Xmas Musings

Came out for Xmas to Michigan, which wasn’t actually so bad… except that I’m still here, and I want to go home. I had to wait a day so that Misha could redeem a coupon at a Salvation Army–type place, and then the didn’t accept it anyway. Bah. Hope my mom doesn’t read this or she’ll be mad that I didn’t go see her.

Which reminds me… since I’m not at one of my computers I had to look up my password to get in here on my Palm, and a few entries up from “Movable Type” was “LiveJournal”. WTF? When did I set that up? Am I going prematurely senile? Well, that’ll come in handy, in case I want to complain about friends/relatives/co-workers anonymously. And won’t it be fun to read? This blog will have all the political and music commentary and everything else and the anonymous LiveJournal will only be anonymous complaints about unidentified people. Heh.

Tomorrow morning we leave, finally, and we’ll get to do something I’ve always wanted to do, which is to take old US-12 from Detroit to Chicago. It’s also known as “Michigan Avenue”, although I don’t think it was ever called that for the entirety of the route, just in spots (here in Ann Arbor it’s called “Jackson Road”, and for much of western Michigan it’s the “Red Arrow Highway”). When I-94 was built, US-112 (which runs parallel 30–40 miles south) was renamed US-12 and old US-12 just became The Abandoned Highway. Which suits me fine. I hate the Interstates, but the old highways would probably be less charming if I had to deal with all the Detroit-to-Chicago or whatever traffic on them. This way, they’re like little time capsules, with 1940’s motels that have managed to stay in business, and we get them all to ourselves. That is, when we have 8 hours to make a 4 hour drive.

Had a good present haul—I got two books I’ve been meaning to pick up, Paris 1919 and Gulag: A History. Most exciting, though, was a complete set of Gutsman comics, brought to me from Amsterdam, and one of Misha’s gifts, a book on hacking Tivos. I had followed the Tivo hacking news for a while when I first got mine three years ago, but I kinda lost track and a lot has happened in the meantime. All the pages I used to go to are horribly out of date now, so it’s great to just have a book about it rather than scouring Google for hours. What a novel concept.

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Candy bars

Apparently Saddam & I have the same taste in candy bars. According to The Scotsman’s inventory of his hideout:

A large and nearly empty cardboard box also revealed Iraq’s former president as a secret Bounty-bar fan.

Yum! I’ve been wanting some more Bountys ever since reading this. They’re not too well-known in America (they were only marketed here for a year or two), but they seem to be pretty common in Europe, so I’ll order a case every now and then. I wonder if they’re readily available in Iraq, or if only elites could get them since they had to be smuggled in or something. If the latter, then it’s a great thought that Saddam, hurriedly rushing from one of his palaces to hide out before the American army arrived, only grabbed a suitcase of cash and a box of Bountys. I know I would.

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Capra and Sturges

One of my favorite movies from when I was a kid, You Can’t Take It with You, was on Turner Classic Movies last night. It’s interesting watching it now; the preachiness and the political naivete that went over my head when I was younger is insuffrably grating now. Of course I’m more conservative and cranky now, which probably adds to it—Grampa’s supposed-to-be-wise remarks about how nobody wants to live-and-let-live, everyone’s blaming “-isms” for their problems instead—“Communism, fascism, whateverism”… I just can’t watch that without thinking, this was filmed in 1938. Stalin was starving the Ukranians, Hitler was starting to round up the Jews and annexing Czechoslovakia, but we’re oh-so-above all those people crying wolf over these silly nonexistent threats. Sorry, it’s just not as charming as it once was. Grampa’s line about the battleships and Cuba is still pretty funny, but we would need battleships again, not very many years later.

It’s such a contrast from a lesser-known film of the same period, Easy Living, written by Preston Sturges. The plot structure in some ways mirrors that of You Can’t Take It with You, and it also has Edward Arnold as a powerful banker and Jean Arthur as his wayward son’s girlfriend. Easy Living, despite the resemblances, has a completely different tone. There’s some humor about Arnold’s being so rich, but it’s good-humored, and Arnold’s character is also written to see some of the ridiculousness of the situation. In You Can’t Take It with You, all of the bankers are presented as stone evil—animals, really—and Arnold’s redemption as a human being only happens after he renounces his career and former life. In Easy Living, the happy ending is when the banker’s rebellious son comes back to the fold and proves his mettle as a master stock manipulator, like his father. Sturges’s sophisticated, light-hearted teasing is so much more pleasant, so relaxing compared to Capra’s mean-spirited rabble-rousing. Arnold in Capra’s film is a munitions-maker who greedily plots the doom of his former friend and is surrounded by heartless yes-men, but all the downtrodden in the jail are angelic salt-of-the-earth.

