Hitler Coming to Power

David Weigel, subbing for Andrew Sullivan, quotes Michael Ledeen saying

Dingy Harry Reid doesn't know the first thing about fascism, since he says that Hitler came to power by winning an election. Wrong. The NSDAP did well in an election, but the Conservatives formed the government. Hitler became Chancellor via parliamentary action. His electoral success came later. Ditto for Mussolini.

I have to respectfully disagree. I guess it's somewhat a question of how you define winning an election in a parliamentary system in which no party wins a clear majority in the parliament. As of the last national election in 1932, the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag. More people voted for them than for any other party. It is true they did not win a majority of the vote, but they got more than anyone else which I think qualifies as winning the election.

And it is not correct that the Conservatives formed the government. It was von Papen who managed to convince Hindenberg to accept a government with Hitler as Chancellor, something he had been loathe to do since the Nazis had first risen to prominence in the Reichstag. In turn, that government certainly needed von Papen's approval and involvement in order to approach Hindenberg. But that does not mean Hitler was not actively involved in forming the government, in running the negotiations with von Papen and the Nationalists to come up with an assignment of ministries that von Papen, and by extension Hindenberg, would find acceptable. The government was formed by negotiation between the Nationalist party, assorted conservatives like von Papen, and the Nazis, a process not unlike what happens in any parliamentary system when no party wins an outright majority.

Faked News

It's not just in photos. QandO compares the actual text of a recent Rumsfeld speech against the AP news article on the speech.

Geography Lesson

Apparently journalist Chris Wallace needs a lesson in basic American geography. In interviewing Joe Biden, he refers to Delaware as a northeastern liberal state. Um, Chris, look at a map. As one who spent a big chunk of his life in Delaware, let me say we ain't northeasterners. New England is northeast. (Northeast is in the upper right of the map, Chris. North means the top, and east means the right.) We're mid-Atlantic, like our neighbors in Maryland and Virginia. Is it really too much to ask that commentators like Wallace have at least a passing understanding of the structure of our country?

"Dark matter" is Real: Scientists

Astronomers are reporting evidence to buttress their theories of dark matter. This evidence is obtained by observing the collision of two gas clouds. The logic appears to be what I pointed out before, that matter we don't see in our telescopes exists therefore we can claim without evidence that this matter comprises 90% of the universe. It is far too big a leap from gas clouds to cosmological scales.

1,249 days:

Think Progress comments that the Iraq war has taken longer than World War II. I gather this is an attempt to deride the administration's incompetence in conducting the war. Finding incompetence in this administration is about as difficult as finding a beer drinker at a baseball game or a naked woman at a strip joint, but this one doesn't really work. The war in Iraq ended after only a couple of months. We've been in the post-war occupation of Iraq for over three years. So a more proper comparison would be to the post-war occupation of Germany, which lasted four years, and Japan, which lasted just under seven.

Are the Terrorists Winning?

From the Daily Mail:

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny - refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed.

The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Must make the Malkins of the world happy.

New Definition of Planet

Astronomers are debating a new definition of the word "planet."

Under the proposed definition, an object is a planet if it is at least 500 miles in diameter, orbits the sun, and has a mass at least about one-12,000th that of Earth.

Pluto would keep its planethood while three other bodies would be added, including Pluto's moon Charon, the asteroid Ceres and Brown's object 2003 UB313, which he nicknamed Xena.

What I don't get is why Charon would be considered a planet under this definition. It orbits Pluto, not the Sun. Or, if you prefer, Pluto orbits Charon. (Charon is the most massive moon relative to its planet in the solar system so it's hard to say which is the planet and which is the moon.) If orbitting a planet that orbits the Sun qualifies as also orbitting the Sun, then our own Moon would have to be considered a planet. The moon has a diameter of more than 2000 miles and a mass about 1% of the Earth.

Personally, I agree with George Musser at Scientific American:

The trouble with this line of argument is that categorizing objects has played an important role in the development of science. Just because categories involve subjectivity doesn't mean they can't capture objective truths about nature. To make sense of stars, for example, astronomers divvied them up according to color and brightness, discerned patterns, and explained these patterns theoretically. Categories overlap to a degree -- and that's fine. In fact, a researcher trying to understand a phenomenon does well to look at the marginal examples.

Definitions in astronomy are indeed often imprecise and putting objects into multiple, seemingly mutually exclusive categories is not uncommon. In my own domain of astronomy, quasars and BL Lac objects have mutually exclusive definitions (one has emission lines and one doesn't). But then you find active galactic nuclei that have emission lines that right at the boundary, so which are they?

Update USA Today may have the answer about why Charon would qualify as a planet under the proposed definition:

The definition would make a planet of the asteroid Ceres and also reclassify Pluto's moon Charon as a planet, on the logic that the center of gravity around which Charon and Pluto orbit is not inside Pluto but rather in the space between them. (Earth's moon orbits our planet around a center of gravity that is inside Earth.)

The Alleged UK Terror Plot

Andrew Sullivan is asking questions about the UK terror plot.

I'd be interested in the number of plotters who had passports. How could they even stage a dummy-run with no passports? And what bomb-making materials did they actually have? These seem like legitimate questions to me; the British authorities have produced no evidence so far. If the only evidence they have was from torturing someone in Pakistan, then they have nothing that can stand up in anything like a court. I wonder if this story is going to get more interesting. I wonder if Lieberman's defeat, the resilience of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the emergence of a Hezbollah-style government in Iraq had any bearing on the decision by Bush and Blair to pre-empt the British police and order this alleged plot disabled. I wish I didn't find these questions popping into my head. But the alternative is to trust the Bush administration.

Been there. Done that. Learned my lesson.

The administration using terrorism to prop itself up? Say it ain't so.

Hyping (Reggie) Bush

Why do sportswriters insist on hyping certain players to the moon? For a few years, it was Michael Vick, who has yet to prove himself a middle of the road quarterback, let alone the phenom he's made out to be. The writers are finally getting that point, so they don't hype him quite so much. Now it's Reggie Bush. The hype started before the draft, and it continues. Charles Robinson writes almost a full article raving breathlessly about Bush's 44 yard run in his first pre-season game and how it proves he's already a force to be reckoned with. Certainly a nice run. What Robinson doesn't write is that Bush's total stats for the game were 6 runs, 59 yards. So, take away the 44 yarder and Bush is 5 rushes for 15 yards. Not quite so impressive, is it? Both Aaron Stecker and Branch had better yards per carry averages for the game, 3.3 and 4.3 respectively. You need about a 4.0 average or better to get a 1000 yard season.

As I said before, I'm trying to argue Bush will flop in the NFL. But it's a bit much to hype him to the moon on the basis of a single, anomalous run that hides a much more pedestrian outing.

Shattered, uh, Wire

This is straight out of the movie Shattered Glass. Remember the scene where Glass tries to put together a website on some free server to back up his stories? Wired News found a similar case.

Chien's reporting came under scrutiny when he submitted a draft article citing a different source, Ted Collins, along with contact information for Collins, as required by Wired News ever since questions arose last year over another reporter's sources.

An investigation traced the name and Hotmail account provided to a Usenet posting praising Chien's work. Wired News senior editor Kevin Poulsen then compared the IP address of the poster and Chien's computer and discovered they matched. An e-mail sent to Wired News from the Ted Collins account also originated with the same IP address.

Poulsen linked Chien's IP address to at least one other Hotmail account, created under the name Robert Stevens, which Chien had provided to Wired News as contact information for Ash. The name and address were used in additional Usenet posts making positive comments about Chien's work.

Chien has used Robert Stevens as a source in at least three articles published in two newspapers, which we have contacted privately. In each case he used a different description, variously calling him a retired engineer, a NASA engineer and an amateur astronomer.

At least Wired News has the integrity to out its own people, and for that they should be commended. But this fakery stuff, whether in pictures or print, is getting pretty bad.

A Pyrrhic Victory in Connecticut?

Most politically interested Americans have been following the Connecticut Democratic primary for months. Last night, Ned Lamont, the darling of many left-wing bloggers like Kos, defeated incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman. Time magazine hails this victory as cementing the rise of the Netroots, i.e. the bloggers, as a power base in the party. The People's Email Network hails Lamont's win as "the greatest thing that could have happened" in an email exhorting recipients to pressure Democratic office holders to support Lamont. But there seems a real danger that Lamont's win could prove a pyrrhic victory for the Democratic party and its netroots propellants.

Many are already wondering if the staunch anti-war sentiment Lamont played on will resonate with voters or if it will reinforce the image of the Democrats as weak on security. But what's more interesting to me is what happens if Lieberman wins his seat while running as an independent. Polls certainly give Lieberman more than a fighting chance to win in the general election. Polls strictly of Democrats find little support for an independent run, but broader polls put Lieberman ahead thanks to independent and Republican voters. So, if the Democrats reject Lieberman who then runs an independent campaign in which the voters of Connecticut reject the Democratic party by electing Lieberman, how does that bode for the party's future in 2008? How relevant is the party if the state's voters reject the party's judgment? How out of touch would the party and its new netroots constituency be?

