BEATING ON THE BAD GUYS

"We are so desperate for your help"
-al`Qaeda leader Abu Osama Al Tunisi

A recent study at Simon Fraser University demonstrates that terrorism worldwide is in decline after a short spike a few years ago. While attacks continue, deaths from these attacks have dropped by 40% since 2001. In other words: terrorism is failing in it's intended task once the war on terror started. Having your organization smashed, your funds seized, your personnel killed and captured, your havens ended, and your training camps wiped out tends to have that effect.

This does not get covered very much, but the war on terror is working, it is having a tangible effect. Part of the reason this isn't known very well is that the Bush administration is just terrible at one of its primary jobs: public relations. They are doing a terrible job at letting the world know about how well it is going, and when that is combined with the reluctance (at best) to report good news about the administration in the news and the total rejection of the entertainment industry to put anything out that shows any heroes in the war on terror, it just is not something people know about.

Yet there is reporting in the news, scattered and isolated. Sure, there's no roundup of proud reporting about the heroes who protect us, the bad guys being caught. No ticker tape parades, no movies about these amazing stories, but they are out there. Here's a sampling:

September 2004: Imam arrested in immigration fraud attempt to move terrorists into the US

July 2005: Terrorists scouts arrested in New York City

August 2005: Imam Shabbir Ahmed deported for using Mosque to pass information to terrorists and recruit members

March 2006: Jordanian police foil al`Qaeda plot

April 2006: Italian subway bombing plot is foiled, terrorists captured

April 2006: Professor Al-Arian found guilty of material support to terrorists and deported, despite claims he was innocent by academia and leftists.

May 2006: Shahawar Matin Siraj convicted for attempt to bomb Subway under Madison Square Garden during the 2004 GOP convention... you do remember the coverage of that, right? Yeah, me either.

June 2006: Raid in Canada breaks up terrorist cell, find 3 tons of explosives

June 2006: Three plots to highjack planes foiled by US

June 2006: Miami group aiming at Sears Tower attack arrested.

July 2006: Plot to bomb the Holland tunnel and flood New York City foiled by FBI

July 2006: Chechen Warlord behind Belan school seige is killed in Russia

August 2006: Matiur Rehman, senior al`Qaeda leader behind london bombing plot is arrested in Pakistan.

September 2006: Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi, senior al`Qaeda leader in Iraq captured.

September 2006: Danish arrest German terror plot suspect

April 2007: Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, top al`Qaeda leader in Iraq (are you reading this, Senator Obama?) is captured

April 2007: 172 terrorists arrested in Saudi Arabia over oil bomb plot

April 2007: 5 Britons arrested in plot to destroy various locations with fertilizer bombs

May 2007: Fort Dix 6 arrested in foiled terror plot.

May 2007: Taliban chief Mullah Dadullah is killed in raid by US troops

June 2007: JFK Terror plot suspect captured in Trinidad

September 2007: Three al`Qaeda are arrested in Austria

October 2007: Yemeni al`Qaeda leader Jama Bawadi surrenders to police and is taken into custody.

February 2008: "Osama Bin London" found guilty of trying to set up terrorist camps in England.

May 2008 A Muslim English teacher pleads guilty to threatening to blow up the giant Bluewater shopping centre.

Fox News had a roundup recently, one of the few outlets to even bother, here are some of the lowlights:

• December 2001, Richard Reid: British citizen attempted to ignite shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.
• September 2002, Lackawanna Six: American citizens of Yemeni origin convicted of supporting Al Qaeda. Five of six were from Lackawanna, N.Y.
• May 2003, Iyman Faris: American citizen charged with trying to topple the Brooklyn Bridge.
• June 2003, Virginia Jihad Network: Eleven men from Alexandria, Va., trained for jihad against American soldiers, convicted of violating the Neutrality Act, conspiracy.
• August 2004, Dhiren Barot: Indian-born leader of terror cell plotted bombings on financial centers (see additional images).
• August 2004, Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain: Plotted to assassinate a Pakistani diplomat on American soil.
• June 2005, Father and son Umer Hayat and Hamid Hayat: Son convicted of attending terrorist training camp in Pakistan; father convicted of customs violation.
• August 2005, Kevin James, Levar Haley Washington, Gregory Vernon Patterson and Hammad Riaz Samana: Los Angeles homegrown terrorists who plotted to attack National Guard, LAX, two synagogues and Israeli consulate.
• December 2005, Michael Reynolds: Plotted to blow up refinery in Wyoming, convicted of providing material support to terrorists.
• February 2006, Mohammad Zaki Amawi, Marwan Othman El-Hindi and Zand Wassim Mazloum: Accused of providing material support to terrorists, making bombs for use in Iraq.
• April 2006, Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee: Cased and videotaped the Capitol and World Bank for a terrorist organization.
• July 2006, Assem Hammoud: Accused of plotting to hit New York City train tunnels.
• March 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Mastermind of Sept. 11 and author of numerous plots confessed in court in March 2007 to planning to destroy skyscrapers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

More is getting done than is being reported, all around the world. The bad guys are being slapped around more than Tina Turner and we just don't hear much about it. This is good news, this is heroic stuff, this is the stuff that makes great stories to tell and articles to write.

