Barack Obama for President

Posted on February 10, 2008

Well, the Virginia primary is coming up this week (Tuesday, Feb. 12, to be exact), and it looks like this year it might actually mean something, at least on the Democratic side. So I figured I should go ahead and decide who I am going to be voting for. And then I figured that I should share my decision here, in case it’s helpful for any of you who are still trying to make up your own minds.

The answer is: my vote will be going to Barack Obama.

Unlike a lot of people, I have not been swept away by Obamamania. Sen. Obama has a compelling personal story, and he is undoubtedly a great public speaker. But I do find his speeches a little light on substance (“change” can be good, but it can also be bad — what kind of change, and how he will effect it, are the key questions), and I wish he had some kind of executive experience; he has had a good career as a legislator, but being President is a lot different than being one legislator among many.

That being said, though, I believe he has a lot to recommend him. He has been smart in choosing his advisors, from which he will presumably be drawing the core of his Cabinet, should he win. By all accounts he has a first-class mind, which would be a refreshing change after eight years of Presidential ignorance. And he seems willing to reconsider failed policies, rather than sticking to them out of sheer inertia, which is going to be a requirement for any successful president in the years to come.

And there’s also the small matter that he was 100% right on Iraq when it mattered — and wasn’t afraid to defend that opinion in public. Since most Democrats at the time were displaying even more cowardice than usual, I give him credit for having the moral courage to say what he believed, rather than what he thought would best position him for the future.

Obama’s opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton, has a lot to recommend her as well. She is a strong candidate, and I wouldn’t necessarily see it as the end of the world if she were to win the nomination. But in the end, I want — and I think a lot of people want — a new direction for America, rather than just a recapitulation of past successes. Obama offers that new direction, which is a big part of why he will be getting my vote on Tuesday.

Is Obama the perfect candidate? Far from it; and he faces a tough opponent in November in the person of John McCain. But there are no perfect candidates in this field, and Obama’s positives outweigh his negatives, at least for me. So I’m willing to give him a chance to show us all what he can do.

And if you disagree? Well, this election is going down to the wire — so if your state’s primary is still coming up, get out and vote!

(Note: Credit for the excellent bumper-sticker that leads this post goes to the Edge of the American West blog.)

UPDATE (February 12):

So what’s your excuse?

I Are Serious Pundit, This Are Serious Prediction

Posted on February 7, 2008

Conservative pundit and noted Mitt Romney man-crush victim Hugh Hewitt on Wednesday, February 6 — “Like Reagan In ’76, Romney Is Staying In“:

Governor Romney and Governor Huckabee have crucial messages to deliver as well, about why they are in the race and how they see the GOP shaping its appeal for the fall. They can also assist the GOP in rebuilding its grass roots effort in places like Ohio and Virginia that suffered big losses in 2006…

Both Romney and Huckabee have said they are staying in, and that’s good news for the GOP.

The Associated Press on Thursday, February 7 — “McCain Seals GOP Nomination As Romney Suspends Campaign“:

“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror,” Romney will say at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

“This is not an easy decision for me. I hate to lose. My family, my friends and our supporters… many of you right here in this room… have given a great deal to get me where I have a shot at becoming President. If this were only about me, I would go on. But I entered this race because I love America, and because I love America.”

Doh!

A Little More Perspective

Posted on January 23, 2008

Nearly five years ago, I wrote:

[T]he rebuilding of Iraq now looks like it’s going to be at least 20% more expensive than it was to put a man on the moon. One can’t help but wonder if the debate over the war would have been different if the Administration had shared with us beforehand that we were committing ourselves to a project bigger than the moon landings.

Oh, for the innocent days when 20% more than the moon landings sounded like a lot!

The Congressional Budget Office released a report today (PDF) that includes totals for how much we’ve spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan year by year:

Appropriations specifically designated for those activities, which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, rose to $120 billion in 2006 and $171 billion in 2007. The Administration has requested $193 billion for war-related purposes in 2008, of which $88 billion has been appropriated thus far.

