Michael Watkins pulls together some great quotes...#

``I was pondering what Paul Wolfowitz could do when he returned to the private sector and then suddenly it hit me: standup comedy. This guy is the master of the (sometime long, admittedly) one-liner. So I decided to create a posting on Wolfowiticisms. If you come across any other good ones in your travels please send them along and I will add them..

Propaganda Warning: All of these quotes are accurate, although admittedly in some cases taken out of context in a way that would make splotchy Bill O'Reilly and Co. at Fox proud.

[...]

On the cost of the war #1 Oil revenue "could bring between $50 billion and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years." testifying before Congress a week before the war began.''

Daniel Drezner writes about "The art of criticism"...#

``One of the amusing aspects of being a professor is watching the evolution of graduate students.

During their first two years -- when they're immersed in coursework -- they become excellent critics. As they sharpen their analytical skills, they excel at exposing the flaws of every article or book put in front of them. By the end of their coursework, they are thoroughly unimpressed by the cutting edge of the literature.

Of course, that's usually the point at which they have to start drafting their own work. At which point they discover that the enterprise of developing original work is a wee bit trickier than it appears to the critical eye. And suddenly, the stuff that they had savaged six months earlier doesn't look so bad. ''

Glenn Reynolds links Max Boot on Iraq, but I can't read the article so I will just look at the quotes...#

``Every U.S. officer I talked to said that the 150,000 soldiers we have in Iraq now are sufficient. What's required is not more troops, they said, but better policing methods. Both the 101st Airborne and the Marines are disdainful of some of the heavy-handed tactics, such as large-scale "cordon and search" operations, employed by Army units in Baghdad and the surrounding areas. They argue that the focus should be on getting better intelligence and training Iraqi security forces to police their own country. That process is now underway, but it will take time to create a new army and police force.''

Via Kevin, The Lost Olive is news about the Dalai Lama #

``The Dalai Lama is willing to return to Tibet and end nearly half a century of exile in India if China allows him to go back to his homeland "without preconditions".

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader said he was ready to return to the capital, Lhasa, which he fled in 1959, as soon as he got the "green light" from Beijing. He said China's communist government had stopped him visiting Tibet, most recently in 1984, and prevented him from travelling to sacred Buddhist sites inside China.

[...]

He also gave his strongest hint so far that he believes Tibetans will discover another Dalai Lama after his death and that he expects the Chinese to come up with a rival. He said his reincarnation, the 15th, would be born to a Tibetan family outside China.

"We are still carrying on a struggle," he said. "Under those circumstances my reincarnation will logically be outside in a free country because the very purpose of the reincarnation is to fulfil the task started by the previous life."

[...]

He admitted that his death would be a "serious setback" for Tibetans and that things would be "a little chaotic for a few months".

But he pointed out that since the election of Tibet's first prime minister in exile two years ago, he was in a state of "semi-retirement".

"When I die that's permanent retirement," he added jokingly.''

Tony Pierce writes about Shannon Elizabeth and about blogging, read at it.#

``today is shannon elizabeth's thirtieth birthday and im wondering if she ruined her career when she got married a few years ago and the answer is a resounding yes. i guess some people dont mind being known for just one role, just one movie, just one totally classic scene.

i guess some people dont want to learn from other sex symbols in the history of film, and even some current ones like cameron diaz who the week reports broke julia roberts' record for highest one-year earnings for an actress. apparently in 2001 cameron earned 42.2 million. roberts's record came the year before when she made 21.1 mill.''

Dan Hon on why Blogging is Not Journalism, and why that's Okay,#

``A bicycle is different from a car. They do different things and fulfill different needs. Blogging--you'll notice this as a recurrent theme here--is not journalism. To say, though, that because blogging isn't journalism it is inherently worthless, to say that because blogging couldn't possibly be raised to the standard to which journalism holds itself--that I find highly lacking in journalism in the first place--displays the kind of knee-jerk mentality that's really going to make you look rather stupid.''

Michael Ignatieff writes about Iraq and Why We are There for the New York Times,#

``In the back alleys of Iraq, the soldiers from the 101st Airborne and First Armored Divisions are hot, dirty and scared. They want to go home, but instead they're pinned down, fighting off hit-and-run attacks and trying to stop sabotage on pipelines, water mains and electric grids. They were told they would be greeted as liberators, but now, many months later, they are an army of occupation, trying to save the reputation of a president who never told them -- did he know himself? -- what they were getting into. The Muslim fighters rushing to join the remnants of Saddam Hussein's loyalists in a guerrilla war to reclaim Iraq have understood all along what the war has been about -- that it was never simply a matter of preventing the use of weapons of mass destruction; rather, it was about consolidating American power in the Arab world. Some in the administration no doubt understood this, too, though no one took the trouble to explain all their reasons for going to war to the American people or, for that matter, the rest of the world.

But now we know. Iraq may become for America what Afghanistan became for the Soviet empire: the place where its fight against Islamic jihad will be won or lost. Nor is the United States the only target. The suicide bomb that killed Sergio Vieira de Mello and decimated his team has drawn the United Nations into the vortex. The United Nations came to Baghdad to give American nation-building a patina of legitimacy. Now the world body has been targeted as an accomplice of occupation. If the United States fails in Iraq, so will the United Nations.

