Middle East Geography Quiz
It's been more than 2 years since 9-11. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, etc. have all been in the news daily since then, but how many of those countries could you point to on a map?

I first came across this site several months ago. I kept refreshing the page until I could get a perfect score. I was pretty disappointed when I revisited the site tonight (after not looking at it for several months) and learned that I needed a refresher.

Also check out the Rethinking Schools home page that hosts the map.

It's wait til next year for the Energy Bill.

After nearly three months of negotiations and dealmaking, Congress is giving up on energy legislation for this year, falling two Senate votes short of sending a bill to President Bush.

Republican leaders vowed to return to the $31 billion measure early next year.

The Senate abandoned the legislation late Monday after it became clear a dispute over a gasoline additive, MTBE, was not going to be resolved and efforts to find two additional Senate votes needed to overcome a filibuster by opponents would not bear fruit.

There's talk of creating a separate Ethanol bill. It's just one big farming subsidy. There's lots of good ways to use biofuel and biomass, but growing corn only for the ethanol is not one of them. One part of the energy bill that I do like, are the geothermal provisions.

[The Energy Bill] is generous to geothermal. It provides a new tax credit, reforms leasing requirements, alters royalty payments and directs the Interior Department to study how to maximize it on federal lands.

Geothermal would receive a new five-year production tax credit, an incentive industry backers hailed to encourage investment.

Unlike wind and solar power, which also receive tax credits, geothermal can be tapped 24 hours a day, its boosters say.

But harnessing the resource, which is derived from steam and hot water that runs under the Earth's surface, can be costly.

"It's critical to get these companies to invest the hundreds of millions it takes to put these facilities on line," said Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who lobbied for the incentives.

The tax credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour is designed to bring down the price of geothermal energy, making it more competitive with traditional electricity sources such as coal and natural gas.

"Geothermal is all across Nevada and could be used to energize businesses, apartment buildings and office complexes," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who authored the provision.

The energy bill, which is expected to face final House and Senate votes before lawmakers adjourn, has other benefits related to geothermal.

For the first time, counties would receive 25 percent of the royalties generated by local geothermal exploration.

Under current law, the payment is divided between state and federal governments. The new formula would allocate 50 percent to the federal government and 25 percent to the state.

I guess we'll hear more about these issues later.

Calpundit weighs in on the Hooters and Polluters Bill.

In case you missed it, Sullivan also has an obligatory rant deriding the policy and Instapundit has had a few jabs, and an good link mostly relating to the Ethanol subsidies.

Energy Bill Update
On Friday, opponents of the Energy Bill surprisingly managed to block a vote on the bill, 57-40.

The authors of the energy proposal, which provides billions of dollars in industry tax breaks and seeks to make the power grid more reliable, fell just short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate on the measure, leaving its enactment in jeopardy with little time left in the Congressional session. The vote was 57 to 40.

I thought this was pretty interesting.

...the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, sided with the opponents in a parliamentary maneuver that preserves his right to bring the energy legislation up for another vote.

Dr. Frist promised that the Senate would try again to cut off the filibuster before adjourning. Backers of the measure immediately turned to trying to win over two or more senators so they could advance the bill..

I've never heard of that before.

It looks like if the Republicans are willing to take out a measure that grants immunity to MTBE manufacturers, then they will get the 2 votes which are still needed.

Salam Pax, James Lileks and Daniel Drezner are in a war of words. And they're cursing and everything. Check it out.
http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/000898.html

Josh Chafetz has the cool word of the day. Anacoluthon. I thought for sure it was some reference to Ann Coulter, but it isn't.

War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

This stood out in my mind.

"I think Perle's statement has the virtue of honesty," said Michael Dorf, a law professor at Columbia University who opposed the war, arguing that it was illegal.

"And, interestingly, I suspect a majority of the American public would have supported the invasion almost exactly to the same degree that they in fact did, had the administration said that all along."

The controversy-prone Mr Perle resigned his chairmanship of the defence policy board earlier this year but remained a member of the advisory board.

