Me: Frank Lynch
Home
(Current
commentary)
These are my mundane daily ramblings.
For something
less spontaneous, I maintain The
Samuel
Johnson Sound Bite Page (over 1,700 Johnson quotes), with a
weekly essay springing from one of
Johnson's quotations.
Bio:
Born 1957, raised in Florida, moved to New York
area in 1982; now live in Brooklyn.
Married, with one kid
unit.
Former marketing research professional. Now drawing no
salary, but working on a book.
Email:
frank
dot
lynch2
at
verizon
dot
net
A first time for EVerything? Cleaning
squid is one of those things which my wife says we could have
done without trying. But to be honest with you — and I'm
the type who has stuffed his own sausage — I 
thought it was something just waiting to be tried. So
I cleaned three pounds' worth tonight for our dinner, and it was
fascinating. It's not difficult by any stretch, although I can
see how some people could be repulsed. But it is time
consuming... The most fascinating part (for me) was that the
squid's "hood" (the body) has embedded within it a clear rib
which, if you didn't have a book to tell you otherwise, you would
swear was a piece of clear plastic inserted by low wage workers
in some plant just for the purposes of marketing.
It's also interesting to work with an animal with a completely different anatomy. All cooks are familiar with animals that have some type of four legs, or fins, for that matter, but a squid is completely different. Cleaning it is an intriguing process, and I recommend you buy one just to learn about it (here in NY squid is cheap, $2 a pound).
I also learned something about my family's culinary interests
tonight. I've seen them eat fried calamari perhaps a hundred
times, always knowing what it was; but the breading actually
disguises that reality from them. The dish I served tonight was a
stew with squid, tomatoes, black olives, and basil. The squid was
not hidden by any breading, and although the texture was perfect,
the clarity of the squid as squid made the dining difficult for
them. Sorry about that, family!
Link 8:22 PM
I'm about half way through processing two years' worth
of vacation shots onto a CD-ROM for grandparents... I decided
that it really made much more sense to do it in html (as opposed
to just putting the processed photos on a disc), because not only
can I write a little guide and organize them sensibly, but I can
provide hyperlinks to web sites that have supplementary
information beyond the short descriptions I provide. Like the Cairns of Clava, where this merged photo of the Kid
Unit was taken. London and Scotland are now complete, and I have
to do the Netherlands and Belgium.
Two years of vacation photos have to
get waded through somehow, and sent off to parents. It would be
easy to just put them all on a CD and stick them in the mail, but
I suspect it makes sense to build a guided tour out of html...
That way they can skip around from trip to trip, and also just
see family photos if they like. So, that's what I'm doing today.
Is some student bearing the cost of
plagiarism? Yesterday, someone came to my web site in a
highly unusual fashion — a Google search on the following
sentence: "The availability of the books in his father's shop,
and his natural proclivity for learning, contributed to his
having extensive knowledge at an early age." Prior to my posting
that here, the only place you could find that on the
Internet was on my brief biography
of Samuel Johnson. There's just no way anyone would come up
with a search term like that, so I'm figuring it was either a
teacher/professor checking on a sentence from a student that
didn't look original, or, someone who had used it in a draft,
forgot where they pulled it from, and wanted to provide a proper
citation. I have no idea, but I hope it's the latter.
As if the closing of Lutece weren't
enough, as if Bennifer's failure to wed weren't enough: Barbie and Ken are breaking up. (Cue Neil Sedaka,
please.) Forty-three years. FOUR TEE THREE YEARS, the best years
of their lives, they gave each other. (Hey, guys: wake up,
someone special is available!)
Lutece is closing. Can you believe
it? Lutece is like, Antoine's in New Orleans... It's like,
ummm... In fact, there are very few restaurant institutions to
which it can be compared: Lutece is like Lutece in New York City.
To be honest with you, I've never eaten there, far too expensive
for my wallet, but I've read many of Andre Soltner's recipes and
cooked some: they are always fine. His recipe for
choucroute is something we do once a year, reliably. A sun is
definitely setting, and we have to be careful about the night.