[...]

Never pick on someone your own size, which in our time means someone with nuclear weapons: this has been Rule No. 1 of intervention since the end of the Second World War. Minor rogues, would-be tough guys like Saddam Hussein, perhaps, but never someone who can actually deliver a nuclear bomb. (We are about to see whether this rule holds with regard to North Korea.) Even the enormous American intervention in Vietnam took great care to avoid a direct clash with Russia and China.

[...]

Rule No. 2 of American intervention evolved out of Vietnam: Never fight someone who is more willing to die than you are. (This is the rule now being tested by the hit-and-run attackers and suicide bombers in Iraq.) The Vietnam veterans who came to command the American military -- led by Colin Powell -- also settled on Rule No. 3, which remains much debated: Never intervene except with overwhelming force in defense of a vital national interest. (Thus this summer's gingerly approach to Liberia.)

[...]

Having called for a focused intervention strategy, [George Bush] has proclaimed a war on terror that never clearly defines terrorism; never differentiates among terrorist organizations as to which explicitly threaten American interests and which do not; and never has settled on which states supporting or harboring terrorists are targets of American intervention. An administration whose supposed watchword is self-discipline regularly leaks to the press, for example, that its intervention list might include Syria or Iran -- or might not, depending on the day of the week you ask. The administration, purposefully or not, routinely conflates terrorism and the nuclear threat from rogue nations.

[...]

The Iraq intervention was the work of conservative radicals, who believed that the status quo in the Middle East was untenable -- for strategic reasons, security reasons and economic reasons. They wanted intervention to bring about a revolution in American power in the entire region. What made a president take the gamble was Sept. 11 and the realization, with 15 of the hijackers originating in Saudi Arabia, that American interests based since 1945 on a presumed Saudi pillar were actually built on sand. *The new pillar was to be a democratic Iraq, at peace with Israel, Turkey and Iran, harboring no terrorists, pumping oil for the world economy at the right price and abjuring any nasty designs on its neighbors.*

[...]

To date, the only factor that keeps the United States from intervening is if the country in question has nuclear weapons. One of the factors driving pre-emptive action in Iraq was the belief that were Hussein to acquire a nuclear or mass-casualty chemical or biological weapon, it would then be too late to use force. No wonder a Pakistani general is supposed to have remarked in 1999 that the chief lesson he drew from the display of American precision air power in Kosovo was for his country to acquire nuclear weapons as quickly as possible.

[...]

The problem is that the United Nations that F.D.R. helped create never worked as he intended. What passes for an ''international community'' is run by a Security Council that is a museum piece of 1945 vintage. Everybody knows that the Security Council needs reform, and everybody also knows that this is nearly impossible. But if so, then the United Nations has no future. The time for reform is now or never. If there ever was a reason to give Great Britain and France a permanent veto while denying permanent membership to Germany, India, Brazil or Japan, that day is over. The United States should propose enlarging the number of permanent members of the council so that it truly represents the world's population. In order to convince the world that it is serious about reform, it ought to propose giving up its own veto so that all other permanent members follow suit and the Security Council makes decisions to use force with a simple majority vote. As a further guarantee of its seriousness, the United States would commit to use force only with approval of the council, except where its national security was directly threatened.''

Peter Lindberg links a poet who connects "patterns" to "sonnets" and the rhythmic patterns of poetry,#

``I make my living as a programmer, and [Christopher] Alexander's ideas have made a real difference for me there—I write better code, and I do it faster, because I look for re-usable patterns. I do think it has relevance to the poetry I write, as well. I don't think it's an accident that poetry in every culture, at least until the last century…, was composed of repeating rhythmic patterns. It works on other levels, too—the sonnet form solves a particular class of problems.''

Jack Bogdanski writes about how the State Department called a few European countries "chocolate makers" and writes the following,#

``when the State Department sinks this low, there's something seriously wrong. As we approach the second anniversary of our collective wail of "Why does the world hate us?," the answers to that question are becoming clearer. And our "leadership" is making it worse.''

Jason Marshall writes about "Second System Syndrome"...#

``When an architect does their first system design, there's a certain amount of fear of failure, and so the design is very spare. As the system is implemented, they discover numerous mistakes, or places where things could have been simplified. While the architect learns a lot of lessons, they can only afford to chase after a few of them without risking the project schedule, so the information is stored away for later. Things generally progress fairly well, and the project ships.

Then the architect starts their second system, and things go horribly wrong. Emboldened by their one success, hubris sets in, and every design idea they thought might be useful comes down off the shelf, all at the same time. What they create is massively over-engineered. This is Second System Syndrome. Most people recover, but for some it's fatal. ''

The Yeti is on to something,#

``For some people, yes, religion can be a crutch, or a blind hypocrisy.

On the other hand, I see many people who are so terrified that they're missing something, that the idea of someone else finding peace or security or faith elicits a very strong reaction.

That makes me suspicious of those who "can't stand religion." When you delve into those people, you often find they feel betrayed by God.