And nobody is taking advantage of it. Where are the TV shows, the movies, the books? Where is the hype? It's buried in the Drum Principle: if it helps President Bush, it must be ignored. The war on terror is hammering the bad guys and they're on the run. Their efforts are failing, being caught, they are being shot, blow up, captured, and defeated in Afghanistan and Iraq. They're losing.

This is just in case you need good news for the weekend.

Terrorism, Defeated, Captured

THE WAGES OF WOMYN

“My mother is very ideologically based, and her ideology is much more important in many ways than her personal relationships”

The Color Purple is a pretty good movie, and it launched the careers of Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg. Written by feminist author Alice Walker, it is about a woman escaping from a tyrannical man and finding independence among incredible squalor. Oprah Winfrey plays the all-knowing author's voice (establishing her as a maternal, wise elder that she took advantage of for her television talk show), Whoopi plays the cringing, mousy wife. Alice Walker is considered a feminist icon, women around the western world idolize her and her ideas. She was the first black woman to marry a white man in Mississippi, a Jewish civil rights lawyer.

Her daughter says that she has been told by many women that her mother saved their lives, that they have a shrine to her in their homes. Yet Rebbecca Walker does not share the same ideology as her mother, in fact she blames that ideology for estranging them. In fact, her mother thought having a child was a burden, an enslavement:

The truth is that I very nearly missed out on becoming a mother - thanks to being brought up by a rabid feminist who thought motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.

You see, my mom taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.

Her mother was consistent on the theme, and while she liked Rebbecca, she loathed motherhood:

I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers. Virginia Woolf was mentally ill and the Brontes died prematurely. My mother had me - a 'delightful distraction', but a calamity nevertheless. I found that a huge shock and very upsetting.

To prevent this catastrophe from happening to her daughter, Alice Walker tried to raise a gender neutral child without any mothering influences. Girls, the feminist dogma teaches, are only interested in girly things because they are programmed to be when children.

My mother's feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn't even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery. Having a career, traveling the world and being independent were what really mattered according to her.

Lonely and seeking some kind of love, Rebecca Walker fell into a trap many young girls in her situation do:

Although I was on the Pill - something I had arranged at 13, visiting the doctor with my best friend - I fell pregnant at 14. I organised an abortion myself. Now I shudder at the memory. I was only a little girl. I don't remember my mother being shocked or upset. She tried to be supportive, accompanying me with her boyfriend.

Although I believe that an abortion was the right decision for me then, the aftermath haunted me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that I'd never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.

For almost four years now, Rebbecca has had no contact with her mother: four years since her son was born to her and her husband in 2004. Rebbecca feels as though her mother was a competitor, not a mom, undermining her efforts. She got into Yale, and her mother wondered why she would want to go to such a male institution. When she published a book, her mother wanted to publish her own and eclipse Rebecca's book: "When I wrote my memoir, Black, White And Jewish, my mother insisted on publishing her version."

Her friends when growing up were daughters of other feminists and they were deeply confused and troubled.

“Her circle were questioning power relationships and whether a mother had any more knowledge than a child. Some friends of hers were living on communes. I know those kids and they’re totally screwed up.

“Some were sexually abused, all kinds of bad stuff happened, but even those who survived intact don’t want to create communes for their children. They didn’t want to be raised by 10 different parents — again, it was this ideological thing trumping the maternal instinct.”

Her experiences and life have taught Rebbecca Walker the same lesson that many younger women learned about feminism:

“I keep telling people feminism is an experiment. And just like in science, you have to assess the outcome of the experiment and adjust according to your results, but my mother and her friends, they see it as truth; they don’t see it as an experiment.

“So that creates quite a problem. You’ve got young women saying, ‘That didn’t really work for me’ and the older ones saying, ‘Tough, because that’s how it should be’.”

Feminism was born of a noble cause: women truly were oppressed (in a gentle way) and treated poorly by society. A change needed to come and feminism was the engine of that change, although it is likely that it would have come in time without a major movement. Feminism fought treatment of women as children who were too stupid to do many things, the treatment of women are second class citizens.

Yet with that they also fought the treatment of women as special, to be protected and teated differently than men. Feminists hated having a door opened for them, a chair pulled out, a cap tipped, because it treated them differently than men. They treated motherhood and marriage as male institutions that kept women in an inferior position and controlled them, lauding independence as the highest state a woman could hold. Feminists also considered many human weaknesses and societal limitations as being male oppression, despite being things all people share. Can't get a job? Men keeping you down. Your art isn't selling? Male oppression. Don't like your kids? Man's fault. Shoes uncomfortable? Some male designer.

The children of this kind of zealot suffer from their ideological absolutism, particularly groups like feminism where everything is reduced to a single concept: men vs women, class warfare, racism, etc. The family is secondary to the cause, the ideology trumps all other considerations. No matter what it does to your family and friends, the cause is what matters most. And in all this, the helpless, unknowing children who grow up in such an atmosphere end up being pawns in the struggle and lack what they need.

Feminism, Women

CYCLONE NARGIS UPDATE

"I tried to build a small hut, but as you can see it collapsed due to the heavy rain"

The drama over Cyclone Nargis in Burma has not ended. With the death toll over six figures, most the poor and displaced have been harboring themselves in Buddhist temples, lacking any government shelters or other disaster preparation. Yet the military dictatorship is not happy with this state of affairs, and wants these people to go back to their flooded, demolished homes.

Brandishing a megaphone, a military official arrived at a temple in Labutta town at 7pm local time and ordered about 300 storm victims to leave, witnesses said.

