CNN.com - Cheney blasts Kerry over 'sensitive war' remark - Aug 12, 2004

CNN.com - Cheney blasts Kerry over 'sensitive war' remark - Aug 12, 2004:

The Kerry campaign Thursday said that the senator's comment was being 'taken out of context' and the 'meaning twisted' by the Bush/Cheney campaign.

Kerry spokesman Phil Singer told CNN the Democratic candidate was referring to cooperation with allies. President Bush himself, Singer said, used the word 'sensitive' in a similar context in March 2001, when he said the United States should be 'sensitive about expressing our power and influence.

Since nobody over at the Kerry campaign has posted this speech, it's difficult to say, based on the one sentence, whether Singer's correct or not. But, based on the one sentence, "fight" does not equal "cooperation with allies." Yeah, Kerry mentions allies in the same sentence, but that's about all.

CNN.com - Cheneys Go After Kerry - Aug 11, 2004

CNN.com - Cheneys Go After Kerry - Aug 11, 2004:

[Mrs. Cheney] was responding to an audience question about Kerry's remarks last week to the Unity 2004 conference in which he said, "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side."

I have looked for the rest of that speech, the one Kerry gave to Unity 2004, but it's not posted online — at least, not at the John Kerry site. And not at the Unity 2004 site.

The reason I've gone to the trouble of posting that quote is that Kerry campaign staffers are now practically denying that he said it. Grammatically, there's no question that "more sensitive" there modifies "fight."

I'll post an example from Kerry's folks soon.

VP's Remarks in Dayton, Ohio

VP's Remarks in Dayton, Ohio:

But a good defense is not enough, and so we have also gone on the offense in the war on terror — but the President's opponent, Senator Kerry, sometimes seems to object. He has even said that by using our strength, we are creating terrorists and placing ourselves in greater danger. But that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the world we are living in works. Terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. (Applause.)

Senator Kerry has also said that if he were in charge he would fight a "more sensitive" war on terror. (Laughter.) America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive. President Lincoln and General Grant did not wage sensitive warfare — nor did President Roosevelt, nor Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur. A "sensitive war" will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more. The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity. As our opponents see it, the problem isn't the thugs and murderers that we face, but our attitude. Well, the American people know better. They know that we are in a fight to preserve our freedom and our way of life, and that we are on the side of rights and justice in this battle. Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed. (Applause.)

I listened to what Senator Kerry had to say in Boston, and, with all due respect to the Senator, he views the world as if we had never been attacked on September 11th. The job of the Commander-in-Chief, as he sees it, is to use America's military strength to respond to attacks. But September 11th showed us, as surely as anything can, that we must act against gathering dangers — not wait for to be attacked. That awful day left some 3,000 of our fellow citizens dead, and everything we have learned since tells us the terrorists would do worse if they could, and that they will even use chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons against us if they can. In the world we live in now, responding to attacks is not enough. We must do everything in our power to prevent attacks — and that includes using military force. (Applause.)

All Geeked Out

Today was my second sick day. Again, I slept a lot. But in between sleeping episodes, I've been contemplating what I'm going to do about my new home theater room. The plans have been drawn up, and construction should commence soon, so I'm becoming very concerned about what equipment is going into that room and how I'm going to get it there.

My big dilemma is display technology. I used to sell high-end A/V, but DLP and LCoS and LCD displays are all technologies that simply weren't available a few years ago.

With the advent of DLP, especially, the cost of actually installing a projector has become -- dare I say it -- almost reasonable. It's still going to cost a fortune, of course, compared to what normal people would consider sane. The point is that high-end TVs cost nearly the same as high-end projectors, and you avoid the problem of the enormous box. Of course, with LCD and Mitsubishi's new DLP displays, the problem of the big box is all but gone anyway.

Too many choices to make, really. But I'll muddle through.

