Melissa has been out of town all weekend, visiting her best friend in Mississippi. I’ve busied myself with odd jobs around the house — followed by dinner, drinks, and poker over at the in-laws.

In other words: I’m beat. See you Monday.

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Practically since the moment the Mac Mini was announced, the online Macintosh communities have been ablaze with commentary from people who’d like to use one of these suckers as a DVR and A/V hub. From DealMac to AVSForum to PVRBlog, there’s a sizeable cohort of tech-savvy folks who look at the Mini-Mac and say, “That belongs right next to my friggin’ huge HDTV.”

Unfortunatley for all those folks (myself included), the Mini just isn’t built for that task. The hard drive is too small and too slow (it’s just a 4200 rpm laptop drive), and the video card and G4 processor don’t have the horsepower to play back HD video. The current models of Minis are designed to be either second computers for Mac owners, or first Macs for Windows users who’re fed up with Microsoft and want to see how the other side lives.

But. That’s just the first model. Who’s to say there won’t be an A/V Mini coming down the pipe from Cupertino in the future? Noted tech historian Bob Cringely (real name Mark Stephens, who was briefly one of Apple’s first employees) thinks Steve Jobs is working a deal with Sony to make a set-top Macintosh that’ll act as a video server for downloaded movies.

Personally, I think that’s a neat idea, but what I’d really like to have is an affordable Mac that can act as a high-definition ReplayTV–and that’s ReplayTV, not Tivo, folks. Tivo imposes way too many MPAA-demanded limitations on content for my tastes. I want a box that will schedule, record and play back HD programs, and will also allow me to edit and permanently record that content to removable media, preferably some form of DVD. I can do all that now for standard definition with my Replays and my 2001-era G4 Mac tower, thanks to DVArchive software.

It’s theoretically possible to do all of the above in HD with a G4-class Mac and ElGato’s EyeTV 500 Firewire box–but only in theory. The ElGato box is designed to need a dual-processor G5 Mac for full HD playback, and that’s a dang sight more powerful, expensive, and bulky a computer than the new Mini-Mac. It’s alleged that one could overcome the Mini’s lack of juice by playing back HD video through a set-top HD converter box with a Firewire port, but I haven’t found an example of anybody who’s actually done this, and even if I did, I suspect the process is too ungainly for casual use (i.e., my wife would hate it).

Still, if all the EyeTV 500 box needs is the processing power of a set-top box, what’s to keep ElGato from building that in to a prospective EyeTV 600, plus a heftier hard drive? I don’t think we can count on Apple to produce an HD-PVR-ready Mac anytime soon; after all, Jobs himself is the CEO of a major (and very successful) movie studio, Pixar. He’s not going to cross his fellow moguls with a pre-broadcast-flag HD PVR system… but I wouldn’t be if a future video-hub Mini does arrive with some kind of DRM built in, a la the iTunes music store.

Until then, though, Apple’s best customers are shouting about what they’d love to be able to buy from the company. If Jobs isn’t listening, somebody else almost certainly is. Stay tuned.

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NBC is reporting that Johnny Carson has died.

I really feel sorry for people who weren’t old enough to see and appreciate Carson while he was still on the air. He was just So. Damn. Good. His successors, on every network, are decidedly pale reflections, and I doubt any of them would seriously argue that Carson was head and shoulders above anybody else who’s ever hosted a talk show, anywhere. His blend of great good humor, high taste, low comedy, and refusal to condescend to anybody, regardless of who they were or where they came from, almost certainly can’t be duplicated in today’s mass media.

Now he’ll be missed even more. RIP.

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HundredPercenter has shots of the protests in Washington today.

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. . . “MSM” in German?

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We know from their own admission, that CNN cozied up to Saddam for “access.” Well, guess what: Some international (AFP) reporters are awfully cozy with the Palestinian Authority:

The story of candidate [and Agence France-Presse journalist Majida al-] Batsh, who wound up withdrawing her candidacy weeks ahead of the vote, highlights many concerns about the identity and political affiliation of several Palestinian journalists employed by international news organizations and TV networks to cover the Palestinian issue. It also underlines concerns about the credibility of much foreign news coverage in general in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In addition to her work at the French news agency, Batsh was also a reporter for the PA’s official organ, Al-Ayyam,. In other words, she was also on the PA’s payroll, since the Ramallah-based newspaper was established and is financed by the PA. Al-Ayyam’s editor, Akram Haniyeh, has been listed as an adviser to Yasser Arafat.