So if you assume that the Administration will get the money it wants this year, that’s a total of $763 billion spent since the war began.

In my five-years-old post, I calculated that the cost of the Apollo Program, adjusted into 2002 dollars, came to $124 billion. For the entire program.

So that means we’ve now spent enough on the war to have paid for six Apollo Programs. And there’s no end in sight.

For decades now, people have used the moon landings as a kind of shorthand for a huge, bold, damn-the-torpedoes, money-is-no-object government program. But when it comes to profligate spending, George W. Bush has set a whole new standard.

Ron Paul: God’s Gift to Comedy

Posted on January 23, 2008

This gallery of anti-Ron Paul chalk art is pretty hilarious.

And don’t miss SomethingAwful’s “Ron Paul Political Report: Kidz Page” either!

Buckle Up

Posted on January 22, 2008

It looks like today is going to be a bumpy ride:

Stocks fell sharply worldwide Monday following declines on Wall Street last week amid investor pessimism over the U.S. government’s stimulus plan to prevent a recession.

U.S. markets were closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but were primed to open Tuesday’s session with steep declines, according to futures trading…

The downbeat mood from last week’s U.S. market declines isn’t limited to the United States, with markets in Europe, Asia and the Americas tumbling Monday.

Britain’s benchmark FTSE-100 slumped 5.5 percent to 5,578.20, France’s CAC-40 Index tumbled 6.8 percent to 4,744.15, and Germany’s blue-chip DAX 30 plunged 7.2 percent to 6,790.19.

In Asia, India’s benchmark stock index tumbled 7.4 percent, while Hong Kong’s blue-chip Hang Seng index plummeted 5.5 percent to 23,818.86, its biggest percentage drop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Canadian stocks fell as well, with the S&P/TSX composite index on the Toronto Stock Exchange down 4 percent in early afternoon trading. In Brazil, stocks plunged 6.9 percent on the main index of Sao Paulo’s Bovespa exchange.

Theatrum Orbis Terrarum for Europa Universalis 3

Posted on January 20, 2008

Longtime Readers know that probably my favorite strategy game ever is Europa Universalis 2. I first wrote about it in this space back in 2003, and even five years later it is still an absorbing, engaging game to play.

Part of what made EU2 so special was the attention the developers paid to the details. You play, for example, on a lavishly illustrated world map that neatly evokes the spirit of the age the game is set in.

Strategy games aren’t typically known for their visual appeal, so EU2 was a real breath of fresh air.

Flash forward to August 2007. After many years of anticipation, the developers of EU2 (Sweden’s Paradox Interactive) release the next chapter in the Europa Universalis saga: Europa Universalis 3.

So why haven’t I been all over this blog raving about it?

The answer is simple, and depressing: EU3 looks terrible. There’s a great game in there, but the presentation can be summed up in one word: awful. EU3 abandoned the beautiful painted map of EU2 and replaced it with a blocky, chunky 3D map that looks like something you’d have seen on the shelves in 2001, not 2007.

For this, we can thank the invisible hand of the marketplace. Paradox specialized for years in games that eschewed high-tech 3D graphics for simple but beautiful 2D. But as the years passed and the market moved more and more towards 3D, it became harder and harder for Paradox to get their games onto the shelves of retail stores. These stores saw 3D as a baseline requirement for a “modern” game and simply would not stock anything that did not run on a 3D engine. And that meant Paradox was frozen out.

Their intention had been to break this pattern by moving to 3D in Europa Universalis 3. And by the standard of “can we get this title onto retail shelves”, they succeeded; the 3D-powered EU3 was stocked by Best Buy and lots of other retail stores.

But Paradox’s inexperience with 3D design showed; the graphics in EU3 may have been powered by a 3D engine, but in every other way they represented a serious step backwards in visual appeal. It’s not impossible to produce a strategy game with a gorgeous 3D map (the classic game Rome: Total War proved that beyond doubt all the way back in 2004), but it takes a whole different set of skills than producing a gorgeous 2D map does.

