|link| Posted 8:01 PM by Brian Linse

John Frankenheimer Dead at 72

Film director John Frankenheimer has died of a stroke after surgery in Los Angeles. AP report is here.
UPDATE: This is a few years old, but it is an interesting interview with Frankenheimer at Indie Network.

|link| Posted 3:57 PM by Brian Linse

Mother Nature Defends Leftists

(Associated Press) Knoxville, TN: Popular Warblogger Glenn "InstaPundit" Reynolds returned from a vacation to find that Mother Nature had targeted his office for a lightning strike. Professor Reynolds' home was not seriously damaged since Nature used new "Smart Lightning" technology to target only his electronic and communications command center. Basic electrical and telephone assets were left intact so as not to pose a threat to innocent members of the household.

The sortie, however, seems to have missed the main computer center, and with the still functional dial-up modem Reynolds was able to return to blogging.

Reynolds' first counter strike was to assert in a post that SFSU Palestinian Nationalists and the mentally deranged Unabomber were "hard-left".

As the authoritarian hard-left becomes more and more marginalized in America, it wouldn't be surprising if some of its more desperate members turned to violence. (Indeed, with things like the SFSU assaults -- and for that matter, the Unabomber -- it already has).

A spokeswoman for Mother Nature scoffed at Reynolds' claims and quoted Mother as saying, "What the fuck?!" when she read the post. The spokeswoman pointed out that Nationalists occupy many political orientations, including right-wing, and that they should not be associated with any particular movement as they seem quite content in their own "wacky little worlds." With regard to the Unabomber, she said Reynolds had not done his homework and referred reporters to this excerpt from the Unabomber Manifesto:

Words like "self-confidence," "self-reliance," "initiative," "enterprise," "optimism," etc., play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone's problems for them. . . . The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser. . . .

Nature's spokeswoman also expressed the disappointment of her boss at Professor Reynolds' return to random unsupported bashing of "The Left". She stated that Mother had believed that Reynolds would be making an effort to curb his silly outbursts, and that she now felt he had been disingenuous in several recent posts.

A reporter asked if Nature was sending a message to InstaPundit. The spokeswoman replied, "I think we all know that, well, it's not nice to fool Mother Nature."

|link| Posted 2:38 AM by Brian Linse

Epiphany Anyone?

Outgoing GOP token J.C. Watts seems to have awakened to the proverbial smell of the coffee:

WATTS, A FORMER Oklahoma football star who never runs from a fight, is blunt about the shortcomings of the GOP. The “party of Lincoln,” he says, has adopted a “robot-like allegiance to conservative views” that blinds it to the historic suffering of African Americans, and causes it to be “often absent on issues of civil rights, equal opportunity and poverty.”
But Watts, reared to be polite as well as tough, doesn’t tell his personal, behind-the-scenes story, which is that he was never taken seriously by the House leadership. At Oklahoma University, Watts was an MVP-winning quarterback. In Congress, he was always more of an ornament than the fourth-ranking leader, elected by GOP House members in 1998.

[via Atrios]

|link| Posted 10:02 AM by Brian Linse

Goodbye Mr. Williams

The AP is reporting that Hall of Fame baseball legend Ted Williams is dead at the age of 83.

ESPN has this obit.

|link| Posted 12:06 AM by Brian Linse

Ray Brown 1926 - 2002

One of the greatest jazz bassists of all time is gone. Ray Brown died yesterday in his sleep at the age of 75.

Read about Ray here, here, and here.

I can't even begin to express how sad this news makes me feel. No more blogging tonight. I have some music to listen to.

[via Kuff]

|link| Posted 10:54 PM by Brian Linse

Please Welcome These Gentlemen To My Left

I've been pleased to note that the number of interesting liberal blogs has been growing. It is also encouraging to see that a few of them are even further left than I am. Gone are the days when Tony Adragna was my only hope of back up in the libertarian/right dominated Blogosphere, and this is something that I think will spice things up in the weeks and months ahead.

Atrios, Armed Liberal, Amygdala, Demosthenes, and Public Nuisance have already joined Barlow, Dodgson, Electrolite, Kuffner, War Liberal, Willis and Yglesias on my blogroll. Now I welcome a few new kids:

Lean Left

MaxSpeak

Rittenhouse Review

Vaara

Check them all out and follow their links to many more interesting new liberal blogs.

And pray to baby Jeebus that Welch and Layne come back soon.

|link| Posted 9:24 PM by Brian Linse

Well waddaya know...

Wal-Mart mandates new gun sales policy that exceeds federal guidelines

By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas - Wal-Mart, the largest gun seller in the United States, has implemented a rule requiring customers to be approved in a background check before they can buy rifles and shotguns, in a policy that exceeds federal guidelines and represents a victory for gun-safety advocates.

After the retail giant's own research showed that weapons it sold were being used in crimes, the company began requiring background clearance for all gun buyers, no matter how long it takes.

[...]

Under current federal law, background checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System are required for anyone attempting to purchase a gun. If the results are not returned within three business days, the dealer may complete the sale.

"When we looked into this, we found that the statistics show that a high proportion of the applications not approved within three business days would have been denied," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jessica Moser Eldred said. "We wanted to make sure we were doing our part to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not be getting them."

It's nice to see an American corporation taking responsibility in a situation like this. Even more encouraging is the fact that it is Wal Mart, a company that is clearly successful in terms of knowing what its customers want. In this case, it seems that customers want responsible gun sales in their communities.

Can't wait for the NRA to try a boycott of these guys...

|link| Posted 3:33 AM by Brian Linse

Happy Birthday Dawson!

The original "Crazy Gringo" of the Blogosphere celebrates a birthday today! Go visit Dawson Jackson and show the brother some love.