But Batsh was not the only journalist at AFP who was working simultaneously for the PA. One of the agency’s correspondents in the Gaza Strip is Adel Zanoun, who also happens to be the chief reporter in the area for the PA’s Voice of Palestine radio station.

The AFP bureau chief in Jerusalem, Patrick Anidjar, refuses to discuss the issue, saying, “I don’t understand why you have to have the name of our correspondents.” Pressed to give a specific answer, he says: “I don’t want our correspondents’ names to go into print. I don’t want to answer the question. What is this, a police investigation?”

There’s more from new-to-me blogger Melanie Phillips.

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. . .it’s hecklers!

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New trolls — well, troll, singular — the last couple weeks. Not a new one — I recognize the style. Deleted some off-topic comments, left up the others.

But now he’s gotten boring and insulting again, so away he goes.

Oh, he IP-hops across Brazil and rarely uses the same fake email address twice, so keeping up with the poor soul will cost me a couple minutes a day. But since I, being a right-wing capitalist pig, mostly waste my time sipping rare liquors and lighting Cuban cigars with 30-year Treasuries, I have a couple minutes a day to spare.

Buh-bye.

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So much for my hopes that last two election debacles had taught the DNC any valuable lessons:

Howard Dean’s hard-charging race to head the Democratic National Committee is gaining early momentum that recalls the streaking start of his 2004 presidential campaign.

On Tuesday, the former Vermont governor announced he had the unanimous backing of the Florida delegation to the DNC and also the support of Democratic chairs in Mississippi, Utah, Oklahoma, Washington state and Vermont. He plans house parties around the nation later this week, like the ones he used while trying to gain the Democratic presidential nomination.

Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaagh.

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The swearing in is done, the speech has been given, and the parties will go on until dawn. Well, the parties might, but President Bush will probably still be in bed at ten. Go figure.

My biggest hope for Bush 43.5 is that it doesn’t suck as much as most second-term administrations do. We can probably count on seeing:

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Speaking of inaugurals:

KIEV, Ukraine Jan 20, 2005

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Correction: Live audio blogging, from the Inaugural .

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More Air America woes:

Air America apparently is not flying too well in Philly. The liberal talk network’s home since Aug. 30 is WHAT-AM (1340), which airs shows by Al Franken (noon to 3 p.m.) and Randi Rhodes (3 to 7 p.m.). Arbitron ratings for fall were released last week. Though specific numbers are not available for Franken’s time slot, a check of Rhodes’ finds that WHAT’s ratings have dropped.

Among total listeners ages 12 and older, the station managed a 0.5 rating in fall 2003; it got a 0.3 this time. The “cume,” the cumulative number of weekly listeners, fell from 22,000 to 17,800. By comparison, Sean Hannity and Dom Giordano on talk rival WPHT-AM (1210) had a 4.4 rating and cume of 217,800 weekly listeners; the top afternoon-drive station was WBEB-FM (101.1), with a 7.6 rating and a cume of 441,100.

Ouch.

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Hey, anyone care to recommend a nice bed & breakfast in London?

We don’t (yet) have a preference for any particular part of town, just a nice B&B with decent Tube access.

UPDATE: Got so caught up searching for places to stay – thanks in no small part because of some fine suggestions – that I forgot all about blogging tonight. Anyway, it’s midnight, so I’m going to take my book and go to bed.

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Sekimori has done it again.

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Let’s hope so:

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency has been placed on standby, and public safety officials are meeting at the bunker, officials said Wednesday.

There have been reports that the FBI office in Boston received a call from an FBI office in California warning officials about a suspicious person that may be in the area, according to the Boston Herald’s Web site.

There have been no specific threats made, but FBI agents in Boston have been put on alert, and officials started to gather at MEMA at about 1:30 p.m.

