The King of Pointland

Ouch

Today's NYT editorial on Bush's Press converence:

Sidestepping on Iraq

Throughout his political career, George Bush has been famous for sticking to a few issues, and repeating a few well-burnished talking points over and over. Wide-ranging news conferences do not play to his considerable strengths, and as president, he has generally avoided them. But having decided to make a rare exception yesterday, Mr. Bush should have been able to come up with better responses to two big and obvious questions: why he ordered the invasion of Iraq and why he pushed for tax cuts that have left the nation sinking into a hopeless quagmire of debt.

Mr. Bush's vague and sometimes nearly incoherent answers suggested that he was either bedazzled by his administration's own mythmaking or had decided that doubts about his foreign and domestic policies could best be parried by ignoring them.

Mr. Bush will simply not engage the issue of whether his administration exaggerated the Iraqi threat in the months leading up to the American invasion. When asked whether the United States had lost credibility with the rest of the world since neither weapons of mass destruction nor a strong Al Qaeda connection had been uncovered in Iraq, the president veered off into a tour through American history and the difficulty of coming up with an Iraqi version of Thomas Jefferson. He then skidded to a halt with the announcement that "I'm confident history will prove the decision we made to be the right decision."

Mr. Bush still hung onto his most well-worn buzzwords, however. Iraq was a "threat" — just as the tax cuts were "a job-creation program." The president and his advisers obviously still believe that the constant repetition of several simplistic points will hypnotize the American people into forgetting the original question.

Saddam Hussein was certainly a threat to his own people, and there is still an enormous amount to be gained if the United States can foster a prosperous, open society in Iraq. But that does not cancel out the fact that the primary reasons Washington gave for the invasion look increasingly suspect. That is a serious problem, both in terms of the nation's credibility and the reliability of American intelligence. Mr. Bush owes the nation more than a brushoff on these matters.

In the case of the economy, the president was stuck defending an indefensible strategy of piling up one unnecessary tax cut after another. Having helped to turn the promise of budget surpluses into the disappointment of rising deficits, Mr. Bush mimics his father's out-of-touch performance in the 1992 campaign by acting as if the country is in fine fiscal shape. It is hard to buy his assertion that his first concern is Americans who are out of work.

Given the rambling non-answers the president gave to questions about Iraq and the economy, it was interesting to hear how focused he was when someone asked how, with no opponent, he planned to spend $170 million or more on the primary. "Just watch me," Mr. Bush said concisely. There is one area in which the president's thinking is crystal clear.

Truth in Advertising?

Does our president's brain know what's coming out of his mouth? I seriously wonder:

QUESTION: I wanted to ask you about Iran, one of your other countries in the axis of evil.

One of the things we learned from that march to war is that when you start warning countries they better pay attention. Are we now in the early stages of a march to war in Iran or are they more like in the category of North Korea?

BUSH: Look, I remember right after Iraq the first thing that happened out of some writers' pens was that, "Oh, no, they're getting ready to attack either Syria or Iran.'' You know, the march to war is just a campaign that's just going to march everywhere.

...

Twenty Questions with a Computer

Here you can play 20 Questions against a computer. The computer learns from each game. Here is a sample session with yours truly:

I am guessing that it is dandruff?
 Yes ,  No , Close

19.  Does it live in large populations? No.
18.  Is it brown? No.
17.  Was it ever alive? Yes.
16.  Does it contain a liquid? No.
15.  Does it come from an animal? Yes.
14.  Could you send it in the mail? Irrelevant.
     Is it smooth? Unknown.
     Would you find it in an office? Unknown.
13.  Is it annoying? Yes.
12.  Can it be placed on your head? Yes.
     Can you find it in a house? Unknown.
     Does it grow over time? Unknown.
11.  Are there many different sorts of it? No.
10.  Would you find it on a farm? Irrelevant.
     Does it move? Unknown.
 9.  Can it be washed? Irrelevant.
 8.  Could it be found in a classroom? Irrelevant.
 7.  Do you use it in your home? No.
 6.  Can you find it in a church? Irrelevant.
     Can it bend without breaking? Unknown.
 5.  Is it smaller than a golf ball? Yes.
 4.  Is it outside? Irrelevant.
     Is it flexible? Unknown.
     Is it soft? Unknown.
 3.  Is it smaller than a loaf of bread? Yes.
 2.  Is it manufactured? No.
 1.  Is it multicolored? No.
     It is classified as Unknown.

It guessed correctly.

Glat!

I finally visited the new College Park IKEA. Is it huge? Sure. Is it full of affordable Swedish design? You betcha. With its own restaurant? I think you know the answer to that question.

But what I found most impressive, honestly, were the wheels on the shopping carts. These babies are equipped with some sort of frictionless bearing from the space program. One can rotate the cart to any orientation, push it directly forward, and it will (almost) maintain that orientation. I'm convinced that if there weren't FLÄRKE bookcases and KARLANDA sofas in the way, the carts would glide silently across the seven mile long store with a single push.

Be careful

This is very sad. His parents must have been so proud of their son in America, pursuing his PhD.

Comcasst

The Comcast tech never showed. (I have no Internet!)

Here's how how Comcast handles technical problems that require a technician to visit your house:

1. Schedule an appointment. This requires the customer to be home during a 4 hour window, typically during the work week.

