I plugged my name into the Parenting Magazine Online’s Baby Name-O-Meter which tracks the popularity of names over time on a scale from 1000-0 on “hotness.” In the seventies, when I was spawned, my name was a 973 or in the bottom 3rd percentile of heat. In the ’80s, it rose to 706, and now it’s a hot, hot 280. I suspect my legend had a great deal to do with that. And yes, by legend I mean the trail of broken hearts and hymens I’ve left in my frothy wake. It’s unlikely I’ll say anything so vulgar for some time. For shame. Hopefully I’ll have a fat son some day, so I can start to bring back this name.

Day Two.

I scored a forty on this test, but I disagree with the correct answer for question 5, so I think I deserve a 43.3, by golly.

The man is a masterful writer of needed words. Bill Whittle’s new essay, Victory, is something everyone should read, if not now, then later. Email yourself the link and read it when you get home from work. While I was reading it, I kept copying out little paragraphs here and there, and pasting them in this here blogger edit window. If I posted all of it, it would easily be the longest post I ever made. So I’ll erase most of it and implore you to read the whole thing yourself. But here’s a taste:
On the anti-american types I seem to spend all my time around:

You have one chance to defeat America today. You must shut down her reactor. You must kill the confidence, lie about the history, slander the Founders, undermine the morality, question the decency, mock the very ideas of self-sufficiency and self-defense, banish self-determination as a goal for individuals and the nation, destroy the intricate and delicately made checks and balances that inhibit state power, divide the people among racial and economic lines, and under no circumstances allow America be seen to actually do what it claims to do: be a force for liberation, creativity, prosperity and freedom to all people, everywhere.

America’s strength must be must be seen as that of a greedy, blinded giant, a drunken bully stealing from the world. It must be endlessly, constantly described as Imperial, consigning it in a single word to a long line of repression and historical failure. Forget that we rule no other countries, forget we pay billions for our presence, rather than stealing billions at the point of a bayonet. Forget that we have paid for every single drop of oil we have ever burned, when we could in fact have easily done what we are accused of: stolen it at gunpoint. We do not, and did not, and will not – and they know it. We are, in fact, the anti-Empire. We have bucked history in every fundamental way. Wherever we sail is uncharted territory. No nation in history has done what we have done, and continue to do.

And the reporters embedded with units:

This, too, could simply not be allowed – but they were done, defeated, whipped, when we committed the most courageous, audacious and confident military maneuver in U.S. history: we had the genius – the only word for it — to place reporters from several nations, and from every point on the political spectrum – among the troops, to not only see for themselves, but to show the entire planet, in real time, whether or not American servicemen are baby-killing murderers or the most tightly disciplined, courageous, humble, humane and morally magnificent army that has ever gone into battle in the storied history of this human species.

Just step back for a moment, and think about how monumentally confident that action was. Before it even started, without knowing how well or badly it would go, with dire warnings of street-to-street fighting that would echo the horrors of Stalingrad, and predictions from shrill and desperate cynics that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians would die – on camera – we decided that we could trust our eighteen and nineteen year old grunts to do the right thing with bullets flying and the blood of their best friends on their uniforms.

Ah, but these were not grunts. These were American kids, well-educated, highly motivated, decent and determined, and the most professional warriors, ambassadors and statesmen that ever walked this earth. Good God I am proud of every single one of them.

Probably having exceeded the brink of plagiarism, I’ll stop there. Now go read the rest.

The Cards game went to 20 innings today, with Garrett Stephenson masterfully pitching the first 8 and handing the ball over to Jeff Fasserro with a 6-1 lead. The local WB carried the game today, too. Dan McLaughlin was getting pretty frustrated for a while and the Mad Hungarian was calming him down. Pretty funny. I think Dan’s exact words when the ninth inning ended with a tied score were, “absolutely disgusting.” At least we won, and exactly as Dan predicted, with Vina driving in the winning run after going 0-9 up to that point and seeing his average drop below .200. And check out this spoof that Misha found: it’s a script of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn reading their voiceover for Lord of the Rings. Quite funny.