Want examples? Here’s a screenshot of EU3’s “terrain” map, which shows the physical features of the territory you are looking at:

And here’s an example of EU3’s “political” map, which highlights the various nation-states on the map:

(Click either of the screenshots above for a full-size version)

As you can see, these graphics are not that great. In fact, for a game released in 2007, they’re pretty remarkably horrible, even by the pathetic standards for visuals in strategy games. They are so bad, in fact, that they turned me sour on EU3 right off the bat; I picked it up with high anticipation shortly after its release, but the graphics were such a letdown that I never had the heart to dig into it and investigate the improvements Paradox had made to the underlying game itself. I suppose that makes me a shallow SOB; so be it.

So why am I writing all this? It’s to introduce you to an heroic effort by some EU3 fans which has managed to fix this glaring problem with the game. It’s a mod for EU3 called “Theatrum Orbis Terrarum” (TOT), and its goal is to make EU3’s map as beautiful as EU2’s was. The mod’s developers describe it as “inspired by the look of early atlases”, and that’s putting it mildly; once you install the mod, your EU3 map looks as though it was ripped right out of one of those atlases. It’s pretty cool.

Let’s take a look at the same screens I showed you above, but with the TOT mod activated. First, the terrain map:

And now, the political map:

To really appreciate the difference TOT makes, you’ll need to click through to see the full size images. It’s no exaggeration, though, to say that the difference is night and day. Before TOT, the map is clunky and ugly; after TOT, it’s elegant and stylish. It’s a big enough difference that it’s gotten me to go back and try EU3 again, this time with the mod installed; and this time, I’m actually digging it. So the modders behind TOT may just have rescued this game for me. Thanks!

And the really cool thing about this is that it was produced entirely by EU3 players, on their own dime, to fix a glaring flaw in the game they loved. I wish Paradox had handled their transition to 3D better than they did; but there’s something exciting about seeing players stepping into the breach and fixing the problems themselves.

All of which is my long-winded way of saying this: if you like strategy games, and you’ve been scared away from EU3 by reports of its fugliness, maybe now’s the time for you to give it a second look too.

UPDATE (Mar. 25, 2013): Believe it or not, here we are five years after this post was written and it still attracts a steady stream of visitors. So I should probably update you with an important bit of information: to the best of my knowledge, the TOT mod no longer works with the latest editions of EU3. Each major expansion pack released for EU3 has required TOT to be updated to support it, and when the last one (Divine Wind) came out, nobody made the appropriate changes to make the mod Divine Wind-compatible. So if your EU3 setup includes Divine Wind, it’ll have to be TOT-less.

This is annoying, and since EU4 is due out later this year, I doubt we’ll see it fixed. The good news is that EU4 is supposed to be building on the advancements made in Crusader Kings II to provide a map that’s a huge improvement over EU3’s, so we may finally live in a world where de-uglifying mods are no longer required.

More Tough Investigative Journalism from the Huffington Post

Posted on January 17, 2008

Once again, the Huffington Post brings you the news you can’t find anywhere else…

I could start a new blog just pulling stupid stories from HuffPo. But that would be kinda like taking candy from a kid in a wheelchair.

Holy Crap

Posted on January 16, 2008

This is unexpected — and big:

Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire MySQL, Developer of the World’s Most Popular Open Source Database

Sun Growth Strategy Accelerates With New Position in $15 Billion Database Market

SANTA CLARA, CA January 16, 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL AB, an open source icon and developer of one of the world’s fastest growing open source databases for approximately $1 billion in total consideration. The acquisition accelerates Sun’s position in enterprise IT to now include the $15 billion database market. Today’s announcement reaffirms Sun’s position as the leading provider of platforms for the Web economy and its role as the largest commercial open source contributor…

MySQL’s open source database is the “M” in LAMP – the software platform comprised of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl often viewed as the foundation of the Internet. Sun is committed to enhancing and optimizing the LAMP stack on GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows along with OpenSolaris and MAC OS X. The database from MySQL, OpenSolaris and GlassFish, together with Sun’s Java platform and NetBeans communities, will create a powerful Web application platform across a wide range of customers shifting their applications to the Web…

Following completion of the proposed transaction, MySQL will be integrated into Sun’s Software, Sales and Service organizations and the company’s CEO, Marten Mickos, will be joining Sun’s senior executive leadership team. In the interim, a joint team with representatives from both companies will develop integration plans that build upon the technical, product and cultural synergies and the best business and product development practices of both companies. MySQL is headquartered in Cupertino, CA and Uppsala, Sweden and has 400 employees in 25 countries.

As part of the transaction, Sun will pay approximately $800 million in cash in exchange for all MySQL stock and assume approximately $200 million in options. The transaction is expected to close in late Q3 or early Q4 of Sun’s fiscal 2008.

I wonder if this is good news or bad news for those of us who depend on MySQL?

UPDATE: Jonathan Schwarz says:

So what are we announcing today? That in addition to acquiring MySQL, Sun will be unveiling new global support offerings into the MySQL marketplace. We’ll be investing in both the community, and the marketplace – to accelerate the industry’s phase change away from proprietary technology to the new world of open web platforms…

MySQL is already the performance leader on a variety of benchmarks – we’ll make performance leadership the default for every application we can find (and on every vendor’s hardware platforms, not just Sun’s – and on Linux, Solaris, Windows, all).

Sounds good to me. And I would add that if Sun can come up with a way to make scaling MySQL applications easier, they will be positioned to make an absolutely ungodly amount of money.

Does Somebody From Sony Read This Blog?

Posted on January 10, 2008

Three days ago in this space, I wrote:

C’mon, Sony. The other labels have finally realized that the way to make money in the 21st century is to give people the music they want in a convenient, hassle-free format. How long will it take for you to get with the program?

Somebody must have been listening, because it turns out that the answer is… three days:

Sony BMG, the music company, announced Thursday that it would become the fourth and final major label to begin selling digital music on Amazon.com, offering its entire catalog in the MP3 format by the end of the month.

That was fast!

What Makes A “Crazy Aunt”? One Guess

Posted on January 10, 2008

Over at Language Log, linguist Mark Liberman asked the question “Who is the crazy uncle of American politics?” and traced the evolution of the phrase “crazy uncle” as a way to describe American political figures.

After the post went up, LL reader Andy Hollandbeck wrote to Liberman with a question:

After reading your Language Log post about the “crazy uncle” metaphor used in politics, I wondered how often Hillary Clinton, by extension, had been referred to as a “crazy aunt.” So I googled “crazy aunt” “hillary clinton”. I don’t know how to interpret what I found.

There seem to be very few references to Hillary as a crazy aunt, but there are quite a number of other uses in the political arena. What is strange is that — except for at least one reference to Ann Coulter as a crazy aunt — most “crazy aunt” references are to men. I found a few references to Mike Gravel and California representative Pete Stark as “crazy aunts,” but a great many references (some of them direct quotes from the same single source) to Rudy Giuliani as “the crazy aunt of the GOP.”

It makes me wonder about gender choices and what they imply here. What makes Rudy Giuliani a crazy aunt instead of a crazy uncle? Are crazy aunts somehow even crazier than crazy uncles? If so, does that imply some inherent sexism?

(Emphasis mine)

What makes Rudy Guiliani a “crazy aunt” instead of a “crazy uncle”? Gosh, I have no idea…

Two Upsets in One Week!

Posted on January 8, 2008

Two weeks ago, Hillary Clinton was the “inevitable” nominee of the Democratic Party.

Then last Thursday Barack Obama overturned all the expectations and won a smashing victory in the Iowa caucus.