NewsCenter 5 and TheBostonChannel.com will have more information as it becomes available.

UPDATE: Jeff Quinton is live-blogging the local coverage.

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Heh.

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Pejman Yousefzadeh on the uneasy web alliance between certain libertarians and conservatives.

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This is my niece, Naomi Davis:

Feel free to ooh and ahh and ootchie ootchie goo all you like.

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We call the French “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.” The Germans, for all their fearsome reputation, haven’t thrown a winning war since 1870. It took Italy two wars before it could beat godforsaken Ethiopia. Poland owes its national existence to the kindness of strangers negotiating around a Versailles conference table. The last time the Spanish won a war, they were fighting each other – and so ineptly that the damnable, sad affair was half-fought by foreigners.

But make no mistake: The Europeans are good at killing. Revolutionary France started the first modern revolution in warfare by inventing the mass army of conscription. A Brit, James Puckle, invented the machine gun. Put the two together, and you get the First World War – global war and “total war” being two other European gifts to the world, wrapped into one shiny little conflict.

From tanks to civilian bombing to Hitler’s ovens, Europe has given the world more ways to kill more numbers of people than probably any other continent. In fact, Europeans named Lenin and Hitler invented those human abattoirs we call “totalitarian states.”

Not that each and every one of those items is a bad thing. Were it not for the tank, Europe might still be fighting on the Western Front, nearly 91 years after the Great War started. Civilian bombing certainly shortened that war’s popular 1939 sequel. Despite some local atrocities, it’s hard to argue that European colonialism wasn’t more civil for western Africa and the Middle East than the local governments they have in those places today. And how did European nations become global empires? In no small measure because of their talents for killing.

Anyway, that’s what popped into my head after reading the most recent post here by Will Collier. After reading an article showing that the Netherlands (former owners of Indonesia, one of the world’s largest Muslim nations) could be majority-Islamic fairly shortly, Will said:

What happens 20 or 30 years from now, when demographic trends could well result in “minority-majority” (or even outright majority) status for the Islamic cohort in western Europe? If they’re faced with the options of dhimmitude or flight, where will the native Europeans flee to?

Why, here, of course.

What Will left out is the third option. If somewhere down the road the worst should come to worst, Europeans could always stay home and fight. And don’t think they couldn’t.

Problem is, the fight wouldn’t be the pretty kind where you see a few bold arrows drawn on the map, confidently slicing through history and the enemy lines. We’re not talking Desert Storm here, which you could draw with five arrows and lasted only 96 hours. We’re not even talking about the Liberation of France in 1944, which took slightly more arrows and just six weeks. Oh, no.

We’d be talking about city fighting. But not the kind of city fighting you saw in Saving Private Ryan, where the likeable, well-trained and battle-hardened soldiers could call in an air strike just when all seemed lost. Thanks to modern Europe finally putting “ain’t gonna study war no more” into nearly full effect, they hardly have any battle-hardened soldiers. They hardly have any soldiers left at all.

The city fighting we’d see in Europe would look like what we saw in Sarajevo ten years ago. You know, ragtag bands of men with no uniforms, stolen weapons, and a desire to kill anybody who looked Muslim (or on the Muslim side, European). Holland and Denmark would fare worst. They’re both tiny, both have very high (and increasing) Muslim populations, and neither country has much of a modern military tradition. In this worst-case scenario, the likelihood of ethnic mob rule ala Bosnia seems high.

Want to take the worst-case a little further? Both countries border Germany, which might feel the very legitimate need to march in to restore Ordnung. I think we all know what usually happens once the Germans start goose-stepping through their smaller neighbors.

No, the result wouldn’t be World War III (or V?). But Europe could very well become Bosnia on a continental scale, with all the devastation, mass graves, and ethnic cleansing that implies. You can bet, at best, there would be a whole lot of people put at gunpoint onto refugee boats bound for North Africa and the Levant. Assuming, of course, the Europeans win in such a scenario. If not, the poor refugees would speak languages much like our own, and be bound for our own shores – just like Will suggested.