2. On the day of the appointment, the tech rolls 1d6. On a roll of 1 or 2, he shows up for the appointment. Otherwise . . .

3. Tech tells dispatcher he called three times and wasn't able to get through. Reschedule appointment for another day.

Sigh.

(almost) Everybody!

Has it come to this?

Thanks to my brother for bringing this article to my attention.

Mendacity

Last evening I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Screen on the Green, sitting on the National Mall, enjoying the beauty of the illuminated Capitol dome behind Paul Newman's and Elizabeth Taylor's giant heads. Highly recommended, but get there early if you don't want to be reminded that sound travels more slowly than light.

This morning I read a wonderful article in the Post detailing the evolving contradictions in the Bush administration's defense of the State of the Union claim that Iraq was seeking Uranium from Africa. This sentence in the fourth paragraph almost made me do a spit-take with my coffee:

Defending the broader decision to go to war with Iraq, the president said the decision was made after he gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

Now, it takes only a shallow familiarity with recent events to know that this is simply not true. So is the president lying? It seems to me that in order for a statement to be a lie, there should be at least some plausible hope that it will be believed. Is it a lie if I say the President of the United States is named Spongebob Squarepants?

The other alternative is that our president is mind-blowingly stupid.

And what do you do if you are a reporter writing that story? Something like this, apparently:

The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective.

Today's Papers observes:

As legendary WP editor Ben Bradlee once noted, "Even the very best newspapers have never learned how to handle public figures who lie with a straight face." One sentence he says you'll never see on Page One, "'That is a lie.'"

So there you go.

Ouch

While waiting in line at the coffee shop this morning I witnessed the worst ever pickup attempt (by someone other than me). The target was a young black woman in a yellow Orientation Assistant T-shirt. Orientation assistants show incoming freshman around campus and help them register for classes. The pickup artist was an earnest young black man, who did not smile once during the entire encounter.

Man: I haven't seen you here before.
Woman: *pause* OK . . .

*five second pause*

Man: Are you taking classes?
Woman: No, I'm an orientation assistant.

*five second pause*

Man: What's your name?
Woman: Ummm . . . Susan.

*five second pause, then woman begins to leave, having paid for her pastry*

Man: Would you like to meet up later so I can show you around campus?
Woman: NO. I know the campus . . . I'm an orientation assistant.

*woman leaves*

I had to try very hard not to laugh.

The Corrections

Andrew: see, I pick nits everywhere.

Railroaded

Amtrak told Congress it needed $1.8 billion for the next fiscal year. A House appropriations subcommittee today approved just $580 million, less than one-third of the requested amount.

The amount, if eventually approved, would immediately shut down all long-distance and regional passenger rail systems outside the Northeast, and it is unclear how long the Northeast Corridor could operate before a shutdown.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the occupation of Iraq is costing roughly $3.9 billion a month. For the price of fourteen days of occupation, we could fund Amtrak for the entire year.

Electrons: Friend or Foe?

We had one humdinger of a thunderstorm last night. I'm pretty sure lightning hit either the house or the power line.

As it turns out, it's a good idea to unplug your electronic equipment during such storms. I did not. My Cable/DSL router is fried, and the TV will no longer submit to the commands of a remote control (sorry Goat).

Considering that my iBook, Dell laptop, iPod, cable box, cable modem, AirPort basestation, radio, and printer were all plugged in, I got off easy.

They Razed Paradise

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Camp Council, the overnight summer camp I attended for several years as a boy. It was located in rural Phoenixville, PA. Since I was in the area for the wedding, I decided to see what, if anything was left of the pool, the cabins (we called them bunks), and so on. I knew the camp had closed in 1986, but I thought perhaps there would be some remnant.

Here's what's left: nothing. It's now a housing development.

Phoenixville looks a lot like some parts of Maryland up Interstate 270: an unholy union of beautiful rural landscapes and strip malls, old wooden barns and aluminum sided houses.

A few familiar sites remain, thankfully. French Creek, where we would go to fish and canoe, is still there, as is the covered bridge, and the crumbling stone house to which we sometimes hiked. The counselors told us a witch once lived there (shades of the Blair Witch Project).

How strange that this decaying structure, which probably predated the camp (dedicated in 1927), still survives.

I took some photographs, which you can see if you click the thumbnail.

UPDATE: Camp Council photos from 1964-1968, courtesy of Gail!

2004-09-19

UPDATE: Dave Frederick's Camp Council Website.

2004-10-07

UPDATE: Camp Council photos from Michele!

2004-11-18

Reciprocal

Rm 140, 2:06 AM: Instead of one bed with two poeple, I have two beds with one person: me.

Quaker? I just met her!

I'm in Exton, Pennsylvania, at the "Inn at Chester Springs", for a wedding tomorrow.

Free Internet. At least I hope it's free.

Megan is getting married . . . wow.

David Goes Shopping

I've been shopping at plazas recently: Prince George's Plaza and Beltway Plaza. When I was a kid, my mom would take me to the Willingboro Plaza. Is a "Plaza" just a poor man's "Mall"?

I often find myself thinking how funny it would be to walk up to a clerk and ask, "Where can a brother get a baseball cap?" or "Where can a brother find some New Balance athletic shoes?"

I can't bring myself to do it, though.