Archive: March 13, 2003
Woo, just found out from Slashdot that Mozilla 1.3 is out 
Also announced on Mozillazine.
Cox & Forkum have a great cartoon called Calling The Bluff where Bush appears as a cowboy. It's a common criticism of our president that he's behaving like a cowboy. Some people think that's a virtue. Here's an excellent article from Andrew Bernstein, at the Ayn Rand Institute: In Defense of the Cowboy
Even as our European critics use the "cowboy" image as a symbol of reckless irresponsibility, they implicitly reveal the real virtues they are attacking. European leaders assail Americans because our "language is far too blunt" and because we see the struggle between Western Civilization and Islamic fanaticism in "black-and-white certainties." They whine about our "Texas attitude" and whimper that "an American president who makes up his mind and then will accept no argument" is a greater danger than murderous dictators. In short, they object to America's willingness to face the facts, to make moral judgments, to act independently, and to battle evil with unflinching courage.
The only valid criticism of President Bush, in this context, is that he is not true enough to the heritage of the Lone Star State. When the Texas Rangers went after a bank robber or rustler, they didn't wait to ask the permission of his fellow gang members. Yet Bush is asking permission from a U.N. Security Council that includes Syria, one of the world's most active sponsors of terrorism.
Via Martin, AMF PHP, "An open source alternative for Flash Remoting"
Flash remoting for PHP enables objects in PHP to become objects in actionscript, almost magically! AMF-PHP takes care of all the data-type conversions, serialization, and other client-server details. This provides a great way of connecting rich media clients with data and logic living on the server. While at the same time allowing designers to design and programmers to program.
Hmmmmm....
Via Gary Peterson, The Right War for the Right Reasons, by John McCain.
[Critics argue] that we have not exhausted all nonviolent means to encourage Iraq's disarmament. They have a point, if to not exhaust means that America will not tolerate the failure of nonviolent means indefinitely. After 12 years of economic sanctions, two different arms-inspection forces, several Security Council resolutions and, now, with more than 200,000 American and British troops at his doorstep, Saddam Hussein still refuses to give up his weapons of mass destruction. Only an obdurate refusal to face unpleasant facts -- in this case, that a tyrant who survives only by the constant use of violence is not going to be coerced into good behavior by nonviolent means -- could allow one to believe that we have rushed to war.
Many also mistake where our government's primary allegiance lies, and should lie. The American people, not the United Nations, is the only body that President Bush has sworn to represent. Clearly, the administration cares more about the credibility of the Security Council than do other council members who demand the complete disarmament of the Iraqi regime yet shrink from the measures needed to enforce that demand. But their lack of resolve does not free an American president from his responsibility to protect the security of this country. Both houses of Congress, by substantial margins, granted the president authority to use force to disarm Saddam Hussein. That is all the authority he requires.
Isn't it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness? Wouldn't people subjected to brutal governments be encouraged to see the human rights of Muslims valiantly secured by Americans -- rights that are assigned rather cheap value by the critics' definition of justice?
McCain is right on here, where he talks about real peace, not the "peace" that is maintained by indefinite occupation of a murderous regime by ineffective inspectors.
Our armed forces will fight for peace in Iraq -- a peace built on more secure foundations than are found today in the Middle East. Even more important, they will fight for the two human conditions of even greater value than peace: liberty and justice. Some of them will perish in this just cause. May God bless them and may humanity honor their sacrifice.
Amen.
I just noticed I'm the "Website of the day" on Right Wing News.com. Thanks again John
100 days to go...:
That's right, it's only 100 days until Harry Potter 5 is out at bookstores everywhere...
That's like 2400 hours until we get to find out how Harry has spent his Summer with the Dursleys...
That's like 144000 minutes until we can find out what The Order of the Phoniex actually is...
That's like 8640000 seconds until we get to know which of Harry's fans dies...
That's like.... OK you get the point, and if your not excited by now, then I dont what would!
Like totally excited...
With Harry Potter coming out soon, the next X-Men, and the next Matrix, I have a lot to look forward to in life.
Via a comment on LGF, I've just been introduced to Daniel Drezner. He's a professor of political science at the University of Chicago (actually, "assistant professor", but I'm not sure what that means), and he has some good stuff. He has an article about how we're about to start the "fourth wave" of democratization in the world, which contains a great quote:
As Notre Dame political scientist Guillermo O'Donnell, writing with European University Institute scholar Philippe Schmitter, concluded in 1986, "[T]he most frequent context within which a transition from authoritarian rule has begun in recent decades has been military defeat in an international conflict. Moreover, the factor which most probabilistically assured a democratic outcome was occupation by a foreign power which was itself a political democracy [emphasis added]."
Unfortunately, his blogspot blog doesn't have an RSS feed. Now that Blogger is owned by Google, maybe they'll get their act together.
Man would I love to drive cross-country. Check out that map. One frickin road. I'll bet the people are awesome. And that it's quiet.
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Thursday, March 13, 2003
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new⇒Girls, please don't get breast implants
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