Whenever possible blame a Democrat. I
like to go to blogdex, which
scours a large set of web logs nightly and ranks what they link
to — it gives you a sense of what is on other bloggers'
minds. Last night's leading item is a
letter to the editor of the Washington Post, from someone who
served along side Bush in the Texas National Guard: "George Bush
and I were lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter
Interceptor Squadron (FIS), Texas Air National Guard (ANG) from
1970 to 1971." I agree with the writer that service in the guard
should not be denigrated, but this line talking about the
potential for active service in Vietnam caught my eye: Why did it catch my eye? Well, during the period written
about, Johnson (a Democrat) wasn't president: it was Nixon, a
Republican. (I'll have to check the other blogs which link to
this letter to see if any of them noticed this...) Update:
There are other oddities. Oliver Willis noti
ced a similarity between the letter in the Washington Times
and one the same sender sent to The Observer in Virginia;
he's more bothered by the similarity than I am, since it's the
same letter writer. But the writer makes the same mistake about
Presidential terms there — to me this suggests a foggy
memory rather than a quick, one-time slip. But that's not the
only problem: Hesiod points out that the letter
writer seemed under the impression that Bush was in Florida prior
to Alabama (a new, unheard of story), and that the writer was
actually in Pennsylvania during this "term of duty" with Bush.
I can see the future, and in the
future the Republicans will be telling fishy stories about John
Kerry. Well, actually, anyone can see this by taking a
look at the Republican National Committee's web page profiling
Kerry. Some of the garbage you'll find there? Right off the bat, an attempt to link Kerry to Dukakis
("DUKAKIS'S LT. GOV.") and Ted Kennedy ("On Key Votes, Kerry
Voted 100% Of The Time With Senator Kennedy In 2001, 1999, 1998,
1993, 1992, 1989, 1988, 1987, 1986, and 1985.") (Update:
Note that in their tally the years 2003, 2002, 2000, 1997, 1996,
1995, 1994, 1991, and 1990 are not shown. They base their "100%"
figure on 10 years, ignoring 9 years. Kind of whittles down the
relevance of that 100%, doncha think? End of update.) The Dukakis link is because Kerry served as Lieutenant
Governor for two years, early 1983 to early 1985. What does the
RNC say? Note that the RNC doesn't refute Kerry's statement at all. If
the Massachusetts furlough program was tougher than the
federal program, is it so liberal? The RNC is silent. (Odd that
they would trump themselves like that...) As for Kerry aligning himself with Ted Kennedy on "key votes,"
it's worth noting not only that these are the votes defined by
the RNC, but that if you read how they went (you have to
scroll down, and it's in very small type, too small for
me, at age 46, and I can only imagine for how many people who are
older than me), these aren't votes where it was 98-2 with Kerry
and Kennedy being the only "extremists." Enlarge the type on your
browser, if you can: most of these are close votes, and rarely
are there fewer than 40 votes on the losing side. (Perhaps I'm
wrong, but it is painful to read this type.) They also try to tar him as being "fiscally irresponsible,"
because he's for higher spending and against tax cuts. I can
understand why Republicans would complain about a senator who
wants to spend more, but they are ignoring the fact that higher
taxes lead to balanced budgets. Or lower deficits, anyway.
That's why they rag on Kerry for voting for Clinton's tax
increase, and don't mention that Clinton led the US government to
a federal surplus. (Unlike the current guy, of course.) And of course, Kerry is an extremist, they say, because of his
position on abortion. Uh, that is, Kerry supported the law of the
land, as laid out by the Supreme Court: a woman has a right to
choose. I'm not sure why the law and order Republicans would be
so upset in a senator who believes in the law, but there you go.
Enjoying your SUV? Great, because
OPEC is cutting back
its crude oil production, and prices are rising.
