have the vague sense that there's been a lot of money wasted in Iraq, some sort of awareness that private contractors have parlayed cozy relationships with the Bush Administration to cash in heavily. Maybe you think, eh, every war has its profiteers.

But considering that Bush is planning to ask for another $50 billion and that the upcoming Petraeus "report" will undoubtedly amount to version 29.71 of "stay the course," it's probably worth learning about how all this money is being spent.

Matt Taibbi provides extensive details. Read 'em and weep.

(h/t: Jonathan Schwarz)

Fiscal Responsibility

Do not miss today's Doonesbury.