I mourn his passing. And I was reminded of this article I read about him in 1999. Mr. Rogers was true and pure, something so sorely lacking our society, now and ever. He believed in the beauty of childhood, but at the same time he didn’t lie to children, or talk down to them. To me, he was, and is, a hero. Goodbye, Mr. Rogers. You will be missed.

An interesting exchange between the New York Times Magazine and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Mohamed BlBaradei.

NY Times Mag: “Whom would you rather have coffee with, George Bush or Saddam Hussein?”
BlBaradei: “I really don’t drink coffee.”

InstaPundit thinks its great that Brandeis has a “Pro-American” (i.e. pro war) group. I also think that it is great that we have one.

What he fails to realize is that United We Stand only has three members, one of whom chooses to remain anonymous. Not quite the “movement” that Reynolds implies.

Salon has an incredibly informative piece about the fallacy of the “war for oil” argument. A war for oil would raise prices in the short term, helping oil companies, but after the war prices could only go down, hurting them. Meanwhile, Russia, which relies on oil production for 90% of its economic output, would be devestated, as would all of our Middle East “partners in peace,” whose economies we would destroy. Meanwhile, US companies wouldn’t be enjoying the profits — it would be entreanched French and British oil conglomerates that would get the multi-billion dollar contracts to rebuild Iraq’s shattered oil infrastructure over several years.

War for oil? The Bush administration has done nothing but bungle this potential war, upsetting our allies and warning our enemies, using dangerous rhetoric and leaking strategies, and deploying a military that is woefully unprepared for the chemical and biological agents that Colin Powell so strongly states that Iraq posesses. If we’re going to war, it is for a variety of reasons that only Mr. Bush and perhaps his top advisors really understand. But it is not for oil.

Andy Rooney really pissed me off when he declared that the French of no right to criticize George W. Bush’s foreign policy because we saved them in World War II. I’ve heard similar sentiments from other people. I bash the French all the time, but not for any of these so-called legitimate reasons. I bash the French like I bash Canadians, because in American we overlook them, we hold silly and baseless stereotypes. When I bash the French, it is really a backhanded compliment, a bashing of America for being the great land of the free that just doesn’t want to worry about the history of freedom. I would never bash the French because we “bailed them out.”

Luckily, Molly Ivins agrees with me, and gave me the history that I wish I knew:

George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: “How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it’s never been tried.” That was certainly amusing. One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren’t many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Hitler.

On behalf of every one of those 100,000 men, I would like to thank Mr. Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny.

Well, by the end of AMST 100b this semester, I’ll finally get the WWI and WWII history that I’ve always wanted but the public schools, with their focus on the American Revolution, never provided. Maybe because sometimes American wars can’t be glorified, and we just want to forget them? Well, if we’re trying to forget our history, it seems to be working splendidly.

Tony Almeida “worked” at Transmeta before moving to CTU. Wait…before? Neat, anyway. Although I have no idea what a “systems validation analyst” is. More fun “facts” on the 24 site. LIke Michelle built IPSec. These fictional characters have done some important computer work!

I put in a maintenance request to get my heat fixed, then I go over to Jeremy and suggest he do the same, so he does. So they came this morning and fixed his heat, then they left, and then it started with the whole blizzard situation. ARGH!!! I want heat!

I’ve watched it again this week, and my conclusion is this: 60 Minutes does not break stories. Like every other major television media outlet, they only report on “controvertial” issues when at least one authority figure is doing something about it. Basically, the news won’t report on something that goes against the status quo unless they can report on someone in power who disagrees. They won’t say that the war with Iraq might be bad, they will say that Senator so and so says the war with Iraq might be bad. They won’t report that there is a protest against war, they will report about how the protest is larger or smaller than expected and on what a politician says in response.

So in 60 Minutes case, all three stories here are about things that are already out there — a Senator is upset that the military isn’t ready for Nuclear/Biological/Chemical attacks, so 60 Minutes is worried (again missing the pesky questions as to “why” that they consistantly fail to ask). Fourth-eight states have sued Tenet Health Systems for medial malpractice, so 60 Minutes is upset. And Michael Moore already made his own controversy, now 60 Minutes can do a piece about him and his movie.

You call this hard-hitting journalism? Geez, I really hope Salon.com gets some money so they don’t have to shutdown at the end of this month. That would be a real shame.

H2G2 has a surpisingly insightful overview of Discordianism. I’m getting back into that, thanks to the urging of Matt Sachs.

We came upon the Native Americans and Australians when they were living in the Stone Age. Afghanistan’s violent meeting with our world has found them living in a mediaeval world. The gulf is not so great as it was with some cultures, but it is still difficult to leap in a generation. Muslim civilization and Asian peasant culture were so rich and worked so well for these people that they changed slowly, while the rest of the world moved on.

I found the pictures at http://cr.middlebury.edu/art/Powell/afghanistan/ and I got the inspiration to look for them after listening to This great TAL story.

“The person was vetted after Ashcroft used the information to raise the terrorism threat level to orange, and law enforcement determined it was fabricated,” reports Cannistraro.

The last eight days have been a complete sham. I ignore government-issued terrorism alerts. Why? They are propaganda put out by the government to instill fear. Don’t jump on this assertion, think about it, and try to fight it. We have credible information about a terrorism attack…but no dates, times, places, or people. We know something is coming, and then it doesn’t, and so it just fades from the public consciousness. Osama bin Laden may be tied to Saddam…except that he isn’t, at least according to the recently released tape.

Salon.com makes a bold assertion, but I think it is the right one: the administration is fanning the flames of terror so that people will be scared, fear will turn to anger, anger will turn to hate, hate will turn to war with Iraq. Yoda’s words played out in a (very) different context.

