Veepstakes

An interesting take.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 9:35 AM 0 comments

 
Vouch for me

In a move that ought to make Walker happy (where is he, by the way?), the Washington Post reports that many parents are excited about the new DC school voucher system.
- posted by Anonymous @ 1:07 PM 0 comments

 
Gentlemen, start your abucuses

As much as I love soccer, and as closely as I am following Euro 2004, it is hard for me to defend the need to do calculations like these to determine who advances from the forst round:

Netherlands: A win for Holland would only be any good should Germany fail to beat group winners the Czech Republic. A draw could put them into contention.
If Germany lose and Holland-Latvia is a scoring draw, Holland will go through on goals scored between those three sides on two points.

If Germany lose and Holland-Latvia is a goalless draw, Holland will go through - unless Germany lose by one goal in a scoreline of 2-3 or equivalently greater.

And Italy's was even more complicated (although, since they beat Bulgaria today while Sweden and Denmark drew 0-0, the most complicated possible outcome actually came true). Surely we can find a better way to break ties, maybe by playing rock-scissors-paper or duck-duck-goose or something.
- posted by Anonymous @ 5:11 PM 0 comments

 
Merely pointing this out

Christopher Hitchens on Michael Moore's new film:

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 9:57 AM 1 comments

 
And now for something completely different

First there was Washingtonienne, now there's Botswanienne, a new blog run by a friend of mine. Currently, she's blogging her way through Africa, trying to avoid being eaten by lions, which makes for quite interesting reading - you should check it out.

In the meantime, I won't regale you with stories, tempting though it may be, because she appears to want to remain anonymous. I will, however, make two predictions. First, Botswanienne will agree with the political views expressed here at RAD about as often an Clemson wins basketball games in Chapel Hill, that is, it hasn't happened yet and you shouldn't expect it anytime soon. Second, her blog will continue to be full of pithy tidbits of wisdom like this one:

Don't pitch your tent under a tree or a vervet monkey might pee on your head.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Botswanienne. And, even more importantly, welcome to the incredibly exclusive RAD blogroll.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 7:07 AM 1 comments

 
Headlines do matter

Curmudgeonly media critics (like some of us at RAD) often point out that a newspaper headline can really shape how a story is perceived. This example from this morning's Washington Post is a classic. First, here is the key paragraph from the story:

[Several police officers responded to a reported carjacking at a gas station] About a mile from the gas station, the officers spotted an older-model gold Lincoln fitting the description near Pennsylvania Avenue and Donnell Drive, police spokeswoman Barbara Hamm said. They chased the vehicle a short distance, to a dead-end street in the 3200 block of Forest Run Drive, where the suspects left the car and fled. The officers pursued them into a wooded area, according to police reports.

Hamm said one officer confronted a suspect, who raised a handgun toward the officer. The officer fired one shot, striking the man in the upper body. The man was transported in critical condition to Southern Maryland Hospital, authorities said.

The second officer chased another man into the woods, authorities said. The man fired a handgun and the officer returned the shot, but police did not know whether the fugitive was hit because he was not apprehended. A third assailant, who was seen at the gas station but not in the car, was also at large, authorities said.

. . .

Other officers who responded yesterday to the gas station -- in a commercial strip that includes liquor stores, fast-food restaurants and apartment buildings -- found the owner of the Lincoln beaten and bloodied. He was taken to a hospital, where authorities said he was treated and released.

The headline: Officers Placed on Leave in Shooting

Now, as I understand it, officers are generally placed on leave after shootings so the police can investigate whether they were justified. This seems on balance a good thing, because the danger posed by (hypothetical) trigger-happy cops would be very high indeed. But these shootings seem totally justified, at least based on the limited information available here. Yet the reader's attention is drawn to the administrative leave by the headline and the first two paragraphs (those I quote above begin with the third paragraph), rather than the underlying circumstances. Under these circumstances, the headline seems, at best, misleading, and, at worst, decpetive.
- posted by Anonymous @ 9:33 AM 0 comments

 
This Coke's for you

I just had a Coke, of which I need a can almost every afternoon. I was sort of ashamed of that - it is unquestionably bad for you, and I often have one after running a few miles in the middle of the day, which seems especially stupid. But no more, since Coke is apparently the harbringer - or at least a byproduct - of political freedom and societal development.

Just don't tell my dentist.
- posted by Anonymous @ 5:27 PM 0 comments

 
More Norwegian Chicks

Continuing an occasional feature here on RAD, I bring you more information on the personal habits of the people of Norway:

Seven out of ten Norwegians have had a random sex partner and the country is a world leader in one-night stands. At the same time they are among the least sexually satisfied citizens in the world, according to the latest findings in the Durex Global Sex Survey for 2003.

My thought is that these facts and those I mentioned earlier may be connected: lots of one night stands make getting clean underwear more difficult, and not wearing clean underwear may make those one night stands somewhat less satisfying.

