“What Barry Says”

Posted on October 7, 2004

Want to see how the rest of the world sees us Americans today?

The short film “What Barry Says” should give you some idea.

(To view it, follow the link and then click on “knife party” and follow the instructions.)

Ugh

Posted on October 6, 2004

Google ought to have a rule that if you lose more than 15 or 20 pounds since a photo in their index was taken, they’ll take the photo down.

I mean, come on. It would just be polite, you know?

(Here’s a more recent picture from my friend Oscar’s wedding. The difference is, um, noticeable. That’s what training to run an 8-minute mile will do.)

Oh, and thanks to Ginger for finding the “before” photo and pointing it out to me. It’s always good to know that your friends are trawling the Web looking for the most wretched pictures of you possible… 🙂

The Vice-Presidential Debate

Posted on October 5, 2004

I just finished watching the Vice-Presidential debate, and I thought I’d get my impressions down now before they can be tainted by the inevitable spin. Here goes.

(more…)

Ev Is Moving On

Posted on October 5, 2004

Ev Williams is leaving Google this week. (Ev’s the founder of Pyra Labs, creators of Blogger.)

Not many people our age can honestly say they’ve accomplished as much in their lives as Ev has — and he’s just getting started. Good luck on the next big thing!

Yeah, It WORKS, But…

Posted on October 4, 2004

I’m going to geek out for a moment here. Those of you who aren’t into Web programming might want to take this opportunity to go get some coffee or something.

Lately I’ve been working on a project that has required me to use various elements of the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl) stack on Windows 2003 servers. Since these servers obviously do not come with LAMP stuff installed, part of the process has been learning how to install and configure PHP & MySQL to play nice with Windows.

Today I spent a good couple of hours banging my head against the desk trying to figure out what I was doing wrong. The app I was trying to set up, you see, requires ImageMagick — it uses IM to do various operations on stored images.

Now, at first I thought plugging in IM would be easy — the project provides Windows installer binaries, so it should be all double-clicky goodness, yes? As it turns out, the answer is NO: the double-clicky installer sets everything up properly, but even after everything was set up the PHP application that needs ImageMagick was still stubbornly insisting that I hadn’t installed it. Grrr.

I tried everything I could think of to get it working — checking permissions, moving IM out of the Program Files directory (so that its path wouldn’t have spaces in it), and so on. But nothing worked.

Finally, though, I came across a message board posting with The Answer. You see, since ImageMagick is a standalone program, my app was using PHP’s exec() function to call it. As it happens, if you’re on Windows, exec() doesn’t work unless you do something kind of counterintuitive — give Execute permission on the cmd.exe to the account IIS runs under (the “IUSR” or “Internet Guest” account).

Yes. For the exec() function to work, you have to allow the anonymous Web server user to have execute permissions on the command shell!

I tried this and it worked like a charm — suddenly my app and ImageMagick were getting along like best buddies. But there has to be a better way than this, doesn’t there? I mean, giving the anonymous IIS account execute permissions over the command shell seems — well — unwise.

Anybody out there with experience using PHP on Windows who can tell me if there’s a better way to make this work?

Holy Crap

Posted on October 4, 2004

Talk about burying the lede — check out this little nugget hidden inside the Boston Globe’s recent story “Nuclear Threat Expected to Pose a Major Challenge“:

At least twice since the Sept. 11 attacks, US intelligence officials believed, terrorists had smuggled a nuclear device into the United States, once in New York City and later along the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. A senior Bush administration official who asked not to be identified said that before the information was determined to be unfounded, he considered calling his wife and telling her to take the children and head for the Virginia mountains.

(Thanks to Dowbrigade for the pointer.)

I mean… wow. I’ve always known on an intellectual level that I lived in a city that was a major target zone — but it puts things in a whole different perspective to think of a nuclear terror strike as something that may have already almost happened.

When did this happen, I wonder? It’s really strange to think of myself sitting at work, clueless, while the high Federal mucky-mucks scramble to get their loved ones out of town…

The Spitting Image

Posted on October 1, 2004

I finally realized who President Bush kept reminding me of in last night’s debate!

Separated at birth?

