Metric blindness
Via Slashdot, I found this interesting article about so-called "Metric" paper sizes (A4 and so on) that implies that those 0h-so-smartypants Euro types are way ahead of us North American Babbitt frontiersman warmongers. Oh, yeah, if they're so smart how come golf courses all over the world are still measured in yards? Even the new ones? I especially love the way the article slips in a "yet" whenever it says that not everybody uses the devilspawn Metric system. I'd be willing to bet in fifty years the good old English pound-inch-gallon system will still be alive and well.

And as to those paper sizes fitting so well with each other because the sides have the ratio of one to the square root of two: Am I missing something or couldn't that work in any measurement system, not just the Metric system? What's that got to do with the soulless, unnatural millimeter?

Disappointed
OK, I did it, I admit it. I got on a darn scale yesterday at lunch before my big new job interview. And I had GAINED weight. Now I know why the Cortislim people tell you not to weigh yourself for the first month. I could be wrong. I've noticed before that I weigh different amounts at lunchtime, dinner, and in the morning. Usually I'm lightest in the morning, before the cares of the day have burdened me. Who knows how much the anxiety of going to a job interview weighed me down? But my clothes aren't any looser. And the guy in the Cortislim radio ads seems to have changed his spiel to say that he's taking four pills a day instead of two. What does THAT mean? I'll stay the course, though, and do my two-pill a day routine for another few days, which will be one month. Then maybe I'll switch to four a day for a month. Of course then the 60-day money back guarantee will be expiring. HAH! JUST LIKE THEY PLANNED!! Or maybe not. Hope not. Is this just the 200 pound plateau? Why does my war against weight seem to parallel the War against Terror and to Liberate Iraq? Maybe by June 30 I can declare victory and buy new pants with a thirty-inch waist. Not that I really want to be that skinny again. Perhaps the shedded weight will take with it all the wisdom I've accumulated over the last thirty years. But wait a minute. If the foolishness sloughs off as well, I can start over with a clean slate. And a full plate. Sorry. I love to eat.

Americans are prisoners in our own Abu Ghraib

The obscene pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison have been compared by "conservative" commentators to the images popular culture on cable TV and in NEA-funded "art" expose Americans to every day. The obvious difference that compulsion is involved in the prison doesn't refute the basis of the comparison. If it is horrendous and unacceptable for prisoners to be exposed to sexual images, why is it any less horrendous for American taxpayers and TV watchers to be exposed to images like Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, "Piss Christ" and profane and obscene "performance art", simulated sex and constant foul language in hip-hop videos and booming rap filth streaming from loud cars at stoplights? Is it any wonder some of us feel like prisoners in our own country?

Can I be (Gasp!) Wrong??
Paul Campos of the Guardian has an interesting article about weight loss whys and wherefores. Of course, being a Guardianista, he blows it at the end by relating America's "obsession" with weight loss to SUV's and "Imperialism". Fool. And isn't it the svelte, sophisticated Europeans who are always complaining about what fat, low-class pigs Americans are? Then American liberals breathlessly and shamelessly copy their attitudes, just like Mencken noticed a century ago.

Nevertheless, he makes some good points about the lack of real evidence that being fat hurts anyone. I am losing weight, though, so I can get strong and feel attractive and energetic. It probably is a class thing, to some degree. But it also feels good to be thin. Now I'm going to worry about why thin feels better, why I obsess about losing weight. But I shouldn't.

Just in time!

Whew! Looks like I decided to get rid of my toxic fat just as more evidence came out that fat is incredibly bad for you. So why are fat people so jolly, anyway? I know! Because they can eat anything they want! Seriously, the article could be an ad for Cortislim:

The first real inkling that fat is more than just inert blubber was the discovery 10 years ago of the substance leptin. Scientists were amazed to find that this static-looking flesh helps maintain itself by producing a chemical that regulates appetite.