"We don't want to see any of you tomorrow morning. You have to move out tonight," the official said, giving the stunned survivors three hours to pack up their meagre belongings and seek shelter elsewhere.

There are over 100,000 people without homes or a place to go, with over 70% sheltered in
temples like this one and the rest in schools and other large buildings. Why they were ordered to leave is unclear, but they were not given much time:

"At first we were ordered to move out the next morning, but later they changed their minds and people were forced to move before 10pm," the 60-year-old mother said.

"Many villagers had no idea where to go, some were crying. Our village leaders were trying to compromise with the military officer, but they failed, and then - with much sorrow - the village leaders told us to move."

By this morning, the pagoda was empty. The only sign of life was two military trucks parked outside.

Part of the reason the dictatorship might want the people moved out of these temples is because of a series of anti-government protests last year organized by Buddhists, one that was put down brutally. Having all those people in close proximity of Buddhist monks who may want to promote more protests likely makes a tyrannical government uncomfortable. All dictatorships rely on the people not knowing how powerful they can be and not caring enough to find out.

Every government exists only upon the will and acceptance of the people, even tyrannies. They are a small number controlling a very large number and need the people to not organize and work together. These shelters might look like a good place for people to start building opposition to a thuggish military junta.

LEGISLATIVE TRICKS

“Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.”
-Thomas Sowell

The US House of Representatives recently passed the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act (HR 6049), which sounds like a pretty nice job if you ignore the 10th amendment and Friedman's thoughts on economics. Renewable energy, who wouldn't like that? And job creation well we all would like to see more jobs (even if unemployment is still incredibly low). It's one of those bills that sounds wonderful, with a name that seems to cover its contents well.

Because of the name and some of the provisions, at least one representative (David Hobson R-OH) felt compelled to vote for it even though he didn't like the bill:

“Probably the responsible vote is ‘no,’ but how do you explain that in a media that’s frantic over gasoline prices? Frankly, this has nothing to do with gasoline prices, but you can’t explain it, and it taxes the rich guys.”

In other words: it is harder to explain why this is bad than to just vote for it and hope it doesn't pass. This is similar to the GI Bill that is being moved through congress - it's not a good bill but it claims to be for the soldiers, so if you vote against it, you have the press and your opponents claiming you are being mean to soldiers. This is the kind of club the majority party in congress can wield to beat up their opponents.

What's wrong with this bill? Well among the various provisions is a shift in the tax structure, here's part of it:

Subtitle B--Business Related Provisions

SEC. 311. UNIFORM TREATMENT OF ATTORNEY-ADVANCED EXPENSES AND COURT COSTS IN CONTINGENCY FEE CASES.

(a) In General- Section 162 is amended by redesignating subsection (q) as subsection (r) and by inserting after subsection (p) the following new subsection:

`(q) Attorney-Advanced Expenses and Court Costs in Contingency Fee Cases- In the case of any expense or court cost which is paid or incurred in the course of the trade or business of practicing law and the repayment of which is contingent on a recovery by judgment or settlement in the action to which such expense or cost relates, the deduction under subsection (a) shall be determined as if such expense or cost was not subject to repayment.'.

(b) Effective Date- The amendment made by this section shall apply to expenses and costs paid or incurred in taxable years beginning after the date of the enactment of this Act.

That means taxes on lawyers are cut. If you have to reduce this to leftist talking points, it is a tax cut for the rich that exclusively favors the rich. To make up for this, the bill raises taxes on investment managers and corporations. Investors are the ones that generate jobs and largely drive the economy; investments mean that people can expand their business, open new stores, build expansions to their factories, hire new people, and research new products (such as, say, alternative fuels). Investment is a good thing overall, even if sometimes people misuse the effort.

In other words, it takes money away from a productive part of society and gives it to the parasites. That the Democratic Party would push a bill that helps their most important supporters and membership (lawyers) is not surprising. Most congressmen are lawyers so they might be inclined to support this from either party.

I'm just frustrated with how easy it is to manipulate lawmakers who sit in their office unable to combat the bad PR that voting against a nice sounding bill will result in. If they'd take some of their absurdly long time in congress to go home and talk to their constituents, they might have a better chance of actually dealing with this kind of thing, but since they rely on the press to do that job, well they are just plain out of luck. So you get votes like Congressman David Hobson above.

I swear if a bill that required kittens to be clubbed to death was called the "Free Internet Act of 2008" it would get scores of votes just on the name alone. What's even more frustrating is that politically cluess and gullible voters would believe that a vote against this bill makes you a bad legislator, without even bothering to ask whether internet ought to be free to all Americans.

Congress, United States, Legislation

Quote of the Day

"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern."
-Lord Acton

Quotes

REMAKE REQUEST

"I'm thinking of remaking Psycho again. Doing a third remake. The idea this time is to really change it - we're talking about doing a Punk rocker setting."
-Gus Van Sant

Hollywood keeps remaking movies, it is one of their three primary sources of inspiration lately: sequels, movie versions of old TV shows, and remakes of old movies. Original content is almost entirely limited to comic book movies and animation, which in a way is related. Most of these movies are awful or pointless: was there really a burning need for another remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Wicker Man, and Fun With Dick and Jane? Some remakes are particularly difficult to comprehend such as the shot-by-shot exact replica of Psycho by Gus Van Sant. It would be an interesting personal project or film school effort, but a major motion picture release?