Two Weekends and a Sick Day, Part Two

Last weekend, a good friend of mine got married. After his first date with her, he called me up in the middle of the night to let me know that he was going to marry her. That was about two years ago. Lo and behold, he did just that on Sunday.

I was at the bachelor party on Friday night, where the groom was injured by a fairly nasty fall and the best man got a black eye. I merely got tackled by the groom, but otherwise made it through unscathed. This particular bachelor party ended about 1 a.m., but I would have gotten worried had it gone on much longer.

The oddity of the evening was capped by the groom's asking me to be a groomsman. I had previous plans that I couldn't break, so I missed the rehearsal dinner. Now, I've never been a groomsman before, but this was an especially casual wedding, so there was no tuxedo rental involved or anything like that. The bride and groom decided to have the wedding in their back yard, which turned into something like the mosquito coast during the ceremony; there were so many mosquitoes buzzing around that I kept seeing groups of them flying around my eyes. As a groomsman, I couldn't exactly swat them, though there were a few occasions where brushing them away from my face was, though uncouth, the only thing to do. They'd sprayed the yard before the ceremony, but I think the spray just made the mosquitoes angry.

After the ceremony the groomsmen escorted the bridesmaids out of the improvised chapel, and — wouldn't you know it — my escort took a dive, stepping into a small hole in the yard that was covered by the white fru-fru runner. She didn't fall, prompting a friend to say, "Not only are you a competent groomsman, you're a damned hero."

Indeed.

I was also unaware that the groom has a younger sister who ought to be a supermodel. Another friend said she was "twice my height," and that's true. The sister, however, informed me that she "played me" at the rehearsal dinner I missed. I asked her if she'd done a competent job. She assured me that she had.

In between all the wedding events, my parents and I cooked dinner for some family friends. That occupied most of the day and night on Saturday. Wound up being a relaxing and pleasant evening.

And that pretty much catches you all up to date.

Now, if I can only get rid of this stupid cold.

Two Weekends and a Sick Day, Part One

It's been busy lately, and the level of busy-ness has apparently caught up with me. I took a sick day from work today due to a cough and sore throat incident, and so now I'm on some pretty powerful antibiotics and a narcotic cough syrup.

Whether I'll be back at work tomorrow is an open question; all I wanted to do today was sleep.

But that's following two eventful weekends. Weekend-before-last I saw, and was terribly disappointed in and offended by, The Village. It's quite simply one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Its dialogue was pretentious, its acting workmanlike and uninspired, its script and story so dull and predictable that reading the side of a cereal box holds more shock and surprise. I say the movie offended me because its secret surprise ending was as silly and trite a thing as could be imagined. Someone said about something, there's no there there. That's how I feel about The Village.

Seeing that movie made it incumbent on me to see another, to cleanse the movie palate. I saw Before Sunset that same weekend, on Sunday night. The difference between a good movie and a bad one has never been so apparent to me as when seeing those two movies back-to-back. In Before Sunset, you see good acting combined with intelligent writing and un-showy directing, and the cumulative effect is one of making you forget that you're watching a movie. Which, of course, the best movies always do. Before Sunset is small and confined, but that allows it to probe and prod in a way few movies do anymore.

In between the two movies, I went to the Botanical Gardens for another concert — this time, Lyle Lovett. Worth every penny. Lyle is not only a great performer, he's a great songwriter, and some of the songs he performed I'd not heard before. I was struck by the quality of the Large Band as musicians, and equally struck by the economy of word and phrase in many of those songs. It was a good show on a beautiful night — worth the trip.

I can't say the same for Antiques Roadshow, which was also on that Saturday. That was hours of standing in line as part of a huge crowd, all of us carrying heavy boxes of stuff, not enough of it on wheels. The two-and-a-half hour wait in line was capped by about ten minutes of what seemed like perfunctory and dismissive appraising. It wasn't an experience that I'd want to miss, but I'm not sure I'd do it again.

So that was weekend-before-last. Next up, a week of work, followed by last weekend's events.