Perhaps there's legal reasons for this
one, but it is amazing that Presidential Press
Secretary Scott McClellan can never give a straightforward yes or
no. This, from yesterday's press gaggle: Q. Did you talk to I think the FBI about the CIA leaks? MR. McCLELLAN: Did I talk -- me, personally? Well, let's just
say I'm doing my part to cooperate. Q What was the question? MR. McCLELLAN: She asked if I was interviewed by the FBI last
week, and I said, I'm doing my part to cooperate, as the
President directed all of us to do. Q You can't go into that any further? MR. McCLELLAN: Well, if you have further questions, you really
ought to direct those to the Department of Justice. Q Can you say for the record, "yes," or "no"? MR. McCLELLAN: I think I was filmed by several news
organizations coming out of the courthouse. I think that confirms
it for you. Now, I have no idea whether or not he lives alone, but I can
only imagine what conversations at home might be like. Q: Honey, what did you have for lunch today? MR. McCLELLAN: At an appropriate time, food was brought in.
I'm not going to go into specifics regarding how the food was
brought in. As you know, White House entrances are secure, and
indicating which entrance food may or may not have been brought
in might compromise our nation's security. Q: Yes, but perhaps you could tell me what you had for lunch
today? MR. McCLELLAN: The President feels that small businesses are
at the core of America's opportunities for economic growth, and
that there are many fine options available to the staff regarding
lunch. As to which restaurant provided lunch today for which
staff members, it would be inappropriate to comment at this time,
since, as I said, the President feels there are many fine options
available and to single out any one over another would indicate a
preference to small minded members of the press; it is not the
President's intent that any establishment suffer as a result of
this line of questioning. Q: But perhaps you could tell me what you ate? MR. McCLELLAN: I think I already provided an answer when you
asked that question earlier. Q: Well, you responded to my earlier question, but I'm
not sure you answered. MR. McCLELLAN: Let me put it this way: security cameras
recorded an extra large pizza with the check-boxes for pepperoni,
sausage, and anchovies, entering the White House, with the name
"McClellan" on the top in magic marker. I'll have to get back to
you, but I believe the marker was a black bold type. I think that
confirms it for you. Q: Scott, are there any other staff members at the White House
with the last name 'McClellan'? MR. McCLELLAN: Discussing White House personnel is not
appropriate. Q: So are you saying you had pizza for lunch? MR. McCLELLAN: At an appropriate time, food was brought
in... I presume I'm wrong.
If you've seen the executive order,
you know someone has a serious
intelligence problem. It only looks at "intelligence" as by a
1940's definition, ignoring the side organization in the
Pentagon, and doesn't examine what the White House did with the
intelligence at all. (Not to mention, of course, that its
calendar is designed to deliver a report about 6 months after the
election.) Is this accountability?
The glass is actually one-tenth full, not
completely empty. Conservatives must be desperate to
find good things to say about the economy. Over at National
Review's web log, Tim Graham pronounces that the December jobs
figure is not as bad as we all thought: That's right, not an anemic 1,000 jobs in December, but a big
huge robust splitting-the-seams 16,000. So, while roughly 5.6% of those wanting to work (excluding
those who have given up due to a petrified economy) remain
unemployed, take heart that in this country of some 209 million adults, that 15,000 more were
working in December than you thought. That's a full seven
thousandths of one percent (0.007%!!) of the adults. And of
course there's this: Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics, said: "This
economy, under normal circumstances, should be generating 200,000
to 300,000 a month (in new jobs)." Analysts are looking for monthly payroll gains of 300,000 or
more for sustained job growth, and the economy remains far from
that mark. Drink up, my boys: there's more water in that glass than you
thought!
Here's the page on the White House web
site where the President's executive orders
get posted. Nothing yet... Probably waiting till it's too
late for the network news shows.