When I was younger and watched it, I was worked up enough about the financier baddies taking away the home of the kindly old man that I didn’t notice that Arnold, by reneiging on the giant merger, has caused his subordinates’ bankruptcy (one of them says that he has everything riding on this deal); now I view his act of redemption as one of betrayal. Lionel Barrymore also betrays everyone in the neighborhood by agreeing to sell his house when he promised them he wouldn’t—and this only a couple weeks after they all chipped in to get him out of jail! There aren’t any villains in Easy Living; the banker has a loyal wife and secretary; he’s not a snob and he treats his employees well. Children respond better to two-dimensional ogres in films, but Sturges wrote scripts for grown-ups. It makes jokes about the rich without attacking them, and never succumbs to rabble-rousing and pseudo-populism. It was rare then and even more so today; the only modern film I can think of that manages the same trick is Clueless, also a favorite of mine.

Nonetheless, I’m still quite fond of You Can’t Take It with You. When it’s not preaching (or, indeed, attempting to advance the plot at all), it is a tremendously charming film. Little jewels stick out, like the scene where Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur are taught to dance the Big Apple by the kids in the park, or any of the times where Ann Miller ballet dances to the xylophone in the living room, or the two old men experimenting with the fireworks in the basement (they remind me of my father and his friends, always experimenting with machinery or explosives). I could watch just those scenes over and over again. Too bad the film’s not just like that all the way through. So many movies are ruined by the attempt to add a plot.

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Poor Cathy

I never much liked Cathy, but now I’m worried about her.

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Relativester

I know a few pairs of siblings who are both on Friendster but not “friends” with each other. They’re not on bad terms, so what’s up with that? Do people just feel uncomfortable about calling a brother or sister a “friend”, or are they close enough that they don’t even think to add them, or what? I’m an only child, so maybe I’m missing some sort of insight here.

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Why Bush shouldn’t be President

None of which is to say that I really think Bush should be president. While he’s managed to go his entire term so far without alienating me on foreign policy—indeed, I keep waiting for him to screw up and he continually impresses me—there are still problems with having a president who, at bottom, is inarticulate and not very smart.

I’m thinking about this now because the bigest concern neocon fans like me have at the moment is that we’ll pull out of Iraq too soon, leaving it in an unimaginable state. I know Bush doesn’t want to do this, but the CW is that Americans won’t stand for casualties or a long-term commitment. We shall see, but it surely would help if we had a president that could inspire us to make short-term sacrifices. We need a modern FDR, and we have a president that can barely form a coherent sentence on his own.

Not that he isn’t trying. Bush’s prepared remarks on democracy are deeply moving, but it helps if you read them rather than hear them.

Another example of the problems of Bush’s general lack of thinking ability was his initial description of the war on terror as a “crusade”. Obviously, he didn’t mean that literally—it’s questionable he even knows the original meaning of the term—but the TV clip has been replayed endlessly on Arab TV. They know what it means. A small thing, but, again, one of the requirements of being the leader of the United States should be the ability to think of the implications of what one says.

Oh well. It’ll all work out eventually.

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Latest Michigan Trip

Well, I went to Michigan for Thanksgiving and had a reasonably good time. I came out of the closet to a few people, though—I told some friends and family that I would probably vote for Bush (now that I don’t like Edwards anymore and it’s pretty doubtful Lieberman will get the nomination). It was not taken well.

I’m starting to realize that I may be a Republican. This is really difficult for me. The process seems somewhat akin to what a homosexual must go through; through my formative years I always assumed I was a Democrat, then I started to vote Republican but I kept telling myself I was a Democrat who just voted Republican occasionally, then I was telling myself that I was a Democrat who generally agreed with Republicans and disagreed with Democrats… now it’s looking like I’m a Democrat who’s going to vote for Bush. Compare.

I don’t mean to trivialize the experiences of some gays, who in many parts of the world face ostracization and even death were they to admit they were gay. But that’s not true in my social circles; as my friend said, “I would much rather you said ‘I like to give men blowjobs under tables’ than ‘I will vote for Bush’.”

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Twilight Zone

I read many years ago that “Twilight Zone” was originally an obscure WWII-era aeronautical term. So I was very surprised when I ran across this in the 1908 Democratic Platform:

[W]e are opposed to the … suggestion … that the powers of the General Government should be extended by judicial construction. There is no twilight zone between the Nation and the State in which exploiting interests can take refuge from both…

I had never heard anyone mention that the expression was that old, so I was very excited at my discovery… for about five minutes. Sadly, somebody beat me to it. Oh well.

