Posted 9:56 PM by Floyd

My second Friday Five (one day late):

1. How much time do you spend online each day?

One to two hours.

2. What is your browser homepage set to?

It's blank. If I had to choose a home page I guess it would be Instapundit

3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?

Not really. My coworkers use Yahoo IM to keep in touch when telecommuting, so I have used that IM to talk to them. Aside from those few occasions, I don't use IM.

4. Where was your first webpage located?

My first and only web page was through best.com. I became affiliated with Best because they hosted a startup I worked for. In 1996 I was given the email floyd@togethersoft.com, which became floyd@best.com when Together Software folded. I created a web page some time in 1997.

5. How long have you had your current website?

Approximately six years (see above).

Posted 10:56 AM by Floyd

The Uncle and The Three Year Old Nephew

Uncle: Robbie, can you say "Goodnight, Uncle Floyd"?

Nephew: Yes.


Uncle: Floyd McWilliams
Nephew: Robert Patrick Morton

Screenwriter: Mary-Margaret Morton, Mark Morton
Director: Mary-Margaret Morton
Producer: Floyd McWilliams
Executive Producer: Yi Chen
Lighting: General Electric

Posted 10:52 AM by Floyd

Proposition 187 killed California's Republican Party. This is an article of faith among many political analysts, most of them Democrats.

If you live in California, or pay attention to Golden State politics, you probably remember how in 1994 an initiative promised to make sweeping changes in how the state government would deliver services to millions of people. The initiative was both enthusiastically promoted, and wildly criticized as a demoniac perversion of proper governance. When the smoke cleared, a mere 27% of California voters had punched the hole that signified Yes.

But .. the proposition I just described was not Prop 187, which won handily, 59-41. The proposition that went down in flames was "Little Hillary", which attempted to socialize health care in California. If backing a proposition approved by three-fifths of the voters is sufficient to demolish any hope of electing Republicans, why have any Democrats been elected in the past decade? For that matter, why are Democrats still walking around free of tar and feathers?

Supposedly Prop 187 energized Hispanics to turn out to vote Democratic. But, as Mickey Kaus points out, the numbers don't support this theory:

Here is the Latino share of the vote in the last three gubernatorial elections, according to the L.A. Times:

1994: 8 percent

1998: 13 percent

2002: 10 percent

Furthermore, do we have any examples of this dynamic occurring elsewhere? A political party backs a controversial initiative, bill, or program, the voters enthusiastically approve -- and in a few years, that political party is moribund? Where has that happened?

The idea that Prop 187 killed off Republicans is a fantasy, a Just So Story. I think the Left subconsciously believe that voters felt guilty and revolted by their supposed mean-spiritedness, and turned to the Democratic party to do penance. In the real world, introspection and contrition are not qualities possessed by people who cast ballots. (For example, there are many people who voted for Davis who are now pro-recall and claim that Davis "deceived" them about the size of the state budget deficit. It never occurred to them in 2002 that Sacramento could not provide free money from the sky forever.)

Posted 12:48 PM by Floyd

I've been affected by the East Coast blackout, and not just because there were fewer of you to read my blog. My sister and her family are coming into town from Detroit, which was at the western edge of the area without power. Last night they called to say that they weren't sure what would happen to their flight. Fortunately they did manage to get in the air, albeit two hours late. Their flight has just landed and they will arrive in an hour or so.

Posted 10:18 AM by Floyd

Fathletics

The A's keep teasing me by showing flashes of being a breakout playoff team, and then reverting to mediocrity. Take this past week's four game series with the Red Sox, who were leading the Oaklanders by one game in the wildcard. The A's faced Pedro Martinez in the first game and drove him off the mound by the fifth inning, while Hudson held the Sox batters to two outs. In the second game, Zito was shaky but closer Foulke was masterful.

So now the A's had the wild-card lead, and Mulder pitching in the third game. So far this season Mulder has been the most consistent of the Big Three. Not Wednesday, as he was shelled and the Sox won 7-3.