They bring up another good point, one that I hadn’t thought about (mostly because I didn’t know about the buildup) — the military is building up aerial defense capabilities over Washington. Missiles to shoot down ariel attack. But attack from whom? Not Saddam or Osama, neither of whom has any real air capability…do they expect an attack from North Korea? Or has a year and a half not been enough time to secure our airports? Here is the story.

I’d heard rumblings about the strange roots of International A.N.S.W.E.R., a major anti-war organizing body. First off, their name is too unwieldy, but I don’t think that is the complaint other people are bringing. Answer is tied to the Workers World Party, which in tern has some pretty…strong beliefs (which I have not read) about other world events. This of course was seized upon by right-wing media pundits to discredit the entire anti-war effort, which, obviously, is incredibly stupid, just like a lot of what goes on in the media. But one really must wonder where Answer came from and why they are in charge of this somewhat important movement. I found an interesting San Francisco Chronicle article that does a bit of digging into this issue. Its enlightening, but I wish it would have included more about how Answer came about.

Best Buffy in a season (mean recaplet aside). Thank goodness someone still has some creative juice to contribute. Please, more!

That is all.

They do a whole report on South Korea and how that country wants the US to leave, wants to reunite with North Korea, wants peace, and at the same time is more afraid of George W. Bush than Kim Jong Il. And never once does 60 Minutes ask any of these people the most simple and most important question: WHY?

The report leaves me profoundly dissatisfied, and I must wonder what agenda 60 Minutes is trying to push and what the point of that report was if it reveals nothing we don’t already know.

Today at lunch Adam fought with me about the usefulness of a space shuttle, yelling about how they are going to cure cancer in space and other such great achievements. I maintained that they aren’t doing anything useful whatsoever. Now, I have an article, published today, to back up my claims. Respond to that, Adam!

I do not in any way think that space travel is not worthwhile. In fact, I want to go myself. I just think that the way NASA does it is terrible, and if it were my choice I would send much of the money for space travel elsewhere, to more worthwhile space endeavors.

We went to our first college mock trial competition at Manchester Community College, and it was a great experience. One of our teams won a “Spirit of AMTA” award for working well with others, Sam Dewey got a best witness award, and I got a very funny score that I thought I should share with you.

Plaintiff’s Closing
8	2

There are two judges, and they each give a score per item, such as a witness direct or cross, or an opening or closing. Generally these scores are very similar. To give you an idea of the discongruity here, allow me to present the scoring guidelines for these two numbers:

8 – A few errors
Exceptional law student. Reacts to actual events well.

2 – Inappropriate behavior, harms team significantly
Unable to contribute. Acts in an obnoxious way or disrupts trial.

My conclusion? The second scoring judge was a complete idiot. 😛

Alright, alright, I’m finally putting it online:

AMST 100b	Twentieth-Century American Culture
The democratization of taste and the extension of mass media are among the distinguishing features of American culture in the 20th century. Through a variety of genres and forms of expression, in high culture and the popular arts, this course traces the historical development of a national style that came to exercise formidable influence abroad as well.
AMST 134b	The New Media in America
Analyzes the social and cultural adaptation of new media in American history. Examines the ways Americans have thought about and accepted new methods of mass communications in the 20th century.
INET 98b	Independent Study
LGLS 129b	Law, Technology, and Innovation
Study of interaction of the law and technology, including how law encourages and restrains the processes of technological innovation and change and how technological innovation and change affect the law. Topics include such issues as intellectual property rights and new information technologies, biotechnology engineering, and reproductive technologies. Shows how law balances personal, social, and economic interests.
POL 116b	Civil Liberties in America
The history and politics of civil liberties and civil rights in the United States, with emphasis on the period from World War I to the present. Emphasis on freedom of speech, religion, abortion, privacy, racial discrimination, and affirmative action. Readings from Supreme Court cases and influential works by historians and political philosophers.

Someone here gets Rolling Stone, so courtesy of that person, I have this great quote from Matt Groening:

What’s the most significant way that television has changed since The Simpsons started fourteen seasons ago?

All the networks have a feeling of flailing to me. They’re so desperate to keep the viewers, they’re using all this visual chatter. It’s sort of like a fancy restaurant where everyone is talking louder because everyone’s talking louder, and you still can’t hear. This is what TV is like, with the thing running across the botom and the little bug in the corner and the logo. What it does is disengages the viewer. I’ve talked to networks aout how the promos for their shows are so self-hating, it’s obvious that the people making the shows hate the shows. Shows come along that are witty and carefully made and blow people’s minds like The Sopranos and then you realize that they can be done.

Sounds about right to me.

My TiVo has had nine or ten episodes of Twenty-Four saved up for me for a long time now. I was going to just spend an hour watching my last Stargate, but Adam wanted to see something different and so I got started on 24…big mistake. 😛

The main plot has to do with a nuclear device in LA, the (stupid) subplots have to do with domestic abuse and a fiance who may also be a terrorist. Those were annoying, so I just skipped them. End result: the “real-time” eight hours I covered in about 3, while at points doing other work. Call it time travel, call it cheating death, either way, TiVo is useful.

This year I really didn’t get into it, and neither did the rest of my team, and we’re just getting into it now which is fine but somewhat late in the game. I mean, we did basic prep, but then I start talking with Jason and Igor and Sam and Kelson and we get into the intricacies and where people start tearing witnesses apart and I realize that I have not put near enough time into this whole thing, into making tight directs and pointed crosses and a kick-ass closing. And neither have most of my team members. So I need to focus on that for a while. And with that, my love of the law is coming back to me.

On a completely seperate note, here is a funny error that Sara got a few days ago: