Are You Between 16 And Oh...Say 24?

If you are, you need to be paying attention, as it's becoming more and more likely that a military draft is coming back. The buzz began last year with stories about recruiting for Selective Service Boards across the country. These are the folks charged with hearing cases requesting conscientious objector status, or other reason for not serving. The spin at the time was that many of these Boards were losing members whose terms just happened to be expiring and they needed to have new members "just in case."

Now comes word that the Pentagon has begun the earliest steps to create a "special skills targeted draft" in the event of emergency.

Nonetheless, the agency has begun the process of creating the procedures and policies to conduct such a targeted draft in case military officials ask Congress to authorize it and the lawmakers agree to such a request.

"Talking to the manpower folks at the Department of Defense and others, what came up was that nobody foresees a need for a large conventional draft such as we had in Vietnam," said Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the Selective Service System. "But they thought that if we have any kind of a draft, it will probably be a special skills draft."

Flahavan said Selective Service planning for a possible draft of linguists and computer experts began last fall after Pentagon personnel officials said the military needed more people with skills in those areas.

A targeted registration and draft "is strictly in the planning stage," he said, adding that "the whole thing is driven by what appears to be the more pressing and relevant need today" -- the deficit in language and computer experts.

The spokesman said it could take about two years to "to have all the kinks worked out."

The agency already has a special system to register and draft health care personnel ages 20 to 44 in more than 60 specialties if necessary in a crisis. According to Flahavan, the agency will expand this system to be able to rapidly register and draft computer specialists and linguists, should the need ever arise. But he stressed that the agency has received no request from the Pentagon to do so.

I wasn't aware of any health care draft. Has anyone had experience of this they can relate?

The article goes on to claim that Congress has shown no interest in a draft, but that's not true. Several Representatives (I can't find the story link.) last year, as a jab at Bush mostly, introduced legislation to restart the draft. The bill in somewhere in Congress right now.

So, the idea is out there, slowly moving along. It's been introduced, and is now gaining slow momentum. It all depends on who the next President is, and what they plan to do internationally, but if Bush wins I wouldn't be surprised to find more forward action on the draft. He's already explicitly told the nation that we are in a war that will take many years to resolve. While the Pentagon has said that they have the forces they need to do the job, it would still take a couple of years to build up the US military if new troops were introduced. Would a call for more volunteers do the job?

If I were between 16 and 22 or so, I'd be watching this one very closely.

An Excellent Example Of How The Blogosphere Works

Last week, I posted this bit on the synchronicity of two articles on "passion parties" appearing in two disparate alt-weeklies at the same time. Since I don't trust Blogger permalinks, and the post was short, here you are:

This week's Memphis Flyer cover story, about sex in the South, plays up "passion parties," the Tupperware and Mary Kay of the 21st century. While doing reading on another story below, I noticed that another alt-weekly, this one in Spokane, Washington, had a "passion parties" cover story as well! What a coincidence, huh?

Well...no. This is much more common than you think. If one newspaper gets an idea that plays out really well, it will always get picked up by other papers equally eager to retain or build circulation. I'm not gonna search for links, but there are national organisations for different kinds of newspapers and they all have sections which highlight just these kinds of successful story ideas.

It's also the basis for the blogosphere. When someone makes a great post, or uncovers something really interesting, then other bloggers instantly pick it up. Soon, it's all over the place. It becomes a "meme" in blogosphere terminology.

Just ask Instapundit's many readers.

Thanks to getting into the Commercial Appeal's Friday CA Eye column, I got a comment visit from the Flyer's own Editor, Bruce VanWyngarden:

Mike,

Well, actually, yes. Our stories came out the same week but they were totally different in focus, tone, length, etc. I've never even seen the Spokane paper, nor am I aware of a website where alties "share" story ideas. Not to say, it doesn't happen that one paper borrows an idea from another. But it didn't happen in this case. Promise.

Let me first of all apologise for seeming to imply that there was a direct connection between the two. Sloppy writing on my part. I wear all the hats on this site, do it in my spare time, and crank it out, so I sometimes know what I mean but don't write what I mean.

