If you're looking for something to do tomorrow for New Year's Day, you could do worse for yourself than to go out and rent Barbershop, which just hit video rental stores this week. Rose and I have been dying to see this one, and I don't think either of us was disappointed. Very funny, very real.

Ice Cube is developing quite a nice career as an actor, and he deserves it. The guy's good. Cedric the Entertainer is also hilarious. Put this on your list.

And Happy New Year, everybody! Thanks for being a part!

3 Best Events of 2002

1. Fall of the Taliban

2. Trent Lott Steps Down

3. "Bin Laden Tapes"
(Further proof that he's permanently disabled or dead)

3 Worst Events of 2002

1. Bali Bombings

2. "Friendly Fire" Death of Canadian Soldiers

3. Death of Paul Wellstone


Want some 2003 Predictions from Dean and Rosemary?

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Don Caswell, 49. Shot by a terrorist. In hospital, expected to recover.
William Koehn, 60. Shot in the head by a terrorist. Killed.
Kathleen Gariety, 53. Shot in the head by a terrorist. Killed.
Dr. Martha Myers, 57. Shot in the head by a terrorist. Killed.

Their crime? Being Americans, and testifying for their faith.

I have nothing more to say, except to ask that we not forget this.

The FBI is looking for five men who entered the country, illegally, on or around Christmas Eve, who they think may either be terrorists or may have information about potential terrorist attacks. To see their photos, and information on who to contact if you think you'e spotted one of these people, click here. To see the FBI press release, click here.

Neo-Conservative. Literally, "new conservative." New how? New because you're new to conservatism? Or new because it's a new form of conservative?

Who cares? Well if you read a lot of political journals or some newspapers, or listen to some political commentary, you may hear references now and then to "neoconservatives" or "neocons." It's an interesting label. Like a lot of political labels, it's a pigeonhole that doesn't really fit a lot of people perfectly. But it can be a useful shorthand, and today's OpinionJournal has a pretty good piece by Max Boot on the word, and the movement it broadly describes.

There's one particularly funny thing that Boot doesn't mention: in most of the world, people of the "neoconservative" viewpoint would not be described as "neoconservatives" at all. They'd be called "neoliberals." Only in the United States are such people even thought of as "conservative."

No kidding.

In a recent discussion on cloning started by my lovely wife, it was asserted by Arnold Harris that nothing can stop the advance of science, and cloning is going to happen.

Now, as it happens, I'm not in the least bit frightened of human cloning. On the other hand, I have no problem whatever with laws banning the process until animal cloning is so thoroughly understood that the odds of developing deformed children are as low as the odds of a deformed child by natural means. But that's not what interested me about the discussion. What interested me was the notion that you can't stop the advance of science.

In fact, I'd say we probably can, and even where we can't, we can certainly slow it down. The Manhattan Project certainly would not have happened anywhere near as quickly as it did without massive funding and organization, for example.

Now, they say hard cases make bad law, but I'd like to pose an interesting thought experiment:

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So. We went to see it tonight. I don't fancy I'll be able to say anything about it that hasn't already been said. But I did like it, and it underscored one salient fact to me: people who make movies out of books should be people who absolutely loved the book in question. Not people who read the book and said, "Wow, this looks like it would make a great movie." I mean people who loved the books for their own sake. You could see that in the Spider-Man movie this year too--obvious comic book fans who loved Spiderman were involved in the making of that film, and that's the only way they were able to do it justice. I think the same thing obviously applies here.

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In a recent re-posting of The Brainteaser That Changed My World, Dave D. asked me to explain a comment I'd made about how that brainteaser was one reason why I often take issue with Objectivists--hard-core libertarian followers of Ayn Rand.

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Given the horrible events of the last couple of years, I think it's time we all take stock of ourselves as Americans. The world knows what "Crimes Against Humanity" are. Well, I think it's about time we have a "Crime Against America" category, for crimes so heinous you should immediately lose your American citizenship. The law has long held that once you're a born or naturalized citizen, you're a citizen for life. I say we amend the Constitution to change that law. I mean, really, isn't it about time?

I propose that the following all be considered "Crimes Against America," and that we subject those heinous enough to commit them to immediate loss of citizenship and expulsion from U.S. territory:

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The world's first human clone, a 7-pound baby named Eve, was born Thursday, according to a chemist connected to a sect that believes life on Earth was created by extraterrestrials.

I will suspend disbelief until the testing is complete. I just want to say one thing.

GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK!!!!!!!

Oh Man!

