The Blog with No Name

I can just see myself later in life dying by taking on too much pro bono work. I need to learn how to say “No!” I’ve been saying this for three years now. I just commit myself to too much work in too little time.

I’m going to Alaska for the weekend as my little brother is graduating from high school. It will be good to be up there. Hopefully I’ll come back with a bunch of pictures. Blogging will probably be pretty light in the meantime.

The guy arrested in Portland, Oregon, who is linked to the Madrid bombings is — are you ready for this? — a lawyer!

Lawyers are evil, but this is really taking the cake.

He got his law degree from Lewis and Clark. Not Willamette. Whew!

UPDATE: The lawyer was released because after more thorough investigation by Spanish police forces revealed the prints belonged to an Algerian man.

AND AGAIN: The FBI have acknowledged they made a mistake and apologized for arresting the lawyer. Lawsuit in three, two, one . . . Seriously, this just points out that combatting terror is not going to be easy, innocents will be hurt, and mistakes will be made. When the enemy is buried deep in our society and in the world, rooting them out will be tough work.

Law school is rapidly approaching. If weeks continue to fly by last like this past week, then I’m going to be sitting in some stuffy classroom before I know it. In light of this fact, I’m devoting a little bit of time today to getting a list together of things I need to acquire before I head down to Willamette. Here’s what I have so far:

• A place to live: preferrably a cheaper single-room unit not too far from campus.
• A new laptop: a nice new Powerbook sounds great!
• A new suit: I already have one, but I think it would be wise to have another one. Maybe a dark gray one.
• A motorcycle: yes, I need one of these too. However, I might be willing to compromise on this and get it next summer. Emphasis on “might.” The other day I realized I’m rather bored with my life as a whole; I think adding the highly lethal fun of a motorcycle might lend a little bit of spice. Just enough spice to prevent me from going bonkers.
• A girlfriend: here is what I’m currently looking for: a woman who is willing to wash my dishes, wash my clothes, pay my bills, support me even though I’m always studying, always let me go out with the guys, won’t complain about my computer habits, makes me dinner, wants a dog (not a cat), encourages me to actually get a motorcycle, listens to hardcore, has roughly the same political views, has at least some emotional endurance through the tougher times, has a brain, and is really stinkin’ hot.

Straight from the trenches. A very upbeat view from the frontline which seems to fly in the face of all the doom and gloom we get from the rest of the media. Props to USA today for running this. It concludes:

All we ask is that Americans stand by us by supporting not just the troops, but also the mission.

We’ll take care of the rest.

I stand with him and the mission.

More evidence that the public school system is just getting ridiculous. Seriously, who the heck would file charges over getting a pie in the face, especially when it was part of a fundraising contest? Apparently public school principals do.

I can’t wait for the education system to be privitized. Of course private schools could have tort-happy principals, but then they can be fired quicker.

A couple of Saturdays ago I finished my collection of shorts by William Faulkner. I was most interested in reading the story “Two Soldiers.” A short film based on the story won an Oscar this year.

I’m rather jealous of Faulkner’s name. Not that there is anything wrong with Barnett, but Faulkner just has a nice ring to it. Notice:
“So what are you reading these days?”
“I’m reading Faulkner.”
“Ooooo.”
See? It just sounds cool to say you’re reading Faulkner.

Faulkner’s writing style and subject matter are both interesting. His novel use of adjectives is at times perplexing. For example, he once described silence as “infinitesimal .” What is that suppose to mean exactly? I think I have a general idea, but the concept is vague at best and meaningless at worst. I also was frustrated with his liberal use of pronouns. There were some moments I could only determine the antecedents by finishing the paragraph and then picking out what was most logical. Some times identifying which “he” he was referring to was a total crapshoot. Finally, it seemed many of the thirteen stories in this collection had no climax and unresolved conclusions. The narrative just meandered along, building up some tension, never releasing it, and then ending.

As far as subject matter, most of the stories took place somewhere down South and usually somewhere between the Civil War and the First World War. Relationships between underprivilged blacks and whites were common plots. “Dry September” is about a black man who is accused of raping a white woman and is lynched for it. His guilt is an open question at the end of the story. The dialogue and sometimes the narrative is written in the abbreviated, idiomatic speaking mannerisms of country folk of the time. Sometimes this was annoying, but over all it added more to the atmosphere of the stories than it detracted from my enjoyment of the stories.

I think I’d recommend at least borrowing this book from a friend or a library. I wouldn’t say this is a must for any Well Stocked Library. If you do borrow it, I’d recommend these stories, skipping the rest: “Two Soldiers,” “Lo!,” “Turnabout,” “Honor,” and “Race at Morning.” “Two Soldiers” and “Turnabout” are definitely the best.

Because I’m bored and procrastinating.

I found this little elephant by chance a few weeks ago, and I just noticed something about it. Do you see what I see? I see pentagrams. Sure sign that Republicans are evil.

What a surprising discovery! I am just so completely surprised that students at such a staunchly liberal school such as Berkeley would blame Bush for everything that goes wrong in the world! And, my oh my, they are so right about Bush seeing this war as a black and white issue. I mean, come on! We need to see ourselves through the eyes of the terrorists. And we totally need to distinguish between enemies and terrorists! Surely they can’t be all evil. Thank you, Ms. Myers, for your very thoughtful and charitable opinion!

[/sarcasm]

Freakin’ Newsweek.

Kuro5hin just posted an interesting article listing 50 “fishy circumstances, contradictory claims, and videotape anomalies.”

When I first got a full, uncorrupted file, I thought it was Windows Media and the poor encoding that caused many of the technical issues with the video (e.g. out of sync audio, blurriness, and timeline skipping), but this seems to be more due to the production of the video.

Here are my thoughts about the points the article makes.

Suspicious Circumstances and Timeline
None of these points are especially compelling to me. Iraq is a war zone where tensions are high, information is more difficult to confirm, and people can disappear or get lost. The only thing that really interests me is why was Berg traveling alone? That seems especially strange. Points 4 and 10 are completely irrelevant.

Timing of Killing and Videotape Release
It seems to me that the timing on this isn’t completely suspicious. Surely if the timing was more suspect, the media could easily confirm and report this fact. It isn’t. Also, remember that the prisoner abuse is not new news. It’s been known since January, so it seems plausible that the existence of the photos may have been known by the terrorists. Point 13 is definitely true; it did come at a convenient point in time. Point 14 seems to be irrelevant unless somebody wants to construct a very paranoid conspiracy involving the President.

Videotape of Berg, His Decapitation, and Location
This section simultaneously makes the best and the worst points. Points 14, 21, and 22 have zero compelling value. Orange jumpsuits, chairs, and yellowish walls probably aren’t very uncommon to come by in Iraq. It doesn’t take much imagination to construct a plausible explanation of how Berg got to be in an orange jumpsuit (e.g. “they found one in a dumpster behind a prison”). All the points about Berg possibly being dead before the decapitation seem to be true in my opinion. Berg does not struggle at all it seems during the video even when the screaming starts. I’d say Berg was either heavily drugged or dead before his head was cut off. But, I’d disagree with point 19. I’ve been hunting, and I’ve seen animals butchered right before my eyes. It’s not that hard to get a clean cut especially when you have something as thin as a human neck and you can follow the base of the skull.

More Videotape Anomalies
Many of these points are verifibly true, but also they don’t seem to give warrant to any suspicion. Maybe the bastards who did the decapitation just had poor equipment and didn’t really know what they were doing. So what if there is a gap in the timestamp? Maybe that just means they took a long time to decide what to do. The poorly dubbed in screams (which I originally thought to be just caused by the poor file/encoding quality) does reinforce the theory that Berg was already dead.

Identity of Killers of Berg and Their Possessions
Many of these points, if determined to be true, would definitely throw a wrench in the current interpretation of the video. One point that could be made here is that if the audio of the speech was dubbed in it seems plausible that Al-Zarqawi is still alive, recorded the speech, but had somebody else stand in for him when shooting the video. Remember the CIA only identified him by speech analysis. If the voice is not Al-Zarqawi then the CIA is either completely wrong or lying to us, neither of which I’d accept unless given much more evidence. The question then would be why would they make an effort to make us think the speaker was indeed speaking? Points 37 and 45 have no compelling value at all because, once again, it is very easy to construct a plausible explanation for each point. Also, point 44 shows that the author isn’t very in touch with what the terrorist demographic is in Iraq. Hardly any of them are Iraqis because most are from Iran, Syria, or other Arab countries.

Berg’s Activities and Return of the Body
Point 46 is uncanny but also seems to be a dead end. The other points are interesting, but not very compelling. Why did Berg travel at night? Maybe he hated the heat of the day.

Considered as a whole, these points might be compelling enough for some people to construct dark conspiracy theories, but, like I said at the beginning, Iraq isn’t exactly a bastion of order and most likely abounds in strange circumstances that could explain many things about the video. The only thing I’m pretty much convinced about is that Berg was probably dead or heavily drugged before having his head cut off. If this is true, it lessens the impact of the video to some degree, but the point is still made: whoever did this (and I still believe it is terrorists) are barbarians who need to be dealt with as barbarians.

Yesterday marked the beginning of the wedding season for me. An old 5th Hill buddy, Chad Steele, got hitched. It was a little strange to see because I remember what he was like freshman year. I suppose I will to get used to this because a lot of my friends are getting married this summer. Indeed, I’m in three weddings in two weeks, three Saturdays in a row.

I must say I’m rather glad I’m not getting married any time soon. I probably won’t have to mess with all that hoopla for another three or four years.

I suddenly became very unsatisfied with my links list over there on the left. Many of them seemed pointless and stupid, and they also didn’t accurately reflect what I find interesting on the Internet. So, I’m going to be re-working them over the next few days. It should result in a link list that has all of my daily reads along with a few other pertinent sites.

I agree. I agree even more strongly after Hanson puts things in perspective. I think Instapundit pointed this one out, but I would have found it on my own because I regularly read NRO. Thankyouverymuch.

It’s Friday. It’s sunny.

Slashdot mentions the software I use, WordPress, as a viable, powerful alternative to MovableType which recently introduced an unpopular pricing scheme. Hopefully this will lead to more blogs running WP which would be A Good Thing ™.

On a lighter note, there is a new trailer up at Apple’s trailer site for Pixar’s upcoming film, The Incredibles. It looks like Pixar’s take on the Fantastic Four. Samuel L. Jackson has one of the voice roles. Sweet!

SSP: I’m pleased that I picked this up before MacNN and Slashdot. Booyah!