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In other news…

I’ve been quoted in Slate. Slashdot and Slate in the same day!

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Slashdot

Ooh, neat. Slashdot just accepted my submission.

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Schmuck of the day

From the New York Times:

“For there to be a genuine recovery, it’s got to happen in more than economic statistics,” Senator Joseph I. Lieberman said on Thursday on the campaign trail in Buffalo. “It’s got to happen in the lives of America’s middle class and those working hard to get into it.”

In other words, statistics don’t count; only anecdotal evidence does. This is one of the dumber things I’ve heard any of the grown-up candidates say.

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Overheard on the bus today

“…actually, I do know somebody who installed Linux with no problems. But he’s not normal.”

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Another illusion punctured

I haven’t posted in a while because I was on vacation, and that put me in a nice relaxed mood and I didn’t really feel like complaining about anything. That has now worn off.

What the hell is up with John Edwards? Some people in Congress opposed the war but now think we should pay for its reconstruction. This is an honorable position, and it makes sense logically—“we shouldn’t have gone in at all, but having done it, we should at least follow through.”

Others opposed both the war and the funding bill. This is less admirable but still is a defensible position—“I never wanted us in there in the first place, and I’m not going to start encouraging this quagmire now.”

The weird position, however, is the one Edwards takes. He supported the war and then voted against reconstruction funding. WTF? So he thinks we should have gone in there, toppled their government, and then just left them to their own devices? This makes no sense logically or morally. And it’s not meant to—it’s just a straight-out pander. What a slimeball.

I can’t believe this was my candidate. I even had his bumper sticker on my office door! Well, no more. At least he managed to betray me before getting elected, unlike Clinton.

Not that he has any chance of getting elected. This pander reminds me of the old “it’s not your father’s Oldsmobile” ad campaign years ago. It was disastrous; it alienated their entire customer base of older drivers, who now felt like old fogies, without attracting any new ones. Edwards still has no chance of getting the hard left to vote for him because he voted for the Iraq war, but now he’s alienated all the centrists on top of that. It reminds me of what Alan Keyes once said about Bob Dole:

You see, this must be a terrible feeling. You make a decision based on expediency, and it doesn’t work. And then you are left without expediency and without principle. With nothing.

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Earnest Montana Youngsters

This is just so goshdarn cute.

My favorite line:

I have brown hair and I want it to grow really long like all the way down my back but sometimes i wish it was short like Winona Rider but BUT…..i guess she was caught shoplifting.

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Bull Mooses, cont.

Apparently there already is a “Bull Moose” group (see below), although it isn’t actually a third party. I dunno; I haven’t read the whole site yet, but they don’t seem to really in the tradition of Teddy Roosevelt. Really more of a libertarian Republican group, who apparently took the “Bull Moose” term simply to indicate that they’re a “moderate” group. This part especially stands out:

…Civic Responsibility argues that our American citizens – not government – are the best means to solve social problems. Economic Opportunity epitomizes the belief that free markets, education, and low taxes are the keys to ending poverty – not government.

That doesn’t sound too much like the original Progressive Party to me. TR absolutely believed that the government was the best way to solve all sorts of social problems, and to an extent never seen before his presidency. No libertarian ought to be a fan of his. The original Bull Moose party platform included planks for government-mandated eight-hour days and minimum wages, somewhat at odds with these folks’ “second pillar”.

Meanwhile, this whacko at least puts TR in the liberal tradition, judging from the pictures (the text burns my eyes). Still, he seems to hate Dubya, who probably has the most Rooseveltian foreign policy of any modern president.

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Some thoughts

“In 1864 there were in the North some hundreds of thousands of men who praised peace as the supreme end, as a good more important than all other goods, and who denounced war as the worst of all evils. These men one and all assailed and denounced Abraham Lincoln, and all voted against him as president. Moreover, at that time there were many individuals in England and France who said it was the duty of those two nations to mediate between the North and the South, so as to stop the terrible loss of life and destruction of property which attended our Civil War; and they asserted that any Americans who in such event refused to accept their mediation and to stop the war would thereby show themselves as the enemies of peace. Nevertheless, Abraham Lincoln and the men in back of him by their attitude prevented all such effort at mediation, declaring that they would regard it as an unfriendly act to the United States. Looking back from a distance of fifty years, we can see now clearly that Abraham Lincoln and his supporters were right. Such mediation would have been a hostile act, not only to the United States but to humanity. The men who clamored for unrighteous peace fifty years ago this fall were the enemies of mankind.