(Image by Associated Press, from Yahoo News)

(“Leprechaun 3” box cover from Amazon)

I could just see him shouting at Kerry: “You only got away because me powers are weak! I NEED ME GOLD!”

You Can Say That Again

Posted on October 1, 2004

Andrew Sullivan, in reference to Bush’s little joke about trying to control his daughters:

No president who has presided over Abu Ghraib should ever say he wants to put anyone on a leash.

Ouch!

The First Debate

Posted on October 1, 2004

Well, I just got finished watching the first Presidential debate, and since I’m sure the spin over the next couple of days is going to be fast and furious I thought it might be useful to record my reaction before all that starts.

Initial reaction: it was a win for Kerry. Not so much because he did anything particularly right, as because Bush seemed so strangely wrong. Bush’s body language was terrible — slumped over, pounding on the podium to make his point, he seemed tired and worn out.

(Image by Associated Press, from Yahoo News)

And his repeated responses to Kerry’s charges with simple negations made him look out of touch with the issues; a Martian watching the debate would have thought Kerry was the incumbent and Bush the tyro challenger.

There were moments where Bush even looked lost up there — like a bewildered child who has wandered into the grown-ups’ party. Bush’s schtick is hammering home his talking points, and he leaned on that, repeating “mixed messages” so many times I think I’ll be hearing it in my sleep. But he seemed completely unable to respond on his feet.

By contrast, Kerry’s body language was great — standing upright, making small but pointed gestures, looking into the camera at the right moments.

(Image by Reuters, from Yahoo News)

He also (finally!) did a decent job of encapsulating the reason so many people like me oppose Bush: the President’s embarrassing (and dangerous) bungling of the war on terrorism. He didn’t say anything particularly new or groundbreaking, but he didn’t have to; Bush’s stumbling did all the work for him.

So that’s how it looked to me. Now, let the spinning begin (sigh).

What Will We Call the Expos Now?

Posted on September 30, 2004

Now that the Expos are definitely coming to D.C., the next question is — what will Washington’s new ball club take as its new name? (Because they’re certainly not going to take the field as the “Washington Expos”.)

Over in the comments on my last post about this, my friend Joe Dailey made an excellent suggestion on the subject:

Name them the “Grays” — after the legendary Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues, who used to play a good number of their games at old Griffith Stadium in Washington. In their heyday, the Grays featured a number of incredible players — among them Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Buck Leonard, all of whom were kept out of the major leagues by the color barrier, and all of whom are now in the Hall of Fame.

What cooler gesture could MLB make than to honor these men and their teammates by bringing baseball back to Washington under their banner?

What Was That Motto Again?

Posted on September 29, 2004

At Google, it’s apparently “Don’t be evil, unless the Chinese government asks you to“.

For last week’s launch of the Chinese-language edition of Google News, we had to decide whether sources that cannot be viewed in China should be included for Google News users inside the PRC. Naturally, we want to present as broad a range of news sources as possible. For every edition of Google News, in every language, we attempt to select news sources without regard to political viewpoint or ideology. For Internet users in China, we had to consider the fact that some sources are entirely blocked. Leaving aside the politics, that presents us with a serious user experience problem. Google News does not show news stories, but rather links to news stories. So links to stories published by blocked news sources would not work for users inside the PRC — if they clicked on a headline from a blocked source, they would get an error page. It is possible that there would be some small user value to just seeing the headlines. However, simply showing these headlines would likely result in Google News being blocked altogether in China.

One word: pathetic.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who cares more about user experience than I do, but this is a disingenuous explanation for Google’s decision.

What they’re really saying here is, “We know that we’d be making a political statement by showing Chinese users the headlines of stories their government doesn’t want them to see. And that’s not something we’re willing to do.”

Hey, Google, if you’ve decided that playing along with state censorship is something you’re cool with, that’s your decision to make. But don’t hide it behind a cloak of “providing the best user experience”. Just say “we wanted to do business in China, and to do that you have to play by their immoral rules; so we’re playing” and leave it at that.

UPDATE: Tim Bray agrees.

Hey D.C.: Baseball’s Back

Posted on September 28, 2004

Looks like it’s official: Major League Baseball is going to announce tomorrow that the Montreal Expos are moving to Washington, D.C.

The Polls Are Completely Whacked

Posted on September 28, 2004

From today’s Electoral Vote Predictor:

Some bad news for the polling business. Strategic Vision (R) has a new poll in Ohio showing Bush ahead 52% to 43% there. However, there is also a Lake Snell Perry (D) poll showing the race there to be an exact tie, with both candidates at 46%. It is becoming increasingly clear that the pollsters are producing the results that the people paying the bills want to hear.

Are We All Fundamentalists Now?

Posted on September 28, 2004

I heard something on NPR the other morning that really switched on a light bulb in my head.

On Morning Edition Monday morning, they were doing one of their regular features — a remembrance of a soldier recently killed in Iraq. Today’s subject was Sgt. Ben Isenberg, who was killed by a roadside bomb that destroyed his Humvee while on patrol north of Camp Taji, outside of Baghdad, on September 13.

Here’s the NPR segment, so you can give it a listen.

The thing that made me sit up doesn’t come until nearly the end of the segment — about 2:06 in — when the reporter talks to Isenberg’s parents about their faith (the Isenbergs are all apparently quite devout Christians), and how it has sustained them through the loss of their son. His mother says some things about how God’s plan is unknowable and accidents happen that I think anyone could probably understand and sympathize with. His father, however, takes a different tack in explaining how his faith and his loss intersect:

ROBERT ISENBERG: This war is not about Iraqis and Americans, oil… this is a spiritual war. The people who don’t understand that, they need to just dig into their Bible and read about it. It’s predicted, it’s predestined.

NARRATOR: Isenberg’s father says the naysaying about the war and its costs bothered his son.

ROBERT ISENBERG: Because Benjamin understood that this was a spiritual war. And he understands that our serving President is a very devouted [sic] Christian also. Ben understood the calling was to go because the President had the knowledge, and understood what was going on, and it’s far deeper than we as people will ever really know. We don’t get the information that the President gets.

Now, I should preface this by saying that the Isenbergs are grieving the loss of their son, so it would be entirely understandable if they grasped at anything they could find that gave them hope that his death wasn’t a waste — that he died as part of a cause that had meaning and significance. (As someone once put it, “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?”)

However…

There was something in what Mr. Isenberg was saying that just rang strangely in my mind — something that didn’t quite settle properly. As I rode the Metro into work, I tried to figure out what it was. And then, all of a sudden, it hit me.

Isenberg said that the war isn’t over grubby material things like oil — it’s a “spiritual war”, in which our leader, a “devout Christian”, has “the knowledge” and a “far deeper” understanding than we poor laymen can ever have. All we can do is recognize our “calling” and follow our leader into battle. The actual decision to launch the conflict, he implies, wasn’t even the President’s — it was made for him by God (“[T]his is a spiritual war. The people who don’t understand that, they need to just dig into their Bible… It’s predicted, it’s predestined”).

President Bush is God’s agent on earth — the instrument through which He exercises His divine will.

In other words, his son died following the will of God as explained by a charismatic religious leader.

Now, I ask you — how is this different from the explanation you’d get from the parents of a martyred Jihadist?

The answer is, it isn’t. It’s exactly the same explanation — which is what clang around in my head so loudly. We’re used to hearing words like this coming out of the mouths of fundamentalists; but not from the mouths of the parents of fallen American soldiers.

And that’s what really shook me: the realization that there is a significant percentage of Americans out there that believes this message. They believe that George W. Bush has a special Hotline to the Hereafter. They believe that his decision to go to war is beyond question, since it was divinely inspired. And they believe that whatever disasters their man leads us into aren’t disasters at all — just God’s way of testing the mettle of the faithful.

In other words, they’re fundamentalists, and George W. Bush is their Ayatollah.

Now, fundamentalist Christians are certainly not a new force in Republican politics. But what is new is the degree to which the GOP and the Bush campaign have oriented their pitch to appeal to voters swayed by this message. They don’t have to come out and say “George Bush talks to God” — just by using code words (“spiritual war”, “calling”, etc.) they can signal to these voters that George Bush understands their desire for an Ayatollah. He hears them. And he is willing to play Ayatollah if doing so will win him re-election.