I wonder if he is right?

Via WorldNetDaily.

Remains of Howard's Dean's long-lost brother have been discovered in Laos.

Charles Dean graduated from North Carolina in 1972 and went to work on the anti-war campaign of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. After McGovern lost in a landslide to President Nixon, Charles Dean decided to travel around the world. He left New York for Seattle by car with a friend in the spring of 1973 and then traveled by freighter from Seattle to Japan. He later went on to Australia, where he lived on a ranch for nine months.

He and Sharman took off for Southeast Asia and were arrested by the communist Pathet Lao on Sept. 4, 1974, during a trip down the Mekong River in Laos. They apparently were suspected of being spies, although the U.S. and Australian governments said they were merely tourists and strongly protested their detention.

The two men were held in a small, remote prison camp for three months before they were believed to have been executed on Dec. 14 while driving toward Vietnam with their captors.

Charles Dean, although a civilian, was considered by the U.S. government to have been a prisoner of war.

Full story here.

Check out Philocrites, 'Commentary on liberal religion and politics', a Unitarian Blog run by Chris Walton, the senior editor at UUWorld (second in command).

Apparently he's a Clark supporter. Here's an excerpt:

I can't quite make sense out of Clark's proposal to bring the Saudis along [pdf] to patrol the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in the search for Osama bin Laden, but I appreciate bringing attention to the fact that al Qaeda is largely Saudi Arabia's gift to the world. And if I were answering an opinion survey rather than running for president, I would have picked a different answer about a flag-burning amendment. But aside from that, Clark looks like the best Democratic candidate to me. I sent his campaign my first donation last week, and plan to attend the Dec. 1 Meetup in Cambridge.

He doesn't post daily, but it looks like he gets something out several times per week. Don't miss his links at the bottom of the page.

"Don't drink the Kool-Aid"

Today marks 25 years since Jim Jones staged a mass murder/suicide, killing over 900 people. Arguably, the Jonestown massacre can be at least partly blamed for the BATFs response to the Branch Davidians and David Koresh.
(...)
With one monstrous swoop, Jim Jones succeeded in giving fringe religious groups everywhere a bad name, and made "Don't drink the Kool-Aid" a saying synonymous with "Don't trust your leaders."

I have always wondered where that expression came from.

The Origin Of The Saying

Where is Guyana? I had to look it up.

This is interesting.
Theatre of war

Iraq is a perilous place to be a humanitarian worker. With terrorists targeting foreigners almost daily, some aid agencies are pulling out. Jonathan Kaplan, a battlefield surgeon who has worked in some of the world's most dangerous places, has recently returned from Baghdad. He spoke to Maggie McDonald about the science of front-line medicine, the psychology of danger - and why he keeps going back.

What was it like working in Iraq?

I thought I would be working as a surgeon in Baghdad, but the condition of the hospitals was so dreadful that it was almost impossible to do any organised, safe surgery. The operating theatres had been used intensively during the bombing and had received casualties throughout the looting, so their floors were many inches deep in caked blood, clothing cut from the bodies of the wounded, discarded surgeons' gloves and suture packs. There was no light and no water so no one could do any cleaning. I did less surgery than I had anticipated, apart from patch-up emergency stuff.
(...)
What makes you keep going back into these dangerous environments?

There's a sense of professional and personal fulfilment in working to the limit of one's abilities - and even beyond, when one has to improvise all the time. It seems bizarre, possibly even unhealthy, that one should seek out places where people are suffering. Yet it is in those places, working as a doctor, that I find a heightened sense of my own humanity, in circumstances where other people are being deprived of theirs. The motivation for this sort of work is complex. I do not think it is completely altruistic or purely morally positive.
(...)
But this advanced technology is not going to become available everywhere. There is no financial imperative in helping the local people wounded in some miserable war somewhere. Ultimately it will always come down to the doctor on the ground to try to do the best they can with available resources, using techniques like making a one-way valve to reinflate a collapsed lung with the finger of a surgical glove and a large bore cannula - a trick I was taught by a special forces medic I met in Iraq.