“These facts should be pondered by the well-meaning men who always clamor for peace without regard to whether peace brings justice or injustice…”

—Theodore Roosevelt, “The Peace of Righteousness”, November 8, 1914.

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Bah

In a perfect world, computers would work and people would leave me alone about stuff I don’t give a shit about.

I should get some sort of credit for having a lower paradise threshhold than most people.

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Party Time

I’m generally in favor of the two-party system, partly because I do feel it provides a good deal of stability to democracy but also partly out of sheer contrarianism—all the usual suspects take it as a given that the dominance of two parties is a Bad Thing, so it probably isn’t. But I’m in an uncharacteristically wavering mood today, so I started thinking about a possible third party and how it would be kinda nice.

Of course, most people who want a viable third party want one that’s more extreme on the left or right, either a powerful Green Party or some kind of pure Christian Right party like the Taxpayers’ Party or whatever’s left of the Buchanan wing of the Reform party. But I’m the aggressive moderate so of course I want a new moderate party. Basically liberal domestically and neoconservative abroad (which I don’t view as a contradiction in terms, but oh well). Sort of a modern equivalent of the Bull Moose party (we could even call it that). It would include McCain, Lieberman, Edwards, Wolfowitz, Rice… then the Democratic party could just swing to the left as the Naderites want it to and the Republicans could be taken over by Keyes & the Christian right and everybody would be happy. Of course the Bull Mooses would womp them both but the losers would probably still be happier; as evidenced by the left’s support of Nader and now Dean, they’d rather be ideologically pure than win. So heck, give them the party. A moose is a better mascot than a donkey anyway.

Of course, this new alignment leaves out a few people; namely the old-line “country club” Republicans like Bush Sr., Scocroft, Gerald Ford and people like that, who don’t much like the neo- or theocons. But oh well, they’ll all be dead soon anyhow.

Another fun thing would be to have the lunatic fringe of both parties join forces and start the I-Hate-the-Gummint Party. This is actually more likely; signs of it are already starting to happen. Buchanan and Nader were allies in the fight against NAFTA, and both were against the Iraq war. Most of the Seattle hippies’ complaints against the WTO are echoed by the Idaho bomb-shelter crowd; both groups dislike Israel; they both are fighting the Patriot Act. You see references to Ruby Ridge even in the Socialist press, and Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote a piece sympathetic to the Branch Davidians. Really, the only thing keeping them apart is abortion (that’s a big thing, though).

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I Hate Solaris/I Hate Windows

Solaris and Windows are constantly battling in my head for the title of Most Hated Operating System (which is unfortunate, since my primary job function is maintaing Solaris boxes and secondary is maintaining Windows boxes).

Today I spent a bunch of time trying to get Jrun4 to work, until I finally figured out that Jrun4, like many other Java-based server programs, depends on a local xserver on the box. WTF? This box doesn’t even have a frame buffer, for God’s sake.

Of course, Microslop is not to be outdone. I’m trying to figure out why HFNetChk is telling me that the Microsoft VM patch is invalid… something about a bad checksum… so I go to the MS Security page for that patch and find this little gem:

“There are two different versions of the 816093 update. The one for Windows 2000 and Windows XP will not run on a computer with Windows 2000 SP4 installed. The one for Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition will run on Windows 2000 SP4.”

Yes, it’s true. The Windows 2000 version of the patch will not work on Windows 2000. You must use the Windows 98 version for Windows 2000.

Grr grr grumble grumble. Why do people do things like this? If I could have one super power, it would be the ability to psychically determine what individual is responsible for whatever is making me pull my hair out at the moment and remotely throttle him like Darth Vader.

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Hey, wait a minute

Something that occurred to me while riding my bike to work today:

I understand angels don’t carry money, so he couldn’t be directly helpful that way, but… why didn’t Clarence at least tell Jimmy Stewart that Potter had the deposit money? Wouldn’t that have been more helpful?

Come to think of it, Clarence really didn’t do too much in general. Yes, he saved Stewart from suicide, but the archangel could have just woken up the bridgekeeper to accomplish the same thing. All the rest really did was keep Stewart distracted until the Hee-Haw guy came through with the money. It seems to me that he’s the real guardian angel. If that telegram had come through a few hours earlier, everything would have worked out the same and Stewart wouldn’t have had to be scared out of his wits by an incompetent angel.

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