Don’t believe me? Ask yourself why the RNC is telling voters in Oklahoma that the Democrats will ban the Bible if Kerry wins. Yes, that’s the Republican National Committee whose address is on that flyer — they’re not even bothering to go through front groups anymore.

Don’t believe me? Ask yourself why the House Republicans have spent the last six months trying to strip the court system of its ability to ever decide against religious conservatives again — first with July’s “Marriage Protection Act” (HR 3313, if you care), which asserted that no Federal court — not even the Supreme Court — has any right to rule on questions involving same-sex marriage, and then again last week with the “Pledge Protection Act” (H.R. 2028, if you care), which declares that no court — not even the Supreme Court — can ever take the words “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance. Never mind the 201 years of precedent that have been established since Marbury v. Madison established the principle that the courts could review all legislation — the House GOP is busy carving out special “no review” zones for their pet issues, which we unbelievers would never be able to challenge.

This is the degree to which the Republicans are willing to pander to the Ayatollah audience — they are willing to turn the Constitution into Swiss cheese just to throw them a bone.

The whole spectacle is more than a little disturbing, not least because of the explicit “Great Leader” imagery these people apply to Bush. As a man touched by God, he is on a different plane than you and I; and they approach him accordingly. The Great Leader has a plan — don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense to you; the Great Leader knows things you don’t. The Great Leader sees horizons far beyond those our poor eyes can make out. We must trust his judgement without question, for only he has the Revealed Truth.

This is not a philosophy for Americans. This is a philosophy for slaves!

It’s also a big part of the reason why we’re losing the war on terror. Strategist John Boyd defined an approach to war in which you attempt to isolate your opponent along three axes: the physical, the mental, and the moral. We are currently suffering from a Boydian moral isolation, brought on in large part because the world doesn’t believe that our fight in Iraq is a fight of fundamentalism against rationalism. Instead, they see it almost as two different fundamentalist sects taking each other on — which leaves rational third parties with no place to put their allegiance, except in their own self-interest.

The Bush Administration has brought this isolation upon us by pandering to the American fundamentalists. There is no evidence to date that they care.

Some people will read this and say that I’m making too much of these American fundamentalists — that they are few in number compared to the vast mass of the population. That may even be true. But clearly their influence far outweighs their numbers; can you name any other minority group that has a party faction busily declaring that the courts cannot rule on its issues?

And what concerns me — what shook me after hearing Mr. Isenberg on the radio — is the sense that their numbers might not be so few after all. Maybe sixty years of television have conditioned us to accept a Great Leader, to suspend our disbelief until the inevitable happy ending. Maybe there are plenty of Americans who are ready — eager! — to surrender their critical faculties and trust that all will be right if we put our faith in the inerring virtue of God’s holy instrument.

When asked upon leaving the Constitutional Convention whether the new government would be a republic or a monarchy, Benjamin Franklin famously replied “A republic, if you can keep it“.

In its own way and its own time, every generation has to rise to meet Franklin’s challenge. It would appear to be our turn.

Bush and Rumsfeld’s Destruction of the National Guard

Posted on September 24, 2004

One of the less-talked-about consequences of George Bush’s mishandling of our national defenses: the disintegration of the National Guard as an institution.

The unit knew it would soon be shipped to the front. Some soldiers responded by deserting. Others got drunk and fought. In response, officers locked the unit in its barracks, allowing the troops out only to drill, not even to smoke a cigarette, until it could be put on the transport that would take it into combat.
It sounds as if I am describing some third echelon Soviet infantry regiment in, say, 1942. In fact, I am talking about the 1st Battalion of the 178th Field Artillery Regiment, South Carolina National Guard, in September 2004.

Here’s the Washington Post story that Lind talks about, too — it’s by Thomas Ricks, an excellent reporter on national security issues.

How the Bush Team Plays It

Posted on September 24, 2004

From Tony Pierce’s blog today:

so what do you do when you come home after a hard day and you see a hand written note on your front door threatening you if you continue to write negative things about the president of the united states on your blog?