Then for three days Obama was the “inevitable” nominee (with polls giving him as much as a 15-point lead in New Hampshire) and Clinton was finished.

Then tonight she proved all the pollsters wrong and won a smashing victory of her own.

This is great. I know that partisans in every campaign are probably disappointed that the race hasn’t been sewed up by their candidate. But it’s terribly unhealthy to have candidates anointed after only Iowa and New Hampshire have voted. Even beyond the fact that those two states are small and not particularly representative of the electorate at large, having one candidate take the whole prize this early just results in candidates who are insufficiently ready for the general election.

The perfect example is 2004, when John Kerry convinced Iowa and New Hampshire voters to take a flyer on him because he was the most “electable” candidate (whatever that means). He then spent the rest of the primary season doing easy victory laps. The result? How Kerry would stand up in a tough fight on a national stage was never really tested — and we only found out too late that he wasn’t up to the challenge.

So here’s hoping that Clinton and Obama (and John Edwards, too) slug this one out for a while longer. They’ll all be better candidates for having made the effort — and the eventual nominee will be steeled for the test they will face come November.

It’s Like They Are Trying to Sell LESS Music

Posted on January 7, 2008

Longtime Readers will already be aware that I have been a longstanding critic of “Digital Rights Management” (DRM) — software attached to downloadable media (like music and video) to prevent you from making “unauthorized copies” of the downloaded content. Indeed, my second ever post on this blog was a blast at DRM.

I wrote that six years ago and DRM hasn’t gotten any more attractive since. DRM-encumbered content is so painful to use that I can’t in good conscience recommend that anyone spend their money on it. Say you buy a DRM-ed song from the iTunes Store, for example. Sure, it works on your iPod today. But what happens if two years from now you buy a new player from somebody other than Apple? Guess what, all your DRM-ed music won’t work on it. You’d have to buy it all again. Which would suck.

So I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the music label which has been perhaps the biggest backer of DRM — Sony BMG — was finally going to be selling digital downloads without any DRM associated with them.

I should have realized that Sony would find a way to screw this up, though, and they certainly appear to have done so. Turns out that the only way you can get a DRM-free download from Sony is to go to a retail store and buy a plastic card with a code you can redeem for the download.

Quoth Reuters:

Sony BMG, home to artists including Beyonce, Britney Spears and Celine Dion, said on Monday it will launch a gift card service on January 15 called Platinum MusicPass that will feature digital albums from its artists in the MP3 format. The format does not use DRM protection.

Fans will be able to buy the digital album cards in stores and download full-length albums from a MusicPass Web site after they type in an identifying number. The cards will be available at U.S. retail outlets such as Best Buy and Target…

And from the horse’s mouth:

SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT today announced the launch of Platinum MusicPass, a series of digital album cards that enable consumers to download full-length albums, and in many cases special bonus content, in the form of high-quality MP3 files…

The cards will be priced at a suggested list retail price (slrp) of $12.99 which will include the complete digital album plus bonus material or, in the case of compilations, extensive track listings. In order get the content from their MusicPass cards consumers scratch the back of their card to unveil their pin number. They then visit MusicPass.com to download their music files and bonus material.

This may be the most retarded business idea I’ve ever heard.

I don’t have a problem with “music gift cards” per se. I can see there being value in providing people with a chance to “buy” songs for download at retail. But Sony isn’t using gift cards as an alternate sales channel, they are using them as the only sales channel. In other words, if you want to buy the DRM-free download, the only way to get it is by buying the gift card.

That means that, to buy a DRM-free album from a Sony artist, you have to follow these steps:

1. Get off your ass and drive to a store that carries the cards
2. Buy the card
3. Take it home
4. Scratch an area on the card to reveal your download code
5. Go to a special Web site
6. Type in the code on the card
7. Download your album

Compare this to the experience of buying DRM-free albums from more intelligent labels at Amazon’s excellent MP3 downloads store, which requires only these steps:

1. Go to Amazon.com
2. Search for the album you want
3. Click “Buy”
4. Download your album

That’s it. No special codes, no trips to and from the mall, no “oh shoot I lost the card” nonsense. Just search, click, buy. And to top it off, albums at Amazon’s store are typically cheaper than a Sony card — Amazon usually charges $9 per album, compared to $13 for Sony. (Not to mention that Amazon is more convenient in other ways, too — like you can buy individual tracks off albums for 99 cents, for example, rather than having to buy the album as a whole.)