Many will write that there is a lot at stake for Lieberman in running as an independent. True, but I suggest there's even more at stake for the Democratic party. They have a lot to lose if Lieberman wins in November. They could well rue the day Lamont won.

Fauxtography

Michelle Malkin, and plenty of other bloggers, have been all over the MSM's doctoring of photographs, from using Photoshop to "enhance" or alter an image, to staging events, to providing misleading captions to images. There's no real doubt that this is happening. Reuters has admitted publishing doctored photos. The cover of US News that Malkin shows is quite clearly a tire fire, not some aftermath of an air strike, or the wreckage of an Israeli jet as Time claims. It only takes a pair of eyes to look past the smoke and the gun.

What's shocking to me is the supreme arrogance of the MSM to think they can get away with something like this in the age of the blogger, where millions of people will be scrutinizing everything and publishing their findings to a global audience. Have they learned nothing from Rather-gate? Granted, sometimes the bloggers get it wrong, as James Taranto found out. But the blogosphere worked the way it often does, and the error was pointed out and Taranto acknowledged it. More often than not, though, the blogs get it right and the MSM is embarrassed time and time again. Yet they persist in their arrogance.

It seems to me such nonchalance can only come from having gotten away with it for a long time, which makes you wonder how many other images we've seen on the news or in the papers over the years have been faked, or at least been used deceptively.

Voices From the Dark Ages

Poignant comment from Iraq the Model:

Regardless of that, ordinary people will panic and will find no choice but to listen to what the voices from the dark ages say because these are the only voices that possess some form of organization and because the police and army would rarely intervene in problems is a small neighborhood leaving the helpless citizen to feel that he's got nobody but his sect to give him the sense that he's not alone in the face of this threat.

This is a blog that was full of optimism in its early days about the future of Iraq, written by Iraqis in Baghdad, that now talks about "daydreaming about how I'm going to defend my home and family" and wondering "if I can really shoot to kill when the time comes." Is there a better commentary on the failure that is American policy and occupation in Iraq?

Amazon.com: 2007 George W. Bush Out of Office Countdown wall calendar: Two Years and Counting: Books: Inc. Sourcebooks

Here we go, the perfect gift for all Americans.

2007 George W. Bush Out of Office Countdown wall calendar: Two Years and Counting — Inc. Sourcebooks

The Administration's Ambition

Badger Blues enumerates the administration's goals in its latest attack on the Constitution:

• Create a new parallel court system accountable to no other branch of government.
• Give that court system, ostensibly created to fight terrorism, jurisdiction over crimes committed by people who are not “directly involved” in terrorism.
• Give the Secretary of Defense the authority to increase the court’s jurisdiction "at will".
• Deny the accused the ability to confront his accusers.
• Allow the use of hearsay in producing convictions.
• Allow the use of evidence acquired under torture.
• Deny the accused the right to a public trial.
• Deny the accused the right to a speedy trial.
• Deny the accused the right to his own defense counsel.
• Deny the accused the right to review the evidence against him.
• Deny the accused the right to be present at his own trial.
• Allow the accused to be executed by minority vote.

And just think, we get 2.5 more years of this fool.

Game Review: Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

This game is a sequel to an earlier PC game called The Longest Journey, which I have never played. It is billed as an action/adventure game, which is pretty misleading. There is very little action, and what there is is pretty primitive. It's really more of a puzzle game in which the player is given a sequence of tasks to figure out how to accomplish.

Dreamfall tells a story set well into the future, but in a world that is still very recognizable. Or should I say, one world that is recognizable. The game actually covers three worlds, existing in parallel universes. There our world, which for some reason is called Stark. The world of Arcadia is a bit more like medieval Europe, but with magic. And then there's the world called Winter.

The primary character is a Moroccan girl named Zoë. She's a college dropout with no real direction in life. She has broken up with her boyfriend Reza, who is a journalist and is developing a story as the game begins. When Reza disappears, Zoë sets out to look for him and the game is on. She begins to uncover the story Reza was working on, and it involves the world's biggest electronics company whose newest product, the Dreamer, will revolutionize entertainment by giving the user dreams so vivid nothing else will compare.