Jesus. I think the President is a fucking moron who has dug us into a security hole in Iraq that we’re going to spend the next twenty years digging out of, and a deficit hole that may take even longer.

I wonder when they’ll come for me?

Make the F#@!ing Call

Posted on September 23, 2004

Some actual wisdom from Tom Peters over on his blog today:

[A] 5-minute call made right now to deal with a “slightly bruised” ego or a “minor” misunderstanding can avoid a situation tomorrow that leads to divorce court, a lost (major) client, an employee law suit, etc.
I’ve learned that invariably “there was a moment” when the situation (DAMN NEAR ANY “SITUATION”) was reversible. In fact, easily reversible. But pride or embarrassment or unwillingness to further mess up an already nasty day led to “just one more day’s” evasion & delay … and that day becomes a second day …

This has been one of the hardest things for me to learn to do as a PM: pick up the phone pre-emptively and head things off at the pass.

When you know a call is going to be unpleasant, there are strong forces inside you pushing you not to make it — to practice Ostrich Management and stick your head in the sand. There’s always something else that needs doing, after all, so it’s easy to put off making the call.

But Peters is right — putting it off never, never, NEVER makes it better. It only makes things worse — which makes it harder to make the call — which makes things worse… and so on.

Learning how to suck it up, admit your mistakes, and face them early is something that anyone who wants to lead people would do well to do.

“What If…”

Posted on September 22, 2004

Whatever you’re doing, stop it and go read Juan Cole’s new post “If America Were Iraq, What Would It Be Like?“

[V]iolence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll…
What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria?…
What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target “safe houses” of “criminal gangs”, but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies?

Like I said, read it.

Halley Explains It All

Posted on September 20, 2004

Halley Suitt is explaining to us dumb guys what we should be doing on dates (part I, part II):

What the hell are you taking us into the dark, feeding us sweets and showing us pictures of half naked people kissing for anyway — if not to give us a hint?!? If we agreed to go to the movies with you, WE LIKE YOU! We want you to touch us.

Witty? Not So Much

Posted on September 18, 2004

Further evidence of the continuing decline of American theater comes in the form of this press release…

Theatre companies across America are joining in the world premiere of “LAURA’S BUSH,” an apocalyptic lesbian sex farce by America’s most undercover playwright, JANE MARTIN.

“Apocalyptic lesbian sex farce”? What the hell does that mean, exactly? And what kind of “undercover playwright” tells you her name? (Apparently the kind who gets their “mysterious secret” revealed in such hard-hitting investigative journals as the University of Washington alumni magazine.)

Oh, and the title? Witty! Such a sly double entendre. And original, too — nobody’s thought of “Bush” in THAT way before! (Except maybe these people and about a jillion others.)

Like last year’s Lysistrata Project, which encouraged theatre companies across the world to stage the Greek anti-war play in response to the pending war in Iraq…

Yes, because clearly that worked. I mean, who doesn’t remember where they were when they heard about George Bush running tearfully out of that performance of Lysistrata last spring, sobbing “I’ve been wrong! I must stop this unjust war!“

… “LAURA’S BUSH,” comes to us just in time for the presidential elections. Along with the New York premiere, it will be seen in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Ann Arbor Seattle, Atlanta, and Detroit. Playwright Jane Martin considers “LAURA’S BUSH” to be “my form of campaign contribution.”

Somewhere John Kerry is thinking “You know, you could have done me a lot more good by just ponying up $50.”

“LAURA’S BUSH” follows an absurdly prudish librarian as she enlists the help of a small town dominatrix to break Laura Bush out of the White House.
Sexual and political hi-jinx ensue as they uncover a plot so evil and over-the-top that it just might be true.

Aaah! Hi-jinx! Those wacky librarians and their small-town dominatrix friends. What will they think of next?

While Fahrenheit 911 raised eyebrows, this raunchy satire may raise other parts of the anatomy as well.

Wait. Are you telling me that seeing Michael Moore berating Republicans about the war on the steps of Capitol Hill wasn’t supposed to give me a hard-on?

Uh oh.