Sometimes I really hate the French. Not in a racist, "we're better than them" kinda of way. Just in a "they're French and I'm better than them kinda way."

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I always though Chicago's Mayor Daley was full of crap.

He is so full of it, in fact, that it is exploding from his bowels and his wife's as well.

You can file this CNN story in the TMI file.


TMI = Too Much Information. (For those of you not savvy to the anagram)

In 1994, I came across something called The Contract With America. I read it. I listened to what Republicans were saying. And for the very first time in my entire life, I said, "Okay, guys, deal. I'll vote for you if you try to do this." As a lifelong Democrat who'd walked out of the party because of their cruel and selfish policies on taxation and their vile policies on race relations and school choice, I was pretty fed up with them. But I still hated Republicans. But this looked good, so, why not? I did not consider myself a Republican -- still don't, really -- but this was exactly what I was looking for. My attitude: "Tell me what you'll do, make me some promises, and if I like most of the agenda, I'll give you a shot."

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I've been reading on and off for some time about a Pentagon program called "Total Information Awareness" (TIA). The latest is this San Jose Mercury News article, which seems fairly typical: it summarizes the TIA program, plays up inflammatory, silly, and/or irrelevant bits, and gives no in-depth analysis at all. I've read stuff like this from the ACLU, the CATO Institute, and quite a few other parties. And the more I read, the more frustrated I get with the people doing the analyses.

The dumber parts of the coverage emphasize silly mistakes that computer programs can make. These are things that anyone who's done software and database development can attest to: computer programs often give out silly or useless information. This is news? Sane human beings are capable of looking at the data a computer program generates and deciding whether it makes sense or not. That's why we still hire humans to run computers.

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I just finished watching an interview with John Ashcroft by Brit Hume on Fox News. They'll be re-running it later tonight. If you're a news junkie, it's worth checking out. Just look for Special Report.

After watching it, I can only repeat something I've said many times before: I really like this guy, and I hate the way certain people attack him, and spread paranoia about him, because of his faith. It's ugly. It's sad. And it's just plain creepy.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
---The Gospel According to John

God bless you all. Whether you celebrate it or not, have a very merry Christmas.

Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly has been an advocate for religious freedom in Vietnam for over 25 years. On May 17, 2001, as he prepared to celebrate Mass, hundreds of police officers appeared at his church and arrested him. Five months later, after a half-day trial, he was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. Political trials in Vietnam do not conform to international standards, and Father Ly reportedly had no legal representation. Amnesty International considers Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly to be a prisoner of conscience and seeks his immediate and unconditional release.

To urge Vietnamese officials to release Father Thadeus Nguyen Van Ly, CLICK HERE.

Nothing says Christmas like an offensive holiday sing-a-long. Thanks to South Park you can have one too!


Here are a couple of my favorites:

WARNING: IT IS OFFENSIVE - but funny!

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Gosh, I just love the Saudi government. [brr]

If you haven't heard about Senator Patty Murray's comments about Osama bin Laden, you're probably better off. For the last week or so, the Senator from Washington has been dogged by criticism of some silly remarks she made about bin Laden helping poor people. Some on the right have even embarassed themselves by claiming that there's a double standard, that her remarks should have caused as much furor as Trent Lott's did.

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...not so much. Woo-hoo Women In Green!

John Rosenberg has a great story and complaint about recent decisions by certain jewish groups, and shows us yet another reason to support of the Anti-Defamation League.

Indeed, supporting the ADL seems like a great Christmas gesture to me. :-)

Speaking of Jews, I really liked this Dave Konig column on Christmas. I thought you guys might too.

We forget sometimes, but many traditions have gone back and forth between Christianity and Judaism. The yarmulke was a Christian headpiece first. Stained glass depictions of the prophets didn't start appearing in synagogues until long after Christians started putting such icons in their churches. And it's not as if there hasn't been a thing or two Christians took from the Jewish tradition. %-)

So who cares if a jewish family wants a hannukah bush? The Christmas tree itself isn't a particularly Christian symbol anyway.

On the other hand, I do wonder, as hannukah gets further and further away from Christmas, how long it'll be before we stop thinking of these two holidays together. I can't see how it'll last more than another decade.

* UPDATE * - I made a dumb mistake on hannukah. You can forget that last paragraph. See the comments for more.

