iPodding Along and a Cookie Quest
Well, I finally am part of the digital music player revolution with an iPod (a very surprising gift I received). It is very nice — great sound, lots of storage and a beautifully simple interface (I love the click wheel design), plus it has a 12 hour battery life, which may not be the longest, but it is progress in the right direction. The iPod works out great since it integrates with iTunes, can play iTMS M4P (AAC) music and even synchronize with my .mac account (which syncs my desktop address book, calendar and bookmarks between my phone, laptop and desktop). I'd looked at the Dell DJ and some others, but the iPod seems to have the best set of features for my usage.
Most of all, it will prove useful for photography. I love taking pictures and the iPod offers far more storage than an equivalently priced memory card for when I'm not able to download photos for a few days on a trip. This will allow me to quit using anything other than the highest megapixel rating on my camera.
Problem: I need a case to protect this fine little machine. Anyone here have a recommendation? I'm looking for something that will keep it safe from scratches, etc., and probably clip on my belt at times.
A question for Christopher: Did you ever get to try your fried Oreo (part I, part II)? I went down to the St. Charles Oktoberfest today, and I was surprised when I saw a booth serving fried Oreos. I decided to sacrifice myself as a test subject for the cause of finding out about what they are like. It was a terrible sacrifice.
I like Oreos and I like fried stuff from festivals. So for $1, I got two fried Oreo cookies (apparently of the Double Stuf variety). The cookies were dipped into batter (the same kind, I think, as they were using for funnel cakes) and then deep fried for a minute or so. Ample powered sugar was placed on top. The result was very good. The cookies had almost melted inside the batter, leaving a gooey chocolate and cream center inside and a sweet, crispy airy funnel cake shell outside. The best description I can come up with is a “chocolate funnel cake” (yes, that is a really creative description). If you like chocolate and funnel cakes, you will like fried Oreos. I'll be looking forward to running into another fried Oreo booth myself.
Bon appetite!
Princess Bride
A friend at church lent me a DVD of the Princess Bride (1987) to watch. It is hard to describe it, but it had a lot of really good laughs in it. Billy Crystal made a great magician in it and everyone did a good job of fitting into their often ridiculous roles. If you haven't managed to see it in the seventeen years it has been out, you should rent a copy. Not the best movie I've seen, but it was quite enjoyable and offered an interesting mix of genres.
Why George Bush Should Win
He refuses to realize that it was the law of the land since 1996, as signed into effect by President Clinton, that Saddam Hussein was to be ousted. He refuses to recall his 1997 Crossfire position that unilateral removal of of the Baathist regime was acceptable if the world wouldn't join the cause. He refuses to admit he has had nine distinct opinions on the war in Iraq since announcing his run in the presidential race. He feels he can say it was the “wrong war, at the wrong time, in the wrong place,” but at the same time there have been numerous points since the fall of Baghdad that he has supported the war, just like many of the other top Democrats that now oppose it.
He talks about bringing in allies while he attempts to ruin John Howard. He trivializes the contributions of Poland, Australia, Britain and 27 other nations as the coalition of the coerced and the bribed. Not perhaps completely out of character for one who once spent his time testifying to the Congress that Vietnam vets were “war criminals.” Kerry loves to glory in things as he attacks and demeans them (he sure loved playing up his part in “war crimes” at the Democratic Convention).
The French and the Germans have said even a shift to Kerry will not get them to enter the fray in Iraq. Look, they don't want to get involved, that's their prerogative and it is not likely they will flip-flop just because a guy who says he opposed the war while he supported it gets elected. What about other allies? As President Bush noted, “So what's the message going to be: 'Please join us in Iraq. We're a grand diversion. Join us for a war that is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time?'”
Without veering too far off my point, consider this: do we want a president who advocates potentially disastrous treaties like Kyoto and the International Criminal Court merely to increase the respect of the world? Kerry's argument for Kyoto was not its merits but how it made us look in the world community — what is this nation sized peer pressure? Or is it better to have a president like President Bush who can strongly disagree with leaders such as President Putin of Russia while maintaining a good rapport with him (the warm relationship between the two presidents is no secret)? President Bush wisely pointed out this last night — a president should get along with the world without compromising to the world.