The mysterious Jane Martin (Talking With, Anton in Show Business, Keely and Du, Jack and Jill) uses her trademark wit to elevate this campy romp into cheeseburger-couture.

I defy you to explain what “cheeseburger-couture” is.

(Without sounding like someone who needs badly to be punched.)

A three-time American Theater Critics Award winner and Pulitzer Prize Finalist, no one has ever seen the elusive Martin, and there is much speculation as to her true identity. Whoever she may be, Jane Martin has written a perfectly timed political satyr play that might not change the way you vote, but will certainly make you laugh. One thing’s for sure, you’ll never look at “LAURA’S BUSH” the same way again.

God, I hope not.

Another Literary Digest Fiasco in the Cards?

Posted on September 17, 2004

Jimmy Breslin’s latest column in Newsday makes a pretty spectacular assertion:

Anybody who believes these national political polls are giving you facts is a gullible fool…
The telephone polls do not include cellular phones. There are almost 169 million cell phones being used in America today – 168,900,019 as of Sept. 15, according to the cell phone institute in Washington.
There is no way to poll cell phone users, so it isn’t done.
Not one cell phone user has received a call on their cell phone asking them how they plan to vote as of today.

(emphasis mine)

Wow. If that’s true — and I should state up front that even people who geek out on this stuff are scrambling to find out if it is — it’s massively significant, because it implies that every telephone poll we’ve seen has been fundamentally flawed in its methodology, and therefore its results. It could even mean that some of the polling companies are setting themselves up for a replay of the infamous “Literary Digest” poll of 1936.

If you don’t know that story, the 1936 Literary Digest poll is the poll that essentially invented modern polling — not because it was a success, but because it was a spectacular failure. Here’s how it went down.

The national magazine Literary Digest ran a national survey every year asking people who they were going to vote for in the Presidential election. They conducted their survey by mailing postcards to a huge list of people — over 10 million — and more than 2 million people responded. (Modern polls usually only have 2,000 or so respondents at most.)

The theory the pollsters operated under was that, if you wanted accurate results, you had to get the largest possible cross-section of the voting public. And for a long time, it worked — the Literary Digest poll had picked the winner in every election they ran it for, from 1916 on. So in 1936, when the magazine announced that Republican Alf Landon would unseat incumbent Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, people paid attention.

Not everyone agreed with the Digest, though. One who didn’t was an upstart pollster who claimed his new methods, which he called “scientific polling”, were more accurate than the Digest’s — and that they predicted that FDR would crush Landon. Nobody took young George Gallup seriously, though.

Until election day, that is, when the votes were tallied and FDR crushed Alf Landon in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history. The Literary Digest poll was so discredited that the magazine became the butt of jokes across the country, and actually shut down not long thereafter.

So what happened? What did the Digest do wrong? They made two major mistakes:

• First, they depended on a self-selected sample — people who chose to mail the postcards back. These were people who were more likely to be angry and anti-incumbent than the average voter. Gallup’s scientific sampling methods (which everyone uses today) didn’t have this problem.
• Second, they were based on a biased sample. Think about this — the Digest sent postcards to 10 million people. But where did it get the addresses for those people? The answer turned out to be that it got them from telephone books and automobile registrations. In 1936, seven years into the Great Depression, people who were poor or lower middle class — in other words, FDR voters — often didn’t own either a phone or a car. So they were pulling their list from a group of people that was mostly Republican to begin with.

So how is this relevant to Breslin’s assertion? If it’s true — if the pollsters are ignoring cell phones — there’s the potential for another colossally biased sample, just like the one from the Digest’s poll. There are millions of people today, mostly young people, whose only phone is a cell phone. If cell phones aren’t being polled, any telephone poll is going to omit these people — and introduce bias into its sample. (And this might help explain things like 2000, where the polls showed Bush ahead in the popular vote until Election Day, only to have Gore pull out a narrow win in the actual vote; those young voters who wouldn’t have shown up in the phone polls would have been disproportionately Gore voters.)

It’ll be interesting to see how the polling organizations respond to this. It’s certainly a serious charge.