On what planet does that shit make any sense? I get to pay more for a product that’s less convenient? Huh?

C’mon, Sony. The other labels have finally realized that the way to make money in the 21st century is to give people the music they want in a convenient, hassle-free format. How long will it take for you to get with the program?

UPDATE (Jan. 10): Sony changes policy three days later, releases full catalog in DRM-free format for purchase through Amazon.com.

Things I Am Unreasonably Excited About

Posted on January 3, 2008

Here’s one: this Friday sees the national opening of There Will Be Blood.

Why am I looking forward to this? It’s the first movie in six years from writer-director P.T. Anderson. Anderson exploded into the public eye with the instant classic Boogie Nights in 1997, but in the decade since he’s only released two movies — the sprawling epic Magnolia in 1999 and the intimate comedy Punch-Drunk Love in 2002. So for fans like me, it’s just exciting on one level to have something new from him to enjoy.

Beyond that, though, there’s many other reasons to look forward to There Will Be Blood. It marks a return to the epic scope that Anderson handled so ably in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. And it features a leading performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, one of the most gifted and powerful actors working today.

Here’s the trailer:

Oh, and if you’re looking for a good movie to rent, check out Hard Eight — Anderson’s first film (released a year before Boogie Nights made him a star), and an underappreciated gem.

UPDATE (Jan. 21): I finally got a chance to see the movie this weekend. Holy God is it good. Daniel Day-Lewis is a force of nature. Go see it if you haven’t already, you won’t be disappointed.

JWM: Best of 2007

Posted on December 26, 2007

As we get near the end of the year, I thought I’d go back and round up what I think are the best posts on this blog from 2007 for your reading pleasure.

And the winners aaaaare:

• “Surge”: A Bad Idea by Any Name (January 10): “We can expect to hear bromides from the President tonight about how we
  all need to sacrifice, how the task is hard but worthy, and so on. But
  if actions speak louder than words, the President’s cowardice is
  practically deafening.”
• The Hidden Danger of Escalation (January 14): “War with Iran could mean losing all 150,000 troops we currently have committed in Iraq.“
• How To Get a Free Credit Report That’s Actually Free (February 28): “What they don’t tell you (except in the fine print) is that FreeCreditReport.com’s reports aren’t actually free.”
• How To Stop Getting Credit Card Offers in the Mail (March 4): “There’s only one place you need to go to get off the lists of Experian, TransUnion, Equifax, and a couple of others too.”
• Peter Jackson’s ‘King Kong’ (April 25): “Jean-Luc Godard once famously observed that ‘the history of cinema is boys photographing girls’, and I’m hard pressed to think of a modern film that more vividly illustrates Godard’s point than Jackson’s Kong does.”
• Bikes are Bullshit (May 7): “Yes. Apparently an ‘entry-level’ bike these days costs five hundred dollars. That’s American dollars, too, Jack.”
• “Coasting” is Also Bullshit (May 9): “Their big insight into why people don’t ride bikes is that it’s too hard to ride a bike. Which explains why you never see kids on bikes, right? ‘Cuz it’s too hard.“
• “Bring a Change of Clothes With You to Work”? (June 24): “What struck me about the Alli page is that it acknowleges things that no Marketer would ever voluntarily acknowledge.”
• Why I Don’t Write Much About Iraq Anymore (July 22): “None of the plans that I’ve heard floated strike me as having any
  realistic chance of keeping Iraq from sliding into chaos as we pull
  out.”
• When I Hear “Web 2.0” I Reach for My Revolver (July 25): “We expect you to work 80 hour weeks without bitching about things like ‘food’ or ‘rest’ or ‘pay’. You’re a rock star! Rock stars don’t worry
  about shit like that!”
• The Most Dangerous Weapon of Mass Destruction (August 15): “When the Soviet Union collapsed, a tidal wave of AK-47s that had been
  stored in Soviet armories was unleashed upon the world by cagey
  Russians out to make a buck.”
• What Did You Expect, Exactly? (September 3): “Facebook is training an entire generation of users that it’s a good idea to hand out your passwords to random Web sites.”
• It’s Not Just the M16 (December 18): “Why do we have so much trouble getting reliable weapons into the hands of our fighting men and women?”