But back to my main points. In this debate, as John Kerry fired off baseless attacks on the very policies he advocated, I became even more convinced that John Kerry is the wrong leader at the wrong time and the wrong place. President Bush may not be right on everything, he might not be able to beat Kerry on an IQ test either… but his sincerity is clear and he isn't a dummy that should be misunderestimated either. Every bit of sincerity and truthfulness that was apparent in him last night was doubly apparent when I saw him in person in July. President Bush is the “real deal.”
If John Kerry came out and said, “I made a mistake on the intelligence, the president made a mistake, now lets move on. I have a plan and this is what it is…,” I could respect him. Instead, he is doing quite the opposite — he places all the blame, including that entitled to him, on the president. Someone who lies and misleads (even, I would note, on the claim he made that he had never called the President a liar using that word) to try to present an anti-war facade over his support of the war, even before Bush was president, is hardly praise worthy.
That is why George Bush should win.
Debate
Well, tonight was the first debate. I love debates, as anyone who knows me would guess. Tonight's debate was mostly uneventful. As David Gergen noted to Larry King afterward, “there were no memorable lines, at least that I can remember.” I do not think there was a clear victor, although both candidates did a good job of holding their ground.
I do think that President Bush clearly communicated his views and effectively highlighted John Kerry's flip-flopping. He also highlighted the critical issue of Sen. Kerry's undermining of our allies (which includes a present, tragic process by which the Kerry campaign is trying to undermine Prime Minister John Howard of Australia in their upcoming elections).
The president also clearly continued his laudable rejection of the International Criminal Court that would, essentially, impair our sovereignty. I honestly do not understand how Mr. Kerry can possibly support a system that would allow our citizens to be brought under a court that does not have to adhere to our standards and is not under our laws and selection of judges.
On the other hand, John Kerry did a good job of spreading mistruths about President Bush. For example, that accusation that the President mislead us into the war. While President Bush correctly countered with the fact that Sen. Kerry also supported the actions toward Iraq until it became politically preferable not to, a presidential candidate should not be attacking their opponent for the very thing they supported and promoted for years before it finally happened.
President Bush's main failing in this debate with the fact that he appeared overly aggressive and somewhat nervous in responses for the first few questions for no particular reason that I can think of (other than the fact that millions of people were watching — but that's nothing new for either of the candidates). On the other hand, I think Kerry started doing the same thing somewhat during the last part. Odd.
So, I'm voting for President Bush as the winner — both in truthfulness and overall substance, but it would appear John Kerry's mistruths might help him with this debate.
Crazy Week.
Sorry, you'll have to wait another day to hear anything from me. Aren't you disappointed?
Gone Fish'n
Well, not really, I have just been away from the computer a lot this weekend. Thanks to everyone who wished me happy birthday. With y'all it was even happier.
And to answer the big question Ed asked, do I feel wiser or just older, you will just have to go read my comment in that post.. Yeah, I know that's mean.
Moving to other topics, has anyone had their printer stop to let the ink dry before? My HP PSC 2210 told me on its little status screen that it was doing just that tonight. Bizarre? At any rate, I think my ink is getting pretty low in it, leaving me with two printers almost out of ink — I guess it is time to make a trip to OfficeMax tomorrow…
Happy Birthday to Me
Well, today was my birthday. It was a nice, mostly peaceful day, interrupted only by a literature test. Right now I am stuffed from pizza and cake. Woohoo!
(As a side note, check out my latest OfB article here if you have a laptop and you want to protect that investment with a low-cost, high quality case — the RadTech ones I reviewed are excellent.)
Confirmation
Last spring when it was months and months away (and thus seemed like “nothing” to agree to) I agreed to help out with the church Confirmation class. Today was the first day I was scheduled to be there. I wasn't sure it was the best idea with various things that needed to be done (for example, I am so far behind on e-mail, not to mention OfB), but it turned out to be a super night.
Sometime I'll have to talk about confirmation. It is something very near and dear to my heart, and especially with the pastor teaching it — he was my confirmation teacher, so it is kind of neat to return to the class years later and help out the current class. At any rate, back to my story…
When the class broke up into small groups, I quizzed four students on the books of the Bible and their first set of catechism questions (more on that later, for those wondering — and no, I'm not Catholic). They did good at that and also seemed to enjoy the game we played.