Via SciTechDaily.

"History's Most Interesting Dinner Companions"
http://www.rightwingnews.com/blogsel/dinner.php

Right Wing News emailed more than a 150 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to send us a list of who they considered to be "History's Most Interesting Dinner Companions".

All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-20 selections. Rank was determined simply by the number of votes received. The bloggers were also told that their selections could be, "living or dead, from any country, from any point in history, language would be no barrier to the conversation, and (they were told that they could) assume that (their guests would) be at the height of their mental powers." I think you'll agree that if everyone on this guest list showed up, it would make for the most entertaining and enlightening dinner in history.

20) Voltaire (4)
20) Sun Tzu (4)
20) Martin Luther (4)
20) John Locke (4)
20) Rush Limbaugh (4)
20) C.S. Lewis (4)
20) Andrew Jackson (4)
20) F.A. Hayek (4)
20) Milton Friedman (4)
20) Ann Coulter (4)
20) William F. Buckley (4)
20) John Adams (4)
18) Franklin Delanor Roosevelt (5)
18) Muhammad (5)
14) Socrates (6)
14) Teddy Roosevelt (6)
14) Julius Caesar (6)
14) George W. Bush (6)
12) George Washington (7)
12) Margret Thatcher (7)
8) William Shakespeare (9)
8) Ayn Rand (9)
8) George Patton (9)
8) Leonardo Da Vinci (9)
7) Mark Twain (11)
6) Ben Franklin (12)
5) Thomas Jefferson (15)
4) Abraham Lincoln (16)
3) Winston Churchill (18)
2) Ronald Reagan (19)
1) Jesus (20)

Via Volokh

Fight for Your Right To Party
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/003470.shtml#003470

I read about this via Drudge and it seems pretty absurd.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/global_user_elements/printpage.cfm?storyid=560730

The Interfraternity Council Judicial Board will begin to investigate next week as to whether an Iraq war-themed Zeta Psi party violated the code of conduct of the IFC Constitution.

The fraternity has come under fire for a "Bombs Over Baghdad" themed party held Saturday. Party-goers dressed in camouflage, and the house was decorated with sandbags, model airplanes and a "landing strip" painted on plywood, said Zeta Psi Vice President Gabriel de la Garza.

Flyers for the party distributed on campus showed photographs of a crying child spattered in blood, a man clutching a child's lifeless body and a mutilated dead man. The caption read, "Come party, and celebrate what we stand for."

De la Garza, a biology senior, said the fraternity had nothing to do with the flyers. He said a student came to the fraternity house claiming he created the flyers and distributed them after seeing a billboard in the fraternity house's front yard advertising the party. The student was not available for comment Monday.

I saw this Wesley Clark interview on Fox last night and found it entertaining. Now Calpundit has a nice post about it with links to the video clip where Wes Clark gets all heated. Check it out.
http://www.calpundit.com/archives/002665.html

On Hating the Jews
The inextricable link between anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism.
BY NATAN SHARANSKY
Monday, November 17, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
From the footnote:

Mr. Sharansky is Israel's minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs. This article draws in part on ideas presented at a conference on anti-Semitism in Paris in May and at the World Forum of the American Enterprise Institute in June. Ron Dermer contributed to this article, which appears in the November issue of Commentary.

Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky

Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky was born in the Ukraine, and graduated with a degree in mathematics from the Physical Technical Institute in Moscow. His early association with the human rights movement was an English interpreter for Andrei Sakharov,

Andrei Sakharov is often called the "father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb," but most people know him as one of the twentieth century's most ardent and unrelenting champions of human rights and freedoms. It was for his work as an outspoken dissident to the Soviet regime that the Nobel Committee awarded him the Peace Prize in 1975.

before emerging in his own right as a foremost dissident and spokesman for the Soviet Jewry movement.