If you want more highlights, check out the complete Best of Just Well Mixed Archive.

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Well, That Really Could Have Gone Better

Posted on December 21, 2007

So I sat down tonight to upgrade this blog to the latest version of the software that runs it (Six Apart’s Movable Type), a task that I’ve done a million times before and that should have taken no more than half an hour…

And then, through a series of screwups, I manage to delete everything posted here since October 22. And then discover that my backup script hadn’t been running, so I didn’t have a fresh backup to restore from.

Oops.

Anyway, long story short, I think I’ve restored all the missing posts. Any comments that were deleted are gone forever — my apologies if your comments are among them.

Needless to say it looks like I’m going to be spending part of my upcoming vacation figuring out why my backup script was borked…

UPDATE: Before you ask, yes, I know that the styling on the comments section of posts is all screwed up.  I’m working on it.

It’s Not Just the M16

Posted on December 18, 2007

Longtime Readers will remember when I bagged on the reliability of the M16, the primary service rifle of the U.S. armed forces. Though newer versions have improved the situation somewhat, the M16 has been legendary since Vietnam for how easily it will jam under combat conditions.

Now it turns out that the M4 carbine — the short-barreled version of the M16 that is commonly carried by support units and special operations troops, who need portability more than sheer stopping power — has jamming problems too:

M4 Carbine Fairs Poorly in Dust Test [sic]

The primary weapon carried by most soldiers into battle in Iraq and Afghanistan performed the worst in a recent series of tests designed to see how it stacked up against three other top carbines in sandy environments.

After firing 6,000 rounds through ten M4s in a dust chamber at the Army’s Aberdeen test center in Maryland this fall, the weapons experienced a total of 863 minor stoppages and 19 that would have required the armorer to fix the problem. Stacked up against the M4 during the side-by-side tests were two other weapons popular with special operations forces, including the Heckler and Koch 416 and the FN USA Special Operations Combat Assault Rifle, or Mk16…

Though Army testers and engineers are still evaluating the data, officials with the Army’s Infantry Center based in Fort Benning, Ga., said they planned to issue new requirements for the standard-issue carbine in about 18 months that could include a wholesale replacement of the M4. But the Army has been resistant to replace the M4, which has been in the Army inventory for over 18 years, until there’s enough of a performance leap to justify buying a new carbine…

[O]ne congressional staffer familiar with the extreme dust tests is skeptical of the service’s conclusions.

“This isn’t brain surgery — a rifle needs to do three things: shoot when you pull the trigger, put bullets where you aim them and deliver enough energy to stop what’s attacking you,” the staffer told Military.com in an email. “If the M4 can’t be depended on to shoot then everything else is irrelevant.”

(Emphasis mine.)

So the M4 has problems under desert conditions. Thank God we’re not sending soldiers into battle in the desert these days, right?

The Army Times has more details on how the dust tests were conducted. The Military.com story notes that this rate of jams means that the M4 would experience a jam every 68 rounds fired.  Compare that to the carbine that did best in the dust test, the Heckler & Koch XM8, which would jam every 472 rounds fired.  The Army says that even in the worst firefights the average soldier would fire no more than 140 times — but if the dust test’s findings are accurate, that means the soldier carrying an M4 can expect her weapon to jam at least once in nearly every engagement.