Before hand my pastor invited me over to dinner to discuss what I would be helping with this year. What I didn't know was that him and his wife had conspired to have a surprise birthday cake (my birthday is on Friday) for me at the end of supper. It was a great surprise — hey, isn't anything chocolate a good even without a surprise attached?
So, it was a good day. But now I am tuckered, so for now… good night.
On Media Bias
Because I've seen, during this whole Rathergate thing, a lot of people either arguing that the media has no bias or that it is controlled by a vast conspiracy, I felt it was high time to present again what I feel is a more realistic view. Before I get to that, let me link to two must read editorials on the issue, both from former CBS News employees:
- Throwing the Book at Them by Dennis E. Powell, The National Review. Dennis is a good friend of mine, check out his piece.
- 60 Minutes of Fame by Bernard Goldberg, The Wall Street Journal.
I wanted to present the view that I believe most conservatives and some liberals — at least those who have taken time to formulate a position about the media — will agree with. That is the view best expressed by Bernard Goldberg in his books Bias and Arrogance. It has also been expressed by Bill Sammon of the Washington Times and, yes, even Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Goldberg, as you may know, is a former CBS News reporter and is also, at least according to himself, a life long Democrat (which, as he notes in the book, means his motivation has been from concerns for good journalism rather than political partisanship).
Essentially, Goldberg and others who agree with him, believe the media is not part of a vast conspiracy (right wing or left wing), but rather certain key non-conspiratorial factors lead to a general left leaning world view within the press. Broken down into their basic forms, they are:- Mindset: Why do journalists get into journalism? Many say that it is because they want to “make a difference” rather than to “report the facts” or “inform people so they can intelligently make up their own minds” (not that they imply they do not feel they are reporting the facts, simply that does not seem to be the main objective). This often seems to be a left leaning activist type mindset to challenge the “establishment.”
- Education: The major journalism schools, such as Columbia School of Journalism, have professors who are generally acknowledged to be liberal either by themselves or others analyzing their records.
- Location: Most of the major reporting takes place in two of the most liberal cities in America: New York and Washington, D.C. Even Republicans in New York are often liberal, perhaps to the point where they would vote for Democrats if they lived in Missouri and voted by the issues rather than by the name of the party. The press lives and works within these liberal cities and are likely to be at least somewhat impacted by the world view of the place they live in.
- Colleagues: This is what causes some of the biases to perpetuate. Each generation of reporters presumably comes up under the leadership of the last (at least most of the time). So they are impacted by the methods and beliefs of those they work with and respect. Since the major networks generally do not tap outside talent (say, a bunch of conservative reporters in the Midwest, for instance), this creates a situation where the ideology that media members believe in continues through the ranks over time. This has a lot in common with argument three. This is not a case of being forced to believe a certain way so much as a case of being influenced over time by those around you.
Thus, for example, if it turns out that [it was still questionable when I originally wrote this — I meant to post this several days ago] Ret. Lt. Col. Bill Burkett was the producer of the documents, a group composed mostly of liberals might be less prone to questioning the credibility of Mr. Burkett (if he says what they assume to be the truth — that President Bush lied about his National Guard record) than a group composed with a strong mix of liberals and conservatives. This isn't accusing liberals of anything — people just see what they want to see. Fox News is good proof of that on the conservative side.
Now let me slip in one bit of defense here, because I know the common objection to this position: “The media sure gave Clinton a hard time.” That is true, but the thing is, that does not conflict with this theory. Remember, this argument suggests that the media is generally biased because of the views of the individuals in it, not by a top-down conspiracy that forces the issue. Thus, if President Clinton could be used as a vehicle for a journalist to gain fame and a glowing promotion that only a breaking story could provide, that will probably override even their political leanings. Everyone wants to get the big story. Bill Sammon, on the other hand, argues he feels the media felt “betrayed” by the Clinton Administration since most of them presumably voted for President Clinton and then they had to watch different scandals occur. I do not agree with that latter theory, but I present it in addition to the former to show that there are several ways to explain the press's treatment of the former president without explaining away a liberal bias.
Weird Quotient
I found this while cleaning my hard disk, I must have saved it in a file for later posting at some point. I don't even remember when I originally took it anymore, but here it is.