UPDATE (9/18/2004): Here’s some follow-up material that fleshes out this issue further:

• In the comments, Sandy Smith asked the very pertinent question of where I exactly I came up with the figure of “millions” of people who have ditched their land line for a cell phone that I so breezily cited above. The only people who seem to have numbers for this are the industry association for cellphone companies, the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association — they’re cited, for example, in this AP story as counting 7.5 million Americans who have gone wireless-only. They have an interest in having that number be high, of course, so there may be some inflation in there, but even if you cut the number in half that’s still three million and change.
• The Electoral Vote Predictor, who asked his readers yesterday for information on whether Breslin’s charges had merit, has a long post today going into the ins and outs of telephone polling. Read it and you will know more about the subject than perhaps you ever wanted to. Executive summary: no, they don’t call cell phones; the impact of this in 2004 is less than Breslin thinks, though not small enough to discount completely; it will be more meaningful in the future than it is now.
• Pollster John Zogby has actually posted a response to Breslin on his company’s Web site. He stresses that the impact of cell phone-only households is more of a future problem for the polling industry than it is a current problem.

Subscribe to Just Well Mixed via Live Bookmarks

Posted on September 16, 2004

I’ve updated the site so that, if you’re using the new Firefox 1.0 Preview Release, you can use its new Live Bookmarks feature to get the latest postings from Just Well Mixed delivered right into your bookmark menu.

To add a Live Bookmark for JWM, just click the little icon that you see in the lower right hand corner of your browser window. This will pop up a little menu allowing you to subscribe to the feed for this site. Once you’re subscribed, you’ll have a bookmark folder in the bookmark menu for JYM just like you would for any other set of bookmarks — only the bookmarks in the folder will always point to the newest posts.

That’s all there is to it! Live Bookmarks are a great way to dive into RSS without all the hassle of using extra “news aggregator” software — perfect if you’re new and curious what the fuss is about.

Iraq Slips Slowly Out of Control

Posted on September 16, 2004

The steady concession of territory in Iraq to the insurgency has reached a startling new level: the Financial Times is reporting that the military has now declared Baghdad’s Green Zone “no longer totally secure“.

The Green Zone is the part of that city that used to be Saddam Hussein’s governmental complex. When we took over, we fortified the hell out of it and turned it into a kind of Baghdad-on-the-Potomac, a little bit of America in the middle of Iraq. It is the one place in the country where Americans were supposed to be able to travel without fear of ambush. Though insurgents had struck near the Green Zone before — most notably in an Oct. 23, 2003 rocket attack on the al Rashid Hotel, where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying at the time — none has yet penetrated into the Zone itself.

If the military isn’t even willing to call the Green Zone safe anymore, the security situation on the ground over there must be pretty grim.

Firefox Tips, From One Who Would Know

Posted on September 15, 2004

Ben Goodger, the man behind the Firefox project, has posted some useful tips for that browser on his blog.

The 9/11 Commission Report

Posted on September 11, 2004

Lately I’ve been reading the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (aka “the 9/11 Commission”). I haven’t finished the whole thing yet — I’ve read just about everything except the section containing the commission’s recommended policy changes — but today seemed like an appropriate day to talk a little about this remarkable document.

You should read it. I don’t mean “read a news story summarizing it” or “ask a friend what it says”. You should actually read the whole thing. It’s not what you probably expect from a government report — it’s written in a very easy-to-read style, and is refreshingly light on acronyms and jargon. If you can follow a Tom Clancy novel, you can follow this.

The report starts out describing the immediate events of 9/11, then jumps back in time to show exactly where the plot came from and how it evolved over time. It alternates chapters telling the al Qaeda side of the story with chapters detailing what was going on within the U.S. government at the same time. Along the way, it tells a story that is by turns chilling, frustrating, and inspiring.

Like I said, read it. You can read the whole thing for free on the commission’s site, but nobody wants to read three hundred pages off a screen — either print off the PDF versions or pay the nominal fee to get a paperback version at your local bookstore. (There’s also a searchable version online, courtesy of Vivisimo.)

There’s too much in there for me to tell you everything, so I thought instead I’d just pull out some of the things that I found to be interesting.

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