Most people I talk to mock remakes, considering them not just pointless, but lazy. They think Hollywood has run out of ideas and can't come with anything fresh, so they go back to the trough again and again to vomit up something from the past.

On the other hand, some remakes have been particularly welcome and interesting. I Am Legend's rethinking of Omega Man was interesting and well done in its own right, and avoided the incredibly dated 70s sensibility of Omega Man. The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan was another such effort that was worth doing. There are some movies that could stand remaking.

My criteria when I think of remakes is that the movie has to have either:

1. been one that had potential or could have been interesting but was awful
2. been one that is so dated and uncomfortably set in a time period it loses its appeal

The Thomas Crown Affair falls into category 2: it was just so 70s it was nearly unwatchable, despite having Steve McQueen in it.

So with that as my criteria, here is the list of movies I'd like to see remade:

Red Harvest: Dashiell Hammet's second full-length novel, and while it has been reinterpreted a dozen times in various settings (Yojimbo, A Fist Full of Dollars, Last Man Standing) the original is still the best and has never truly been filmed. In the 1930s Paramount bought the rights to make Red Harvest, but the result (Roadhouse Nights) was so changed and different from the original it really should be redone.

Westworld: This movie suffers from being not just dated but having effects that are particularly weak because of the time period. True, you'll be hard pressed to find someone to replace Yul Brynner (although a few years ago a version with Arnold Schwarzenegger was planned, but his being elected the Governor of California scrapped the project). Yet I'd pay good money to see the movie without Richard Benjamin. Apparently a version is in the works for 2009, but it is just in the planning stages at this point.

Flash Gordon: A campy version of this was done in the 1980s but it was just painful to watch. The Sci Fi channel has tried to put out a series, but it was not very watchable either. This is a fun romp that could be handled Indiana Jones-style with humor but respect for the setting and concept, letting the story and characters carry the movie with the effects to fit the setting. There really has been a lack of fun science fiction work out there for a while.

Threads/The Day After: Both of these came out about the same time, movies about a post-nuclear holocaust that scared the hell out of me at the time. Threads was the superior movie, from Britain, but it was much more low key and story driven, while The Day After was more a big budget disaster movie. There is no bigger disaster than nuclear destruction, and I'd love to see the concept redone not just with modern effects, but lifting it from the politics of the time.

Logan's Run: Although the effects and sets are amazingly well done, this movie is so incredibly dated that it really could do with a remake. The clothing, hair cuts, styles, language, and behavior of the actors screams 1976 and it really could be done better today. As a bonus, the themes of old age being good and tyranny "for your own good" being sinister and soul-destroying are definitely timely.

Journey to the Interior of the Earth: Most of Jules Verne's work is great, and this could be remade so well today. Following the book a bit more closely, with modern special effects, this would be a fascinating and fun story to see. Also: Mysterious Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in 80 Days (this time done as the book) would be great to see remade.

The Invisible Man: While it is true that movies involving invisible people have been made, a real remake of the original Invisible Man story by H.G. Wells is great stuff that could truly be fascinating cinema. The problem with invisible man movies is that they focus more on "wow look we can make him invisible!" more than the story, which Wells did such a good job with. Another Wells book that would stand remaking is The Time Machine, this time sticking closer to the proper story.

Sum Of All Fears: Remake this, and this time stick to the book (and have someone other than Ben Affleck play Ryan, for crying out loud). The bad guys were Muslim terrorists, keep it that way and the story is much more compelling and timely.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Yes, they did technically make a movie with this name, but it wasn't the real thing. It was like making a movie of Santa Claus with the title character being an alien and the setting in Easter where he takes eggs away from children. Technically you have a fat guy in a red suit traveling around the world on a holiday... This would be rated R and be a dark, mature story rather than an adventurous romp, a much more interesting tale than what Hollywood offered up.

Clash of the Titans: While charming in its own way, this really is an awful movie with very poor special effects. Stick closer to the proper story of Perseus and you have an incredible myth to work with, and if the effects are done modern style you have a pretty amazing looking adventure.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service: While George Lazenby does a surprisingly solid job as James Bond despite being a model and having almost no acting experience, the movie is difficult to watch because of the unbelievably choppy editing and strangely sped up combat sequences. This is a great book (which the original movie follows quite closely) and could stand a remake. Personally, had I been in charge of the franchise, I'd have truncated Casino Royale leaving out the second half of the movie (the part where the girl turns traitor and dies) and had Bond get closer to her in the followup: OHMSS, which has her die in the end. The third movie would be with Bond going to Japan in a remake of You Only Live Twice and killing Blofeld as in the original book (it was the sequel to OHMSS).

In fact, when you think about it, there are quite a few Bond movies that could stand remaking. Nearly every movie that the talented but sadly misused Roger Moore did as James Bond begs for a remake:

The Man with the Golden Gun
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
Octopussy
A View to a Kill

Really, the only great Bond movie he did was For Your Eyes Only, although Live and Let Die was pretty well done. These movies so violated or abandoned the original plot that they were shocking to a Bond fan. The puns and stunts got cheesier, the bad guys more cartoonish, they are just embarrassing to watch.

And while we're at series, turn the latest 3 Star Wars movies over to a real writer and director so that they can be remade and be of higher quality. It is no coincidence that the best of the entire series was not directed by Lucas: The Empire Strikes Back.

