WE HAVE MOVED!


marcland

Greatest Link Ever

...wherein you will find the Greatest Album Covers Ever...

American or Democrat first?

A really thought provoking piece over at USS Clueless: Investigating an intelligence failure

Streisand on Reagan

Barbara Streisand, head of the DNC and one of our nation's foremost experts on Constitutional law, has weighed in on the kerfuffle over CBS's Reagan miniseries:

This is censorship, pure and simple. Well, maybe not all that pure. Censorship never is. Due to their experience with the restrictive English government, the framers of our constitution specifically included a ban on prior restraint in the First Amendment, which is an attempt to stop information from getting out there before the public has a chance to see it at all - exactly what is going on in this case. Of course, CBS as a company has the legal right to make decisions about what they do and do not air. However, these important decisions should be based on artistic integrity rather than an attempt to appease a small group of vocal dissidents. Indeed, today marks a sad day for artistic freedom - one of the most important elements of an open and democratic society.

Um, would someone let Barbara know that the miniseries was not cancelled - it was moved to a different network, last I heard - so it's still going to air. No free speech violation there that I can see. Additionally, drop a memo to Babs that the Constitution exists to limit the activities of the government, not the people. I don't believe any government agency ordered the cancellation of the program. Certainly, there were some public officials (current and former) who spoke out against the series, but they did so not in their official capacity, but as friends or admirers of the Reagans.

The fact is that CBS caught a lot of crap for doing a hatchet job on a popular ex-president. The network decided that there was enough public outrage over the project to warrant not airing it. In fact, one might even say the public engaged in protest and dissent. Ms. Streisand should love that. Oh, but wait - it's not her kind of dissent. Oh well.

Marc's Christmas List IIX

These would be really nice (hint hint):

Fireworks MX - Training from the Source
Freehand MX - Training from the Source
Flash MX - Training from the Source

www.marcnet.org

Marcnet is up and running, for those who have been waiting. (I'm probably the only one...)

This is awesome

John Travolta has built himself a new house...

It may be overkill at this point, but why not pile on a little?

BOYCOTTCBS.COM

Snicker, chortle II

It seems that CBS has decided that it's probably not a good programming decision to mock and villify a popular and beloved ex-president while he's on his death bed. The question now is how long before someone on the left cries "censorship!" I'd guess it'll happen before the end of the day.

CBS News | CBS Wavers On Reagan Miniseries | November 4, 2003 10:14:12

Snicker, chortle...

The Seattle Times: Local News: Clinton event tab exceeds proceeds

Master of My Domain

marcnet

Not for the faint of heart

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE HALF OF A TEENAGER LYING IN THE STREET.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll continue.

We modern Americans are somewhat unique, I think. Welive in such luxury that we tend to get complacent about vital matters, even in wartime. An awful event like September 11 happens, and we all come together and demand the head of whoever did it on a platter. We launch a global war on terrorism, and we share a grim determination to finish it. At first, anyway. But then we get complacent. There's a distance between events and us. A sort of public opinion entropy that takes place, and after a while we lose sight of why we're fighting, and only focus on the fight itself. We don't like blood or conflict. We don't like to see average people suffer. We really wish no ill will on the rest of the world. With a global media and a 24 hour news cycle and a constant barrage of words and pictures from the war zone, we can become overwhelmed with the details and lose sight of the big picture.

I think in large part, the average American would be happier if the world wasn't so contentious, if we could all just live and let live. The problem comes when we start to act on the basis of that false hope, rather than with a cold-eyed view of the facts at hand. That's dangerous. That's our vulnerability. That's the way we may lose - if we forget that conflict that we're involved in was not started by us, but by an enemy unlike anything we've seen before. An enemy that wants to destroy our society and replace it with an unbearably repressive religious system. These are not rational actors, but fanatics that have no problem with murdering civilians on a large scale to advance their cause. They are enemies of freedom, the rule of law, human liberty and rights, and they are willing to do anything to advance their brutal agenda. Even this.

We as Americans have been called upon to defeat this type of fanaticism. If we fail, God help us all.

Update

An illuminating story from the Jerusalem Post:

A Hamas fugitive arrested by Shin Bet and IDF forces of the armored corps in the village Hizme near Jerusalem on Thursday, admitted to investigators that he planned to perpetrate a suicide bomb attack in Israel.

He also disclosed the location of the explosives belt he planned to use in the attack, which was hidden underneath the bed of his baby daughter in his home.