I could continue, like the game was a movie and this was a movie review. The game has a very elaborate story, so much so that there are numerous long stretches in the game where the player simply watches the cutscenes. I like story-driven games, but this is almost overbearing taking the player away from the game for far too long. One of the ambitions behind Enter the Matrix was that it would tell a detailed story set in the Matrix universe and complete the movies. The problem is Atari forgot that in the end it was a game, so a lot of budget was put into the story side and didn't pay much attention to the game, and the results were obvious to anyone who played. In Dreamfall, they spend so much time on the story that the fighting is a joke and the player is taken away from the game for far too long.

Given that the story is so important to the game, how is it? Again, I haven't played the first game so I can't say if that would impact my impressions. The setup is good. Conspiracies make for a good story and this is no exception. I certainly wanted to get to the next level so I could see more of what was happening. But when they get to the meat of the story, it kind of just falls apart and gets totally confusing.

Remember, there are three worlds involved and I've only described what's happening in one. In the setup phase, there is only that world, except for one very short sequence in Arcadia, which has no connection to anything so I'm not sure why they put it there. But when they get to the heart of the story, Zoë wakes up in Arcadia. Why? Not really sure. There is a plot element driven by a little girl straight out of the movie The Ring who tells Zoë to save April Ryan, apparantly the heroine of the first game. But other than that, Zoë's travels in Arcadia have no bearing that I could understand on the events in Stark.

Now, in Arcadia we meet and play as April. Why? Uh, I don't know. For such a story-driven game, there appears to be no real story around April, and the events in Arcadia seem to have no bearing on the main story taking place around Zoë. There appears to be some sort of connection, but what it is is not explained nor explored. She's a rebel fighting against the Azadi who have occupied Marcuria.

In Arcadia, we also meet and play as a third character, the Apostle. Why? Uh, I don't know this either. His story is the smallest of the three, and makes the least sense. He's an Azadi warrior serving the empresses of Sadir and who is sent on a mission to Marcuria to bring down the rebels, which will bring him into contact and conflict with April. At some point, he inexplicably changes sides, at which time his story ends.

By now, whatever was interesting in the story has worn off and you just want to get it over with. None of the stories end very cleanly, or at all. There is no sense of resolution at the end. Frankly you fail to achieve much of anything toward your goals and ultimately fail. What kind of game is that? The only way I can make sense of the confusion and resolution is to think that this is the middle act of a bigger story, that there will be a third game which will sort everything out and make sense of what just seems unfocused confusion and bring the disparate story lines together. Having only played this game, I don't know that I would want to play that next, if there is one, but at least knowing that that was the plan might make this one a bit easier to take.

I've pretty much focused on the story, but that's because that's the heart of the game. As a game, the fighting, the few times that you actually do fight, is quite primitive. Like I said, it's more a puzzle game, and the puzzles are OK. Most are not particularly challenging, but there are couple good ones, and some that I have no idea how you would solve them without a walkthrough. There's one sequence playing as April where you have to set 4 widely spaced dials to the right values, but there's no rhyme or reason to the right settings, so I guess you just have to randomly set them until it works. There are actually a couple of sequences with April like that. If there was something to figure out that would tell you the right sequence, OK, but to find the one out of 24 possible sequences is just annoying and frustrating.

The graphics are great. The game looks really good. And it sounds really good, too. Both the soundtrack and the voice actors are very good. Those are really the only unqualified positives I can give.

So, in the end, Dreamfall is a story driven game where the story all but overwhelms the actual game and is confusing and disappointing. But it looks good.

Mel Gibson Out of Control

Andrew Sullivan has been all over Mel Gibson's fiasco, and doesn't buy the defense that he was simply drunk and didn't mean what he said. Sullivan asks,

How many friends do you have who, after around three drinks immediately and without warning blurts out that the "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world"? I guess I run in different circles than others.

Ordinarily I would agree, but Gibson is an alcoholic and in my experiences with alcoholics, they fly out of control very quickly when they start drinking, far sooner than a normal drinker would. I've seen alcoholics totally change personality after one or two drinks. Two or three drinks doesn't sound like much to those of us who don't have the addiction, but it can unleash the devil in an alcoholic.

When I heard the Learn'd Astronomer

I came across this Whitman poem yesterday on the bus.

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

That doesn't describe my view of professional astronomy, but certainly agree that all the analysis and study can take away a bit of the awe of just looking at the sky.

I spent the summer of 1993 in Socorro, New Mexico at the NRAO. Being out in the middle of nowhere, we had an absolutely phenomenal view of the night sky. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else. I actually saw the Milky Way for the first time other than in pictures. And we saw some great meteor showers. That's why a lot of us got into astronomy to begin with, I think, and like Whitman says, it was great to be able to just look at the sky again and to be reminded of that.