Saturday, January 17, 2004 :::
 

End of an era

Well, at the risk of making baby Jesus cry, I've decided to end The PUNCH Bowl. See the reasons here.

As I explained before, this isn't so much the end of this blog as its incorporation into my new personal site. With your advice, I'll be doing my best to make the new blend of serious and shallow news and commentary as interesting as I can. It will help more if I get regular comments from readers, because sometimes you might think a post is interesting but not have any comments to make. And don't hesitate to send me news if you think I'd be interested, or to send links to your own posts. I forget to read even blogs that I really like, and miss items that might have prompted a post and a link.

I'll be making the switch over the weekend, working out technical problems. If possible I'll be importing all the posts from The PUNCH Bowl over the past 15 months into the new site, so the collective wisdom and inanities of the crew that brought you "Seattle Pacific University's sophomoric newspaper" can live on.



::: posted by Greg at 1/17/2004 01:28:00 AM


 

Let's indict Saddam!

The Dem candidates for president are trying to differentiate themselves from each other, usually just choosing to emphasize different themes: bring foreign troops to Iraq (Dean), repair fractured alliances (Gephardt), replace the American administrator with an Arab one (Lieberman). But Wesley Clark - remember, the one with the word "General" in front of his name - thinks that we should have "indicted" Saddam instead of invading Iraq.

"Present the evidence," General Clark said, "call for his arrest, and arrest him." He did not say how the United States could have executed the arrest before Mr. Hussein's regime was toppled.

This is the best that a general can come up with? Who's going to arrest Saddam, Hans Blix? And Clark is supposed to be the electable alternative to Howard Dean?

Also, look at the second page of this story for this paragraph:

All fault Mr. Bush for refusing to negotiate directly with North Korea, and for failing to engage the country for the first 18 months of his term. "North Korea was casting about for someone to talk to, and Colin Powell had a way until the president pulled the rug out from under him," Mr. Kerry said. General Clark said that in its zeal to confront Iraq, the administration turned a blind eye to North Korea's nuclear capacity, then sought Beijing's help. "Why be a supplicant to China," he asked, "when we have been the dominant security power in Northeast Asia?"

In other words, Bush was acting multilaterally, and now they fault him for it when it's convenient.



::: posted by Greg at 1/17/2004 01:16:00 AM



Friday, January 16, 2004 :::
 

Death of an Anti-Salesman

The rumors that Castro is near death might finally be true. The mayor of Bogota, Colombia, said Castro looked really sick when he went to see the cigar aficionado in Cuba. His legendary motormouth is even in the shop, according to the mayor.



::: posted by Greg at 1/16/2004 10:27:00 PM


 

Press give Bush a free ride?

This isn't a terribly original thought, but I think the author of this new book might be mistaking giving a pass to a Republican president to giving a pass to the government in general after 9/11. He actually mentions the 9/11 factor, but doesn't give it enough weight. I can think of at least a few instances off the top of my head where the media gave the Bush administration a really hard time about something that turned out to be more complicated than the press made it seem: the yellowcake story (confusing Niger with all of Africa, the latter being the administration claim); the "imminence" controversy (repeatedly writing erroneously that the Bush admin pushed for Saddam's removal because he was an "imminent" threat, specifically denied by the prez in the State of the Union); and deciding early on that the CIA employee Valerie Plame (husband of Joseph Wilson, who first cast doubt on yellowcake in Niger) was an undercover operative when Bob Novak used her name in a column, supposedly leaked to blow her cover (if she was still undercover, which is in doubt) out of revenge for her husband's antagonism of the administration. I don't like stereotyping for serious things like this, but this guy who left his vaunted position at a university to found a "politically progressive Web magazine" doesn't sound particularly credible as a neutral, or even an expert, observer. His new book sounds like David Corn's recent book, "The Lies of George W. Bush," which opens with how every president lies and it's a necessary part of the office. Yeah, like the previous administration... (Via Romenesko.)



::: posted by Greg at 1/16/2004 07:48:00 PM


 

Next debate, Jerry Springer

You can't vote for a presidential candidate if he fights like a girl. Or if he does an "end-zone boogie." Eeesh.



::: posted by Greg at 1/16/2004 05:52:00 AM


 

Deanisms!

National Review Online has a new feature called "Deanisms" that reprint graceless or otherwise odd statements from the infamous hothead Democrat. It doesn't give any inspiration here, but NRO almost certainly got the idea, and the title of the column, from Jake Weisberg's "Bushisms" column on Slate, which was funny until 9/11 and Bush became more serious. Now the Bushisms column seems to go to great lengths to find anything curious the president says. Maybe Howard Dean will watch his mouth more if/when he gets the Dem nomination. Somehow I doubt that.



::: posted by Greg at 1/16/2004 04:18:00 AM



Thursday, January 15, 2004 :::
 

His little blue friend has gone to his head

Bob Dole supporting universal health care? Well, "some form" of it anyway. He's responding to a report by the Institute of Medicine, an independent nonprofit which "advises Congress and the federal government on health matters," and which is one of the National Academies of Sciences. Hmm. They say that taxpayers are paying for the uninsured anyway, in the form of "unreimbursed medical care." Honestly I don't know much about the economics of health care, and I've heard that if the government took responsibility for the sickest Americans, premiums would fall drastically for the generally healthy and make private health care more affordable. I'd like to see another analysis of this proposal before thinking too much more. (Via FARK.)



::: posted by Greg at 1/15/2004 03:04:00 PM


 

Everybody hurts

Steve has deep thoughts on death from a book he just read about a father losing a son. I have to admit that I'm afraid of death for many reasons, I suppose one of which is that I think mine will come from out of nowhere, and my life won't have amounted to much. That's for another post.



::: posted by Greg at 1/15/2004 02:26:00 PM


 

Do your multilateral exercises

Andrew (who's last name is Rothgaber, by the way) has a mini-review of a book he just finished, Robert Kagan's Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order. One good point: much-beloved multilateralism is rarely for its own sake, but for the sake of restraining another. If America and Britain had been the only countries to want to defeat Nazi Germany, it's almost certain they would be accused of not acting multilaterally. It's not a moral rationale, but a procedural one.



::: posted by Greg at 1/15/2004 02:05:00 PM


 

Moon this

I knew the Rev. Sun Myung Moon was "out" there, but it sounds like the owner of the conservative Washington Times has been talking about "eliminating gays," not simply condemning their orientation or activities, and how it will be "greater than the communist purge." Here's the link to an alt-newsgroup board where he made the comment. Trying to figure out their theospeak is confusing, but the blogger who found the remarks said that Moon "takes the mic" from an associate halfway through the trascribed meeting and refers to himself in the third person as "True Father."

Back to the writer of the NY Press piece linked above. He takes Moon's statements and then savages right-leaning Internet gossip Matt Drudge and right-leaning gay writer Andrew Sullivan (linked here regularly) for not criticizing Moon and other conservatives who have made inflammatory statements about gays. Drudge links to the Washington Times regularly, and Sullivan contributes to the Times occasionally - he also used to write for the NYT Magazine but had a bad personal feud with former executive editor Howell Raines. (It should be noted that newspaper owners are sometimes really weird figures, although Moon is definitely on even that fringe, but it doesn't mean guilt by association for contributing writers or "linkers.") The charge about Sullivan is pretty incredulous - if you read Andrew Sullivan with any regularity, you'll notice he's just as hard on conservatives who he thinks undermine gay dignity as liberals, and in these times it usually has to do with supporting non-democratic ways to prevent gay marriage, like the much-discussed constitutional amendment. Sullivan doesn't mention Moon in the time period that the writer cites - the past two weeks - but I've seen him criticize Moon more than once for his statements about gays. The writer also claims that Drudge was outed as homosexual by conservative-turned-liberal, straight-turned-gay writer David Brock and interviews with former boyfriends by an MSNBC columnist. Did anyone else hear about that? I didn't read Drudge until maybe a month ago, so I don't know his history, but it sounds a little odd. It wouldn't change my view of him, but if that's a specious charge, this writer for the NY Press (also a talk show host on Sirius Satellite Radio, stream 149 - talk about popular!) should be smacked down by his editor or another pundit.

OK, the last issue in this now-hourlong post I've been researching and writing (seriously). Why is the Rev. Moon such a powerful figure? He owns the Washington Times, United Press International (purchased in 2000) and a lot of publications underneath it. Their content isn't especially Moonie (forgive the pun), but it gives fodder to the innumerable critics of any media that does not lean left. Is there no better person with a vast personal or organizational fortune who could keep these conservative media groups afloat (the Washington Times loses millions every year)? Conservatives need to consider who their allies are, and look for ways to move away from these relationships. If they are criticizing the Ford Foundation for indirectly funding Palestinian terrorist groups, which is a good thing to call attention to, it would be good to answer the much-lesser charge of joining with nut jobs like the Moonies in these publishing ventures. (Via Romenesko.)



::: posted by Greg at 1/15/2004 11:49:00 AM


 

Dennis Miller, CNBC's Great White Hope

The comedian-turned-quasi-conservative-pundit has a new show on CNBC in two weeks. He's been great on the talk shows over the past few months, but it will be a different story how he fares as the host, not the guest. But he did the host thing pretty well on HBO for most of the 1990s, as shown in this thorough New York Times profile, and before that as the anchor on SNL's Weekend Update, so maybe this thing will work. Maybe he could get another acronymed actor, Ben Stein (game-show-host-professor-speechwriter), to come on the new show and debate him about why he should take a firm line against abortion for no other reason than human rights. Actually, that's a really good idea. I should write to CNBC!



::: posted by Greg at 1/15/2004 01:51:00 AM



Wednesday, January 14, 2004 :::
 

Carol Moseley Braun drops out of race

Who? Yeah, she has no name recognition. But the only candidate to never criticize Howard Dean publicly is out of the race for the Dem nomination, and is reportedly backing Dean. Hey, she lasted longer that Bob Graham! (Again: who?)

UPDATE: I got her first name wrong initially. She had so little name recognition that I got her name wrong!



::: posted by Greg at 1/14/2004 11:25:00 PM


 

I need YOUR input

Here's the deal: I would like to know from all the readers of The PUNCH Bowl what they think about this blog being incorporated into my new site, GregPiper.com. I didn't intend to start a separate site, but the hosting deal I got was too good to pass up and I was interested in using a different blog interface. Most of the non-political, non-media, non-foreign stuff is on GregPiper.com now, and subsequently the comments at that blog are more regular than at The PUNCH Bowl. This blog has no profit margin, you could say.

The other reason: I'm the only person who writes on this blog anymore. Andrew and Steve have their own blogs and their own agendas to promote (kinda). The PUNCH Bowl is basically my operation now. And it's definitely not as fun as blogging on my personal site. The serious stuff here used to be balanced by the lighthearted shallow stuff. I'd like to bring that vibe back.

So let me know in the comments what you think.



::: posted by Greg at 1/14/2004 10:11:00 PM


 

Promote marriage, avoid an amendment

Another good move by the Bush administration in proposing a $1.5 billion initiative to promote marriage this year. Is it political? I don't think the proposal itself is, but the timing is pretty obvious. Bush is facing pressure from a lot of family groups to support an amendment preventing any state or judicial enactment of gay marriage, and he's been wise to avoid committing himself to it. I think in almost every respect it's a horrible idea - usurping a traditional state decision, making a permanent decision on an issue with a lot of shifting public opinion, and basically telling gay supporters of the GOP (about a million voted for Bush in 2000) that they aren't welcome in the party. The only defensible rationale for an amendment would be to stop an inevitable Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage, and then removed any democratic means from challenging gay marriage. But I doubt the Supreme Court is anywhere near that, and most likely, as long as a Republican president is in power (still a good chance until 2008), the Supreme Court composition won't change to the point that five votes would declare gay marriage to be instituted. A much better idea would be to take the Defense of Marriage Act from 1996, which said no state would be forced to recognize gay marriages from another state, and push for it as an amendment.

UPDATE: Family groups are pissed. It's not enough to promote strengthening straight marriages; you have to constitutionally ban any attempt by any state to introduce any formal marital gay relationship. Grover Norquist, quoted in this story, is right - a constitutional amendment will almost certainly look like an obsession, and "Obsessions turn people off." President Bush would do well to emphasize that no state will be forced to recognize any gay marriage enacted elsewhere under federal law. It might calm down the evangelicals who have gotten themselves in a frenzy over this supposed betrayal.



::: posted by Greg at 1/14/2004 10:00:00 PM


 

Schizophrenic unilateralism

I think I would've liked Howard Dean a lot more 8 years ago, when he urged President Clinton to take "unilateral" action in Bosnia because the UN and NATO were skeptical of getting involved (NATO eventually approved) and the cost in lives was too great. Here's the letter from Dean to Clinton. Dean's policy director says the Iraq war was different because the Bush administration sold the war according to Iraq's "imminent threat" to the US - but, in a refreshing twist, the reporter of this story cites Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address, where he specifically said that the US couldn't wait for the threat from Iraq to become imminent. Which probably means this reporter will get a lot of crap from Dean supporters and some other media critics, for reporting something that vindicates the president and has not been widely reported in the mainstream press. Go figure. Best of the Web Today comments:

It seems unlikely that Dean was actually an admirer of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, and we don't remember his raising any objections when Congress and President Clinton made "regime change" official U.S. policy in 1998. It's hard to avoid the conclusion, then, that Dean's position in favor of preserving Iraq's erstwhile dictatorship is a matter of pure partisan opportunism, no more than an attempt to smear the president, and national security be damned.

I wouldn't call Dean's shifting "partisan," since we know how little he thinks of the rest of the Democratic party.

On a similar subject, Best of the Web Today notes that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that just passed constitutional muster is having a disproportionate effect on the Democratic party, which is less unified than the GOP and is feeling the empowerment of independent groups like MoveOn.org, which has been instrumental in Howard Dean's rise apart from party leader support. Ironic, then, that most Senate Dems supported this legislation that substantially weakened their party.



::: posted by Greg at 1/14/2004 09:39:00 PM


 

Here's your reparation, sir

Howard Dean's supporters are also avid songwriters, at least songs about the doctor/politician. Unfortunately, most of them are awful and plainly whitebread:

While I'm hardly the first to state that the Dean campaign is remarkably free of people of color, I am, after spending a day on songsfordean.com, the person who has suffered through the most painful reminders of it in rapid succession. From coffeehouse bluesmen who over-enunciate every whitebread word, to hot blasts of undiluted folk so earnest that it could make the Weavers cry uncle, the songs are by and for white people. Sort of.

There are two versions of the "Howard Dean Rap." One interpretation is done by a Justin O. and Noah D. "D," or maybe it's "O," asserts that "Dean's balanced budgets and he's cut taxes / Don't you look at me, I'm just sayin' what the facts is" (which the cognoscenti will recognize as a rhyme sampled from those 1970s proto-rappers, the Steve Miller Band). From there, it gets much, much worse. They use dated rap terminology like "chill" and "wack." One line goes, "Stop and stare, say hey, lookie there! / It's a doctor! Where? And he knows health care!" "Lookie there?" If they were real rappers, they'd get their asses kicked even in East Hampton, where Dean hails from. By the time they recite Bush's falling "P to the O to the double L" numbers, you just want to grab the first B-to-the-L-to-the-ACK person you can find, and tuck a reparations check into their breast pocket while apologizing profusely.