Just a thought.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 3:33 PM 0 comments

 
Sigh, a lawyer haikyu (alternate title, A Quarter to Midnight)

Just got home from work.

Only released when they knew

my work was useless.

Sigh.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 11:36 PM 0 comments

 
Jackass of the Year Nominee

From ESPN: "A man sitting behind [4-year-old] Nick O'Brien at a Texas Rangers baseball game Sunday knocked the boy against the seats as he dived to get a foul ball. Fans started chanting 'Give him the ball!' but the man wouldn't give it up." At least the players came and gave the kid some autographed stuff, which is very cool.

I was once at a very silly but remarkably entertaining indoor football game at which a middle aged fan caught a ball (which you could keep, at this game), literally intercepting it before a kid caugt it. The whole place booed, but he was clueless. Honestly, I don't think he realized - he was so proud of himself. Amazing.

UPDATE: The guy tries to make it right
- posted by Anonymous @ 8:58 PM 0 comments

 
RAD Review: The Matrix

As an action movie, it's tough to beat, but as a work of philosophical speculation, not so much.
- posted by Anonymous @ 2:40 PM 0 comments

 
One Tarheel > 4 Hall of Famers

If there's any lesson to be learned from this year's NBA finals, it's this: the team with the most Tar Heels wins - even if the other team has a 4 Hall of Famer advantage. The Lakers, with one Tarheel and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 future Hall of Famers, were "upset" by the Pistons with two Tarheels and one Hall of Famer . . . who's 60. Imagine what would happen if you could get five UNC players on a team, like say him, him, him, him , and him. Maybe bring him back, just for fun.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 11:43 AM 0 comments

 
Department of Self Importance meets Department of Conspiracies
Janet Jackson, on Nipplegate (scroll about halfway down):

The singer who brought us Nipplegate feels that she’s the victim of “a plot by conservative forces” in the U.S. according to the Sunday Express of London. “I was used just to take the attention off what was really going on in the world,” Jackson told the paper. “A lot of things that actually happened, the after-effects, all that was already on the desk but everyone’s trying to point the finger, ‘See what you did, see what you did.’ I didn’t do anything. It was going to happen at some point with someone, it just so happened to be me. They made something out of nothing. ... Everybody’s got their underwear in a knot in America."

I can't improve on Travis's original comments.
- posted by Anonymous @ 9:06 AM 0 comments

 
Call me ilunga
From The Economist, a brief story on the most difficult words to translate. My favorite is ilunga: "a word in Tshiluba (a central African language) for a person who tolerates abuse only twice." This concept should be taught to every new litigator, and to judges.
- posted by Anonymous @ 9:06 AM 0 comments

 
On a technicality, AP just doesn't get it

The AP story about the Supreme Court's decision in the Pledge of Allegiance case is headlined "Court Allows 'Under God' on Technicality." Now, setting aside the issue of whether the Court was right, and also the underlying issues, this headline is simply deceptive. The majority opinion held that the plaintiff Michael Newdow lacked standing to sue on behalf of his daughter, over whom he does not have custody and whose mother, who does have custody, wants to recite the Pledge with "under God" in it.

That holding may be technical, but that does not make it a technicality. "Technicality" connotes a trivial point, one that evades the core of a problem. But standing---the right for a particular person to sue for a particular problem---is a major issue in any case, and especially in federal cases, and especially in federal cases predicated somehow on state family law rights. I cannot just sue any man for hitting his wife---I don't know either of them, and have not been wronged by his actions (assume they're tortious, for this analogy). Presumably, the wife could. Whether Newdow was more like me or the wife in this analogy is a tricky issue, and a technical one. But it is central to the case, and resolving the case on this basis cannot rightly be described as a technicality.

UPDATE The Post agrees with me.
- posted by Anonymous @ 8:18 AM 0 comments

 
Kick their ass, Lance

I just don't believe the recent allegations that Lance Armstrong has used performance enhancing drugs. One can never know these things for sure, of course, but there is quite a bit of good circumstantial evidence indicating his innocence.

* He's never failed a drug test, though he may be the most tested athlete in sports: Whenever he wins a day's stage, or finishes as one of the top cyclists in a longer race, he is required to provide a urine sample. Like other professionals, Armstrong is also tested randomly throughout the year. (The World Anti-Doping Agency, which regularly tests athletes, has even appeared at his home, in Austin, Texas, at dawn, to demand a urine sample.)

* Following the 2000 Tour, the French authorities (in France, I believe doping is a criminal offense) spent TWO YEARS investigating him, but found nothing and dropped the case.

* A few years ago, he reported a new doping mechanism to the authorities, asking them to look into testing for it.

* He's denied this allegation, and is instituting legal action.

* And, the allegations are in a book coming out 3 weeks before the Tour, written by a sports journalist who made similar allegations right before the 2001 Tour (although this time he claims to have more evidence.)

Smells more like someone trying to take advantage of a marketing opportunity to me.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 6:38 PM 0 comments

 
Well done, Maggie.

Extraordinarily well done.

In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk.

Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause - what Arnold Bennett once called `the great cause of cheering us all up'. His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire.

* * *

For the final years of his life, Ronnie's mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again - more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think - in the words of Bunyan - that `all the trumpets sounded on the other side'.

- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 11:56 AM 0 comments

 
Anti-anti-communist antidote

Those who are offended by the condemnations of Communism spurred by the passing of Ronald Reagan, who argue that "evil" is too strong a word for Communism or that the regimes of Mao and Stalin somehow perverted a noble dream should read The Little Black Book of Communism, a book originally published in France and released recently in the United States by Harvard University Press. The authors comb through records of Communist regimes worldwide and come up with these horrifying figures: 25 million deaths in the Soviet Union, 65 million in Maoist China, 2 million in Cambodia, and millions more Africa, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Here's the review from the New Republic:

The Black Book of Communism, which is finally appearing in English, is an extraordinary and almost unspeakably chilling book. It is a major study that deepens our understanding of communism and poses a philosophical and political challenge that cannot be ignored. The book's central argument, copiously documented and repeated in upwards of a dozen different essays, is that the history of communism should be read above all as the history of an all-out assault on society by a series of conspiratorial cliques led by cruel dictators (Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim II Sung, Pol Pot, and dozens of imitators) who were murderously drunk on their own ideology and power...Courtois and his collaborators have performed a signal service by gathering in one volume a global history of communism's crimes from the Soviet Union to China, from the satellite countries of Eastern-Europe to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and North Korea, and to a lesser degree in Latin America and Africa...The Black Book is enormously impressive and utterly convincing.

The brutality of this story refutes arguments that Communism as practiced was not as evil an Reagan claimed, and its worldwide scope places a heavy burden on those who claim Communism could be done "right." The book makes a mockery of those urged us to accept Communism's place in the world, and confirms Reagan's decision to lead us into battle against it.

- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 9:26 AM 0 comments

 
Why the media distorts, in one easy lesson

"Fairness and balance have page 17 written all over them."

From the most interesting magazine in the world.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 1:20 PM 0 comments

 
More than a great mystery writer

G.K. Chesterton is one of my favorite mystery writers, and has been praised as a model by Jorge Luis Borges, one of my favorite writers of any kind. Turns out he's a Christian apologist as well, and writes that as well as he writes his mysteries. Here's what he has to say about claims that science makes it impossible to believe in God:

[S]cience [cannot] forbid men to believe in something which science does not profess to investigate. Science is the study of the admitted laws of existence; it cannot prove a universal negative about whether those laws could ever be suspended by something admittedly above them. It is as if we were to say that a lawyer was so deeply learned in the American Constitution that he knew there could never be a revolution in America.

Hat tip to The Buck Stops Here, which is full of Chesterton quotes right now.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 5:22 PM 0 comments

 
G8 countries concerned over U.S. deficits-Chirac

This headline from Reuters is rich indeed. Chirac believes U.S. deficits threaten world economy, huh? How about the generally economic stagnation of Europe brought on by Franco-German policies for the past decade? Seems that hasn't been too helpful to the world economy either. We've been pulling this dead weight along for years and now he comes to lecture us on threats to the global economy.
- posted by Anonymous @ 3:41 PM 0 comments

 
Ted Rall who has recently achieved some degree of infamy for picking on dead men who cannot answer back (Tillman and Reagan), states at the end of an interview with the Washington Times "I think this county has shifted so far over to the right that anyone who is a garden-variety Democrat circa 1972 is painted as a Marxist-Lennist." Uh... Ted what's your point -- they were Marxist-Leninists.
- posted by Anonymous @ 9:36 AM 0 comments

 
Ethnic Food is good food

but it's suprisingly hard to find superb ethinc food. Here's a link from what looks like a member of the Volokh Conspiracy that should help those of us in DC. I'm excited to try some of these.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 8:26 AM 0 comments

 
RSS Feeds Rock

In a move that is unlikely to help my productivity, I have just figured out how to use RSS feeds. Or, rather, I just figured out how to let Yahoo use RSS feeds for me. My Yahoo will now gather posts from Instapundit, Volokh, Big Arm Woman, ScrappleFace and all your other favorites as they go up. In real time, no less.

Theoretically, of course, this should save me time, as Yahoo creates one stop shopping for my blog surfing. However, I fear that this may result in the TIVO effect - technology use that increases the effective use of a technology that wastes time.

UPDATE: Of course, you can also get RAD through an RSS feed. Sorry if I panicked anyone fearful that they'd miss out on real-time notification of insightful RAD commentary.

Hey. I kinda like that. The TIVO effect. Heh.
- posted by Tom Sawyer @ 9:04 AM 0 comments