One of the main ingredients of Cortislim is something called "Leptiplex" (TM) which underwhelms when you see it's just extracts of green tea leaf and bitter orange peel. But it could be just what you need to combat the chemical signals being sent to the rest of your body from the fat, according to the AP. And they never deceive. Do they?
Once again, it seems that I have taken to something just as it becomes wildly popular. Atkins was like that. Is it perhaps the other way around? Does a particular ideology or lifestyle become wildly popular because I adopt it? Hmm. (or "heh"))

Literary losers
It would be hard to parody this account of a literary prize gathering on Mauritius. It self-parodies so well one is suspicious if such a prize even exists. The animadversions against "modern" literature in The Fountainhead pale by comparison. So I sent the following letter to the editors of the Independent:

Dear Editors:

I just wanted to make sure you knew how much I enjoyed Tracy Macleod's satire on literary prize competitions. I laughed till I cried. Books which have "love at their spine"!! Please, stop!! "A Glaswegian painter-decorator"! "Lesbian love in a shabby-genteel Oxford"!! "love between an ageing gay composer, his dog and a brutal Bosnian interloper."!!! That last one, if I may criticize, is where Macleod went a little over the top. I mean, come on. Bosnians are always victims. Oh, wait a minute, maybe he was a Bosnian Serb. Then that would be OK. But Macleod overdoes it again with "it's smart to be intelligent". I needed my heart pills after that one. The Aberdonian Travelodge was also a bit much, but all in all I haven't enjoyed such a brutal yet humorous savaging of literary pretensions since The Fountainhead. Thanks again.

Robert Speirs

Tallahassee, Florida

The Full Story - Shot Live!

RealClearPolitics.com does a good job in this piece explaining exactly what must have been going through John Feckless's mind when he went to Vietnam. I'd always been puzzled why he was so aggressive and warlike as a soldier, when even before he joined the service:

By that time Kerry had also expressed grave doubts about the war in Vietnam, most notably on June 12, 1966 when he said in an oration to his fellow students, "We have not really lost the desire to serve. We question the very roots of what we are serving."

For someone that much opposed to the war to go to Vietnam is understandable only if he had coldly calculated the whole thing in advance. He was about to be drafted. So his plan was to join the Navy and sit safely on a ship offshore and set up a nice juicy political career. Then his hitch on the Swift boats got dicey. But there he was with a movie camera getting himself on film, Liveshot shot live! It must have been near-hallucinogenic. All the medals he grubbed, the action he got into, the praise and, probably, somewhere deep inside, the awful guilt for even having gone, much less having killed enemy soldiers. I suppose it's hardly surprising that he had to come back and apologize, publicly and repeatedly. In his mind the whole war was an atrocity and he was part of it. The fact that his ravings and even his apologies and his medal-throwing garnered him more publicity than he could have dreamed must have seemed hugely laughable. And he must have known it was all wrong. Because here he is thirty years later, pluming himself on the medals whose ribbons he threw away, acting as though his actions in Vietnam "defended America" when he never thought they did any such thing. And he's having to defend what he must always have thought was his most admirable action, his criticism of and apologies for his country's trying sincerely to defend a small vulnerable country from Communism.

What a mixed-up man.


update Pernod and bitter lemon is not my favorite drink. Bitter licorice needs something else. Sugar? Maybe I need to put a little lemoncello in it. I'm trying to conceive how a Hemingway would taste. That's one part Pernod to five parts champagne. Maybe I'll try it on Mother's Day. Found the perfect present for Mom. A music box with an airplane that goes round and round while "Here we go into the wild blue yonder" plays. You see, Dad was an Air Force guy.

Peugeot Panne-ic

Little Anglo-French pun there for ya. The 505STX is in the shop after pooping out on the side of the road. Since my daughter's car is also in traction, mending, it's been an interesting couple of days. I would swear the Cortislim has had something to do with keeping me calm and focused. It almost got me through the neighbor's brass band rehearsal for Cinco de Mayo last night, but he pushed things a bit too far and I yelled at him anyway. Moron. Tonight seems quiet, so maybe I'll be able to get some distance into the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini before I pick up the kids at work at nine. And then there's the Lakers-Spurs game. Busy busy. And I finally got the Pernod drink menus. Tonight I'm going to try it with Bitter Lemon. After I finish driving.

Looser clothes?

Hmm. Does my abdomen actually have muscles in it, under all that fat? My usual way of judging whether I'm losing weight or not is whether my belt still fits. It's in the last hole - OK, so I bought a 44, hoping for this result. The problem is that I'm still wearing 40 pants and I could swear they're getting all bunched up around the waist, so the belt is still working even though just maybe there's less fat for it to circumscribe, but all the bunched-up fabric makes it seem just as tight. The real test will be to buy some 38 pants and see if I can breathe in them and if I'll have to put another hole in the belt.

I've been reading all the pieces about the prison "atrocities" in Iraq. What atrocities? Sounds like all the things they tell teenagers about prison in Florida to get them not to smoke dope. And that leads me to wonder about all the pundits solemnly opining that the pictures of mistreatment - that's the proper word - will convince millions of Arabs to rise up and become terrorists. Maybe this is cynical and mean, but isn't it more likely that millions of young Arab men will look at the news stories and become markedly LESS eager to earn a place in an American-run prison? Of course a few may think it looks like fun.

Andalusia is lost - again!

What would El Cid say? Did he worry about upsetting the Moors? No, he was too busy slicing them into little bits and crushing their heads and stringing them up three or four at a time on his lance. To be historically accurate, I've heard he did actually use Moors in his army, when the time was right. But now BBC alleges that people say idiot things like this:

The Baroque image of a sword-wielding St James cutting the heads off Moors is not a very sensitive or evangelical image that fits the teachings of Christ, he added.

Nah, nobody else ever cut people's heads off in the name of Christ (or Muhammad!) so why should St. James be the only one!? How about those of the six million tourists who visit Santiago de Compostela just to see the image of St. James cutting off Moorish heads? That must be right up to five million, nine hundred and ninety thousand or so. Including all the real live boys.

This explains it

I always wondered why I could never understand Chomsky's linguistics when I studied linguistics in the early Seventies. I even went to a summer seminar and sat - literally - at the feet of the great master. I just figured I was too dense or lazy to penetrate the mysteries. Now Pejman has opened my eyes to the nature of Chomsky's evil ineptitude. I think I'll steal bits and pieces and just call Chomsky an "intellectually stunted microbe" and forget him. Be sure to check out the comments. And Amritas on the subject. "Like Lenin and Lysenko rolled into one." Yup. That's Chomsky.

Two Weeks

The literature says not to look at a scale for the first thirty days of the Cortislim regime. Of course, I couldn't resist, looked again yesterday morning, which marked two weeks since I started taking the stuff, and realized why the Cortislim folks say that. You get frustrated by seeing you only lost five pounds in two weeks. The scale shows me at 200, where I was a couple of days after I started. Will I be able to avoid scale obsession for the next two weeks? No. Can looking at a scale make you gain weight or lose it slower? Of course not - or - hmm. Depends on the psychological component. I'm still waiting for the dramatic looser-clothes effect to hit, too. On the bright side, I'm off Atkins and not gaining weight. I walk quite a lot, sometimes not by choice, as when my car broke down yesterday. I seem to have mastered the art of stopping the snacks early in the evening. And I feel better. On balance, I have hope. I'm not yet at the point where I can recommend to others to spend a hundred bucks on three bottles of these pills, though. I'll know about that after six months when I've lost as much weight as I want and kept it off.

As much as I want and no more

Trying to pay attention to my body today, stopping eating even if my plate isn't clean. That could save money, too. I keep expecting my pants to start falling off, but that hasn't quite happened yet. It's a bit disorienting because, the propaganda is correct, my body does seem to have changed shape somehow so I'm not quite sure whether it's fatter or leaner or what. That should change.

Not Wyatt Earp

Hate to disagree with Ralph Peters, but Iraq doesn't need a Wyatt Earp or a Rudy Giuliani. Peters thinks order on the streets is the basic medicine that will purge Iraq of its chaos:

In addition to the military reduction of the last breath of resistance in Fallujah and the arrest or killing of the renegade cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Najaf, we need to change the rules on Iraq's streets.

If any adult touches a damaged or destroyed U.S. military vehicle, he must be shot. Start with a one-week warning period to get out the new rules. Then execute. The Iraqis playing trampoline on the hoods of our charred vehicles aren't the ones who will build a better future.

As for the juvies, send them to reformatory camps. No exceptions, even if daddy's the Sheik of Araby.

If we can't or won't bring order to that festering country's streets, we'll never see a lawful state emerge. I still believe that most Iraqis want democracy - in some adjusted form that gives them a voice in their country's affairs. But they want and need security even more. You can't build a legal economy or hold honest elections if you can't control the neighborhoods in broad daylight.

Law first, then democracy. Sorry, but it doesn't work the other way around.