Right on, Charles

War by Car Bomb (washingtonpost.com)

Marc's Christmas List VII

So if I'm going to be serious about web designing, I'll need something like this: Cascading Style Sheets: Designing for the Web (2nd Edition)

RU 486? No Problem...

Yeah, abortion is never dangerous...

November?

Man, the year goes fast.

Ordered Macromedia Studio MX today. I can't wait to start playing around with that. Should be boatloads of fun. Also, it's official, there's a new website coming. The next few weeks should be fun.

On the Move!

Well, it looks like I'm going to be getting some new software to play around with in the area of web publishing (namely Macromedia Studio MX - I hope), so I've decided to actually work at making something of this whole web thing. As such, keep your peepers peeled for a new site to be developed soon. New look, new address (www.perihelion.net) and same old lousy content!

Actually, I'm excited about the whole thing. I've always wanted my own domain, my own site, something that I can take pride in rather than just slapping up there. So I hope I can improve my content to the point that it's actually worth reading, improve the look so it's actually worth looking at, and generally improve at this whole weblogging and webmastering thing. I've come a long way in terms of skill since I started with a basic html page in 1998, but I have a long, long way to go. I'm excited to see where it leads.

VDH

Victor Davis Hanson is, as always, well worth the read:

These are weird, weird times, and before we win this messy war against Islamic fascism and its sponsors, count on things to get even uglier. Don't expect any reasoned military analysis that puts the post-9/11 destruction of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein's evil regime, along with the liberation of 50 million at the cost of 300 American lives, in any sort of historical context. After all, in the current presidential race, a retired general now caricatures U.S. efforts in Iraq and quotes Al Sharpton.

Do not look for the Islamic community here to acknowledge that the United States, in little over a decade, freed Kuwait, saved most of the Bosnians and Kosovars, tried to feed Somalis, urged the Russians not to kill Chechnyans, belatedly ensured that no longer were Shiites and Kurds to be slaughtered in Iraq, spoke out against Kuwait's ethnic cleansing of a third of a million Palestinians — and now is spending $87 billion to make Iraqis free.

That the Arab world would appreciate billions of dollars in past American aid to Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority, or thank America for its help in Kuwait and Kosovo, or be grateful to America for freeing Iraq — all this is about as plausible as the idea that Western Europeans would acknowledge their past salvation from Nazism and Soviet Communism, or be grateful for the role the United States plays to promote democracy in Panama, Haiti, the Balkans, or the Middle East.

No, in this depressing age, the real problem is apparently our support for democratic Israel and all those pesky Jews worldwide, who seem to crop up everywhere as sly war makers, grasping film executives, conspiratorial politicians, and greedy colonialists, and thus make life so difficult for the rest of us.

The Genius of Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg on how dumb John Kerry appears to be:

Of course, the administration does have a plan. And central to that plan is, well, spending money to rebuild Iraq. The Democrats make it sound like all the U.S. Army is doing in Iraq is having one giant-sized Chinese fire drill every day. One can just imagine John Kerry going to the local garage:

Kerry: I won't pay you to fix my car until you have a plan.
Mechanic: Um, I do have a plan: You pay me. I replace the engine I just took out. Your car works. That's the plan.
Kerry:How can you say you have a plan? Look at the terrible shape my car is in. It's worse than before; there isn't even an engine.
Mechanic: You're an idiot.

Goldberg is a comic genius. But he also makes some very good points here (emphasis mine):

Instead, even as we are fighting a guerilla war where the enemy defines victory not in military terms but in its ability to weaken American resolve at home, Democrats are crassly undermining the safety of our troops, the credibility of our nation, and the integrity of their own political philosophy. Every single good thing about liberalism in foreign policy would have the Democrats seeking more money for Iraq. Liberals should be the ones demanding that we send more teachers, more doctors, more librarians, and more troops to protect them. They should be standing on the tarmac helping to load another shipment of soft-ice-cream machines and ping-pong tables bound for Fallujah, Tikrit, and Basra.

It's all politics for the Dems, baby. That's all it boils down to. They seem to have completely lost sight of 9/11, the threat from radical islamists, and the good that will come from a strong, stable, democratic Iraq. They just want the White House. That's all. And that's bad for America.

Wireless!!

Well, I'm now typing on my brother in law's father's powerbook G4 (conviluted, eh?) which is on his wireless network in his house. It's groovalicious!

But I don't like the keyboard. It's a pain to use.

Boy, aren't you glad I have this weblog so you can read all my important, significant thoughts?