The thought was that alt-weeklies, and also dailies, aren't like islands in the sea. They aren't cut off from what other papers like them do, going it alone and having to reinvent the wheel on a weekly basis. Sometimes they are part of a chain, and so the corporate structure makes it very easy for one paper to learn what others are doing, and to borrow story ideas; or to have the corporate folks "suggest" things to them. I believe the Nashville Scene is part of a small chain.

Almost all alt-weeklies belong to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a trade organisation. One quick tour around the website will show that they do indeed provide a lot of examples of what other alt-weeklies are doing. You can also go here and here to see all the other professional, trade, advocacy, regional and industry websites out there. The media industry is a rich environment full of information and networking. Some transfer is inevitable.

Now I most certainly take Mr. VanWyngarden at his word that they don't visit sites to discuss things like kids in a chat room, trading story ideas like Magic the Gathering cards. But neither are they disconnected from what their peers do. Is his own paper the only one you'll find if you stop by their offices? I suspect not. Do the Flyer's staff seek to stay informed and up-to-date? I'd bet so.

For example, I Googled "passion parties" to see what I'd find. Of course, I got hundreds of hits for people who put them on. Ick! But wading through page after page of results, I found almost a dozen stories in the past month or so at various alt-weeklies on passion parties! Some had their genesis in a Texas court case, but most were simply talking about the phenomenon.

In fact, neighboring alt-weekly, the Nashville Scene, had two stories (here from January and here from two weeks ago) on passion parties!

So, if I implied that Mr. VanWyngarden pulled the cigar from his mouth, stabbed a finger at some other alt-weekly he subscribed to and growled to a shivering intern, "Get me one of those stories. With pictures. Of dildoes." then I'm sorry. As he states, that wasn't true. But I was saying that papers are a business like any other and they do indeed pay attention to what works and what doesn't within the business and among competitors and peers. Sometimes it's explicit; sometimes it's a convergence of incident and similar philosophies and similar story needs.

But more importantly from my point of view, this is a shining example of how the blogosphere works successfully to correct mistakes. Mr. VanWyngarden caught my error and was provided the forum to explain it, right next to the post. I was forced to either correct the mistake, ignore him and lose credibility, or explain myself better. It was right there, right in public, easily readable by anyone reading the post. That's very different from newspapers, where such a process is conducted invisibly and the paper controls who knows what. Blogging is, as Bill Hobbs calls it, "collaborative, peer-reviewed journalism." It's the shining beauty of blogging and what makes it so powerful.

Take as an example, the Richard Clarke story of the past week. If all you read and watch are the big-media outlets, then you are behind the curve. In the part of the blogosphere concerned with reviewing and fact-checking those outlets, Clarke's story has already been examined, picked apart, studied and deconstructed very thoroughly. Clarked has already been exposed there as almost completely lacking in credibility and consistency. The big newspapers and the major networks haven't yet gotten to the kind of analysis that the bloggers did within days. They're still lumbering around the story and only now catching up to the kind of in-depth analysis already provided by blogging. Bloggers are simply farther ahead and further into the story.

Bloggers do the same thing to each other. If someone at one blog posts, others who read it will examine that post and respond on their own blogs. Others take up the posts and spread them, adding their own insight and analysis as it goes. Previous bloggers read the new stuff and recomment. Soon, dozens or hundreds of bloggers have chewed over the original story, working out the errors of fact and analysis and bias. It is revolutionising how people get their news and how they process it.

So, to go back to the origin. I'm sorry to Mr. VanWyngarden for creating a false picture because I got in a hurry and got sloppy. I hope my further comments have cleared the picture. And I'm glad he responded and gave me the chance. Once again, you the reader also have the chance to offer your own thoughts, insights, analysis, facts and arguments to my post via the comments.

Advantage: blogosphere!

Storm Clouds On The Horizon?

Courtesy of the The Nashville Files comes this legislative report, via the Nashville Tennessean, about the failure of a "commuter rail" line to get funding commitments from the State. Mostly it's due to a question of need and doubts on the part of Governor Bredesen, as well as extended pushbacks on starting the project.

This might be bad news for the Madison Avenue Trolley. The project is encountering some resistance in the community, both citizens and businesses. And the whole thing relies increasingly on City/County and State funding as it goes along. The present line was built with 80% Federal funding, but that drops to 60% and less in later, more expensive, extensions.

Will local legislators make a press for this? Or has it already gotten commitments? Or can we hope the whole silly thing stops right here? After a few years, we can hope, the truncated line will fall off in ridership to the point where it will be scaled back; then the scale-back will turn to abandonment as regular bus needs become more pressing. Then we'll just have some odd tracks and street construction to show off to visitors.

Or will the big-money guys who are steering spending into the downtown get their public-money transportation solution to moving folks from their "Manhattan on the Mississippi" to the inconveniently placed airport?

Dueling, Newspaper Publishers And Editors

Brock over at Signifying Nothing has a post on dueling which points to this book excerpt from the Smithsonian magazine.

The book is Gentlemen's Blood by Barbara Holland is just that -- a book about the history and purpose of dueling, with a whole lot of amazing stories. The chapter excerpted at the Smithsonian talks about the link between newspaper publishers and editors and dueling. Turns out that being an editor or publisher could get you killed pretty easily!

Back in the previous world, print had sources. You knew where the newspaper office was and stalked into it with a challenge, or perhaps a cane or a horsewhip; those who considered newspaper editors too inferior socially for a proper duel simply beat them. William Coleman, editor of the New-York Evening Post, was paralyzed from the waist down from a caning. Joseph Charless of the Missouri Gazette was assaulted, spat at, and shot at, and had his office burned down; then the editor of the rival Inquirer waylaid him on the street and beat him severely with a cudgel....

The two brothers who edited the Richmond Examiner in the early nineteenth century both died in duels. Edgar Allan Poe challenged one of the paper's later editors, John Daniel, but showed up too drunk to shoot. Later Daniel disagreed with the editor of the Whig over the aesthetic merits of a particular public statue; they fired and missed.

'Rancorous' was the word for Daniel. A contemporary wrote, 'His pen combines the qualities of the scimitar of Saladin and the battle-axe of Coeur de Leon.' He believed that any sheet of paper not covered with abuse of high officials was a piece of paper wasted, and he enjoyed the repercussions. Wounded in the right arm, he had to fire with his left in subsequent duels.

He abused Northerners and Southerners impartially and called the Confederate treasurer a reckless gambler unfit for his office. The treasurer called him out and Daniel took a ball in his thigh. While he was recovering, the paper was in other hands and everyone missed his fiery touch.

Editors wielded their powers with a fine, free hand, restrained only by the possibility of getting shot at, if that was indeed a restraint; some seemed quite anxious to be targets at dawn. Perhaps duels boosted circulation. James Callender of the Richmond Recorder, rejected for a postmaster's job by President Jefferson, printed a story claiming that Jefferson had had an affair with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. He offered absolutely no evidence of any kind and seems to have invented it himself, but all the other Federalist papers whooped and leaped on the story. (Later Callender got so drunk he fell into the James River and drowned in three feet of water.) When asked, Jefferson, not the dueling type, said it was too silly to answer. Probably he hadn't read it. He only read Richmond's Enquirer.

Of course, Memphis is the town that ran Ida B. Wells out on a rail, under threat of death, for what she wrote in her newspaper. Still, it does make one nostaglic for the days of "battling newspapers," when they came with points of view and strong stands, instead of the faux neutrality and impartiality of today's bland breed.

I should be glad dueling is gone or I suspect Half-Bakered would have been called out by now. One or two folks have not been happy with my characterisations.

Anyway, the book looks fascinating and I'm going to buy it ASAP.

She Said It!

"My only regret in life is that none of my children are gay." Sharon Osbourne at the GLAAD awards dinner.

Con Report

Mark over at Conservative Zone was quiet all weekend and I was starting to worry. Well, turns out he's OK. He was at the Mid-South Con the whole weekend! He has a con report.

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs

Discovered a few more blogs over the weekend, and I'll be updating the list to the left later on Monday. I'm also thinking of breaking out the LiveJournals from the "regular" blog and website folks. It's late now and time for bed.

Planned for later today is a post responding to Bruce's trenchant observations on a post I made down below, "Great Minds Think Alike?." You'll have to look for it, as I'm tired of Blogger's "sometimes they work, mostly they don't" permalinks. Also, something on the return of the draft and a closer look at the Nashville Scene article that has some Memphians spitting nails.

By the way, if you are or know of an Arkansas blogger, especially one who covers the political scene, please let me know. I've been searching for over a year with no success. Surely there must be someone!

Finally, I hope to post a DVD review of the new Zhang Yimou film, Hero. One of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. Stunning.

Good morning and see ya later.

Tour Bus Boards Here

I've meant to do some blog-post linking, bringing attention to some fellow local bloggers and Rocky Top Brigade members. So, here we go:

* Firstly, I have been remiss in not asking Jon and Rachel if they have any interest in becoming members of the Rocky Top Brigade. I can't believe I've gone so long without asking! Please consider this a formal invitation. Emails to follow.

* Speaking of that illustrious pair, both have redesigned their sites. Spiffy!

* By the way, Rachel has a gratuitous cleavage shot posted. Heh heh, that oughta drive some traffic. And, by the way, nice cleavage!

* Speaking of redesigns, Mick over at fishkite has redone his front page. It has a dense, link-filled look now. More spiff! Not only that, but he's brushed up against big-league blogging fame! Seems that Don Luskin used some information that Mick has been researching for a Richard Clarke fisking Mick's going to post. Congrats and can't wait to see it.

* Our politics couldn't be farther apart. They scare me sometimes with their iron-willed, take no prisoners approach to Lefty-liberalism. Reading their blog, for me, is often like having wandered into a parallel universe, where things look like my world, but are very, very different. Nonetheless, LeanLeft has a great post on getting involved politically that anyone would do well to consider.

* New to the Rocky Top Brigade blogger No Quarters offers a post on putting cams on police guns that is something to consider.

* Mason of The Southern Reporter at one time considered being a district attorney. He offers some reasons why he changed his mind. I only wish he'd provided some numbers for us to look at.

* Terry of Possumblog had a link to three simple questions you should know that could save a life.

* And last, Rev. Donald Sensing looks at the story of a National Guardsman who found his job taken from him when he returned from Iraq. That alone is an outrage, but the company has also flouted the Federal government's orders to reinstate him! The Reverend is seeking names and stories of anyone else caught in similar evil treatment.

Power Derives From The People

I was pretty shocked when the Massachusetts Supreme Court derived whole cloth from nothing in their State's previous history, a "right" of gay people to be married. You can read in places like the Volokh Conspiracy about the very dubious reasoning the Court used to create their ruling, basically buttressing desired outcomes with weak arguments, rather than factually nailing down assertions. Nowhere in Massachusetts' past has there been a history of gay marriage, in fact nowhere in the nation nor in British common law from which American law derived. It only sprang up in the past couple of decades and is even controversial within the gay community. It's almost totally outside of the State's cultural and social experience. But it was slapped down on the people with a declarative "Deal with it."

Of course, outrage immediately blew up. And the people of Massachusetts are fighting back:

Brian Camenker of the Article 8 Alliance - a group of several hundred activists named for the Massachusetts Constitution provision that holds ``the people have a right . . . to cause their public officer to return to private life'' - says a legislative recall makes more sense than constitutional amendments that have been tying the State House in knots.
``It's the intended remedy when justices do not properly interpret the law,'' said Camenker. ``We cannot credibly call ourselves a democracy when our most basic laws can be undone by four unelected, appointed officials.''

Bravo! I hope they succeed, not to punish gays but to punish judges and justices who disconnect from the society in which they serve.

Sometimes, the folks who serve us need that kind of shake-up to be reminded of who is in charge. Judges cloak themselves in an insularity that approaches the way doctors used to demand to be treated. The medical profession was pried open to public scrutiny and a lot of doctors got knocked off a lot of pedestals. Judges are long overdue for precisely this kind of public interaction. Too many judges seem to use the Canons of their profession as a shield to keep the public from challenging their actions. Need I mention Tennessee's famous Judge "No execution on my watch" Nixon? Every single death penalty case that has come before him has been sent back down on technicalities or vague issues that effectively prevent the State from carrying out sentences. He refuses to discuss it and so goes on about his merry way, protected.

Well, no more. At least in Massachusetts.

Look Out!

From Houston, comes this story about a wheel-chair using man who was struck by a "light rail" vehicle. The fault appears to be the man's, but there are other, "light rail"-related circumstances. This story comes after a much longer USA Today examination of the bad start the "light rail" system has had there.

I've been concerned about how our Madison Avenue trolleys would do in a crazy-driver city like Memphis. People here are rude, aggressive, thoughtless and inconsiderate behind the wheel. Throw in a large, slow, stop-filled trolley and it's a recipe for a Houston-style problem.

But so far, there have only been, as reported on television news, the expected difficulties with fitting in a new player on the streets of Memphis. I haven't noticed anything in the Commercial Appeal.

Which leads to a thought. Would the Commercial Appeal report problems with the trolley? Would they report accidents between trolleys and vehicles or pedestrians as trolley related, or simply as traffic accidents, eliding the trolley connection?

I ask because the Commercial Appeal was a big booster of the trolley. On opening day, they devoted a large number of splashy pages to it. Having invested in such civic boosterism does that leave them prone to not wanting to subsequently question it? Or would they, ala Amber's Army, just leave all that behind and adopt, Big Brother style, the new line?

Too bad there's nowhere to have that discussion.

Reading For Truth

The Sunday Commercial Appeal carries this story about an Army deserter running to Canada. (Link goes to another site. The story isn't on the CA site.) First and briefly, the headline choice is interesting. In other papers across the country (the story is a Cox wire feed), it's called: "US soldier seeks refuge in Canada," "Anti-war soldier defends choice to flee to Canada," "Deserter defends run into Canada," and "Deserter defends fleeing to Canada."

The CA chose "U.S. deserter finds niche in Canada." Niche? There was no place for him here and he found it in Canada? That's not really supported by the story. I have to wonder what the headline writer was thinking, to be so different from colleagues.

Which is really what I wanted to look at. The story tries hard to support sympathy for a man who admits to being a deserter in a time of war. Read the whole story before we go any further.

Hinzman says:

"I feel so strongly about the Iraqi war and not wanting to be a part of it that whatever the consequences, so be it," Hinzman said.

Those consequences?

Hinzman knows if he returns to the United States he will be arrested and sent to jail. If convicted at a military court-martial of deserting in a time of war, he could face lethal injection.

No soldier has been executed since WWII for deserting, but you can see the seriousness.

Unfortunately, rather than stay and face those consequences, he's high-tailed it to Canada. His actions belie his words. Even his words belie his words. In a part of the story you can read at the link, but didn't get into the CA version (due to space consideration, most likely; gotta run those ads), he says:

His decision to join the Army, he said, was an effort to provide some structure to his life and to get money to attend college. He admits now he was naive about what he would be doing. "I don't want to come off as having no idea as what the Army was about," he said. "I was just totally ignorant about what it takes to make a person a killer."

Although he had dabbled in meditation and Buddhism, Hinzman said his views about nonviolence did not crystallize until after he arrived at Fort Bragg in August 2001 and began attending meetings at the Quaker House in Fayetteville with his wife, Nga Nguyen, who was born in Laos to Vietnamese parents.

In August 2002, Hinzman applied for conscientious objector status. He was not interested in getting out of the Army, but in performing some noncombat role. In fact, he said, he enjoyed Army life.

"I've never felt as close to a group of people as I did when I was in the Army," he said.

When his unit, the 2nd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, received orders for Afghanistan several months later, Hinzman said he had no problem going.

"I just didn't want to go in a combat role," he said.

He was required to carry an M-4 rifle wherever he went, and admitted to his superiors that he would use it if his unit or the camp came under attack. In his mind there was a significant difference between offensive actions and defending his home and friends.

"It's premeditated murder as opposed to having your house broken into," he said.

I'm sure that every soldier who served in the European theater during World War Two will be happy to hear he was a "premeditated murderer."

But that admission, he believes, led to the denial of his conscientious objector application. When his unit returned to Fort Bragg after eight months in Afghanistan, he knew it was only a matter of time before it would be sent to Iraq.

Those orders came on Dec. 20, 2003, and by Jan. 1 he had made up his mind to go to Canada.

He said he has no doubts now, and no regrets. He is not encouraging others to join him, but said of his decision: "I'm confident what I've done is the right thing for me."

I'm sure he does.

This guy was a mess. I'm happy he's found some convictions, but sorry he doesn't have the courage of them, to face his consequences rather than run from them, to spend his life knowing he ran and that some other soldier may die in his place now.

The article also goes on to look at numbers from the Vietnam era on desertion and draft-dodging, which was considerable. An estimated 90,000 went to Canada alone; total AWOL/desertion is estimated by the Pentagon at 1/5 million!

That was then, though, and this is now. What's the desertion rate to Canada today? If you don't skim the article too quickly you'll learn that it's...two. Including Hinzman. In a two-million strong armed force.

Read farther along and you'll see:

Hinzman and the others are a very small group ? one that isn't expected to grow significantly. In fact, Pentagon figures show that the desertion rates have dropped over the past three years.

"Most of our soldiers want to serve. They volunteered for this," Army spokeswoman Andrea Takash said.

Which is the whole point I want to make. Aside from issues of false sympathy, the article is comparing apples and oranges. The Vietnam era Army was a draft force. Today's Army is all-volunteeer, which changes things pretty dramatically. I don't have any sympathy for someone who signs up for the Army, goes through months of training, and is then surprised to find out they may have to kill someone! Or someone like Hinzman who claims his only duty is to the Constitution, forgetting he also has a duty to his superior and commanding officers, and the civilian politicians who set the policy and orders they must follow.

The article is a slight bit of deception and a lot of muddle that blurs fairly clear issues. He signed on to do a job, one that a lot of other folks depended on him to do, and then bailed. If Hinzman won't face the consequences of his actions, preferring to run from them, but proclaims otherwise, I have no room for him. If Canada wants that kind of man, they can have him.

Building Good For You

I am truthfully not sure how to feel about this:

Sprint built the car parks a 10-minute walk from the office buildings.

Inside, Sprint asked the architects to make the staircases airy and inviting.

The company wants people to use them, so by contrast it has made the lifts slow and small....

Sprint says this experiment shows that if you give employees a nudge, they will take more exercise and so lose weight.

It is good for company profits and for the health of the staff, of course.

Just listen to this company executive on the sound science they used as their basis:

"If you're overweight, you probably have a higher level of absenteeism or you get more fatigued during the day, perhaps you have a lower concentration span," says Ms Davis.

"We all know when we do exercise we have a higher energy level, we're more focused and we're not sick as often," she adds.

Catch the "you/we" usages there? They know what's best for you!

"Walking over from the parking garage sucks," said one disgruntled employee.

"It's not bad," says another, "unless it's 110 degrees outside or below freezing and raining and cold."

Architects design what clients want. Architects have philosophies behind their design processes. It's what distinguishes them from each other. But I fear about this kind of "social engineering" being so explicitly catered to. Especially when other human factors will be subordinated to technology needs, the geography of the site, cost management, etc. Some concerns are over-emphasised and others are blithely ignored.

(Good local example: the Pyramid. It was built with too-steep rises and too-narrow seating in an effort to increase total number of seats. The site and pyramidal design, and the profit concerns of the owners, were given undue emphasis over the comfort needs of the people who would fill it.)

It makes me nervous whenever someone does something "good for me."

Back in Kansas, Sprint's campus is surrounded by six-lane highways.

In a culture where the car is king architecture can only do so much.

The challenge nationwide is to get Americans back on their feet.

Yeah, that makes me feel better....

New Resource

Alright, probably everyone else has already found this web resource, but it's new to me and just what I was looking for. OnTheIssues.org is, to use their own words, "Every political leader on every issue." It's huge and detailed. I haven't even scratched the surface yet. Check it out.

Another One Biting The Dust

News today that Jacques Chirac lost big in regional elections in France. But the story isn't good from the American viewpoint:

...[T]he opposition left took between 49 and 50 per cent of the vote and control of 21 of 23 regions.

Mr Chirac's right polled between 37 and 38 per cent, the interior ministry announced. It was the first test of the government’s public support since the 2002 election.

Turnout was high, with about two-thirds of the country's nearly 42 million voters casting ballots, the ministry said....

The leader of the triumphant Socialists, Francois Hollande, said a mere ministerial shuffle would not be enough, "no matter how big it is". Instead, he said the government must keep its hands off the public sector.

Aside from the left, Chirac's government faced pressure from the far-right National Front. It polled between 13 and 14 per cent of votes.

Yup, another slim Socialist victory in Europe. And an explicit call to spend more on the public sector. You can count on France to speak loudly and to assiduously avoid meaningful action on the terrorism front.

I still say America should let Federal Europe become the independent nation it so badly wants to become. We should rethink our participation in NATO and shift bases out of Europe as much as we can. (Actually that second part is already happening.) America should let Europe shoulder the burden of its own protection, as any nation should. Yugoslavia? A European problem we should let them handle.

Of course, in the real world this won't happen. Most European nations in the Community spend just a fraction of the money we do on defense. America picks up a lot of the load for them. It's how they can afford their welfare state. If they had to pay for defense on a par with us, it would cripple their economies and destroy their social net.

Europe can't have that! They're civilised people. It's up to us barbaric Americans to do the ugly work of making sure their asses don't get into trouble. That's our proper role: the help. We should know our place. Fools and internationalists like the Clintons think being allowed to sit at their fancy tables makes the second-class status worthwhile. They think Europeans are better people than we are and are happy to lick their boots and bask in their pats on the head.

Bush wasn't. He is playing real-politik with them. It's why they are so outraged. We've forgotten our place. We're threatening the civilised place they live in. We're bad.

Well, screw 'em. When they all speak Arabic in public and retreat from the Muslim masses swamping them to their enclaves of European civility to grouse in private, we'll see how "civilised" they still are.

Wouldn't Ya Know?

Today turned into the Day of Many Chores and my lower body is really worn out. (If you've seen the sack of cement I carry in my belly, you'll understand.) Two Allieve and shortly off to bed for me. The good news is I'll probably sleep great: in clean sheets, with a nice overnight temp. Mmmmm....

Today was also the Day of Surpising Good News. I picked up my last paycheck from the old job and it turned out to be somewhat more than I was expecting! Turns out the vacation pay I'd assumed I'd lost was paid out anyway. Yay!

So, I'll have some content over the weekend, for those of you first getting here on Friday. I usually post on Saturdays and Sundays, unlike many bloggers. Besides, there's tons of crap -- uhhhh...lots of stuff already posted.

Shower, clean bed, deep sleep. I am so boring.

Bourbon Is A Harsh Mistress

Say Uncle came this close and learns a sad lesson.

Slouching Toward 495 Union Avenue

Well, it seems my time has come 'round at last. Today's CA Eye feature in the Commercial Appeal mentions yours truly! Jon Sparks wrote:

Dedicated blogger Mike Hollihan understands what Web journaling is all about and practices it vigorously. He is, among other things, a self-appointed critic of local media and boy, does that make for some interesting reading. Be prepared to spend some time at his Halfbakered blog.

He's too nice by half. Thanks for the pointer.

And to you good Commercial Appeal readers stopping by, welcome! It's a different universe here at Half-Bakered. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to leave your thoughts, opinions and brickbats in the comments feature attached to each post. Or you can email me directly at the addy in the top left corner.

Have fun! Come back and see us again sometime.

BTW, if Jon's CA Eye runs thrice weekly and has its own name, with Jon's handsome mug splattered right there for God and Memphis to see, why then is he not listed with the others on the CA columnist page, with his columns below his name? Seems an unnecessary omission, as you can't tell in the daily list of stories which is Jon's feature. It would help those who are looking for specific CA Eye bits to have them both labelled and gathered, don't you think? Just a thought....

Reminder Of My Evilness

Just a reminder, for those of you who haven't yet succumbed to the temptation, that I have a couple of pages of Kerry mockery up at the hollihan.net site. You can see them here and here. I had great fun making these, as I tapped my evil side in doing so. More undoubtedly to come.

I also found a whole lot more graphics lurking in odd corners of the hard drive today and mean to get them up Real Soon Now. These are all kinds of miscellaneous weirdness I wanted to share. Watch these pages.

Good Morning, Memphis

Whew! I just completed a massive overhaul of the links to the left. I finally added the Government section, though I still need to add some State-level sites and a few more locals. I also tweaked the template a bit and changed the color over there, and of the inline links, to a paler color than the former gold. It seems a bit easier on the eyes.

I've also decided to add a whole lot of LiveJournal Memphians to the "Folks" listing. It's something I've been going back and forth over, but all the ones listed are staying current and doing more than a minimum of discussion with some Memphis content. LiveJournalling tends to be much more confessional and diaristic than blogging, which tends to the rhetorical and educational. We'll see how this goes.

If you don't see your name or site over there in "Folks" and would like it added, either email me or leave a note in the comments. I'll review you and maybe add you. Memphis or Mid-South orientation is a must, obviously, and there are some other aesthetic concerns that are purely subjective. Sorry, but "my blog, my rules." Alternatively, if you want off the list, for whatever reason, let me know, too.

Frankly, I'm worried at how long those link-lists are getting, as the eye tends to glaze over after a certain length. Folks tend not to go browsing very long lists. If anyone has suggestions on how to fight that, let me know.

I hope the new look works. Let me know.

The Way You Do The Thing You Do

I thought I might share my process for blogging. Feel free to share yours in the comments.

During the day, when I'm away from my computer, if something comes to me I'll write it down on a piece of paper and shove it into my pocket. Or I'll grab a highlighter (pen if necessary) and mark up the paper's articles or passages I want to comment on. I might make notes in the margins. The whole time, stuff is percolating in the back of my mind, setting up thoughts and structures to be used later. My brain is like that, always working and never shutting off. It's a curse and part of the reason I used to drink too much.

When I get home, all that gets tossed on the desk. I'll fire up the computer and do my daily reading, bookmarking as I go. After a few hours, which is frequently what my daily reading takes, I'll go to Blogger and get to work.

I usually start with short "look at this" posts to warm up the will, muscles and brains. Longer posts will almost always get composed in Blogger, sometimes in Notepad and then copy/pasted in. I'll write straight from the mind, organising as I go, snatching and pasting in links the same way. I'll go back and scan over things to make sure links are all filled in and not fubar'ed, so as not to trigger "safe mode," which has given me headaches before.

Once the whole thing is written, I'll do a "Select All/Copy" function. This is crucial with Blogger, as I have lost many posts to the gods of the ethersphere not following this step. Then I post. Once the new post is in the published window, I'll wave the cursor over the links, to check them. Then I start reading. If I spot something, I'll hit "edit" to recall the post.

This pass I'll double-check for spelling, punctuation and grammar. My spelling is really good, but my typing less so. I rarely type government correctly on the first shot, usually getting "governemnt" instead. I also have a tendency to over-use commas, so I check for that. Another problem in my writing is starting too many sentences with "coughs," conjunctions like "and, now, but, though" or short phrases that don't serve as more than literary self-effacements before I express something strong. I went looking for some just now to illustrate and couldn't find any! Hah, good. It's a real problem for me, but I must be getting better at rooting them out.

Then comes checking for words reused too often or too close together. I make sure I make my points clearly enough. Sometimes, I assume a bit too much on the part of the reader and find I need to add a bit to clarify. I'm also bad about getting sentences into the wrong order, having the idea and then thinking up the setup, so that I have to cut'n'paste them into a better flow of thought.

I may also miss some point I meant to make, so I have to shoe-horn in the additional stuff. Then I go back and reread the reposted whole, to make sure I like it. Usually that's the end of things, though I may also see mistakes I hadn't caught yet.

Then, I call up Half-Bakered in the browser to see how it looks. Sometimes, there will be formatting errors that require fixing. By this point, my eyes are tired, too, so seeing the posts in a new way helps to catch whatever I haven't caught up to this point.

Once in a while, I'll have second thoughts about something and will go back to edit those things I may have overstated. Because I sometimes express myself a bit strongly.

I'm always surprised how long some of these posts turn out to be. I've also noticed that my vocabulary has shrunk noticeably, most likely due to a lot of Internet and news media reading. I read fewer books, novels and short fiction than I used to, which I regret. Long, convoluted sentences filled with conjunctions and subjunctive clauses and asides are another concern. I've also noted that posts like this have a lot of sentences starting with "I."

That's my process. What's yours?