Bread, Parrano cheese, a variety of good olives, and a damned fine Trappist ale. All eaten while listening to good musing and rereading Doug Hofstadter’s explanation of Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, which I have to say is remarkably well-written.
Said Trappist ale is also rather strong, which just makes this all the better. This has been a very relaxing evening.
Experimental cake attempt today. This is a roulade, so it’s going to be 24h of refrigeration before I know how it turned out, but I suspect that the production version is somewhat better.
Grr. The problem with this cake is having to wait to find out what happened. But one bite tomorrow should tell me what I need to know to make the next version really damned good.
The Washington Post has an interesting article (free reg required, yadda yadda) about handling of information about Iraq. Notable remarks include that USAID has decided to restrict circulation of memoranda with bad news about the number of attacks, and perhaps more importantly, that Iraqi president Allawi’s speech to the US Congress a few weeks ago was written in part by White House and Bush campaign officials.
A (displeased) response from Senator Feinstein (D-CA) can be found in this story.
Was interesting. I highly recommend that everyone who didn’t see it watch it on tape – the mannerisms and tones of voice spoke volumes, and the transcripts won’t show that.
One thing I’m curious to see how other people reacted to was the body language. From what I saw, it looked almost embarassing; if I had no idea who these two people were, I would have noticed a difference. Kerry was focused, relaxed, and, well, presidential. He answered questions, he took the offensive and kept it. Bush was highly defensive throughout; physically, he almost looked like he was crouching in the corner. He sounded whiny, to be honest.
From reading the news services, the phrase that stuck the most seems to have been Kerry’s description of the war in Iraq as “a colossal error in judgement.” I’m a bit surprised that another line wasn’t noticed more – Kerry said, at some point in the past, that this was “the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time,” and Bush quoted it. Repeatedly. Throughout the debate.
Anyway, I’m quite curious to know what other people thought – especially people who aren’t quite as partisan as I am, or at least partisans of the other side. What things stuck out in your mind? What were the moments that your favored candidate looked the strongest, and the weakest? Did you get anything from this?
And a reminder again – if you haven’t seen this debate, find a recorded copy and go watch it. It was very informative about both the platforms and the people.
I know most of you don’t want to read this, and it’s fairly long, so I’m going to put this behind a cut. The subject: the problem of terror has, in the past few weeks, gotten qualitatively worse in a way that it hasn’t since 9/11.
Yesterday, two Palestinians convicted of working with Israelis were killed when a Palestinian police officer threw two grenades into their prison cell. One more of the wounded was then personally shot at the hospital. No arrests, of course; just the thin fiction of civilization evaporating.
For those of you thinking that Iraq is the only place that’s on the verge of triggering extraordinary chaos, try this. It’s a roundup article about various recent developments in the Hezbollah / al Aqsa brigades / al Qaeda field, mostly deals, weapons testing, and a couple of key people getting unexpectedly blown up.
(Footnote: There’s enormous turmoil going on on the Palestinian political side at the moment – it looks like forces are finally starting to emerge against Arafat, that the myth that “he’s the only one who can save us” is starting to erode in the face of over a decade of thuggery and kleptocracy. Looks like a huge opportunity for any number of even less salubrious people to step up to the plate – the main difference being that most of these guys won’t even pretend to negotiate. They’re just out for blood.)
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 