This isn't to say that everyone is this way - but I certainly respect someone who has the courage to profess their faith and share it, rather then someone who hides from any sense of responsibility by blaming the actions of human beings on religion.''

Religions don't kill people, religious people kill people.

Via Just a Gwai Lo is an article about a 70 year-old guy going back to college. Very awesome. _Carly, this will be me someday._#

``"I want to disprove the theory that you can't teach an old dog new tricks," said Mazzoli, who will enter a one-year mid-career program at Harvard September 10. The coursework is usually reserved for thirty-somethings who want to take a career in politics a step farther.

The lure of learning attracted him to the historic campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"I sort of feel a day is lost if you don't learn something," he said.

The trip to Harvard won't be a repeat of spring 2002, when he was there as a visiting fellow. Mazzoli ran a study group for students at the Institute of Politics, and lived in a comfortable house near campus. ''

SilverStr writes about the difference between Microsoft and Apple's developer relations...#

``What impresses me most about Apple's approach to developers over Microsoft's is the cost. To get the right tools, APIs, licenses and build environment (not to mention MSDN itself) you will easily be shelling out thousand and thousands of dollars (I think my total so far in the office for MSDN and the DDK/IFS is over $5000 just to get started on the Microsoft platform, for each developer). Apple includes everything for free in the OS they sell for $129. Now lets be fair, the market share is on the Windows platforms and Apple is trying to draw more developers to its own platforms, which is why they need to make the tools available for almost nothing. But after developing code myself on Unix platforms for what seems to be eons, it is a major change to move from free open source tools to the commercial ones available on the Windows platforms. Hard to complain though when I expect to make a living on said platform. ''

Daniel Drezner asks, "What do you do with a country like Pakistan?"#

``In anticipation of President Bush's progress report on Iraq and the war on terror tonight, here's a conundrum to consider:

Weak states are the incubator of terrorists. Pakistan is a weak, dusfunctional state that lacks a coherent sense of national identity. Its leader may be perceived as both strong and pro-Western, but that's only in comparison to the rest of the Pakistani elite, for whom the sectarian comes before the national. ''

Via Andrew Grumet is a story about a study of the "5 second rule" -#

``According to Clarke, a senior at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, the 5-second rule dates back to the time of Genghis Khan, who first determined how long it was safe for food to remain on a floor when dropped there. Khan had slightly lower standards, however; he specified 12 hours, more or less.

[...]

Clarke then purchased smooth and rough 2-inch tiles from the hardware store so she could experiment with different surfaces and a good supply of gummy bears and fudge-striped cookies from the grocery store. Clarke's survey showed that people were more likely to retrieve cookies or candy because they value them more highly. Cookies and candy also have low levels of naturally occurring microflora, unlike fresh vegetables, meat, or cheese.

The next step was sterilizing the tiles and inoculating them with E. coli, then placing 25 grams of cookies or gummies on the tiles for 5 seconds. In all cases, E. coli was transferred from the tile to the food, demonstrating that microorganisms can be transferred from ceramic tile to food in 5 seconds or less. More E. coli were transferred to gummy bears from smooth tiles than from rough tiles. ''

I just surpassed 500 feeds on my subscription list.#

Via Ole Eichhorn is something very strange#

``Iraq is safer for some than Washington, D.C. "In other words, a young black male soldier from Washington DC would have been 36% more likely to die by staying at home than by serving in active duty in the Iraq war, and almost twice as likely to be murdered at home than to be killed in combat."''

Dan Hon as very nice translation of this entry by Edward Champion about how "blogs [are] mostly worthless"...#

``Edward Champion nearly says:

While there are certainly some fine bicycles in existence, I have no compunction in declaring bicycles mostly worthless until the bar is set higher. In order for them to be a viable medium of transport, though, manufacturers are going to have to add engines, four wheels, roofs, storage capacity, the ability to refuel and driver-side airbags. There's clearly no point in bicycles as a product, and they have no real future, until such features are added. ''

Daniel Barlow writes on the CLUMP mailing list about UNIX scripting and his solution for it...#

``As many people by now have the misfortune to know, one of my pet rants
about Unix as a desktop OS is the lack of decent support for scripting
applications. Some apps do CORBA, some apps listen on sockets, some
apps reread their config file when sent certain signals, some apps you
can start twice and the second instance will communicate its command
line args to the first, and some apps (e.g. GNOME, KDE stuff) use some
vast framework which handles it all in a you-shouldn't-care-about-the-internals way''

Carly and I have stuff in common...#

``I like [wearing] button up shirts with the sleeves rolled up.

I like music that pulls at my heart.

I like how my stomach lurches every time my cell phone rings.

I like the three seconds of pure hope before I check the caller ID.

I like people with funny laughs.

I like girls that don't pose around boys.

I like boys who would never admit it but are nursing broken hearts.

I like girls who would never admit it but are a little bit afraid of being alone.

I like museums.

I like used bookstores.

I like foreign films.

I like to drive on not-warm-but-not-cold days.

I like to hear stories about my parents when they were young.

I like the quiet of early mornings. ''