tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41486942009-02-20T23:27:59.036-06:00Just My Thoughts and OpinionsEveryone has an opinion and (increasingly) everyone has a web log. This is my attempt at providing thoughtful, rational, and articulate opinions about the world around me.Ericnoreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-1096672267069249022004-10-01T18:11:00.000-05:002004-10-01T18:17:06.460-05:00Cubs turn out to be ... the Cubs
How inappropriate that on the day that Cubs lose their fourth straight, and are all but eliminated from the Wild Card, post this on their site. This was their top headline prior to the loss.
This year's Cubs is considered to one of the most dislikable. They have turned from the lovable losers into just... the losers. The big story today is how Cubs manager Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-1096643617733981422004-10-01T10:05:00.000-05:002004-10-01T10:13:37.733-05:00Who Won?
Glenn Reynold's wife thought that Bush won. My wife didn't think that Bush did well but she wasn't impressed by Kerry either. She is still ambivalent about the two (although she says she'll vote for Bush). She is not much of a political observer but she definitely has the opinion that Kerry is a flip-flopper.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I think Bush did terribly. All Kerry Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-1096602046526998772004-09-30T22:28:00.000-05:002004-09-30T22:44:07.776-05:00Thoughts on the Debate
Hugh Hewitt calls it a "Big win" for Bush. I disagree.
Many of the bloggers that I have been reading believe that Kerry did slightly better. I think so to. Bush, with a few exceptions here and there, was awful tonight. He repeated some lines too often, like Kerry constantly changing positions. He repeated the "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" too often. I think Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-1096410374385787702004-09-28T17:06:00.000-05:002004-09-28T17:26:23.666-05:00Article of Note
It came out several weeks ago, but I wanted to make note of the article "The Power of No" by ">Newsweek(It was their cover story).
Many of the observations that were made in that article rang true. It was an article that I had to share with my wife right away. I am constantly encouraging her (as she puts it - "arguing with her") to set limits on the children. I believe that Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-1096407779590102672004-09-28T16:34:00.000-05:002004-09-28T16:45:18.480-05:00Secret Plans
Jim Geraghty notes the many times that Kerry has accused the President of having a "secret plan" to do various bad things to the good people of America. Some of them are:
Call up more troops after an election
Suggest that Bush may re-implement the draft (This has been directly stated by others campaigning for Kerry - such as Howard Dean)
Hurt Milk Producers
Many others provide by Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-1096394438825472732004-09-28T13:49:00.000-05:002004-09-28T13:18:14.800-05:00Margin of Error
Prompting my first post in over a year was this post by James Joyner. It reminded my of something that I read recently by Mark Blumenthal:
Since the margin of error applies separately to each candidate’s support, the margin of error effectively doubles when applied to the margin between candidates. Consider an example: If a single survey with a sampling error of 3% (based on aEricnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-924486142003-04-11T15:25:00.000-05:002003-04-11T15:25:37.873-05:00Relativism
This war has demonstrated what certain aspects of the Left are all about. As a believer in healthy debate (which most of the debate in the previous months being unhealthy), it is encouraging that some on the Left have recognized the emptiness of many of the arguments against this war. John Lloyd, ex-editor of the New Statesman, explains this view:
The crimes of Saddam Hussein's Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-924482202003-04-11T15:17:00.000-05:002003-04-11T17:05:39.000-05:00Journalistic Integrity
I've seen many references to the Op-Ed by Eason Jordan in the NYTimes. What affect this might have had on the world-wide argument about the war I don't know, but how can a news organization justify with holding news for years in order to maintain access? At some point doesn't it seem that maintaining a Baghdad presence isn't worth the cost?
This is an astounding Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-924473972003-04-11T15:02:00.000-05:002003-04-11T15:02:37.436-05:00Substance
After all the heated rhetoric and voluminous opinion from all over the world, something of substance has occurred. Saddam is no longer dictator of anything and one of the most brutal tyrannies in world history has fallen. Some will continue to argue that the war was wrong. Reality says something different. War was, is, and always will be terrible. But there are things that are far Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-920036032003-04-04T14:50:00.000-06:002003-04-04T14:50:37.576-06:00Michael Kelly killed
The first American journalist killed in the war was one of the best. Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-916149702003-03-29T13:50:00.000-06:002003-03-29T13:50:53.000-06:00Is Canada a steadfast friend?
The National Post has column by two Univ. of Calgary professors that are extremely critical of the Chrétien government.
From where Chrétien sits, it is far better to elect 50 or 60 MPs in next year's election than to stand shoulder to shoulder with the world's other three English-speaking democracies.
In this sense, sitting out the war is not so much the policy of Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-916035452003-03-29T08:53:00.000-06:002003-03-29T08:53:03.920-06:00Media refuses to accept criticism.
The Washington Times has a piece on how the media reacted to criticism on their war coverage from the White House. Here is a priceless snippet:
Bill Plante of CBS blamed the White House for not correcting the media's expectations for a quick end to the war.
"You did very little to lower expectations in the run-up to this," he told Mr. Fleischer. "Even if Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-916023312003-03-29T08:15:00.000-06:002003-03-29T08:15:56.030-06:00"Living Nightmare"
From Andrew Sullivan, a link to an Assyrian Christian minister who went to Iraq and found a different truth than he expected. Ken Joseph Jr. writes about his experiences when he visited distant Assyrian family in Baghdad. The piece compares with other pieces that I have posted in the past and the general observations that I have made from the various media reports about real Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-915694702003-03-28T15:57:00.000-06:002003-03-28T16:39:43.000-06:00Do they want us or not?
The primary reason for this war is to remove Saddam and get rid of the the WMDs. That was the focus of argument that the Bush administration made for several months. Now that it has started the media now is portraying the primary purpose as one of liberation. Liberation is an easier one to grasp but it is a secondary (although still important) objective.
One of the Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-915682072003-03-28T15:32:00.000-06:002003-03-28T15:34:35.000-06:00al-Qaeda takes the side of the 'infidel'
The Sydney Morning Herald has a report that al-Qaeda has been found in Iraq near the town of Az Zubayr.A senior British military source inside Iraq said: "The information we have received from PoWs today is that an al-Qaeda cell may be operating in Az Zubayr. There are possibly around a dozen of them and that is obviously a matter of concern to us."
If Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-915677782003-03-28T15:24:00.000-06:002003-03-28T15:24:43.500-06:00Media Coverage
Could the media coverage of the Iraq War be some of the worst coverage ever. Different media outlets are showing some extremely misleading coverage. And I read that coverage in other countries is even worse. Why? Most reasonable analysis of the coverage seems to be that the media can magnify small glimpses but distorts the big picture. And for the media outlets with a Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-913873682003-03-25T21:25:00.000-06:002003-03-25T21:25:36.030-06:00Iraqi TV is off the air
Hopefully for good. I'm not going to give any advice on the war but I would have thought that cutting off all communication outside of Baghdad would have been one of the first things to do.Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-913682822003-03-25T15:24:00.000-06:002003-03-25T15:24:23.936-06:00The de-Ba'athification Process
Daniel Drezner has an extensive post on the difficulties of removing the Ba'ath party from Baghdad. He notes that the more loyalists fight during the war the better it might be in the long run.
Once in power, the party behaved, in some respects, as Leninist parties do everywhere. It built a parallel party structure on top of the normal government bureaucracy to Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-913664362003-03-25T14:50:00.000-06:002003-03-25T16:31:12.000-06:00Does Russian Technology even work?
The ineffectual Russian GPS jamming devices are no more.
UPDATE: ScrappleFace makes my point.Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-913193222003-03-24T20:49:00.000-06:002003-03-24T20:49:10.250-06:00Oh No
TV Ratings For Oscars PlungeEricnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-913148532003-03-24T19:28:00.000-06:002003-03-24T19:31:21.000-06:00Iraqi Officers have Cipro?
CBS reports that captured, high ranking Iraqi officials have Cipro. What would they need that for?
Meanwhile, CBS News Correspondent Phil Ittner reports that Army doctors who treated some Iraqi prisoners of war, believed to be some high-ranking Iraqi officials, found Cipro pills among the Iraqis’ personal possessions.
Cipro is meant to ward off the effects of a Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-913146802003-03-24T19:25:00.000-06:002003-03-24T19:25:23.670-06:00Frag incident in First Gulf War
Best of the Web links to a story about the DC sniper John Muhammed who had thrown a grenade in a tent during the first Gulf War.
In the first months of that year, the unit was in the Middle East preparing for the ground-attack phase of the Gulf War.
The story, according to [retired sergeant Kip] Berentson and at least two other former members of the 84th, was thatEricnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-912102292003-03-22T22:39:00.000-06:002003-03-22T22:39:00.343-06:00Who We Hit
The Telegraph gives details on who was hit during that first bombing.
The Telegraph has learned that [British] ministers were told at a special 40-minute briefing [with Tony Blair] that the Iraqi leader had been so badly wounded he needed a blood transfusion.
British soldiers look down at a trench containing the bodies of two Iraqi soldiers with a white flag His son, Uday, is also Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-912101072003-03-22T22:35:00.000-06:002003-03-22T22:35:58.340-06:00Another Human Shield sees the light
The account of human shield in the London Telegraph must be read. He went there a "naive fool" and found out that Saddam really is as bad as the US/UK have been saying. War is awful, but the protesters really do not comprehend what they are defending.
It hit me on visceral and emotional levels: this was a real portrayal of Iraq life. After the first Ericnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4148694.post-912098152003-03-22T22:28:00.000-06:002003-03-22T22:28:23.686-06:00A traitor among us
One of the most disturbing stories imaginable. A U.S. soldier seeking to attack U.S. forces. Ericnoreply@blogger.com