Just went shopping for some nylon material for my next kite (a winged box kite) and some flourescent lighting to put in the basement. On the way there I passed an anti-war protest. Unbelieveable. Since there isn’t an army to fight in Iraq anymore, the war is more or less over, so the anti-war crowd has adapted, improvised, and overcome. One of the signs says: “OCCUPATION IS NO LIBERATION!!!” I think the basic idea there is: I hate you, military people, you had your fun and the Iraqis were happy to see Saddam go, no leave! I hate you military people! It’s also piss poor policy. In their fantasy world, I guess the US military should be like the Man with No Name from Clint Eastwood’s westerns. We ride into town out of the hazy desert, blow away all the bad guys and then disappear back into the haze, leaving the helpless townsfolk bewildered amongst the smoking rubble of their homes. If you haven’t seen High Plains Drifter yet, I urge you to immediately. It’s a great flick, and has interesting things to say about the need of a citizen soldiery. But that’s not what we’re doing, because we aren’t the ghost from the desert, looking to settle scores. We’re the free world, boldly eliminating the states that provide for the terrorist threat facing us. Ba’ath Iraq has fallen, sure, but the Iranians and Syrians would love to send in Hezbollah “charity groups” who would create (terror) schools and plunge the whole region into the thrall of the enemy. We’re not going to let that happen, because we’re going to stay there until there’s a stable, mature government that can dominate the political culture of the region, with international trade, representative and transparent government institutions, schools that prepare children for life instead of death, and so on. In other words, the hooker with that sign is a jackass without a clue.

Wish me luck. Finals for Spring semester 2003 are around the corner, and I’m way behind. I have to present an original paper in my Anaphora class in a week, and I’m not exactly sure how well it’s going to go. I chose to work on a problem that’s been known and unsolved for fifteen years or so. Smarter folks than me have been working on it all this time, and I’ve got a week to come up with a solution. Bring it on, say I. And over the next three weeks, I’ll have to dust off the C++ skills and write some code to try to recreate historically significant but fairly obscure experiments in the development of Natural Langauge Processing. Although my guess is that I’ll end up playing this game instead. And so, twice a year, I reap the consequences of the chronic procrastination.

The biggest day coming up on the calendar is July 9th, 2003, when Iranian students will declare a general strike against the government in hopes of fomenting a popular revolution against the Mullahs. Those are some brave young people, and they have my support and utmost admiration. The SMCCDI website that is linked at the bottom of the column to the left on this page doesn’t mention it, but they seem to have their eyes on the ball. In this article urging Jay Garner not to return Iranian fighters in Iraq to Iran where they will face certain execution, they end with this line: Be it that the future democratic and secular Iranian government take the needed action for the safe return of this group of its citizen to their homeland. If they can pull it off and tear down the Iranian religio-fascist government and install a representative and accountable government, they will have effectively struck the winning blow in the War on Terrorism. If Iran falls, it brings down Hezbollah’s funding. With the pipeline to Syria cut off, their government will lack sufficient resources to support the terrorist group, so it will have no where to go. Wealthy, Western style governments in Iraq and Iran will hopefully begin aiding other governments in the region, specifically Afghanistan, Syrian/Hezbollah occupied Lebanon, and eventually Palestine. Aid as in infrastructure and expertise in building governmental accountability, not bomb-belts and anti-realist textbooks. In other words, this is something to get excited about and to get behind early on. 7-9-03.

Instapundit links to this article: Iranians are Feistier than Iraqis.

Jeff was considerate enough to give a shot to lifting me out of my Cardinals/Blues funk by emailing me this picture. Indeed, it could be worse:

And by the way… Lileks pointed out this Earth Day Footprint Quiz. It would supposedly take 3.6 worlds to scale my lifestyle. I don’t think they were asking the right questions, as they completely ignored the biologically viable area that would be consumed in tobacco and barley production. Fools.