There are other movies that could stand a remake, these are just the ones I could dredge up and were suggested by friends.

Mind you, the fact that these movies could stand a remake does not mean I hope Hollywood keeps recycling old stuff instead of being creative. I could write a post of 100 stories that should be made into movies, stories never touched by film that would be wonderful adaptations. Those far outnumber remakes, but I bash remakes on this blog on occasion and wanted to give the idea its due.

Movies, Remakes

REDACTED FROM YOU TUBE

You Tube is the former independent website now part of the Google internet empire which allows people to upload videos to share with the world. Most of the videos are of teenage girls dancing to some popular song or family footage of children, some are clips from movies and television shows or "mash ups" where someone takes a bit of video footage and puts their own music to it. Chances are if it is short and on video, it's been on or is on You Tube.

There is a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology guys doing a study that they call YouTomb where they keep track of all videos that YouTube has taken off their website. They show a screenshot of the original video, who asked the video to be removed, how long ago it was, and how long the video had been on the site (sometimes more than a year).

For example, just over 10 minutes before the writing of this entry, Blizzard asked YouTube to remove the introductory music from their upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft called Wrath of the Lich King. It had been on the site 2 days. Every company that has video involved in any of their business now has at least one person patrolling YouTube to make sure nothing copyrighted has made it on to the site.

In one sense this is a bit ridiculous, since the segments can only be so long, are in a squashed down, low quality format, and anything seen on YouTube is essentially advertising. So someone put your music on YouTube, that doesn't mean people will ignore your album and jam to the tinny, AM Radio-quality version instead of your disc.

At the same time, copyright laws are so inexact that using someone's product long enough without their protest damages their claim to copyright and might open it up to public domain claims: they didn't seem to care when it was being used here, your honor, apparently it is not actually copyrighted.

Most of the removed segments appear to be professional wrestling clips, which gives you a sense of who YouTube's biggest fans are. Some of them are simply baffling: advertisements and trailers (which are essentially advertisements) to movies and television shows are removed, which is like asking people to stop talking about and promoting your product. Some are Terms of Service (TOS) violations (usually profanity or nudity) that YouTube removed for failing to adhere to their guidelines. Some are taken down by the person who put them up. Some were just obvious copyright violations, like entire movies that were posted in multiple segments.

Some are just political statements that YouTube is uncomfortable with, such as Michelle Malkin's videos that were taken down. These YouTube removes as being a TOS violation because they are too controversial, yet it always seems to be the material on the right side of the political spectrum that's removed as being so very troubling. This appears to be an artifact of their reporting system: the left tends to scream about content they don't like politically more than the right, and YouTube has a policy of just yanking stuff if they get enough complaints.

It is interesting to look over, to me at least, to see what has gone through the system and didn't make the cut. YouTomb: another time waster.

*Hat tip to Stoaty Weasel for the tip to this site

YouTube, Banned

TOKYO ROSE CONNECTIONS

"Are you enjoying yourselves while your wives and sweethearts are running around with the 4Fs in the States?"

Iva Toguri was the Pacific Ocean version of Lord Haw Haw, the German propagandist who tried to undermine morale and present the German side of things on the radio with popular music. Soldiers tended to listen to the shows because they played popular music and because it was usually funny to listen to the weak attempts to get soldiers to give up or abandon their brothers in arms. Iva Toguri broadcast under the name Orphan Ann, along with several other women whom the GIs dubbed Tokyo Rose.

There are similar characters around today, broadcast personalities who attempt to undermine coalition morale and stop the war on terror from succeeding, but they tend to work openly in the countries they live in such as Keith Olbermann and Chris Mathews. These men and women are completely unconcerned about government sanction, treason charges, or even what they do to soldiers - although if you ask they'll squeal about the chill wind of censorship that they feel but never actually, you know, censors them.

Tokyo Rose broadcasts would always put a happy face on everything the Japanese did and everything that happened in the war, listing glorious Japanese victories that soldiers on islands usually had no part in and did not know about until weeks later. Now we come to a seemingly unrelated incident: a recent Ralph Peters column in the New York Post commented on how the press has been covering the Iraq War, and Ace at the headquarters wrote an entry based on this article bringing up Tokyo Rose. Here's a sample:

During WWII, Japan's government and media always claimed Japan was winning every single battle. But careful listeners could divine the way the War in the Pacific was really going by noting the locations of each of these "victories" -- each of these "victories" seemed to be occurring closer and closer to the Japanese mainland.

In a near-exact reversal of that situation, the American media laments each and every American "defeat"... but careful readers will note that the "Zone of Quagmire" seems to be radiating farther and farther out from US power centers and closer and closer to the heart of Al Qaeda/insurgent/Sadrist control.

We began by losing in Fallujah so badly our troops now say there are weeks that go by without hearing a gun shot. It's quiet there now... Too quiet.

We then lost Baghdad catastrophically. You can tell we lost because there are so few reports of mortar attacks hitting the Green Zone. The enemy won there by moving further and further out from the city. You know -- surrounding us.

We then lost in Basra so dreadfully it apparently simply vanished from the map entirely, perhaps sucked into another dimension through an interplanar vortex.

Next up we lost in Sadr's last bastion of power -- the slum he's named for -- which you can see by fact that the Iraqi Army is now patrolling the streets and conducts house-to-house searches for weapons.