* UPDATE 2 * - For information on the increasing use of stained glass in synagogues, see this article from the Jewish Bulletin News of Northern California. For a look at some really lovely stained glass work in synagogues, click here and especially here. Most Jewish stained glass is abstract, or depicts objects like the menorah, but as the Jewish Bulletin News article I mention above notes, these aren't graven images for worship, and a number of synagogues are showing human figures in their stained glass now.

Every once in a while a movie comes along that you know perhaps 10% of the population is going to like--but that 10% is going to absolutely love it. And you know you're in that 10%. If you've got Starz, and want to see an example of this in the next few days, look for David Mamet's State and Main.

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If you go through life forming and sharing opinions, it is a rock-solid certainty that you will be wrong about something. The more opinions you have, the more that will happen. The bigger the issue, the more spectacularly wrong you're likely to be.

In my mid-20s, I stumbled on a brain teaser that, literally, changed how I viewed the world. As melodramatic as it sounds, I haven't been the same since. And, as with so many other things in this world, it's all Jerry Pournelle's fault...

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The Department of Defense identified today the Army soldier killed in action in Afghanistan on Dec. 20, 2002. Sgt. Steven Checo, 22, of New York City, a member of the 504th Infantry, Fort Bragg, N.C., was killed when his unit came under attack from hostile forces. (Source: Defenselink, U.S. Department of Defense.)

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Here's a mini list of Republican advances in civil rights. Do you have any to add?

Wanna debate my list?

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Given that I'm still dazed from drugs and healing, I've decided to start re-posting some of our old stuff from earlier in this weblog's history, when we had perhaps 10% of the audience we have now. Call it "Dean's World Classics". Hope you enjoy some of it. :-)

Look, it was just a little skydiving accident, okay? Could have happened to anyone. It was my sixth jump and my first solo free-fall. No big thing, I'd had three tandem free-fall jumps before and two static-line/dummy ripcord pulls just to make sure I was ready. We go up to about 3500 feet in the little Cessna C-182. I'm a bit nervous because I'm thinking, Man, only 3500 feet, that's not a lot of time if I screw something up. Why won't they let me go higher so I'll have more time? Ah never mind, this is how they always do it, why fight it? Just get it done so they'll let you go higher next time...

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Paul Burgess sent me this link regarding prime numbers and the gastrointesinal behavior of certain bears. Fair warning: foul language lies underneath the link.

Having mentioned that, all I can say is that, given my current condition, Paul Burgess is a cruel, cruel man to send me such a thing. (Ouch!)

A nice easy quiz on the history of racist political parties in America. Via Instapundit

In some circles it is considered unwise to muck about with a veteran. Via Rachel Lucas

I'm having a bit of frustration with formatting on this page. Having recently joined several webrings, I find that the webring code (look near the bottom of the right-hand column) widens the navigation column excessively. I can't quite figure out how to fix it to more reasonable (preferably text-only) proportions.

Anyone got a clue how to fix this?

So. Much to his credit, Lott stepped down, in a way that showed class. The road to redemption is long, Senator Lott, but you've made the right choices this time.

I'm sure this isn't breaking news for most of you, and I'm sure other folks are already asking about this, but I'm just getting back on my feet and I want to talk about it. Here's the question: a large number of weblogs--more than I can count, Dean's World being but one of a very large chorus--broke this story. A few days later, it was on all the mainstream media sources (CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, etc). So, how much can we credit the weblog phenomenon for this? I think it's fair to say that we were probably a catalyst. I'd even say it's the first definitive proof that, in at least some way, weblogs can play a role in changing the world around us. Please tell me what you think.

By the way, I'm moving pretty darned slow, but I'm back. Now I need to go get some drugs and get back in bed. You have no idea how much I've suffered. I mean, seriously, people. Do you know what pain is? Let me tell you what pain is.

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The Cat Sucking Toilet via Tim Blair

I mean, really? We hear all sorts of terrible predictions, but the fact is that we KNOW the earth was about 1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer around 1000 years ago, and things went pretty nicely for the human race in those times. Until it became politically incorrect to do so, climatologists referred to that period as the Medieval Climatic Optimum.

Note that THAT period of global warming was clearly not caused by mans activities. I see no reason to think that THIS one is either. And even if it is, so what?

Global warming will provide us with much more arable land. Northern (and southern) hemisphere lands that are currently too cold for crops will be farmable again. The Vikings farmed Greenland, where glaciers now stand. It could happen again, and why would that be bad?

Don't give me any of that whining about "the environment" or "the ecology". The earth made these changes long before man came along, and will make these changes long after man is gone. "The environment" is a description, not a condition, and it changes, always.

