N.O. Pundit

Instapundit's Techno Hit List

This link is mainly for my own benefit.

Instapundit.com:

Lather, Rinse, Repeat

You know Stephen that most folks won't even know what "Abort, Retry, Fail?" is. And to link that system prompt with pregnancy.

But I have a question. Glenn Reynolds calls his wife InstaWife and his kids InstaKids. Do you call your wife VodkaWife? Will you refer to your kid as VodkaKid (good luck and Godspeed in that venture!)? "Took the VodkaKid to preschool tumbling class. Smiles a lot, prefers to dance rather like a DeadHead."

For me, it's easy: NoWife, NoKids.

Nopundit

In reference to this post.

Trippi(ng) Out The Door

You know, this is just funny.

Is The Left Listening To Any Iraqis?

This post by Jeff Jarvis highlights several ACTUAL Iraqis speaking about the war and current conditions in Iraq. He poses the request to Howard Dean: Explain Yourself.

The Irreleventsia #6

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion

Handguns

courtesy Kim du Toit.

Kim du Toit's Favorite Guns

Kim du Toit's favorite guns.

I've been reading Kim du Toit again

Guns are good. Gun-toting homeowners are good. Gun control is bad.

Speechcodes.org

I have added speechcodes.org to my sidebar. Via Instapundit

Big Brother Howard Dean

Here is a new CNET News article by Declan Mccullagh on Howard Dean's 2002 proposal for enabling Vermont's driver's license with smart card technology. He cites a March 2002 Dean speech:

"On the Internet, this card will confirm all the information required to gain access to a state (government) network--while also barring anyone who isn't legal age from entering an adult chat room, making the Internet safer for our children, or prevent adults from entering a children's chat room and preying on our kids...Many new computer systems are being created with card reader technology. Older computers can add this feature for very little money."

Dean's people have not responded to repeated attempts by McCullagh to get his current views on his 2002 proposal.

My Detroit News Blogger Audition

Instapundit has posted that The Detroit News is auditioning political bloggers. Here is my entry:

Al Gored by Dean endorsement (headline).

Al Gore, true to form, has once again demonstrated he lives his life by reading polls and seizing opportunities rather than holding convictions and acting on them.

The most important quality of leadership that a leader must possess is the ability to lead. It is not intelligence. It is not salesmanship. It is not bravery. It is not getting it right all the time. It is not arrogance. And it is most definitely not attempting to always please the majority via the use of polls.

George W. Bush leads. Even though the Democrats want us to believe that GWB is nothing more than a simian Shakespearean typewriter jockey, he is leading the United States very effectively. As an aside, I see a difference between to where a leader leads, and how well a leader leads. Clearly, there are many (most?) Bush-haters who cannot and will not acknowledge this difference. Whatever Bush does is horrible and satanic, period (fingers in ears - lalalalalalalalala).

Al Gore, on the other hand, does not lead. Al Gore cannot lead. God bless America that Al Gore is not our president. His endorsement of Dean several weeks ago smacked of opportunism (not to mention the disfavor of disloyalty shown to Joe Lieberman). Dean, then and now, seemed only one temple throb away from sprouting neck bolts and zombie walking. Of course, because Gore is guided by the bloody chum of opportunity and not by a coherent set of guiding principles, he was blind to the Frankenstein freak show.

By endorsing Dean Gore certainly has squandered a significant amount of political capital. Is he terminal for 2008? I just don't know. Time has a way of making smart people stupid again. My guess (my hope?)? He'll be borrowing Gephardt's 2004 post-caucus Iowa speech in 2008.

Open Source Democracy

This post from Glenn Reynolds, and Roger's post here talk about Dean (and the other dwarves) being sliced and diced by the blog fact checkers.

I have two comments. First, the short one. I have never cottoned to anyone trying to communicate to me the things they thought I wanted to hear (or perhaps better put, the things they thought the majority wanted to hear). It's disingenuous, patronizing, and offensive.

The 2004 Democratic candidates, Dean and Clark especially, are being driven by raw-meat polling numbers taken from the chum-fed hard left. Now, if either one of them actually believed what they were spouting, I'd have no problem with that. Kind of like a Democratic Alan Keyes. Never much cared for Keyes' extreme positions, but I was quite satisfied that his views fit naturally into his moral and political universe. Dean and Clark are leaving a wake of inconsistencies, lies, and switched positions, sometimes on a daily basis.

The second comment, or concept (which I personally think is kind of neat), is the analogy one can draw between Proprietary software vs. Open Source software, and what I'll call Big Media democracy vs. Open Source democracy (to save my fingers, let me use the acronyms PSvOSS and BMDvOSD.

