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An excellent post on Shark Blog:
Today’s hopeful news : Palestinian officials say Hamas is on the verge of accepting truce
Oh, wait…June 18, 2003 : Palestinians and Hamas near truce
June 16, 2003 : Palestinian FM -Hamas ceasefire possible on Tuesday
June 15, 2003 : Egyptian mediators work to reach ceasefire deal with Palestinian militants
June 8, 2003 : Hamas Expected to Rejoin Truce Talks
June 3, 2003 : Hamas Official Says Truce Possible with Guarantees
June 1, 2003 : Palestinians confident on ceasefire deal
May 31, 2003 : PNA to meet with Hamas as soon as truce is ready
There’s more, and he’s got links documenting all of it. Check it out.
You gotta love this. For months we've been reading about how Democrats have been blocking Bush's judicial nominations via filibuster.
The Senate Rules Committee just met and changed the rules so as to limit those filibusters. It so happened that no Democratic members of the Committee showed up for the meeting.
"It's hard to get people to a meeting between 9:30 and 10," Lott said. "We got ours here. The others were going to come but didn't get here by the time we finished our work."
The whole article is here - but Rush has the right take on it.
The Constitution sets out that the president nominates judges and the Senate evaluates them in a simple majority vote - 51 votes - based on the candidate's judicial qualifications, not on their political views. Yet a few extreme Democrats have set out to block President Bush's judicial candidates who have the votes to win confirmation in the full Senate. They do this by filibustering.
Since you need 60 votes to break a filibuster, Democrats have now required far more votes to confirm judges than the Constitution itself does! Well, if the Democrats can illegally amend the Constitution's provision on how many votes are needed to confirm a judge, then the Republican Party can and should do all it can to set things right. Shockingly, the GOP Senate has done just that.
The Associated Press: "A Senate committee with all its Democratic members absent voted to limit filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees Tuesday, a move Republicans hope will usher future federal judges through the Senate faster, even if Democrats want to stop them." Good job, guys. Way to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Fantastic.
For over a month the Left has been accusing Bush of lying to the public. No evidence has yet been found to support the accusation.
The Left purposely conflates being mistaken with lying. And given that Hussein previously admitted possessing WMD, it isn’t even likely Bush was mistaken.
The argument is just a distraction thrown up by the Left to make people forget that Hussein was supporting terrorists who are trying to nuke us.
Why the Left would oppose efforts to halt terrorism—merely in order to get themselves into power—is a question they carefully avoid discussing.
The absence of any proof that Bush lied is beginning to be an embarassment to the Left. The latest thing is that the Left is attempting to avoid embarassment by claiming that, as both Judge and Jury, it has decided to convict Bush of lying, even without any evidence.
Witness this opinion piece from the LA TIMES:
WITH SO MANY PINOCCHIOS IN POWER, WHAT’S A KID TO THINK?By Susan E. Tifft
When I began teaching at Duke, I was pleased to find that the university had an honor code exhorting students to promise they wouldn’t “lie, cheat or steal” in their academic endeavors. But now I regard the pledge as a quaint artifact.How can young people take seriously such a vow when everywhere they look they see successful grown-ups getting ahead by playing fast and loose with the truth?
Every day brings fresh accusations that President Bush and his advisors stretched intelligence to get the United States into a war in Iraq, while the one feel-good story of the conflict—the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch—is looking increasingly phony. At least three independent media investigations (the British Broadcasting Corp., the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post) have cast doubt on the initial heroic narrative and questioned whether the military manipulated the episode for propaganda purposes.
See? It doesn’t matter that there’s no proof. It’s enough that “Every day brings fresh accusations.” Never mind that all the accusations are from the Left, which has appointed itself not only Judge and Jury, but also the sole lawyer in their kangaroo court.
Or how about this, from ultra-leftwing madman Robert Scheer, who disgraces the pages of the LA TIMES weekly with his tirades:
THE FACT THAT HUSSEIN’S GONE DOESN’T MAKE LYING RIGHT...It was OK to lie about the nonexistent evidence of ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda. It was OK to lie about the U.N. weapons inspectors, claiming they were suckered by Hussein. It was OK to lie, not only to Americans but to our allies in this war, about “intelligence” alleging that Iraq’s military had chemical and biological weapons deployed in the field.
Of course, Scheer has no evidence that there were any such lies. It’s the latest tactic of the Left to figure that if they blow enough smoke, pretty soon somebody will think there was a fire.
Doesn’t the Left have anything to offer that can help build up America? Can they do nothing better than to attack actions by the Right intended to defend America from terrorists?
The LA TIMES has a great article on the Y chromosome—“the essence of masculinity”. Here’s the part that particularly caught my attention.
It is the only chromosome present in one sex and not the other. In addition to 22 matching pairs in men, the Y is paired, not with its twin, but with the X chromosome.
Think about that for a second. Both X (female characteristics) and Y (male characteristics) chromosomes are carried by men; women carry the X chromosome, but do not carry the Y.
It seems to me that this explains why the family name of the husband is taken by the wife; it explains why the male children carry the family name. Because only the male children carry both the X and Y chromosomes of the parents.
What’s also fascinating is the possibility that centuries ago people-watchers could see this happening, just by watching families and their children, and that led to the custom of the male child carrying on the family name.
It doesn’t matter if the criminal has a lot of justifications or explanations for his actions – the behavior isn’t tolerated for any reason. Such individuals are put down by the state with great force as quickly as possible.
It wasn’t always like that. If you read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which is based on historical accounts, you will see that Brutus and the other murderers figured that after they assassinated Caesar, they would just explain their reasons to everybody, and the public would find that their actions were justified.
There was no public consensus, and no law, at the time that said anyone who committed murder—even the murder of a public official such as Caesar—would be arrested or otherwise punished. At the time the behavior—murder committed with an elaborate justification saying it was good for the state—was relatively new, and people hadn’t yet decided how they felt about it.
Centuries later, things have changed. Everyone agrees that the explanation or justification is irrelevant. If someone does a murder, the state gets on that person’s case as quickly as possible. They’re arrested. There’s a trial. In cases of self-defense, the person is excused; otherwise there’s no escape from pursuit and punishment.
There’s a parallel today. Terrorism is the mass murder of civilians, utilized to advance political agendas. Today the terrorists think they can stand up and explain their reasons to everybody, and that enough people will agree with them so that they can go on doing it. The behavior is relatively new, and people haven’t yet reached a consensus on how they feel about it. You can find people, particularly in the Mid-East, who support terrorism.
It may take decades, but I believe that inevitably the community of nations will come to a consensus that, like any other murder, terrorism is not to be tolerated, regardless of the justifications or explanations presented by the terrorists.
To get there, we must do everything necessary to show those practicing terrorism that it’s a dead end, that it is not successful for their own purposes. See the previous post for more on that.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Terrorism as a strategy is being tested. It will be proven or disproven as an effective way of conducting business. If it is believed to be successful by those who practice it, it will be increasingly used outside the Mid-East. If it succeeds against Israel, or anywhere else for that matter, it will be increasingly used around the world and, whenever possible, against the U.S.
The time is now to prove to the world that terrorism is not successful for those who practice it. It took 70 years for most nations practicing Communism to realize it was a dead end. Do we want to put up with decades of terrorism – of mass murder, of civilians, utilized to advance political agendas?
The time is now to show to those seeking to prove the utility of terrorism, that it too is a dead end. The U.S. and other nations cannot tolerate terrorism anywhere in the world. The U.S. and any allies up for the job must move powerfully to eradicate Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
And how hard is that to do? The U.S. could surely make life extremely difficult for Hamas.
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is saying the right things:
Last week the Palestinian Authority’s new prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, made a breathtaking speech at the Aqaba peace summit. He declared his government’s intention to be “full partners in the war against terrorism…
It is time to bring all this suffering to an end.”
His position is, ‘It’s not the Palestinian people committing these mass murders; it’s Hamas and similar organizations. Unfortunately we can’t stop them yet.’ And our response could reasonably be, ‘Very good. We are going to eradicate those organizations. Our efforts are not directed agains you or your people. We’re just protecting ourselves.’
A war by Hamas and similar groups against the U.S. is a certain loser for those groups if we go after them with the required power. The time is right. We have sufficent military power in the area. Muslim public opinion may be beginning to move in the right direction: large demonstrations in Iran right now are showing willingness among the public there to move into the future and away from the madness of terrorism.
We have the power; we have the right; we have the opportunity. Let’s close the door on mass murder as a strategy for political gain.
This is the best news I’ve heard all week.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A leading Republican lawmaker said on Sunday U.S. forces may have to help “root out terrorism” in the Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, including taking aim at Hamas.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said American forces might be part of an international force to help stop attacks by Hamas, the main group behind a campaign of suicide bombings against Israelis, and other groups.
Hamas has said it would reject any peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
If the U.S goes after Hamas, it will decimate that terrorist organization. This could be the best policy for putting down terrorism in the long run, which we must do to prevent future terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
Could you imagine having the job where you have to make the decisions about whether to take actions such as these? I really think the government is doing an exemplary job dealing with these unprecedented circumstances.
That’s what it sounded like the LA TIMES was saying.
U.S. Struggles to Keep Plan Intact
The chief focus is to set ground rules for when Israel can launch attacks against militants.By Robin Wright, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON— With broken bodies and smoking rubble mounting, President Bush’s Mideast peace initiative—launched with such fanfare a week ago—has turned into a struggle just to figure out a way to prevent more killings.
The tightening spiral of violence has spurred some outside the administration to call for drastic action, including the possible deployment of foreign troops to separate the sides. But on Wednesday, the White House was concentrating on nailing down ground rules on what constitutes “restraint” by Israel.
It would be a major step in the right direction. This notion that the killing of random civilians by Hamas is ethically equivalent to the killing of Hamas leaders by Israel, is just dumb. Of course Israel should be permitted to do to Hamas what it needs to do to defend its civilians.
Many have raised this question. The answer may not be that hard to find.
Could it possibly have been to hide Hussein’s mass slaughter of Iraqi citizens? Story after story has appeared detailing the atrocities and mass murders committed by Hussein against his own people. Surely he considered that any free investigation would discover these things.
The LA TIMES has a report that Hussein planned to outlast the U.N. and then rebuild WMD.
BAGHDAD—Saddam Hussein’s intelligence services set up a network of clandestine cells and small laboratories after 1996 with the goal of someday rebuilding illicit chemical and biological weapons, according to a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer.
The officer, who held the rank of brigadier general, said each closely guarded weapons team had three or four scientists and other experts who were unknown to U.N. inspectors. He said they worked on computers and conducted crude experiments in bunkers and back rooms in safe houses around Baghdad.
He insisted they did not produce any illegal arms and that none now exist in Iraq. But he said the teams met regularly and put plans on paper to quickly develop weapons of mass destruction if U.N. sanctions against Iraq were lifted.
“We could start again anytime,” said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he said he fears for his life. “It’s very easy. Especially biological.”
“The point was, the Iraqis kept the knowledge,” he explained during a lengthy interview Friday in which he offered tantalizing details of secret programs. But U.S. weapons hunters “will never find anything here. Only oil.”
Bingo. By its own admission, Iraq had WMD in the 1990’s:
The Iraqi government in the 1990s admitted to U.N. weapons inspectors that it had produced 8,500 liters of anthrax and a few tons of VX.
The U.N. came in, and Hussein destroyed or hid the WMD. Why not? It’s easy to rebuild them.
According to this Gallup Poll:
Little Concern About Lack of WMD in Iraq
Public rejects charges of deliberate deception by Bush administration
by David W. Moore
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ—Americans appear relatively unconcerned that nearly eight weeks after Saddam Hussein was deposed from power, coalition forces in Iraq have not been able to produce indisputable evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Some political leaders who originally backed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq have now raised questions about whether the war was justified, given that U.K. and U.S. officials cited Iraq’s possession of WMD as a prime rationale for the invasion. And some critics have even charged the Bush administration with deliberate deception. But a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds that a majority of Americans are generally sanguine about this issue.
The whole issue is a non-starter and the public isn’t falling for it. It’s bogus:
The total jump to a conclusion that the Bush administration lied. How ridiculous. There’s no evidence to support the contention. The most you can possibly say is that the Bush administration was mistaken. And many believe that WMD will be found. The public isn’t falling for this blatant canard.
The silly notion that if there were no WMD in Iraq, the war was unnecessary. Completely ridiculous. Al Qaeda didn’t use nukes on the World Trade Center. The only reason terrorism exists is that the nations that support terrorism pretend (rather absurdly) that they have nothing to do with terrorist activities. The whole terrorist plan is that we will therefore be unable to declare war on such nations, and will be helpless to defend ourselves. Well, guess again. We aren’t helpless to defend ourselves. We pick the worst nations out there, liberate them, and return them to their people. The left just falls into the hands of the terrorists when they argue that we should be paralyzed and should leave dictators like Hussein free to attack us. The American public isn’t falling for this blatant nonsense either.
The public is getting it right. Go team!
If they can do this:
...then we’re getting very close to movies featuring full-on synthespians – that is, computer-animated actors that look 100% human. Not just long shots, a la THE MATRIX RELOADED, but close-ups.
The first film to try to do it may be THE POLAR EXPRESS.
According to The Los Angeles Times, it’s going to be a live-action movie with no live action being filmed. Instead, actors “will be covered in motion-capture sensors so that each move of an arm, each flicker of an eyelid and each wrinkle of a lip will be stored on a computer and used as guide for the digital animators who will create the actual movie footage.”Computer wizards also are using Tom Hanks’ current facial structure to create a completely virtual character of him as a young boy. All this technology will likely push the project’s price tag well past its current estimate of $150 million.
“This is an ambitious, exciting project for us,” Martin Shafer, chairman and chief executive of Castle Rock Entertainment, the studio behind the movie, told the Times . “We’ve seen the early test [footage], and it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY says the close-ups of the Hulk cost $20m:
It would also require more dough – an estimated $20 million more. “It wasn’t like we had to spend more money to fix or improve,” says Parent, dismissing rumors that the money was needed to do just that. “It was, ‘Wow, now we can have close-ups – let’s do it.’”
Kinda pricey. But the cost will come down.
By the way, I’ve seen some concerns expressed about how THE HULK is going to do. I have no doubt it’s going to be a huge hit.
...to have been BlogRolled by one of the best and most-read Blogs on the Net, Little Green Footballs.
...to receive its first link from Blogosphere leader InstaPundit. Thanks Glenn!
The first online computer game designed to accommodate a million simultaneous players is currently in previews.The game, called Rekonstruction, is not scheduled for commercial release until autumn 2004. ...
Creating a large virtual world that does not repeat itself is very time consuming and hence expensive, says Chris DiBona of Damage Studios, the company behind the game. The large multiplayer games currently online usually take one world and then repeat it. For example, the game Everquest supports 450,000 users, but is split into 32 segregated segments.
In contrast, Rekonstruction will aim to provide up to a million users with a single unique world. To try to overcome the problem of creating the vast amount of unique content needed, automated programs will be employed to generate the virtual world with a minimum of intervention from human programmers.
I don’t see any flying cars yet… but it’s looking more and more like the future every day. 
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