He seems to forget that Saddam used the "all force all the time" method for years, although concededly in a less than judicious manner. But even Wyatt Earp could not get the Iraqis to feel like Iraqis who need to subordinate their factional interests to democratic methods for the good of the nation.

Iraq needs an Ataturk. I'm not saying Turkey's perfect. But most Turks do think of themselves as Turks these days. An Iraqi leader who can get Kurds and Sunnis and Shi'as to think of themselves as citizens of a modern, respectable nation state would take the country far beyond simple civic order to true nationhood. The Ataturk reforms:

Between 1926 and 1930, the Turkish Republic achieved a legal transformation which might have required decades in most other countries. Religious laws were abolished, and a secular system of jurisprudence introduced. The concepts, the texts and contexts of the laws were made harmonious with the progressive thrust of Atatürk's Turkey. " The nation", Atatürk said, " has placed its faith in the precept that all laws should be inspired by actual needs here on earth as a basic fact of national life."

Among the far-reaching changes were the new Civil Code, Penal Code, and Business Law, based on the Swiss, Italian and German models respectively.

The new legal system made all citizens - men and women, rich and poor - equal before the law. It gave Turkey a firm foundation for a society of justice and equal rights.

are not that different from what the new constitution is trying to introduce to Iraq. The problem is the lack of a charismatic leader who can personalize the reforms and offer an Iraqi vision of the new democratic man. Is there no survivor of the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf wars with military and political leadership credentials and not too many atrocity rumors attached to him who could be Iraq's Ataturk?

Signals

The Cortislim website says that a Cortislimmed body will send you signals as to when to stop eating. They're right, but I am really finding it difficult to obey the signals. For instance, yesterday we had a lunch for the secretaries at work. I had a chicken sandwich with fries. Halfway through I can remember thinking, "Gee, I don't know if I want this whole thing." But I have a strong impulse to "clean my plate" even though I can't actually remember my mother using that "Think of all the children starving in China" line on me when I was a kid. Maybe I just hate to pay for a meal and then leave half of it. Then it happened again at supper, when I insisted on eating a whole box of breaded scallops because I'd cooked them all, even though I practically had to force the last of them down. Sigh. Maybe I'll train myself by making smaller portions. Also, I'm back to a usual carbohydrate ratio, after being on a modified Atkins for years. So maybe that's confusing things. I really want to see if Cortislim will work with a "regular" diet, though, to clarify whether it's my Atkins efforts or the Cortislim that's working. Oh, yeah. Day 11. Haven't dared weigh myself the last two days because I feel fat. That may be the carbs talking.

Kerry implosion

Even hard core Dems seem to be getting really worried about Kerry's campaigning competence. I can't believe this. Who did they think they were voting for in all those priimaries, anyway? John Feckless is a pretty known quantity, or lack thereof. I know, Bushies shouldn't be too quick to carp and caper with glee. The last thing we want is to have to deal with Hillary or even John Edwards instead of Liveshot. But it is delicious to watch the Dem-mobile driving over a cliff with Craggy X. Blowhard pontificating at the wheel, not even aware of the spectacle he's presenting.

Day Nine
Pretty frustrated at my scale, for refusing to show the weight loss that my body tells me I've experienced. Ah, well, according to the testimonials on the Cortislim website, I should lose ten or fifteen pounds this month. That's all I care about. If I had already lost ten, I would be a bit scared. Still feel good and am sleeping better, no doubt about it. I must say I'm not exercising much, either, on the theory that I need to be thinner before I can do enough of the Combat Conditioning exercises to make a difference. I did do a whole sixty second "Wall Chair" yesterday, though, which felt good. Is it my imagination or does my gout feel better since I started taking Cortislim? Hmm. I bet the Cortislim folks would be interested to know that, although they probably couldn't use any testimonial I might make to claim a cure for gout without going through sixteen years of FDA paperwork.

Oil for Anti-Americanism

Claudia Rosett has really put it all together about the U.N.-scam known as the Oil-for-Food program. I'm glad to see the Kurds are still demanding their four billion dollars that - surprise, suprise! - Satan, I mean Saddam, never gave them. Hard to believe the UN's auditing never discovered that fact. Does anybody seriously maintain any more that the UN - or any agency of the "international community" - is good for anything? Wait, there is one thing. That big building in New York would make fantastic condos. And think of the parking revenue the city would pick up. Mayor Bloomberg? I hear they're smoking in there. Can't you condemn and confiscate the building on that basis?

Billy Joel

Is anyone really wondering why Billy Joel has all those car accidents? Has anyone actually looked at his CAR?? I thought Citroen Deux Chevaux couldn't be imported to the US because they were so lame. That one looks just like the one my landlady had in Paris in 1964. (Scroll down, on the right, until it goes away). And this is spoken by the proud but frustrated owner of a 1987 Peugeot 505.

Day Six

Still becalmed, I feel the first stirrings of wind. I would swear my abdominal area feels tighter, less, well, fat! I'm reducing the size of my meals purposely now, because I just don't want to eat as much. My personal behavior disaster - inhaling a bag of chips and a bag of SourPatch Kids with a few beers when I get home - not only doesn't seem as appealing, it hardly seems possible any more. I mean, I tried. And I actually had to put the candy away and roll up the bag of chips and stash it in the magazine stand next to my chair. I'll try again tonight.

I found a great Romantic Realism art site. As often happens, though, the linked sites are just as good, especially the one about the Rational Basis of Happiness. I may HAVE to buy an Ayn Rand cap and bumper sticker.

I was thinking what would have happened if AlGore had been president during 9/11. He would probably have invaded Afghanistan, but then, if he followed the Liberal Democrat line, would have left the Iraq situation as it was. Sooner or later the pressure would have been off Saddam and the whole region would have sent terrorists into Afghanistan. Does anyone really think that would have been a better situation than the one we're in now? Does anyone think Libya would have caved and Pakistan would have exposed Dr. Khan? And how many tens of thousands of Kurds and Marsh Arabs and other Iraqis would now be dead who are now, because of the sacrifices of our young men like Pat Tillman, alive?

Plateaued, becalmed

I feel like Captain Cook in the Horse Latitudes, stuck at 200 pounds, which, I concede, is better than being stuck at 205 pounds. I need to put some longboats out with every available man in them in pull for moving air. It's only day 5, so I have some hopes of getting off ten pounds this month, which is all I really need. Under Atkins it would take several weeks to get through the 200-pound plateau.

Day Four

OK, I'm disappointed I didn't lose a lot in the first three days. I feel as though I've lost, but the scale says no, though I'm still very close to 200 pounds. I have always had trouble breaking through my 200\-pound plateau. I'll be happy to break through in the next two weeks, especially if I keep feeling this good. I'm also back to eating a lot, for me, of carbs. That's kind of an experiment, to challenge the Cortislim to work even though I'm inhaling bread and pasta.

John Kerry's wife is a hoot, eh? Is she really, really stupid or just so arrogant she can't bring herself to understand what is demanded of a presidential candidate's wife? Of course, Kerry himself seems dubious about doing what a candidate has to do. Teresa's income tax returns will be interesting, when the reporters beat them out of her. What a circus! I should go to a Kerry rally with a big sign saying, "Hey, Liveshot, montrez vos plaies!" That would make me happy.

Noon

I would swear my focus is better, even my eyesight is improved and I am definitely calmer today. Placebo effect can only account for so much. Jayna Davis, who wrote that book about Iraqi intelligence being involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, was on Glenn Beck this morning. I want to believe! But it's going to take a little more real evidence. Perhaps the Terry Nichols trial will bring out the oddness of his trip to the Philippines, where he apparently learned to make a really good truck bomb.

Day Two

Interesting night last night. Cortislim is supposed to help you sleep better. I had a heck of a time getting to sleep, but I didn't seem to mind. When I did get to sleep, I had vivid dreams. My mind seemed to be racing. Supposedly the stuff racks up your metabolism, which would explain the inability to sleep. "Thermogenesis", they call it. This stuff could save billions in oil during northern winters. Unfortunately, I'm coming up on a Tallahassee summer, so that may not be a plus. The pills cost about a dollar a day, so I'm hoping I can save at least that much on food. I may end up spending it all on books if I can't sleep! This morning the scale actually showed I had lost 2.5 pounds! In one day. At this rate I'll disappear in three months! I seem to be happier. Happiness in a pill! The millennium IS here! Tonight I'll stay up later, see if that makes it easier to sleep. I've finished with the thirteenth century, having killed off Simon deMontfort and that idiot Henry III, turning over the running of England to Edward Longshanks, the Hammer of the Scots. And I'm moving on to a biography of Captain James Cook, speaking of Scots.