Ace goes on pointing out each successive "loss" the press touted, then when things started to go well the coverage dropped to a trickle when it wasn't abandoned entirely. The only way you can tell things are going better is a reverse of Tokyo Rose: the "victories" by the terrorists, death squads and "insurgents" is an ever expanding circle. Read it all.

The press, loathe to cover anything that might help President Bush or Republicans in any way is simply abandoning coverage of an area once things go well. The Iraq War news, once a front page story every day is now on page L-14, if anywhere. One would think that good news of success by the soldiers that these guys claim to support would be something that they would want to cover. Certainly Americans like to hear about their boys doing well and succeeding.

Those of you reading this: are you aware that Iraq is set to take over its own security in all areas of Iraq by the end of the year? That previous al`Qaeda strongholds such as Anbar are peaceful and growing in prosperity? That Sadr City, the former bastion of the Shiite militia and faux civil war (notice how you never hear about that any more? The legacy media just decided there was a civil war, then when it stopped being a problem didn't decide it was over, they just ignored it) is now under Iraq military control without US military aid? That oil production is now higher than it was before the invasion in 2003?

Do you even care? Or like the legacy media does your interest in Iraq simply stop when things start going so undeniably well that even the press can't deny it?

Iraq, News Media, Tokyo Rose

Quote of the Day

"Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with."
-Bob Wells

Quotes

ID THEFT FRAUD

The stuff we sell is just the best
Passing all consumer test
Days of heaven nights of sin
Voodoo stick and sharks fin
When all around you seems like hell
Just one sip will make you well
Multipurpose in a jar
If you ain`t ill it`ll fix your car
-Big Audio Dynamite, Medicine Show

There are two things that are quite predictable in free market commerce when some new demand or opportunity opens up. The first is that businesses will arise to meet this demand, and the second is that fraudulent business will arise to take advantage of it. Case in point: Identity Theft. With people relying more and more on centralized banking and computer storage of information, paying by credit card and bank card rather than cash, the concept of identity theft has arisen as a notable problem. Criminals obtain your information (such as the code you use with your bank card, your ID, your bank account, your credit card number) and pretend to be you, spending your money.

Both my brother and my aunt have suffered from credit card theft, with thieves simply trying numbers until they get one that represents an active card then making a small purchase to determine if the card is valid and has money in it. Then they go nuts buying everything they want and destroy the account. Credit Card companies are quick to check information and purchases, they flag anything that seems unusual or out of the pattern, such as a sudden purchase in Acapulco when you live in Iowa, or a 1500 dollar purchase when your usual sum is closer to 50. Still, thieves can get away with quite a bit before they are stopped, and usually without anyone catching them at it.

The company LifeLock is one of several that have arisen, promising to protect your identity and funds from theft of this sort. The ad campaign was very clever and compelling: the owner of the company drives around in a truck with his social security number printed on the side, defying anyone to steal his identity. Various actors pretend to be customers who were helped by the business, and the promise is absolute: we will stop them, every time.

Well, it turns out that the man behind LifeLock has been nailed by Identity Thieves five times and has had to change his information each time. According to Andrew Clevenger at The Charleston Gazette:

Richard Todd Davis, CEO of LifeLock Inc., was so confident in his company's ability to protect his identity that he publicly revealed his Social Security number: 457-55-5462.

But according to a new class-action lawsuit filed last week in Jackson County, LifeLock's identity theft protection services were so inept that Davis' personal information was stolen repeatedly.

"While LifeLock has only publicly acknowledged that Davis' identity was compromised on one occasion, there are more than 20 driver's licenses that have been fraudulently obtained [using his personal information]," the suit states.

"Furthermore, a simple background check performed using Davis' Social Security number reveals that his entire personal profile has been compromised to the extent that the birth date associated with his Social Security number is Nov. 2, 1940, which would [inaccurately] make Davis 67 years old."

I think the idea behind LifeLock is a great one, a business to protect identity and finances. I support the business, I just am disappointed - but not terribly surprised - to find out that the huge advertising campaign is just a sham. What's worse, the advertising lies about what LifeLock does, it is not nearly as protective as it claims:

"Through its advertisements, LifeLock misrepresents and assures consumers that it can protect against all types of fraud including, without limitation, computer hacking, password theft and other noncredit-related theft," the suit reads.

But LifeLock doesn't protect against many forms of identity theft, according to the lawsuit.

The Arizona-headquartered company does place and renew fraud alerts on its subscribers' credit profiles. But it does nothing to combat breaches involving personal bank, employment or medical information, as well as theft pertaining to government documents and benefits, the suit alleges.

"LifeLock knows, yet fails to disclose, that the services it provides do not offer the breadth of protection that it promotes through its massive advertising campaign," the suit states.

There's room for such a business out there, one that does all that they claim. According to the lawyers behind this suit, LifeLock doesn't even claim to protect you, it simply claims to investigate what happened, it won't compensate you for monetary loss or even restore your bad credit. Apparently in Wisconsin a thief stole someone's identity to sign up for LifeLock's protection, which does not speak volumes for it's screening and information gathering prowess.

There's demand for protection of this sort - although your credit card company already provides much of this service as part of its ordinary business. Sadly, it appears that LifeLock just isn't that business.

LifeLock, Fraud, Identity Theft

CORRUPT REFS

"Rather than seeking to implement much-needed reforms, the NBA has chosen instead to attack the messenger."