Yesterday's game featured reasonable pitching by fourth starter Ted Lilly, all kinds of chances for the A's to take advantage of men on base. But they did not convert, and Boston won the game in the 10th inning. Back to a one game deficit in the wild card. :-(

Posted 1:55 PM by Floyd

Joanne Jacobs reports a sad and infuriating story about a student who knew that she had more to learn, but was thwarted by her school:

Bridget Green was all set to be valedictorian of her New Orleans high school, but she didn't even go to the graduation ceremony. Despite her A in Algebra II, Green failed the math portion of the graduation exam. It was her fifth try.

...

To sharpen her math skills and improve her chances of passing the exam, Green asked school officials to let her skip a physical education class and take an additional math course during her senior year. But she said the school's counselor wouldn't let her make the switch.

(Principal Harvey) Cyrus said he doesn't know why Green's request was blocked, but he said his counselors wouldn't deny it without strong reasons.

"My counselors are excellent," he said. "They're going to do everything they can to help a student."

I'd like to get a carton of eggs and cruise around looking for those snotty bumper stickers that say "If you think that education is expensive, try ignorance".

Posted 8:48 AM by Floyd

The American husband and the Chinese wife:

"Honey, this soy milk drink provides 25% of your recommended daily soy protein."

"But I don't need any soy protein!"

Posted 12:29 PM by Floyd

Here's a great link: Chinmusic magazine brings Oakland A's GM Billy Beane and Ramones member Joey Ramone together for a chat. Beane is a huge punk fan, and Ramone is a baseball fan (he has a collection of 5500 autographed pictures).

A couple of years ago when the Pistols did their reunion tour, I figured I had to go, right? So I went out, and there was a whole group of young guys. And then there were guys like me wearing, you know, middle-aged man clothes, who had actually bought the first 8-track! Anyway, on the last song, a young guy behind me decides the best thing to do was to push the guy in front of him. So I'm sitting there with my brother and his friend and coming this close to getting into a fistfight at a concert. I was the assistant GM at the time, so my brother grabs me and goes, "You're the assistant GM with the A's, you don't need to be getting into fights at punk rock concerts!"

No questions about Moneyball, though.

Posted 10:52 AM by Floyd

Howard Dean and John Kerry are the Democratic presidential candidates who get the most attention. But let's not forget that Dennis Kucinich has the important anti-orbital mind control laser vote locked up.

Posted 8:47 AM by Floyd

Liberal Media Bias Does Not Exist, Colby Cosh helpfully reminded us while mentioning that Arnold Schwartzenegger was reported as having voted for divisive Proposition 187. (Even better: Arianna Huffington was described by the Mercury News as a reformed conservative.) Today's Merc serves up a double helping of media bias in one story's teaser: Minorities stay on the Democratic plantation, and they do whatever is best for their race:

RECALL

Latino voters face quandry
BEST CHANCE TO ELECT LATINO IN 128 YEARS
Many Bay Area Latinos, like Victoria Aguilar, had planned to vote against the recall. But now with Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante running in the election, the decision has become more complicated.
By Edwin Garcia / Mercury News

An honest newspaper would print stories like this:

Liberal media faces quandry
LATINOS LINE UP TO VOTE FOR ARNOLD JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE

(Garcia's story is nowhere near as biased as the teaser, which I assume was written by someone else.)

Posted 3:46 PM by Floyd

Lawrence Lessig continues his presidential blog-hosting stint. This week he plays host to Dennis Kucinich.

My early reaction (Kucinich has posted twice) is that Kucinich is a better blogger than Lessig's first guest, Howard Dean. Kucinich presents detailed proposals; Dean's writing was vague. Kucinich is friendly and engaged, whereas Dean came across as distant. Even the photo is better.

Of course these are minor issues. Let's not lose sight of the important data: Kucinich is nuts. This, is, after all, the guy whose reaction to 9/11 was to propose the creation of a Department of Peace. An example from today's posting:

Yesterday, Rob asked several questions:

1) It is almost certain that you will be working with a Republican-controlled Congress at least initially during your tenure. Given that, do you believe it likely that you will be able to get the Congress to pass bills authorizing programs for national health care, withdrawal from NAFTA and WTO, reversal of the Bush tax cuts (which will probably be permanent by then), and dealing with other hot-button issues that the Republicans have been so steadfastly against. You can’t just declare these things by executive order; and I don’t see how you can get such “radical liberal” programs passed. That makes many of your 10 key issues non-starters.