Why is the scope of the executive order so
important? Well, the people on the panel are important, but
communication takes both a sender and a receiver in order to
occur. If the panel is limited to looking at the sender only
(i.e., the intelligence community, and how they developed,
interpreted, and expressed information), that means they're not
looking at how the Administration heard, interpreted, and
expressed the intelligence conclusions. A glaring example is the
yellowcake reference in the '03 State of the Union address: the
White House knew, from previous discussion with the CIA, the
information was suspect, and forgot — it had been pulled
from the Cincinnati speech the prior October, but kind of
wandered back in to the SOTU. For more on how the intelligence
was handled, a good read is John Judis and Spencer Ackerman's
article The Selling of the Iraq War: The First
Casualty. Another relevant question regarding what the White
House did with the intelligence it received can be found in the
Pentagon department run by Douglas Feith, designed to give the
Administration information which was unfiltered by seasoned intel
pros. As an example of the importance of a seasoned perspective,
when a memo from Feith to a senate committee was leaked by the Weekly Standard last fall, the Defense
Department issued a
press release cautioning that the memo's contents were
undistilled tidbits — i.e., data, not wisdom. Hopefully,
the use of the info will be in the purview of the panel,
but I wouldn't count on it.
Bush has named his commission to
investigate the intelligence issues surrounding Iraq, but until
we know the scope (as laid out in the Executive Order, which
hasn't been published yet) we won't really be able to predict how
far the panel will be able to go. Importantly, Bush doesn't use
the word "failures" in his statement
to the press — he says they're going to look at
"intelligence capabilities" — perhaps he's still holding
out the possibility that the intelligence didn't fail?
City Lighting: Well, we did make it to
the new restaurant here in Brooklyn (on Flatbush Avenue, in the
place where City Lighting Fixtures sold bulbs, lamps, and so on
for decades). I have to say, I was pleased with that I had (a
grilled wild salmon filet, with sauteed wild mushrooms which
tasted like home fries, and garlic sauteed spinach [the spinach
was a substitution they made for the mashed potatoes, at my
request]). And Ab was "OK" with hers, but not overly thrilled
(crab cakes — I suspect she holds all crab cakes up to some
pinnacle crab cakes we had in Baltimore some years ago). And the
Kid Unit was quite happy to eat nachos. We will definitely go
back, but I think Ab will order something else. Nice intimate
interior, kinda dark, very pleasant staff.
Impatient tomfoolery drove me out into
this afternoon's close-to-freezing rain — for one reason or
another I've been stuck inside here pretty much since Monday,
aside from leaving to pick the Kid Unit up from school —
and I was antsy to get out. What a mess: Prospect Park's low
areas were full of new ponds (the strip running across the lawn
around 3rd Street was filled with water), and my jeans opted for
a career change, becoming a sponge instead. I don't think I
lasted more than a half hour, and my camera's batteries died so I
don't even have a single shot to show for the venture.
Be careful with words like "never."
Regarding the main suspect in the abduction-death of a Florida
girl, NRO's Jonah Goldberg writes: There appears to be strong disagreement over whether or not
innocent people have been executed. I don't know if Goldberg has
consciously reviewed any
records, or if he's just comfortable with the proposition.
It's an interesting phenomenon: conservatives are typically
comfortable that government does a fine job in the case of law
and order, but will carefully scrutinize its work (and the value)
when it comes to important social services.
Because George Tenet said yesterday
that the CIA never said Iraq was an imminent threat, the idea is
getting re-examined. Those who believe Bush described the threat
as imminent, using synonyms, see this as showing that the
Administration used inappropriate license in arguing for war;
others, pointing to language in the '03 SOTU address, say it
shows nothing of the kind. I continue to say that the
Administration is tricky with words, and that the '03 SOTU
address does not support claims that "Bush never said the
threat was imminent." Reread this post
from October.
Sweet. The Bush budget calls for
eliminating research in how to decontaminate buildings of toxins. Of course, the
ricin was found the same day the budget was sent over.
James Lileks feels so... beTRAYED.
Why? Because Patrick Stewart, who plays a space explorer on TV,
feels differently about space travel than his character does.
Such an excess of stupidity, Johnson said, is not in nature. (Johnson
was talking before blogs, but he did know a thing or two about an
overabundance of writers: a "conspiracy for the destruction of
paper," he called it.)
Did Scott Ritter become radioactive?