We also learn in this story that Dennis Kucinich has a "hip-hop coordinator" and has "consorted with rappers." Who, Vanilla Ice?



::: posted by Greg at 1/14/2004 01:54:00 PM


 

This country's too damn attractive

Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard applauds the Bush administration for being proactive on immigration reform, but says there's not a chance it will work as intended:

Consider how the proposed plan would be seen by a poor but ambitious young man in Mexico. He knows that getting in line for legal immigration would probably never get him to America and that staying in the United States on an illegal basis has its drawbacks. But now there's a legal alternative: Get across the border, find a job (a menial, entry level job will do), and sign up for a 3-year work permit that's renewable. This is quite an incentive. If the Bush plan passes, word will spread fast that now's the time to get to the United States any way you can.

We'll see in a few years how the plan, if passed, affects the country's immigration climate. At the moment I'm skeptical it will even level off immigration.



::: posted by Greg at 1/14/2004 01:20:00 PM


 

Some people don't understand blogging

There's an antagonistic profile of blogger and Minnesota Star-Tribune columnist James Lileks in the Minneapolis alt-weekly. I've mentioned Lileks before on this blog - he's a wonderful cataloguer of daily life, raising kids and making weird pop culture references. He makes me laugh harder than other web writer, except maybe for Andy Borowitz. He also supported the Iraq war pretty forcefully, for which he is denounced by this writer, who complains that Lileks narrows down all those who opposed the war into a useful stereotype to rant against. OK, fair enough - I know there are more nuanced anti-war views than "Halliburton did it!" Unfortunately, I don't see those views printed in many places. The dean of students at SPU said during a debate about the war that she thought it was all about oil. This is an intelligent woman that used to teach political science and geography, and I've interviewed her a few times. That's just idiotic, there's not a kinder way to say it, and it seems to be a shared view with a lot of writers in both the mainstream and alt-press. Plus, I'd advise this writer to look more in-depth at the blog world and notice that inflammatory rhetoric is part of the art. Boring bloggers don't get read, and the readers understand that sometimes you let your emotions get to you because it makes for more interesting copy. Average people won't read a long and balanced article if it doesn't hold their interest, but if the writer punctuates it with some pop culture references, imagined sequences and a good dose of humor, they might get all the way through. That's not to say your average person cares nothing for intelligent writing; it says they're rational, and they have better things to do - kids, work, fix the car, grocery shopping, and lovemaking. (Via Romenesko.)



::: posted by Greg at 1/14/2004 12:37:00 PM


 

Stylish feminists

Feminists for Life, likely the most innovative pro-life group in America, has a totally redesigned website. They dropped the green and purple theme, which was long overdue, although the pic of their honorary chairwoman, Emmy-winning actress Patricia Heaton, looks almost like a ghoul in this new scheme. They have a background pic of an early suffragette march, connecting the long history of feminist advocacy for better treatment of women and children (which included condemnation of abortion) with the contemporary movement to help women through difficult pregnancies and create a society that is friendly to children.



::: posted by Greg at 1/14/2004 11:53:00 AM



Tuesday, January 13, 2004 :::
 

Ugh! Eww! Why?

I've been a fan of Jack Black since I saw him in "Shallow Hal," but this Slate story says he was on "celebrity" judge panel to decide the winner of far-left antiwar site Moveon.org's anti-Bush ad contest. He joined the likes of James Carville, Al Franken, and Janeane Garofalo, the latter two shoring up their comatose comedy acts with a lot of anti-Bush political activism in the past year. One of the reasons I liked Jack Black was that he opened his mouth to say a lot of things that weren't PC in the least, usually hilarious, and he never got political. He just ruined that, and I'll probably think of his moonlighting gig for the loons at Moveon.org whenever I see him in a movie. Maybe this is an indication that his acting career has fallen on hard times, or just a precursor to the fall...