I’m glad to find out I’m not the only one who noticed how knock-down gorgeous Jennifer Eccleston is. Thanks to that dude with the monkey head at IMAO.

Pretty interesting DI today. A journalism professor here unmasked Deep Throat yesterday, it’s some dude named Fred Fielding. Neat. More interesting was a story about a student here who immigrated from Iraq with his family after GW I. It’s a nice story, and it sounds like his family is happy here. I hope the friends he left behind are doing reasonably well too. He offered some sound advice: “What you need to rebuild is more than just the infrastructure,” Totonchi said. “You need to build back the culture, the mentality of the young generation. I’m just hoping a good thing will turn out.” I couldn’t agree more. And I hope one of the first moves is to blow up those dams. And root out the Iranians seditionists.

The Blues lost. Badly. At times they looked downright pathetic. Larry Pleau has got his work cut out for him in the offseason. I plan to think about it quite a bit over the summer once finals are over, and I’ll try to put together a core roster, the guys we ought to keep and build a new team on. The cuts should be aggressive, I’d venture to say that the goal should be to put together a team that pundits will predict not to make the playoffs next year. A team with a lot of creative young players. And a goaltender. Right now, I think Coach Q should stay, I think his philosophy is sound; but that might change in the coming weeks, because the Blues looked badly coached at times tonight. That game aside, it was a pretty decent night. Big props to the Minnesota Wild (of the three teams the powerhouse Central sent to the playoffs, who’d have guessed the Wild would be the lone advancers?). I had a good time at the cello recital. I had come early so as to set up the video recording apparatus and to mike the stage, and had a front row seat. I shot the video so that it would be from the perspective of a spectator in the front row, and I panned back quite a bit so that the lovely pipes for the organ would be suggested in the shot, but the focus would be on the cellist with the pianist over her shoulder. The audio sounded very good when I did a test playback after the show. I used a Philips shotgun microphone that I had hidden behind the organ. The only mistake I made that I know of at this time is that I set the exposure too long, so the video is very bright. Can’t really blame me all that much though for I’d expected the lights to be turned down somewhat. My first cello recital. Gimme a break.

And by the way… Doug Weight, Keith Tkachuck, and Al MacInnis are automatically on the core roster.

Here’s an article about demonstrations held against the Iranian theocracy, that should cheer you up a little if you read the Ledeen column in NRO. Here’s a taste:
”We are here to show solidarity and try to inform world public opinion that the biggest challenge and threat to US forces, Iraqi Kurds, and the Iranian resistance is one thing, and that is the Iranian regime.”
Found it via Iranian Girl.

Game 7 in the Blues v. Canucks series is tonight at 9:30. And it’s on the deuce. Pete tells me that Al MacInnis is going to play in spite of his separated shoulder, although the game preview doesn’t mention it. Jeff had reported earlier in the day that he’d skated yesterday and had made the trip to Vancouver. It’s possible that the Blues pretended his injury was worse than it was, hoping that the series would end quickly and Mac would be a surprise in game one of the second series. It’s difficult to explain just how important this game is to the Blues. We’ve made the playoffs the past 24 seasons and haven’t won Stanley once in that time. The Blues have a high payroll with lots of big, expensive names, and have traded away many talented prospects over the years to get them. If the Blues lose in the first round of the playoffs, it’s possible that the team will be dismantled completely, and certain that some significant shaking out will occur. I might miss the first period, though. One of my friends is graduating this semester with a graduate degree in Music, and tonight is her big cello recital at Smith Recital Hall. I’m going to videotape it for her so she can send copies to her family living on the other side of the world. Anybody in town ought to go see it at 8:00, free piano and cello concert. Bring an extra date for me. Then we can go watch hockey.

I found a useful tool for anyone interested in making kites. It’s Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »