DanKohn.com

There are more web clocks than you could ever count. (Here’s the official US time.) But this is a one of the more clever clocks I’ve seen.

I very much buy Mickey Kaus’s Fifty-Fifty theory, that modern polling (plus the end of history), mean that the two political parties in the US will remain in “tie” for the foreseeable future:

The “Fifty-Fifty Forever” theory suggests a possible near-future that’s both exciting and depressing — exciting because close races are exciting; depressing because close races, as we learned in 2000, tend to end in so much acrimony, litigation, and uncertainty that they undermine democratic legitimacy.

That’s exactly why I think two of the most critical and opportune political issues are both non-partisan: improving election machines (so tight races can be decided fairly and accurately), and independent redistricting (so that incumbents are not gerrymanded into forever-safe districts).

Great obit of Geraldine of Albania, including a suitable denouement to any story about royalty, regarding a vote for king.

“Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the violence-filled game, a satire set in a Miami-like city in 1986, gives players an assignment: play one of the bad guys and kill the characters who stole your cocaine.” Last year’s version sold 8 M copies at $50 each. Note that the videogame business is bigger than the movie industry. Also, all the cool games are coming out for PS2, not for X-box. But, MSFT never gets things right with the first version.

Deeply, horribly upsetting look at illegal detention in America. It caused me to donate to Amnesty International.

‘“Jackass the Movie” is like a documentary version of “Fight Club,” shorn of social insight, intellectual pretension and cinematic interest.
It also offers a supremely literal-minded version of slapstick.’ I love Fight Club, but will have to skip Jackass.

Surprisingly testosterone-laden editorial from the WP decrying French and Russian obstructionism on the Security Council. Your worldview may be shattered by this news, but the French are being hypocritical: “In fact, even as Mr. Chirac was proclaiming the sanctity of the United Nations’ authority over war-making, some 1,000 French troops were intervening unilaterally to protect French interests in Ivory Coast; Paris never dreamed of forging an international coalition or consulting the Security Council.”

Clever test. I missed the Moses question.

James Fallows on what would be entailed to administer post-invasion Iraq:

“This could be a golden opportunity to begin to change the face of the Arab world,” James Woolsey, a former CIA director who is one of the most visible advocates of war, told me. “Just as what we did in Germany changed the face of Central and Eastern Europe, here we have got a golden chance.” In this view, the fall of the Soviet empire really did mark what Francis Fukuyama called “the end of history”: the democratic-capitalist model showed its superiority over other social systems…. What is required is a first Arab democracy, and Iraq can be the place.

“If you only look forward, you can see how hard it would be to do,” Woolsey said. “Everybody can say, ‘Oh, sure, you’re going to democratize the Middle East.’” Indeed, that was the reaction of most of the diplomats, spies, and soldiers I spoke with — “the ruminations of insane people,” one British official said.

Woolsey continued with his point: “But if you look at what we and our allies have done with the three world wars of the twentieth century — two hot, one cold — and what we’ve done in the interstices, we’ve already achieved this for two thirds of the world. Eighty-five years ago, when we went into World War I, there were eight or ten democracies at the time. Now it’s around a hundred and twenty — some free, some partly free. An order of magnitude! The compromises we made along the way, whether allying with Stalin or Franco or Pinochet, we have gotten around to fixing, and their successor regimes are democracies. Around half of the states of sub-Saharan Africa are democratic. Half of the twenty-plus non-Arab Muslim states. We have all of Europe except Belarus and occasionally parts of the Balkans. If you look back at what has happened in less than a century, then getting the Arab world plus Iran moving in the same direction looks a lot less awesome. It’s not Americanizing the world. It’s Athenizing it. And it is doable.”

Athenizing = Athens = democracy (it took me a moment as well). Of course, this is by far the most optimistic view. Still, how can you not love gibes by anonymous British diplomats.

As this NYT article explains, I’m so excited to be spending time in Hollywood for Pixonics: “From showing up late to business meetings or not at all for social engagements, to not returning calls, Hollywood etiquette is all about reminding others that you are more important than they are. The practice of canceling a lunch or a dinner date when a better invitation comes along is so common it is known as B.B.D., for Bigger Better Dealing.”