For those who do not know what the PSvOSS debate is about, in a nutshell it is typified by Microsoft vs. Linux (if you do not know about Linux, then I am afraid this analogy may be lost on you; if you do not know about Microsoft, then I am afraid you have been dead for 10 years). Eric S. Raymond likens the PSvOSS analogy to The Cathredal and The Bazaar. Eric's CATB abstract:

I anatomize a successful open-source project, fetchmail,
that was run as a deliberate test of the surprising theories
about software engineering suggested by the history of Linux.
I discuss these theories in terms of two fundamentally
different development styles, the ``cathedral'' model of
most of the commercial world versus the ``bazaar'' model of
the Linux world. I show that these models derive from
opposing assumptions about the nature of the
software-debugging task. I then make a sustained argument
from the Linux experience for the proposition that ``Given
enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow'', suggest productive
analogies with other self-correcting systems of selfish agents,
and conclude with some exploration of the implications of this
insight for the future of software.

The Cathredal is a black box. No access permitted except to the chosen few. The Bazaar is a white box (interestingly, there really is a term "white box"; white boxes are PCs built with all off-the-shelf parts, which can subsequently be easily serviced by end-users). Access is cheap and unrestricted.

The operative sentence in Eric's abstract is: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow".

Isn't this exactly what is happening with political blogging? In the BMD era, lies, deceptions, and position changes were not only not easily discovered, they were oftentimes known but not reported. No access permitted except to the chosen few, and those chosen few may have had agendas of their own.

In the OSD era, which I might suggest we have entered, the democratic process is open to massive debugging. Access is cheap and unrestricted.

I, nopundit, who am really a great big nobody in the political, media, or entertainment universes, get to create and post my opinion. And it will get read because I'm clever enough to put it in Roger Simon's comments section! Imagine myself walking onto the Entertainment Tonight soundstage and asking whoever the infoskirt is nowadays that I would like three minutes of camera time. Now that cracks me up.

I do not believe BMD will ever go away, nor should it, largely for the same reasons PS won't and shouldn't go away. They are the best development models for certain things. However, I am very glad to see OSD creeping into the political process. And here's why: I want to see less poll-pandering and more genuine position-taking.

To all the candidates: take a position, speak your mind, ignore the polls. If you speak from your convictions, the Internet's infinite memory can not do you any harm.

Thanks for reading. You can find this post here.

The Anti-Bush Crowd #2

Via VodkaPundit:

What's the appropriate reaction? A resigned sigh? Eye-watering anger? That image is just so wrong I'm apoplectic.

Nopundit

The Irreleventsia #5

Via Instapundit:

"People are turning increasingly to alternatives such as the Internet for news about the presidential campaign, shifting away from traditional outlets such as the nightly network news and newspapers, a poll found. . . ."

I find this is true for myself as well. However, the article makes no mention of the most important distinction (to me, anyway): that of Big Media on the Internet and actual new news channels such as bloggers. I would guess that people are not moving their eyeballs "broadcast TV" to "interactive TV"; rather, they are shopping around for sources which fit better into their world view. Blog lurking is perfect for such window shoppers.

Saddam, eewww!

Via Neal Boortz:

Saddam pulled out of his hideyhole.

The Anti-Bush Crowd #1

The tofu lobby had always felt a bit of a second class citizen around the cheese lobby. "Look at those peacocks," the tofu lovers would hiss to themselves, "do they really not know how bad cheese is for you, or is it all just shameless hubris?" Many of their members would lob incendiary comments to the public about the dangers of cheese, most of which were patently false. They found themselves increasingly defining their lobby not on the factors that made tofu good, but on those factors that made cheese bad. Finally, they came up with the perfect slogan for their lobby (so they thought), one which completely communicated THE TRUTH:

TOFU: THE ANTI-CHEESE!

The cheese lobby of course knew of some of the contorted gesticulations going on in the tofu lobby, as several of the lobbyists from each group played golf together. As a whole, the cheese lobby didn't care much at all what the tofu lobby did.

One day, one of the tofu lobby elder statesmen said to his colleagues, "Ladies and gentlemen, let us try and mend fences with the cheese lobby. Dialogue and honesty will benefit us all." So delegates from the tofu lobby and the cheese lobby travelled to New Orleans to try and create a new beginning, a neosymbiosis as it were, between the two groups.

On the morning of the first day of their historic meeting, it was decided that each lobby would meet separately to come up with a list of the five most important beliefs held in their respective groups. It was thought, and hoped for, that these beliefs could be shared in the afternoon session to start creating bridges of understanding and communication between the two.

After a satisfying lunch of crawfish etoufee and bread pudding with rum sauce, they were ready to share their beliefs with each other. A sense of decorum and good will (and perhaps a little rum sauce) was quite present amongst all the delegates as they effusively offered the other group to start first. Finally, after some giddiness, the tofu lobby finally accepted. Their spokesperson walked up to the podium and smiled to the assembled tofu and cheese lobbyists, and was heartened to see genuine smiles beaming back at him. She cleared her throat, and started in:

"Ladies and gentlemen. It is with great pleasure to share with all of the assembled professionals, the tofu lobby's five core beliefs."

Smiles of anticipation radiated back at her.

"Without these beliefs, we would be a rudderless ship, lacking definition in a world which demands order and coherence."

Both the tofu and the cheese folks were beginning to lean forward in their seats.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the tofu lobby's number one belief is: we hate cheese ... "

Friendz or Enemiez?

Vodkapundit responds to JPB here.

I posted this comment on my site in reply to JPB's welcome to his Enemiez.

What I did not get around to asking in my post was: Why Enemiez? Why not Guestz? Fellow Americanz? So the "z" is cute. The choice of words is ugly. If you are for Bush, you are my [JPB's] enemy. Not particularly conciliatory. I agree with Eric: JPB's approach does hint rather strongly of noblesse oblige. Nevertheless, I am a strong believer in choosing to speak, however poorly, rather than to choose not to speak at all.

Nopundit

Thank You John Perry Barlow

Dear Mr. Barlow,

Thank you for a thoughtful post. I, too, would like very much to contribute my thoughts.

As background, I grew up listening to the Grateful Dead. My first concert experience was December 1979 at the Uptown Theater in Chicago. I had my friend Jesus' ticket with me (we were going to meet out front), so imagine wandering around outside the marquis entrance yelling for Jesus (he in fact preferred the Western "hard J" pronunciation): "Hey Jesus, I got your ticket. Where are you, Jesus?" Alas, I missed ever hearing Donna and Keith live, and the combined Grateful Dead/Little Feat tour by just a year or so.

I bring that up to state that I was on the left for a long time. I read The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, Utne Reader, and others for a long time. Hated Reagan. I suppose for the last 10 years I have been drifting right; right, though, isn't, um, the right word for where I am now.

Jeff Dougherty's comment #14 is spot on. In my opinion, for where America is today, Bush's foreign strategery is more better (by a long shot) than what I've heard from any Democratic presidential candidate (with the possible exception of Lieberman). That's where Bush and I meet, on the right I suppose. There is no room for compromise, for consensus, for pandering, when it comes to our national defense. I am not saying that coalition-building is, or ever was, a waste of time. America went to great lengths to be inclusive. But, in the end, America cannot chart her course based on others' opinions. For those who believe that the last two years do not fall under the scope of national defense but rather under imperialism, or war-for-oil, I just don't agree with you. Where Bush and I differ (considerably) is his domestic policy (a topic for another post).

America's power is awesome. It scares the shit out of the rest of the world. Is it possible that it can be misused? Absolutely. Is it true that there are most certainly historical abuses of American power? Undoubtably.

How can I come to such a conclusion when it is "so obvious" I'm wrong? By getting my nose out of media outlets whose job is to hate America and everything she does and stands for (I call them The Irreleventsia). America, even with its Enron's and Global Crossing's and Tyco's, is a country of great moral fiber and true economic justice. You (yes, you) can succeed if you choose to succeed in America. There are precious few countries where success depends only on choosing it and having the guts to achieve it. I say this as I sit in New Orleans, Louisiana, where we trump even Cook County, Illinois for local corruption.

BarleyFriendz, go visit Instapundit for a month. Instapundit is an information clearinghouse of legendary tonnage. Is it a "conservative" or "right wing" blog? I don't know. Decide for yourself. For me it is a resource for finding out about stories I will not read about, hear about, or watch in the mainstream media. Read about the scandal-ridden European Union; the unaccounted for billions (yes, billions) of dollars in the UN's Iraqi oil-for-food program; France's (and Russia's) odious debt not only to Iraq (well, really, Saddam Hussein), but to North Korea and a host of other dictatorships as well; US lawmakers, even those intially opposed to the war, changing their minds after visiting Iraq and witnessing firsthand all of the (unreported) successes our troops are accomplishing.

Now, is one source for news good? No. Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds states emphatically that you should not have his blog be your sole source of news. I agree. But just go hang out for a while, with an open mind. I'm going to lurk around BarleyFriendz for a while. Let me close my post with a little verse I heard a while back:

There's mosquitoes on the river.
Fish are rising up like birds.
It's been hot for seven weeks now,
Too hot to even speak now.
Did you hear what I just heard?

Say, it might have been a fiddle,
Or it could have been the wind.
But there seems to be a beat, now.
I can feel it in my feet, now.
Listen, here it comes again!

To The Irreleventsia, bloggers (left, right, and center), are not yet really audible except to the most sensitive. Are we a fiddle, or just the wind? Let's all "keep on dancin'":

They're a band beyond description
Like Jehovah's favorite choir.
People joinin' hand in hand
While the music plays the band.
Lord, they're setting us on fire.

Crazy rooster crowin' midnight.
Balls of lightning roll along.
Old men sing about their dreams.
Women laugh and children scream,
And the band keeps playin' on.

Thank you John Perry Barlow

Peace,
Nopundit

The Irreleventsia #4

The Guardian on the Hutton report and BBC's Greg Dyke's preemptive spin. From Andrew Sullivan.

Honor, and Stupidity

Tell these people they're stupid. From Andrew Sullivan.

Your life sucks?

I'm sorry I don't have an attribution as to where I found this story. Being of Scottish descent, maybe dad will appreciate it.

Mark Steyn on the Multilatte Jet Set

From Instapundit:

Mark Steyn speaks up about the international community and their proposed handling of the trial of Saddam Hussein.

Please read Mark Steyn. Wonderful writer, witty, cogent, and dead on.

Happy New Year

Hello to all my reader or two,

I would like to extend first of all a Happy New Year wish to all of you. And I would like to make a commitment (to me) that I will start writing consistently on nopundit.com. Five posts a week, with at least one of some length and substance.

It's interesting (again, to me) just what nopundit.com is and what it should be. First and foremost, it is a creative outlet for me. For many years I have been a writer that hasn't written anything down. After the guffaws, the real writers (those who do write things down) might also appreciate the loss which that entails. I may remember gross facts from some insight that struck me, but the magic, the nuance, the anecdote, is gone.

I believe it was John Hiatt (a prolific singer/songwriter) who said in an interview that he is always writing. Carries a notepad everywhere he goes. If he doesn't capture that fleeting gem of a thought or that perfect rhyme at the restaurant, or in the toilet, or in bed asleep, chances are it will be gone, maybe even in a minute. Order tapioca pudding; poof, gone!

Commitment number two is to increase my ability to "capture that fleeting gem". So simple. Get a laptop. Go wireless. Get a digital camera. And carry a real notepad (and use it!). Be ready.

2004 is bound to be a good year. Cheers.

Routers News Service (tm)

Remember two of the original concepts surrounding the early Internet (attributable to Al Gore I believe)? The first is that information wants to be free, and the second is that the Internet views censorship as damage and routes around it.

The first concept of course has been misrepresented by many to mean that anything found on the Internet is free of cost to the finder. Wrong. It means that information seeks the seeker and will find a breach to escape those trying to restrict it.

The second concept, related to the first, speaks to the designers' goals for the early Internet (the cold war U.S. military!): that battlefield and wartime communications were so crucial that only a redundant, dumb, self-healing network could serve the military's future communications purposes. Simply put, could military command and control function after a nuclear confrontation? Thank God we have not been through the nuclear field test, but I venture to say that the Internet has exceeded the design goals.

Fast forward to the present and what do we have:

News views Big Media (aka The Irreleventsia) as damage and routes around it. We are witnessing the birth of the Routers News Service (tm).

Information channels are spontaneously rerouting around Big Media! I've already commented about this Instapundit post for other reasons; I want to revisit it because it is such a great snapshot of what is happening in the world of news.

I now get virtually no news from TV anymore. Just when I'm watching CNN Headline News at the health club. And I dare to think that I am as informed, if not not much better informed, than any news junkie who gets his news from traditional media. I never knew news to be this exciting! I have to admit that I know virtually nothing about Michael Jackson's case, or Kobe's, or Scott Peterson's, but then, it still mystifies me that the Irreleventsia believe crap like that is newsworthy.

I'm not certain there is even a prescriptive in the long run for the Irreleventsia to stop at least some audience hemhorraging. A necessary short term step however is to "de-agendize" their reporting, if that is possible. Fox News has been an admirable exception, but they still report too much celebrity crap.

The reason I believe the long term outlook for Big Media is grim is simply that the cost of entry for a blogger is almost nothing. Are there a bunch of absolutely unremarkable blogs out there? Yes! Are there a bunch of loony toons out there writing weirdosquad screeds? Yes, Yes!! But there are many honest bloggers doing an admirable job of reporting the news on world events that the Irreleventsia refuses to even acknowledge as news. Take the anti-terror demonstration in Iraq mentioned in Glenn's post. Virtually unnoticed by the Irreleventsia, yet the turnout exceeded by an order of magnitude or two any pro-regime or anti-American demonstrations that have happened recently there. Furthermore, the strong sense I get is that the anti-terror demonstration was very genuine and not some Baath party-staged event filled with paid participants.

The Irreleventsia has some fundamental redefining and soul-searching to do. The cost of reporting news is plummeting which means that the traditional barrier of market entry cost is eroding. One win may be for the Irreleventsia to coopt bloggers as paid contractors and rid themselves of the brick and mortar foreign bureaus. The danger again is that if they spin their for-hire bloggers, news readers will again go elsewhere.