In 1973, Sharansky applied for an exit visa to Israel, but was refused on “security� grounds. He remained prominently involved in Jewish refusenik activities until his arrest in 1977. Convicted in 1978 of treason and spying on behalf of the United States, Sharansky was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment. He spent 16 months in Moscow's Lefortovo prison, frequently in solitary confinement and in a special “torture cell,� before being transferred to a notorious prison camp in the Siberian gulag.

Update:
Pejman Yousefzadeh has comments.

Calpundit has a good post regarding Link Rot, which includes information about how to create permanent links to NYT articles. I haven't really looked into yet, hopefully tonight.

Be sure to follow the link to Brad DeLong's post.

The current issue of UU World Magazine has a great article titled 'We are all self employed'. The title says it all, I love the concept, it's very empowering. I think the most successful people have that attitude anyway. When I worked at Gore, they encouraged people to think like that, to take responsibility for their own careers and work environment and not sit around wondering when someone would change things.

No matter your title – CEO, salesperson, teacher, manager, engineer, or yogurt man – it is now clear that taking full responsibility for your career is more necessary than ever. Employment is temporary. Guaranteed job security is dead. Leadership is suspect. Financial futures are speculative. Downsizing and restructuring are the norm. No “new� economy will eliminate unemployment. The total number of people unemployed, including discouraged workers who would prefer to work but have stopped looking, exceeds 9.2 million. And Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the number of people working part-time because they can’t find full-time work at 4.8 million, up 46 per cent since 2001.

These conditions open up either to a precarious void or, if you take charge of your work life with a self-employed attitude, an illuminating space for learning and possibility, honoring your passion and acting on your purpose to get the work you want or enhance the work you have.
Despite the formidable conditions in the United States labor market, every individual has the advantage of their passion – their heart’s desire – and can take steps to connect their passion with the needs of the world. My own life and consulting practice are guided by the belief that the only sustainable work germinates from what is in your heart. Everything else is a trend.

A self-employed attitude is not built on dependence – hoping that others will take care of you or know you better than you know yourself. That’s the old “employed attitude,� which is built on a presumption of loyalty; in this world of workplace insecurity and churning change, such blind loyalty is dead.

Nor is a self-employed attitude built solely on independence. It is not a permission slip to do whatever you want. Knowing yourself and doing and achieving to serve yourself is not enough.
The self-employed attitude is built on both independence and interdependence. As Lily Tomlin reminds us, “Together we are all going through life alone.� And Charles Handy, author of The Hungry Spirit, writes, “We cannot escape the connectedness of the world, not least because the more we concentrate on what we are best at, the more we will need the expertise of others. Self-sufficiency is an idle dream. Even those who cultivate their own organic plots need trucks built by others to drive their produce to market along roads maintained by others.�

Read the whole thing. The author, Cliff Hakim, also has a book by the same title.

Speaking of people taking control of their lives, this weekend the MOUNTAINFILM Festival in Telluride was on Tour in VT. Saturday, Melissa and I met up with a bunch of folks from work and saw 10 short films. It was a great event, held at the local high school just outside of town. The films were mostly documentary style done on a limited budget.

In one of the films these three guys travel the length of the Yenisey River (over 5500 km), starting in Mongolia and traveling North through Lake Baikal into Russia ending the trip 5 months later when they reach the Artic Ocean. They travel by raft, kayak, and eventually a large rowboat which they refurbish themselves and live in, rowing 24/7 along the way. A young Russian woman who's studying psychology also joins them for part of the trip. It's pretty funny, and the images are amazing.

The other film that really resonated with me was a biography/tribute film to Wade Davis. I can't believe I've never heard of this guy. His most well known book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, inspired the movie by the same name. He's described as an "anthropologist, botanical explorer...who received his Ph.D. in ethnobotany from Harvard University [and] spent more than three years in the Amazon and Andes as a plant explorer, living among 15 indigenous groups in eight Latin American nations while making some 6,000 botanical collections.".

Here's a sample to give you a flavor of his writing:

On Earth, there are Some 800,000 species of plants feeding on the light of the sun. Of these, only a few thousand yield food and medicines, and only a mere hundred or so contain the compounds that transport the mind to distant realms of ethereal wonder. Strictly speaking, a hallucinogen is any chemical substance that distorts the senses and produces hallucinations -- perceptions or experiences that depart dramatically from ordinary reality. Academics call these drugs psychotomimetics (psychosis mimickers), psychotaraxics (mind disturbers), and psychedelics (mind manifesters). These dry terms quite inadequately describe the remarkable effects the compounds have on the human mind. Indeed, the sensations are so unearthly, the visions so startling, that most hallucinogenic plants acquired a sacred place in indigenous cultures. In rare cases, they were worshipped as gods incarnate.

Read the whole thing here.

While we're on the topic of mind altering plants, it turns out that the mycelium.blogspot.com URL is unvailable and hasn't had an update since last December, but at least it went to a good cause.

I'm blogged out for now, but this post should keep the hyphae strong until tomorrow.

House, Senate GOP Agree on Energy Bill

House and Senate Republicans reached agreement Friday on the first overhaul of national energy policy in a decade, clearing the way for likely final action on the bill next week.

GOP energy negotiators said they would provide Democrats details Saturday on the 1,700-page bill, which is unlikely to be changed significantly given the Republican majority in the House and Senate conference.

In some ways this might be good, because on numerous issues something will be better than nothing. Hopefully the next energy policy overhaul will be in less than 10 years. I can't imagine the Democrats will try to filibuster this bill, but there will be plenty of criticism, and I'd expect a very partisan vote.

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY....Via Calpundit->Hit & Run->Fund Race
http://www.calpundit.com/archives/002634.html

This is cool as hell. Be sure to play with all the settings, every one is interesting.

Loving VT...

Severe Weather Alert from the National Weather Service

...THU NOV 13 2003
... WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 AM EST FRIDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BURLINGTON VERMONT CONTINUES A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR TONIGHT... ACROSS THE HIGHER ELEVATIONS OF THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS AND CENTRAL AND NORTHERN GREEN MOUNTAINS OF VERMONT. TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS WILL BE 4 TO 8 INCHES WITH LOCALIZED HIGHER AMOUNTS IN NORTHERN NEW YORK. MEANWHILE... TOTAL SNOWFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 10 INCHES WILL OCCUR OVER CENTRAL AND NORTHERN VERMONT... WITH UP TO A FOOT POSSIBLE ACROSS THE NORTHERN GREEN MOUNTAINS... WHERE THE SNOW MAY LINGER INTO FRIDAY AFTERNOON.

HAZARDOUS DRIVING CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP ACROSS THE HIGH COUNTRY LATER TONIGHT. MOTORISTS ARE URGED TO BE PREPARED BY CARRYING A WINTER SURVIVAL KIT IN THEIR VEHICLE... AND ALLOWING EXTRA TIME TO REACH THEIR DESTINATIONS....

On the bright side, I may get to test my new cross country skis tomorrow.

DRIVING A HARD BARGAIN

Mileage-Based Auto Insurance Could Be a Boon for the Environment

Most enviros don't spend much time thinking about car insurance --
come to think of it, most other folks don't either -- but the
environment might be better off if they did. By shifting to a
mileage-based auto-insurance system, people who drive less would save
money on premiums and everyone would have an incentive to leave the
car at home more often. Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy
Institute in British Columbia estimates that so-called
pay-as-you-drive (PAYD) insurance plans would reduce driving by about
10 percent. Such plans are being pilot tested or offered in a
handful of U.S. states and Britain. Oregon recently passed a bill
that gives insurance companies incentives to offer PAYD policies;
leaders and activists in the state expect that such policies would
lead to drops in congestion, auto accidents, and pollution. Get the
word on this burgeoning insurance shift, from Elisa Murray on the
Grist Magazine website.