One of the aspects of Basketball that keeps me from being a fan is the refereeing. Every sport has an adjudicator that helps keep the rules straight, catches people cheating or breaking rules and keeps order. Umpires in baseball, refs in football and basketball, and so on. These men are given the difficult task of watching multiple players in furious action and trying to make accurate decisions as rapidly as possible. I don't mind when they make mistakes, that's inevitable and is part of the game. What bothers me is favoritism, which is grossly evident in basketball more than any other sport.

Ever since I watched my first game I could see clearly that some players - the biggest stars - were able to get away with more, and worse, players who interfered with them would get called for less, than the average player. Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neil, all the big names who clearly did not need the extra help could foul, travel, and otherwise break the rules without being called as often as others. Players who came near such a superstar were more likely to be called for a foul for daring to interfere with their royal nature. It even extended to some teams, I remember well the Pistons/Trailblazers finals where the Pistons were practically able to engage in martial arts on the Blazers without a single call, and if any of the Blazers breathed on a Piston, they got a whistle. It was pathetically one-sided (the Pistons got this treatment the whole year).

Everyone who watches the game knows it, even the fans who pretend otherwise because they love a certain player. Now we have a bit of concrete evidence to support this observation from disgraced referee Tim Donaghy. Donaghy, who was fired and is being tried in court for betting on games he oversaw, alleges that betting on games is not unusual for refs in the NBA, and even officials in the league.

What's more he also said that refs had favorites that influenced their calls:

Disgraced basketball referee Tim Donaghy told investigators in the NBA betting probe that relationships among officials, coaches and players "affected the outcome of games," his attorney said. The league said the charges were unfounded.

Donaghy's attorney made the assertions in a letter filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn on Monday, in which he argued that his client should be sentenced to probation because he fully cooperated with prosecutors and has been undergoing treatment for his gambling addiction.

The attorney also suggested that Donaghy told investigators about the gambling activities of other NBA officials and about a referee who passed "confidential" information to an unidentified coach.

What he's claiming is that more than just a few referees liked or had friendships with certain players and would call games based on those friendships. That they gambled on the games and the calls were influenced by this betting. He doesn't say so but I suspect strongly that the NBA also subtly request or hints that refs go easy on some players for the good of the game.

Basketball requires big stars to survive, it is not a very engaging game without a big name to watch and enjoy. The basics of the game are so simple and repetitive that if you've seen one game you have seen nearly everything basketball has or will have to offer. For most people, basketball will not hold your attention unless there's someone specific you like and want to watch play, someone that will make the game more interesting. So the NBA lives and dies on it's stars, at present there really isn't that big name that everyone loves and wants to watch, the guy that even non-fans know from ads and other media, and their popularity is suffering.

So it is in the league's best interest to have these stars, even if you have to give them a nudge sometimes to make sure they perform and put on a good show. If that requires you to call a foul on someone who dared block their shot, or ignore their traveling, or figure it wasn't really a charge when he drives down the court and blasts some guy who has been eating lunch on the spot for three minutes, so be it.

The National Basketball Association rejects these claims, calling it a desperate ploy, but anyone who's been a fan of or even watched a lot of games cannot help but sense a strong plausibility to his accusations. At least I do. And really, what else would you expect them to say? OK, you caught us, you're right, what are you gonna do about it?

Basketball, Referees, Gambling

THE VIRTUES OF FUNNY DICE

"It allowed me to not tamp down my imagination; I think there's a tendency to turn that part of you off. Every kid has imagination, but at a certain age, that spigot gets turned off."
-Jon Favreau

Since I was fifteen I've been playing RPGs, Role Playing Games such as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Traveler, Champions, and many others. These games are an engaging hobby, requiring improvisational acting, mathematic, and problem solving skills combined with a creative spirit and involving several other like-minded individuals. They are not for the dull-minded or uncreative, and this can be intimidating to some, but RPGs really are a lot of fun. Be a super hero, or a marine on some distant planet, or a pirate, or a dwarf hunting trolls, or anything your imagination can allow, really. The dice and papers are just structures to assist with your creativity, to give it a framework and a system rather than being simply "let's pretend" where people argue about whether or not someone hit them or some idea worked.

A commenter on a blog once asked fellow posters if they thought comic books or role playing games had more of an impact on movies. Most people said comic books, primarily because of the movies being put out such as Batman and Spider-Man. I said role playing games, and a recent interview with Jon Favreau (director of Made, Elf, Zathura, and most recently Iron Man) illustrates why I think so:

Some filmmakers get their start making shaky home movies, others catch the bug in a high school drama class or maybe through an art institute where they put paint to canvas. Favreau has more of an eight-sided education.

"It was Dungeons & Dragons, but I wouldn't have owned up so quickly a few years ago," Favreau said sheepishly.

"It's rough. It's one of the few groups that even comic-book fans look down on. But it gave me a really strong background in imagination, storytelling, understanding how to create tone and a sense of balance. You're creating this modular, mythic environment where people can play in it."

Role Playing Games require you to make up a story as you go along, and make it not only entertaining to everyone involved, but plausible enough that people can suspend their disbelief and inhibitions to join in. The referee (Game Master, Dungeon Master, it goes by different names - the one in charge of the overall story and all the characters other than the ones the other individuals each play) must make up the story on the fly, adapting to the actions and attempts of the players. This requires not just a lot of imagination and preparation, but a sense of storytelling, a joy in creativity, and with it comes the skill to craft a tale that flows naturally.