My nomination will set the stage for a Democratic Congress. In 1932, when president Franklin Roosevelt was nominated, he ran on a platform of broad economic reform, which excited people to come out in vote in their own enlightened self-interest. As a result, FDR led a Democratic sweep, which resulted in a pickup of 90 House seats and 13 Senate seats. This was accomplished because he represented profound change. He represented jobs, he represented rebuilding America, he represented a hope for popular control over predatory corporations. My nomination will reverse the results of the 1994 election when the Democrats were unable to regain the House and lost the Senate principally because the parties’ ties to corporate interests muted the differences between the parties and discouraged the Democratic base. My nomination will excite the Democratic base, will broaden the reach of the party, and will engage third party activists to join us in a mighty effort to reclaim our government.

Kucinich's posts have attracted a fair number of comments, though fewer than Dean's. As was the case with Dean, the discussions drifted away from the candidate into a left-vs.-right/libertarian flamefest. Doing his best to help this process along was bomb-thrower Richard Bennett:

However, holders of broadcast licenses have specific responsibilities to the public. It is the public which owns the airwaves. The public provides a license in exchange for service.

It would be a good idea to try and get up-to-speed on technology. Over 85% of Americans now get their TV programs from cable or DBS, so the issue of public ownership of airwaves and government control of content is irrelevant to all but Marxists.

It would behoove you to check out Bennett's blog. He's smart, witty, a good polemicist, and an A's fan!

Anyway, enough posting for now. Time for me to get back to choosing fonts for a living.

Posted 10:42 AM by Floyd

Aaron Haspel said recently that Reason magazine has gotten worse under Nick Gillespie's editorship. I wouldn't know; I haven't read paper Reason in a while. But could anything be dumber than the Reason Hit and Run blog's "throw everything at the US government and see what sticks" postings?

Here's two egregious examples from today. First, the aforementioned Gillespie pulls a Chomskyite trick: All utterances of American public officials must be 100% factually correct and impeccably moral, else the US is an evil empire:

The most detailed U.S. case for invading Iraq was laid out Feb. 5 in a U.N. address by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Six months later, months of war and revelation, the Powell case can be examined in a new light, analyzed here by an AP correspondent who was in Baghdad, Iraq, when Powell made his case for war.
....

Six months after that Feb. 5 appearance, the file does look thin.

So Powell's speech to a bunch of dictators' errand boys had some holes. Woop. De. Fuckin'. Doo.

But Gillespie calls this "devastating".

For the next revelation, you might want to hang onto your chair. You may want to put your hand over your mouth to keep from screaming. Because what I am going to tell you is shocking and appalling. It appears that US armed forces actually tried to kill people!

Looking for UN-banned weapons in Iraq? You might start with the napalm the military now admits that we dropped.

The poster, Julian Sanchez, couldn't be bothered to do any thinking beyond a cheap shot, so commenter junyo had to do it for him:

...according to the article "...A 1980 UN convention banned the use against civilian targets..." The weapon's not banned, certain uses are. The US (which never signed the 1980 treaty in the first place) used the weapons against dug in troops.

So the weapons aren't actually banned, and the US used them in an acceptable manner. What's the story?

junyo also has the Hit and Run boys beat in the snarkiness department:

"I'm sure that other countries are just racing to create a Tickle Bomb"

Update: Bryan Preston found some, well, devastating information about the reporter who critiqued Powell's speech.

Posted 7:03 PM by Floyd

Faster than a rolling O ... stronger than silent E ... able to leap capital T in a single bound ... it's a word ... it's a plan ... it's Letterman!

Hi, I'm Letterman.

Ripping the P from his varsity sweater, Letterman changes the sniper into a snipper!