This makes sense and seems fair, but I'm a little worried about how they would check the total miles driven. Also, there would be incentives for high milage drivers not to participate and seek flat rate services, I'm not sure how this would effect the lower milage drivers. It seems like there's potential for gaming the system if it's not done right.

Alabama Chief Justice Removed From Office
Justice Moore Had Defied Federal Court Order to Remove Ten Commandments Monument

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from office Thursday for refusing to obey a federal court order to move his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state courthouse.

The state Court of the Judiciary unanimously imposed the harshest penalty possible after a one-day trial in which Moore said his refusal was a moral and lawful acknowledgment of God. Prosecutors said Moore's defiance, left unchecked, would harm the judicial system.

From Hit & Run. I'll be curious to see if this gets appealed and if the appeal will be heard.

Sex Post
Real or Fake
I got 8 of 12. Via Fark.

Britney has some juicy new pictures out that I read about here. This is a pretty entertaining quote.

When Sawyer asks the freedom-loving pop star if she can think of an instance when she's gone further than she wished she had, Spears said "No. I don't think so."

But when she looked at a photo from a recent Esquire magazine photo shoot — where she took everything off but her pearls, underwear and shoes — her reaction changed a little.

"Now, those are a little much," Spears said.

Check out some pictures from the Esquire photo shoot.

It seems Pink isn't happy about the Britney situation. Good pic of Pink in a devil suit.

Also, I've seen lots of references to the Paris Hilton sex video. I found out about it because Instapundit linked to a sex blog that was posting ways to find the video, coincidence? I watched a clip the other night, parissexmovie_256k.wmv, and O'Reily actually ran a story about it last night. He was trying to tie it into the whole camera phone internet invasion of privacy meme that I mentioned in a post below, but it seemed to me he just wanted an execuse to put some still shots of the video on the screen for ratings. Here is a USA Today article on the whole Paris Hilton sex video affair.

Paris Hilton is steaming mad over a steamy sex video that may soon go public, her spokeswoman said. The homemade video reportedly features the socialite, reality show star and heiress to the Hilton hotel fortune having sex with Rick Solomon, who went on to marry former Charmed actress Shannen Doherty in 2002.

Count the Union of Concerned Scientists as officially opposed to the Energy Bill. Check out this cartoon they put together.

More info on the energy bill here .

Stop that Energy Bill!

A House/Senate energy conference committee is preparing to disgorge a 1,700-page legislative abomination that should cause both the Left and Right to choke. Although the bill has yet to be released, enough is known to conclude that it will be three parts corporate welfare to one part cynical politics. It is so wholly without merit that even we -- policy analysts from the Cato Institute and the Sierra Club respectively, who rarely agree about anything -- can agree that the bill is a shocking abdication of our leaders' responsibility.

This is pretty discouraging considering that the Energy Bill will most likely pass more or less as is in the next few weeks.

Read the whole thing.


Nod to EV World.

Slashdot points to an interesting new Segway like vehicle.

Cool pictures in this Forbes article.
Hot Wheel

From the company website.

Technology will be used to harness the laws of physics, with the gyroscopes and sensors, a high-performance braking system, active suspension, night vision and robotic assistance. A digitally encoded learning key will start the engine. To move forward, the rider activates a trigger on the left handlebar. The landing gear retracts when the speed reaches 20 km/h. To turn, the rider leans in the desired direction. The brake is activated by a trigger on the right handlebar. When the speed drops to 20 km/h again, the landing gear redeploys automatically. Even without the landing gear, the EMBRIO would be stable when motionless because of the gyroscope.

Dimensions and weight
48.75" x 27.5" x 47.5" 360 lb

I didn't see a top speed listed anywhere. I want to try one.

Back at the Wheel
Thomas Friedman just loves to grind the gears.
http://www.nypress.com/16/46/news&columns/cage.cfm

The New York Times’ Tom Friedman has a thing about wheels. They recur in his columns with chilling frequency. The tendency is so overt that he often reads like a classic case study in sexual fetishism–particularly given the fact that he sometimes mentions wheels in conjunction with his wife.