There has been a serious flaw with a lot of film making and story telling in the past, a flaw that gamers always saw and mocked. The writer would make things happen to move the story along instead of having believable things happen the way the character would act in that situation. The hero would down a bad guy and walk away instead of making sure they are down and stay down. They would ignore important clues or situations that needed to be dealt with. They wouldn't take actions that made sense for the character and were critical to getting the job done.

Here's a perfect example of another director influenced by role playing games, Joss Whedon. In the first episode that broadcast of his TV show Firefly, the team captures bounty hunters that have been chasing them down. The captain confronts these leader with a message and money to take back to their boss, and it plays out like this:

CROW goes down in a heap onto his knees. He is on the ramp, the huge jet engine behind him just starting to whir to life, wind kicking up as the ship prepares to take off.

MAL stands before him, holding a wad of bills.

MAL: Now this is all the money Niska gave us in advance. You give it back to him, tell him the job didn't work out. We're not thieves -- well, we are thieves, but -- the point is, we're not taking what's his. We'll stay out of his way as best we can from here on in. You'll explain that's best for everyone, okay?

CROW rises. He towers over MAL, hatred on his face.

CROW: Keep the money. Use it to buy a funeral. It doesn't matter where you go, how far you fly -- I will hunt you down and the last thing you see will be my blade.

MAL: (sighs) Darn.

He kicks CROW back -- and the huge fellow is instantly SUCKED into the engine of the ship. It's very sudden, but the resultant crunching noise goes on for a bit.

A beat, and ZOE shoves one of CROW's henchmen in front of MAL.

MAL: Now. this is all the money Niska...

HENCHMAN: Oh I get it. I'm good. Best for everyone, I'm right there with you.

MAL smiles, puts the money in the man's breast pocket and pats it.

Gamers have faced this kind of situation before, and with a good GM, they know how it will turn out if they aren't careful or do not play it right. Don't let the guy who vows to hunt you down forever and refuses to take your reasonable offer go, that's just suicidal. That monster you knocked down with one shot? Shoot it five more times while it lies there - in the face - just to make sure. They get back up sometimes, and bullets are cheap. The first movie character to do this was Detective McLane in Die Hard: he didn't shoot someone once, he practically emptied his gun into them. Gamers while playing their characters in an RPG don't fall for the usual lines, they don't trust what characters used to in movies. They don't believe the lies, they check out what previous people overlooked or took for granted. Remember the fable of the scorpion and the frog? The frog gives the scorpion a ride and halfway over the river, the scorpion kills the frog, admitting that it is just his nature? The gamer would know that and refuse the scorpion a ride.

In some genres this wouldn't work: in a horror movie, the gamers wouldn't split up and back into dark rooms, they would band together inventory weapons, and set heinous traps. It would cease to be a horror movie and turn into a bug hunt like Aliens, but that would ruin the mood.

This sensibility transfers into movies very well, particularly as writers and directors work. The attitude and experiences of playing out thousands of complex scenarios with other capable, intelligent, and creative people can have a significant impact on your viewpoint of storytelling, and that impact is being felt in movies today. Comic book movies are doing big business and are popular, but RPGs influence the entire industry and how the movies are crafted. Comic books are about content, RPGs are about philosophy and the work of getting movies made, they influence a much broader segment of the industry.

Other famous people who play or used to play RPGs are listed in the article: Robin Williams, Steven Colbert, Mike Meyers, and Vin Diesel. Even writer and conservative pundit Michelle Malkin once confessed she played AD&D to get close to a guy she liked in school. Television shows such as Freaks and Geeks have shown gamers, AD&D was even (somewhat inaccurately) shown in the movie E.T. in the scene the alien is first discovered. It's part of culture, in an underground sort of way.

Role Playing Games have a stigma attached to them: only the most feeble, pathetic unsocial losers play these things, nobody cool would even touch a 20-sided die. Go to a gaming convention and you'll see some of the most shockingly unwashed, socially inept, and nerdy people on earth, but mixed among them are rather normal folks, even impressive people.

Among those people are future movie makers, leaders, writers, scientists, and more who are training themselves to face unexpected and bizarre challenges while having fun along the way. Role Playing lets you face your demons and defeat them, it lets you explore strange, frightening, and wonderful worlds, all while hanging out with friends and fellow gamers. It teaches teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, even history and vocabulary while entertaining and constantly working your brain. At its best, it is top-notch improvisational theater that people do for fun. At its worst it is simply randomized violence.

Role Playing Games have been given a pretty bad reputation over the years. At first they were demonic and caused players to go mad - the woeful television movie Mazes and Monsters with a young Tom Hanks is a classic example of this. Christian groups condemned the games as malevolent sorcery, concerned parents worried about their children spending hours making new characters and inventing new dungeons. Peers considered anyone who played these games pathetic wretches barely worthy of contempt. Admitting you play Fantasy Hero or Vampire: The Masquerade is more embarassing than admitting you are homosexual in modern culture, but I wonder if that isn't due for a change.

After all, it is hardly shameful to enjoy creative pastimes with friends and invent stories of wild and woolly adventures. And as more people who are admired reveal their gamer past, the perception is due for a change. Certainly it wouldn't hurt today's young people to spend more time with books and thinking and