As in, an untouchable? Yesterday the Daily Howler
noticed that Scott Ritter had been largely absent from the
airwaves in the last six months. The speculation was that his
pre-war declarations that Iraq no longer had WMDs were too close
to the truth for the media to be comfortable with him. And, in
retrospect, who wants to hang out with someone who's going to say
"I told you so?" There is another possibility, unfortunately. In January 2003
reports started surfacing that, in a case with sealed court
documents, Ritter had been charged with sexual misconduct. It
showed up in a January 19 item in the Daily News, a January 19 column in World Net Daily, and who knows all of where thereafter.
(You can also see it in an article at the
BBC.) It's important to note that the charges were apparently
dismissed, Ritter didn't deny that the charges existed, and said
he couldn't comment on them due to court order. Quotations in the
BBC article remind us that we were on the verge of war, and that
Ritter didn't want us to be distracted: "It's a shame that somebody would bring up this old matter
now... this dismissed matter, and seek to silence me at this
time. "The timing does stink," he said. He had no way of knowing why this happened, "but the effect is
obvious," he said. "I was supposed to fly to Baghdad on a personal initiative
that could have had great ramifications in regards issues of war
and peace," he told CNN. He said he did not know who was responsible for the leaks, but
insisted that they should answer for them. "Let's not forget, we're on the verge of a major conflict...
and I was a leading voice of opposition to this," he said. I emailed Bob Somerby (at the Daily Howler) these links and
hypothesis yesterday, and he said he may update his story, but
hasn't yet (he's already put today's post up). He did wonder
about whether or not the story was released last year in an
effort to shut Ritter up, similarly to one hypothesis about the
outing of Valerie Plame. When the Ritter news came out last year,
that was my immediate thought (free of the Valerie Plame context,
of course, that had yet to come out). The idea that intimidation
was the goal re Ritter was considered at the time by a
contributor to
Antiwar.com, who noted that the inspector Jack McGeorge had
also been singled out in the media for his extra-curricular
activities. Someone is digging this stuff up, trying to
slay the messengers.
Majority tyranny? In a post on why he
doesn't want the Supreme Court to decide on marriage for gays,
Andrew Sullivan writes
(scroll down to "Ramesh asks"): Well, it's a pretty safe bet that in 2000 conservatives were
glad the majority of voters didn't pick the President, I'll say
that!
Senses of right and wrong apparently don't
enter into it. The Hill
notes that the Republican Senate staffer who spearheaded the
ransacking of the Democrats' computers will resign, "a sacrifice
offered by the GOP leadership in hope of persuading the Democrats
to wind down the fight over leaked Judiciary Committee memos."
Not because they think the action is appropriate, or that anyone
is guilty, or that the computer violations were wrong: just for
politics. Cheese, Louise, what do they think is
appropriate, give the guy a bonus? (Hmmm, they probably did.)
George Tenet made a strong defense of
the conclusions which the CIA made regarding Iraq and WMDs, and
never suggested for a moment that the conclusion were abused or
that administrative pressure had reshaped the conclusions. (The
entire speech will be replayed on C-SPAN tonight at 8 PM. There
are articles about it here and here. The CIA web site has a copy of the speech as written.) He also
provided context on the gray areas surrounding intelligence
conclusions, and stated flatly that the process of investigating
WMD's in Iraq was "nowhere near 85% final," as had been said
by outgoing Iraq Survey Group leader David Kay. Tenet rebutted Kay in other areas, too,
indicating that the CIA was on top of the status of
programs in Libya and Iran. (Kay had suggested otherwise in
Senate testimony last week.) I can't help but wonder about the human dynamics about what
has gone on through this entire process. Tenet described the
process as involving judgment, yet the uncertainty which is
associated with judgment was never communicated by Bush. For
instance, in his October 2002 speech in Cincinnati, we hear these
statements — ...and there is similar certainty in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address: Clearly, there is an attribution there — Bush identifies
a source for that and many other statements, but beyond the
attribution there is no qualification, or indication of
uncertainty. This is the same kind of sentence structure which
allowed a the yellow cake statement to be technically true("The
British government has learned..."). Nothing in the State of the
Union speech embraces the complex nature of conclusions, or
indicates any doubt. Another dynamic I'm curious about is the hubris that was
expressed by hawks about how easily WMDs would be found, and
whether that set up artificially high expectations that
resolution would be quickly achieved. True, there were some
reminders that Iraq was the size of California, but we had other
statements from people like Rumsfeld which indicated certainty
about where they were, as well as pundits like Charles
Krauthammer predicting they would be quickly found. I guess we
have to remember that just because Rumsfeld and Krauthammer have
been proven wrong doesn't mean there aren't any WMDs. What do I want? I want American redemption: if we find WMDs
and that redeems international opinion, that's one way; another
way would be for the US to admit that we were wrong. I had another thought while watching the speech, but can't
remember what it was. If I do later, I'll update this post.