This is only the most recent story highlighting the problems of the M4. In March, the Army Times examined how the Army was still buying M4s, even though a better alternative developed in conjunction with Special Forces units was available.  The Army says that these newer carbines don’t represent a big enough leap in technology, preferring to wait for the arrival of the XM29 — an experimental weapon in testing that isn’t expected to hit the field for another decade.

Why do we have so much trouble getting reliable weapons into the hands of our fighting men and women?

On Unenviable Professions

Posted on December 14, 2007

Running for national office is a nasty, brutish thing. You’re accused of being a horrible person, half the people hate you, and your reward if you win is a trip to Washington D.C.

Democracy is Awesome

Posted on December 13, 2007

You know it’s true: elections don’t get decided by "swing voters" or "soccer moms". They get decided by this guy.

Don’t Follow Leaders, Watch the Parking Meters

Posted on November 30, 2007

Say what you will about Mike Gravel, but you gotta admit he makes the best campaign ads…

Does that Gravel spot remind anyone else of Bob Dylan’s immortal "Subterranean Homesick Blues"? Or is it just me?

In the spirit of completeness, here’s one more video for ya: "Wall Street Rap" from Tim Robbins’ classic political comedy Bob Roberts, in which he plays a folk-singing conservative Republican — sort of the anti-Dylan — who sets out to seize a Senate seat through shady tactics and catchy hooks:

If you haven’t seen Bob Roberts, you really should — it was made in 1992 and turned out to be a better prediction about where American politics was headed then you could have gotten from any op-ed page. Plus it’s funny as hell.

Console War! It’s Like Regular War, Only With More Plastic

Posted on November 28, 2007

The End-Of-Year Mandatory Shopping Holiday is nearly upon us, and that means one thing: enormous corporations spending truckloads of cash to convince you to buy shiny electronics you don’t need.

Nowhere is this truer than in the gaming world, where three new-ish consoles — Nintendo’s Wii, Microsoft’s XBox 360, and Sony’s Playstation 3 — are battling each other for market domination. So far the winner in sheer sales has been the Wii, but shortfalls in production have made that console hard to find, and Microsoft and Sony have stepped up their game with price cuts and a range of new game titles.

So which one should be under your tree this year? Thankfully Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw is here to tell you what to think.

If you like that one, watch the rest of Yahtzee’s video reviews, they’re funny as hell.

Let Us Give Thanks For Once-Every-Five-Years Or So Redesigns

Posted on November 24, 2007

Those of you who get your Just Well Mixed on via a feed reader probably haven’t noticed, but I’ve done some surgery on the templates for this site.  It’s not really a total redesign as many of the basic design elements have remained the same, but I’ve tried to clear out some of the cruft that has accumulated over nearly six years of blogging here. I’ve also implemented some best practices (things like making the title of an item be a permalink for it) that have emerged since the Wild West days of 2002, which was the last time I put any serious thought into the design of JWM.

Right now the new layout is only deployed on the home page and some miscellaneous pages, but you should see it roll out across all the archive pages soon.

Whaddaya think, improvement or not?

At Last, Our Long National Nightmare is Over

Posted on November 20, 2007

Seen on Huffington Post today:

Questions That You Will Never Find Out the Answers To

Posted on November 19, 2007

So I’m in a hurry for lunch today and I duck into one of those typical downtown chain joints to get something to eat.

I pick up a pre-made chicken Caesar salad in a plastic container.  While I’m waiting to pay, I look more closely at the container and notice a sticker on it that reads:

"NOW made with 100% Natural Chicken!"

I realize that they put that sticker there to make me think "mmm, high quality ingredients". But instead it makes me think "It’s news that the chicken is actually chicken? What were they making them with before?"

Groundhog Day

Posted on November 15, 2007

Taken by a colleague of mine at work today:

Monomania

Posted on November 15, 2007

What day was it again?