Me, though, I’d put my money on the Europeans winning a war of mass, mechanized murder.

After all, they invented it.

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Something’s been bothering me since reading Christopher Caldwell’s piece on the Netherlands in the wake of Theo van Gogh’s murder. It’s this bit:

The question naturally arises: If immigrants behave this way now, what will happen when they are far more numerous, as all authorities have long promised they will be? It has been estimated that the country’s two largest cities, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, will be “majority minority” very soon (Rotterdam is today at 47 percent), and already 65 percent of primary and secondary students in both cities are of non-Dutch parentage. London’s Daily Telegraph, citing immigration experts and government statistics, reported a net outflow of 13,000 people from Holland in the first six months of 2004, the first such deficit in half a century. One must treat this statistic carefully–it could be an artifact of an aging population in which many are retiring to warmer places. But it could also be the beginning of something resembling the American suburban phenomenon of “white flight,” occurring at the level of an entire country.

What if a considerable fraction–even a large minority–of that 13,000 really are fleeing from Islamic radicalism? What happens 20 or 30 years from now, when demographic trends could well result in “minority-majority” (or even outright majority) status for the Islamic cohort in western Europe? If they’re faced with the options of dhimmitude or flight, where will the native Europeans flee to?

Why, here, of course.

Lots will go to Canada, I would guess particularly the Scandinavians, and plenty more will go to Australia. But the majority will be drawn right here to the USA. After all, we’ve got more room, more money, more opportunities–and most importantly, we’re the most able to protect our own. Not unlike their ancestors’ cousins of past centuries, the majority of those who give up on Europe will come here.

And then what? What will we do with them? More interestingly, what will they do to us? Will the ‘blue states’ fill up with UNphilic Euro-refugees and get bluer? Or will the refugees, haven been driven from their homes by radical Islam, lean more towards the ‘red’ Scots-Irish motto of nemo me impune lacessit?

I don’t have any idea. You don’t, either. It’s silly to even project current political trends in this country 20 years from now. In 1985, the South was still a province of the Democratic Party at virtually every level below the Presidency, and California was reliably Republican. Nobody really knows what the political maps will look like in 2025, much less how those maps might be impacted by a new wave of European immigrants.

But somebody ought to start thinking about it, both here, and across the pond. Just in case Holland is the canary in Europe’s coal mine.

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Here’s a big, loud dog that didn’t bark in what CBS’s Rathergate report.

So, putting aside the typos, the superscripts, the signatures, the wrong header and address, and all the previously dissected items susceptible to subjective interpretations, how do I prove this memo is a fake? Easy

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CBS News tries to explain away why you can’t cut’n'paste from the PDF file of the Rathergate Report:

According to Linda Mason, a CBS News executive who served as a liaison between the network and the independent panel, an attorney from the law firm called her on Wednesday and asked that the digital restrictions be made – including the prevention of copying and pasting. The fear, it seems, was that an enterprising ne’er-do-well could copy the text into a new document and begin circulating a faked version of the report.

“The bloggers and anybody else can do what they want with it,” Ms. Mason said. “It’s out there for the public to see. We’re not trying to hide anything.”

Well, of course we can do whatever we want with it or anything else — that point was proven mere hours after Dan Rather broadcast his questionable-at-best story.

If it weren’t for blogs, however, there probably never would have been any Rathergate, or any PDF files documenting just how badly CBS screwed up. Instead, we’d have yet another media fable enshrined as common knowledge. And very possibly, we’d have a new Administration to make the whole point moot.

So what’s going on here then, anyway? Simple: CBS knows that bloggers cut and paste; CBS made cut and paste difficult to do. In other words, CBS stuck a very small finger in the very big eye which now holds their CBS Eye to account.

How charmlessly childish of them.

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New to me, anyway. Check out this post at Sisyphean Musings, then click here and just read and scroll.

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Tom Pachinski emailed, wondering if “America has already become a dhimmi nation?”

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Just in case you forgot what made Martin Luther King, Jr. so special:

(more…)

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I once described Syria as “terror’s psychopathically incompetent kid brother,” but it looks like things are worse than I thought.

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