Via Atrios.

Two More Officials Quit Kerry Campaign

The Kerry campaign is in disarray. It's looking more and more like Dean will win the nomination. It's just mind boggling. The big question is can Dean get people out to the polls that stayed home in 2000? He's such an outsider that he could generate a Ross Perot kind of following, but still have the Dem party votes. He could still make a blunder, but it's now his nomination to lose.

Flynt Says He Won't Use Nude Lynch Photos

Pornographer Larry Flynt says he bought nude photos of Pfc. Jessica Lynch to publish in Hustler magazine, but changed his mind because she's a "good kid" who became "a pawn for the government."

Flynt told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he bought the photos last month from the men who purportedly participated in the amateur shoot with the Army supply clerk. The soldiers "wanted to let it be known that she's not all apple pie," Flynt said.

This is like Demi Moore going from GI Jane to Striptease

He Beat US All

Starting today in New York, Garry Kasparov, the world's best human chess player, is to play four games against X3D Fritz, the world's best computer player. And while this week's match will be billed as another round of "man vs. machine," Mr. Kasparov is a chess-playing machine of a sort too. I should know; last month in London, I faced the Kasparov machine over the board. I lost.

But this was no fair fight, one-on-one. That night, he played 24 games simultaneously against me and 23 other players in what is known in chess circles as a "simul." He beat us all.

I'd love to see how long I could last in a simul.

GOOSE CREEK UPDATE:
http://www.instapundit.com/archives/012459.php

Then the principal, George McCrackin, patted him down, checked his shoes and took out his wallet, asking him where he got the approximately $100 he was carrying, Sam said. The student said he told McCrackin he had just gotten paid at his job at KFC.

"The people I hang out with are not drug dealers," Sam said. "We play basketball. We have nice clothes because we have jobs."

Down the hall, Josh was standing with his friends when he heard a rustling and felt something hit him in the back. When he turned around, he said, he saw a police officer standing behind him with his gun drawn.

"He told me to get down on the ground," said Josh, who then was instructed to put his hands behind his head and stay down.

Sam and Josh said that when the search was over, police told them that any innocent bystanders in the crowd should blame the search on the people bringing drugs to school.

Glenn thinks these guys should be fired. That seems appropiate to me.

Check out Calpundit's commentary on Bush's speech

and a really interesting profile of Dick Cheney

...from the unlikely source of John Perry Barlow, better known as a former Grateful Dead lyricist and co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

It turns out that Barlow grew up in Cheney's home state of Wyoming, and that back in the 80s he knew Cheney pretty well. The essay below is his attempt to figure out what Cheney is up to, and while I don't especially endorse or reject any of it, I did find it provocative and intriguing � even though we now know that the invasion of Iraq was no bluff at all. It's an interesting read.

ESCAPE THE MEATRIX

Why Al-Qaida is attacking the Saudi Kingdom
Walid Phares, Ph D
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Phares20031110.shtml
"Riyadh was compressed between its traditional inclination to Wahabism and its realist ties to the United States. Al-Qaida wanted to force the Saudis to shift either way, or collapse inwards. From May to November, six months were given to the Kingdom to make its choice. In the eyes of Bin Laden, it seems that the royal, or at least the Saudi ruling elite, made its choice. It didn't abandon Wahabism as a state ideology, but it decided to crack down on the organization."

This is an interesting Washington Post article about the ongoing saga of Lt. Gen. William Boykin.

Christian Soldier
Lt. Gen. William Boykin Is Inspiring Faith in Some and Doubt in Others

Great Quotes:
////
"I knew that my God was bigger than his."
////
"And then when I thought that things could not get any worse than they already were," Boykin recounted, "my wife of 25 years . . . walked in and said, 'I don't love you anymore, you're a religious fanatic, and I'm leaving you.' "
////
After the battles, he flew over Mogadishu in a helicopter. "And I began to take photographs," he said, "and I began to pray for that city, and I said, 'Lord, what happened here? What were we up against?' "

Back home, he developed the photographs, and noticed one with odd black slashes. He said he showed it to his mother, who told him, "Don't you know specifically what you're looking at?"