::: posted by Greg at 1/13/2004 08:26:00 PM


 

Franco-American relations in trouble again

Forget Iraq - here's the real contention between the two countries.



::: posted by Greg at 1/13/2004 01:00:00 AM



Monday, January 12, 2004 :::
 

Civil unions now recognized in New Jersey

Actually, not for another 6 months, when the registration procedures will be done. The new law sounds fairly limited, intended to not spur public outrage: proof of joint financial status and residence, partner designation as beneficiary, and insurance companies but not businesses will be required to offer health coverage to same-sex partners of employees. Some people are complaining because older unmarried hetero couples can get some benefits due to marriage penalties in pensions and such, but younger hetero couples can't. (Via The Corner.)



::: posted by Greg at 1/12/2004 05:28:00 PM


 

Sign a waiver for that dessert

We had fashion police in the '80s, the Karma Police courtesy of a Brit rock group a few years ago, and now the food police in the form of politicians. I didn't know about this deal at the 5 Spot on Queen Anne where you have to sign a waiver before you can eat their Bulge dessert. And give the tobacco industry credit for seeing where sin taxes would eventually end up, on foods not considered healthy enough. (Via Hit & Run.)



::: posted by Greg at 1/12/2004 04:35:00 PM


 

Interview with Sabine Herold, the Hope of France

Remember the young woman who made international waves last summer by leading giant protests against the striking public sector unions in France? Gorgeous, intelligent and French - I don't get to say that very often! Anyway, there's an interview with her on an Objectivist site. It has a few pictures of her that I haven't seen anywhere else, even one with her smiling. She's a cute bird for sure.

Administrative note: finally received the wireless PCI adapter for my new desktop, so I'll be blogging a bit more conventionally than I had been before, taking the laptop to coffee shops or sitting on the couch watching "The Simple Life."



::: posted by Greg at 1/12/2004 03:55:00 PM



Sunday, January 11, 2004 :::
 

Saddam has lymph gland cancer?

That's what "an Iraqi official" says, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper. If it's true, he has probably has another couple years to live, they say. (Via Hit & Run.)



::: posted by Greg at 1/11/2004 09:06:00 PM


 

Younger people getting into swinging

What a bunch of pervs! And it sounds like, unlike nudist colonies and sexually explicit personal ads, these underground Manhattan parties are dominated by women and permission. Like this:

Downstairs in the midst of a crowd of around 200, half a dozen women were packed tightly together in a sort of group rub, undulating in time with the techno soundtrack.

But the women-in-power theme makes some of the guys feel less than whole:

Rob Press, 36, a computer consultant who has attended several One Leg Up parties, said that in his experience, "women are the gatekeepers anyway" in sexual matters.

"If you're going to keep making them more empowered, then I become a commodity," he said. "It just makes it fashionable to hide behind political jargon, unless they're attracting guys with an emasculation fantasy."

That's pretty much what feminism has become, not equal treatment but reparations for how men have treated women through history, making them into objects to be disposed when they are not wanted. Anyway, some health professionals are concerned with how all this "erotic networking," as the new swingers euphemize it, affects the participants:

"When sex becomes a sport, it can take away from the potential to enjoy it in a more intimate relationship," she said. "They're so overstimulated in this environment that they may not understand sexual intimacy in a more monogamous relationship."

That either means people marry less, population gets below replacement levels and (except for immigration) we follow Europe with aging societies and higher payroll taxes; or people still marry for all the stupid reasons and get divorced just as quickly (a certain no-talent pop star). Yes, I know I just took the fun out of a story about PEOPLE HAVING FREE GROUP SEX!



::: posted by Greg at 1/11/2004 12:56:00 AM