So what's the harm in "global warming"? Make a case, I don't think you can.

The quintessential "bizarre link" for me has always been the story of the man who raped a pumpkin. That one turns out not to be quite true (pity), but these are nearly as strange and/or amusing...

The Michael Jackson Baby Drop Game, via Eugene Volokh

Man Rapes Nativity Sheep, via Tim Blair

The Truth Behind The Bin Laden Tape, via Glenn Reynolds

And don't miss Santas Blog, via Andrea Harris

Dean came through surgery just fine. As expected, he is in agony. He has an incision from the breastbone to the navel. He has already been for a walk - he did not find that to be as pleasant as it sounded...

If all goes well he should be home on Thursday.

Since Al Gore says he won't run for President, he's opened up speculation about Senator Joe Lieberman taking a run at the Democratic nomination in 2004. For those of you who don't know much about him, you may find this profile from The New Yorker enjoyable. It's lengthy, but it's informative.

There are quite a few people who think this guy would be a dynamite choice for Democrats. I know he's someone I could seriously consider voting for, even though I haven't suppoted a Democrat for President since Mike Dukakis. Although Joe can be a little monotone, a little sanctimonious, and a little passive-aggressive, I do generally like the guy. I certainly liked him before the 2000 elections, anyway.

(And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all for me. See you next week. I'm off to the surgeon. Have fun guys!)

I remember when I first discovered Google. I used to work at a technical training company, and when I tried to explain to other instructors how much better it was, they smirked at me and told me about how much better their favorites were. Now everyone uses it, and it even gets writeups in regular, mainstream news magazines.

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Okay. Now get this. A Canadian Indian ("Native Canadian?") leader says that Hitler had the right idea.

I just... you know it... it's just.... how do we...I mean, where do you even...?

Gargh.

(Link lifted from by Charles Austin and several other sources.)

* Update * - Judith Weiss also has some pithy comments.

Gore won't run in 2004.

Damn, I was gonna have so much fun.

So who's it gonna be? Any Tom, Dick or Kerry will do, I suppose.

Late breaking news from The Globe and Mail.

Lott faces a leadership challenge in the Senate. Good. I have long been of the opinion that he should NOT step down. Why? Because that would look like he caved to pressure from the Democrats and it WOULD NOT have helped the GOP.

The only way the GOP senators can salvage the entire party's reputation is to throw Lott out on his ass. There have been rumbles from Lott's side that he will leave the Senate entirely, if, he loses his leadership role.

Too bad.

If he is willing to break faith with his constituents and screw over the GOP because he has to pay a price for his stupidity, so be it. Just proves to most people that he is what they think - an ass with bad hair. (What is it with the Senate - is bad hair a prerequisite?)

So. Early tomorrow afternoon, I go under the knife for abdominal surgery. They'll be correcting a serious intestinal kink I've had all my life that's given me no end of problems, and removing my gallbladder while the're at it. Needless to say I'm a bit worried. The mortality rate is low and after I recover I'll doubtless be much healthier than I've been in quite some time. But it does mean I won't be around after tomorrow morning, for probably at least a week.

I've asked Gary Utter to keep you all entertained while I'm out. Please don't give him too hard a time. I'm hoping Paul and Rosemary will also help him out, although Rose will probably not be around much for a few days either.

Wish me luck. And if you're the praying sort, I wouldn't mind that a bit either. :-)

Any faithful Christian, including Protestants, should be simply aghast at what's happening in the catholic church these days. Sometimes it seems like it just gets worse and worse.

Of course, it's not as if evangelicals didn't have their own horrifying scandals in the 1980s, with fraud and lechery and abuse. I suppose the atheists are laughing. Then again, they have the convenience of being able to deny that any particular crimes by atheists have anything to do with their affirmative belief in the nonexistence of a higher power, don't they?

I'm not a scientist. Yet there was a period in my life where I plunged deep into the world of scientific journals, and got to be friends with a number of working scientists. Good people, and dedicated researchers, most of them. But one of the things you suddenly discover when you immerse yourself in that world is that it is every bit as full of egos, laziness, sloppiness, and orthodoxy as countless other human endeavors. And you can see where scientists with very good data are often completely ignored for years or even decades. Seeing that, you realize just what a fragile thing human knowledge is.

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I read this CNN story with some trepidation. The story is disturbing: the police permanently injure a suspect, and gruel him with questions while he's awaiting medical treatment. The more I read, the more angry I got. The cops come off as cruel, which they may well have been. Yet I'm mostly irked by the reporter who wrote this story.

Rather than explain why I'm mad at the reporter, I'd like to know: can anyone guess?

So. I found out last night that an old friend--not a dear friend, not a close friend, but someone I worked with and liked and had several heart-to-hear talks with--stabbed his elderly mother some 30+ times.

He's not the first frightening felon of my acquaintance. I had another friend I worked with, liked, and had several heart-to-heart talks with, who suddenly got arrested one day for buggering a 14-year old boy. Whips and chains were involved, although supposedly the 14-year-old was willing, so that made it okay I guess. I made the mistake of publicly defending the man, too, and wish I hadn't. But that's another story. Fact is, this was inexcusable felon #1. Now Harold is #2.

Does everybody have people like this in their backgrounds? I have definitely lived a more interesting life than most people, but not near as interesting as some others. I have to hope I'm not some sort of "strange attractor" to scary people, ya know?

I liked the following quote from The Indepundit's "Goodbye for now" post (godspeed, Scott) so much that I decided to reprint it. Or at least part of it:

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Last weekend I spotted this cartoon over at Michelle's site. If you don't feel like clicking, I'll just describe it: it shows a sleeping American child, smiling as he dreams of Santa Claus, and a sleeping Iraqi child, quivering in fear as he dreams of his house being bombed.

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Okay, Trent. I forgive you.

Maybe even some good things can come out of this.

You schmuck.

(Read about it here and here.)

By the way, did anyone else notice how a member of Sharpton's coterie showed up and started verbally abusing Lott near the end of the press conference? Could anything have been more helpful to Lott?

* Update * -- In retrospect, I've changed my mind. I don't forgive him. I'm more embarassed than ever. He should face a leadership challenge, and I hope the heat gets turned up ten more notches.

When I read this, I was repulsed, embarassed, upset, and amused all at once.

Check it out. Blackpeopleloveus.com.

(Thanks for the link, Casey.)

I was listening again recently to Rod Stewart's 1999 Unplugged...And Seated, recorded with old Faces bandmate Ron Wood. It's a dynamite album, a return to the late '60s/early '70s work that made him famous, and completely skipping over the later pop stuff he was doing, which I never cared for at all. I'd say it's the best thing he'd done in 20 years, and it was one of the best popular live albums of the '90s.

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I like to study history, especially subjects that are a smidge off the beaten path. For example, the history of political parties, of religions, or of groups like the KKK, all fascinate me.

One of the areas of history I've read about the most is that of various incidents of genocide in the 20th Century. There was an awful lot of it, and I've read about most of it at length. (It's what makes me so cheerful.) In all seriousness, the 20th Century was by any measure both the most amazingly wonderful and miraculous century in the history of mankind--and the most bload-soaked and horrific.

I thought I knew about all the major incidents of genocide in the 20th Century. The mass-killings of Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, Mengistu, Mao Tse Tung, Stalin, and others were truly horrific and scandalously unknown by most people. I also shudder to think what we're going to find out about once North Korea's government finally collapses.

I had long thought that Lenin's pograms, especially the "De-Cossackization" program he embarked on in the years after the Russian Revolution, was the 20th Century's first incident of genocide. So imagine my shock when I found out the other day about the Armenians.

If you didn't know about it, go look.

He was one of the most wrongly-reviled men in American history. John Weidners has two interesting pieces about him. Click here and here.

Ara over at E Pluribus Unum has done some very nice analytical work on a recent sort-of interesting sort-of story about an Al Gore speaking engagement in the People's "Republic" of China. He conducts a pretty good dissection. Indeed, I wonder if they do stuff like that in journalism school? If not, they should.

"Nooz" stories like this ("nooz" bearing the same relationship to real news as "cheez" does to real cheese) deserve to be torn apart and dissected. But the story also illustrates something interesting about how political reporting often works in this country. I don't mean that in a cynical way, either.

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The fallout continues, and it's swirling around in fascinating direactions. Andrew Sullivan has two very interesting letters he's published: one from a white Republican from Mississippi, and one from a black Democrat.

The quote of the week: "I cannot stand the man, but George Bush got about 5% of the Black vote and his cabinet looks like Showtime at the Apollo. I'm beginning to wonder if my loyalty is misplaced." Heehee!

(By the way, do you have any idea how hard it is to resist making puns with Trent Lott's name whenever I write a headline about this story?)

You know, it's tempting to make jokes about The Cisco Kid, but this is actually pretty cool.

(Note the Guiliani connection. Interesting, eh?)