"Now I understand," Boykin said. He consulted a photographic interpreter trained by the military. "And he said, 'This is not a blemish on your photograph, this is real.'

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your enemy. It is not Osama bin Laden, it is the principalities of darkness. It is a spiritual enemy that will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus and pray for this nation and for our leaders."

He showed the final photo. "What is it? I can't tell you. Except to say that it is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy that I was up against in Mogadishu."
////

Count me as a big doubter. Gene Healy has comments.

Health clubs ban or restrict wireless camera phones

This is pretty interesting. I wonder how widespread these bans will become. I haven't heard of camera phones being banned in strip clubs yet.

But at least they're not considering banning public kissing.

Popular Science | Best of What's New 2003

The Toyota Prius makes the list.
"The 2004 Prius is a far more technologically advanced automobile than its predecessor, with a new hybrid drivetrain that provides more power with even better fuel economy. Toyota achieved 55 mpg in this larger, heavier Prius by using better aerodynamics and a more efficient regenerative braking system, which transfers the car's kinetic energy into battery power as it slows down. Peak electric power is up by 50 percent and is pushed through a continuously variable transmission. The car won't win many drag races, but it can keep up with other midsize sedans. More important, it may be the first car to convince Americans that hybrid technology has arrived, its benefits are profound, and its drawbacks almost nil. $20,000 "

Via Slashdot. I have to agree with most Slashdotters that Popular Science isn't much of a magazine.

The Wages of War: Iraqi Combatant and Noncombatant Fatalities in the 2003 Conflict. Project on Defense Alternatives Research Monograph 8. October 2003.
http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8.html

2003:
Total Iraqi fatalities: 12,950 plus or minus 2,150 (16.5 percent)
Iraqi non-combat fatalities: 3,750 plus/minus 550 (15 percent)
Iraqi combatant fatalities: 9,200 plus/minus 1,600 (17.5 percent)

1991:
Total Iraqi fatalities: 23,664-29,644
Iraqi non-combat fatalities: 3,664
Iraqi combatant fatalities: 20,000-26,000

Via Eric Alterman.

Josh Chafetz delivers one bad ass speech at an Oxford Union debate.

Daniel Drezner has some thoughts.
"A hearty congratulations to Oxblog's Josh Chafetz for agreeing at the last minute to participate in an Oxford Union against two anti-war MPs on the resolution, "This House believes that we are losing the Peace." Chafetz was arguing in the negative."

But as Daniel Drezner notes Josh gave the other big speech of the day.

President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and Middle East
Remarks by the President at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy
United States Chamber of Commerce
Washington, D.C.

Bush:
"Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo.

Therefore, the United States has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. This strategy requires the same persistence and energy and idealism we have shown before. And it will yield the same results. As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace."

Links to lots of good commentary here.

International opinion here.

This is pretty funny.

Fantastic Voyage
Howard Dean, metrosexual, heads south.
BY TUNKU VARADARAJAN
Friday, November 7, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

Jonah on a rant. Gotta love it.

Vote Rocking
Dems go for "the youth."
by Jonah Goldberg

I despise youth politics. I do not consider "the youth" to be members in the Coalition of the Oppressed. "Youth Rights" is a concept best thought of as a sponge for the lugubrious rage of a handful of precocious teens and twenty-somethings who cannot find a more coherent vessel for their agenda. People involved in "youth politics" whine incessantly about how unfair it is that they are subjected to "stereotypes," and yet the whole enterprise of youth politics is premised on the cliché that young people are somehow united politically. The terms "Generation X" and "Generation Y" were little more than secular astrology. The only thing that unites young people politically, as a general rule, is that they are — by definition — at the bottom of the learning curve and, consequently, they try to power their way uphill with passion instead of wisdom. As Oscar Wilde observed, "In America, the young are always ready to give those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.".