You DO have to be a Democrat to win the
Democratic nomination. Joe Lieberman is ending his chase to become
president.
Gators are MUCH cooler than cows. Palm
Beach County is outdoing other metro areas by taking the painted
cow sculptures to its logical end: sculptures of Gators are sprinkled around town. Here's a PDF
map, here's a list of locations, and here are some photos. I always admired
Chicago's public art, but this just brings tears to my eyes. No
'dawgs need apply.
I like news like this... An appeals
court has insisted that the EPA do its job: enforce environmental regulations. Maybe some day the
federal government really will return to accountability.
Encouraging the young ones to take up a
musical instrument should be done in good faith. There's an
element of trust which can't be abused: you don't want
disappointment to hamper future efforts. So, here's a travesty: a
pennywhistle (and book) geared to kids, but the whistle is cut
incorrectly and you can't play proper notes. I can't imagine
why a manufacturer would have such low standards.
Enough with the breast already. No, I
don't think it should have been shown, and no, I don't think it's
appropriate for a man to rip off a woman's clothing on
television, and yes, I think it's been discussed enough. Did
anyone notice that, amidst this national crisis —
one which has now drawn the ire of the FCC — that the
President delivered a new budget on
Monday which cranks the national debt up to ever-spiraling heights,
and it doesn't even include funds for Afghanistan, which will be added on at
a later date? Did you notice that? Take your eyes off the breast.
For now, at least, my web site is the
first listed at Google when you search on "samuel johnson."
Usually, the first ranking goes to Jack Lynch's site, but
for some reason I recently displaced him. We'll have to see how
long it lasts.
"Things happen at high velocity in New
York." A good characterization of the sometimes startling
path slopes of failure and success. From the New York Times, an
article about a homeless man whose body was
recovered from the freezing waters of Prospect Park Lake. A
young Honduran, he came to the US full of hopes and aspirations.
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If the 111th FIS and Lt. Bush did not go to Vietnam, blame
President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara,
not lowly Lt. Bush. They deliberately avoided use of the Guard
and Reserves for domestic political calculations, knowing that a
draftee only stirred up the concerns of one family, while a
call-up got a whole community's attention.
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As Michael Dukakis' Lt. Governor From 1983-1985,
Kerry Supported Granting Prison Furloughs To Hundreds Of
Massachusetts Inmates. Later as a U.S. Senator in 1988, he
defended the program: "The furlough program in Massachusetts is
tougher than the federal program."
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MY colleague Rich Noyes tells me this morning that for the last
34 days, Democrats have been gleefully quoting the statistic that
the U.S. economy only produced a meager 1,000 jobs in December.
As of 8:30 a.m. this morning, that number was revised to 16,000
jobs, and an additional 112,000 jobs were created in the month of
January. So, media-junkie friends, any journalist using the old
number from this point forward is either ignorant or biased, and
any Democratic guest who cites that statistic should be
challenged by the reporter for using faulty data.
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What does it matter if we've sentence someone to death
incorrectly elsewhere (though, apparently never executed
anyone incorrectly) if Joseph Smith is clearly guilty?
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If I believe that marriage is a basic civil right for
all, why don't I support or want the Supreme Court to rule so?
Good question. I'm running to catch a plane but my brief answer
is: I don't believe people's basic civil rights should be up to a
majority vote. That's why we have courts at all - to check
majority tyranny. (When was the last time you heard a
conservative worry about democratic tyranny?)
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"From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s,
had several mobile biological weapons labs."
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