Saturday, 19 June 2004

Decommissioning

Jeff Jarvis has unkind words for the 9/11 Commission:

The 9/11 Commission has perverted its work and, in my view, committed the unpardonable sin of politicizing 9/11 and turning the attacks of mudering terrorist nutjobs into a litany of things we did wrong, things that are our fault.

No, 9/11 is the fault of murdering terrorist nutjobs and the only solution to this is to hunt down and capture or kill every one of them we can find wherever we find them—yes, even in Saudi Arabia, even in Iraq, even in Pakistan, even in New Jersey. I wish I heard the Commission giving us a few more suggestions about how to do that.

C2 Review

I found some C2 at Wal-Mart tonight in the course of handing over a significant portion of my last paycheck to the Walton heirs. My general first impression is that it tastes like a slightly less syrupy version of regular Coca-Cola Classic; unlike, for example, Diet Coke,* it actually manages to evoke the flavor of regular Coke.

Since it is less syrupy than regular Coke, I’d imagine C2 probably makes a better mixer with vodka. Not having any vodka (or, for that matter, any hard liquor) on hand, such experiments will have to wait until at least Monday.

Update: Len Cleavelin also has a review of C2 that goes into more scientific detail.

* For some reason known only to the Coca-Cola gods, Diet Coke tastes nothing like Coca-Cola Classic and seems to have been more inspired by New Coke or Coke II; Diet Rite cola actually tastes much more like regular Coke, though somewhat less like Coke than C2 does.

The mostly-unlamented passing of a dynasty

The slo-mo breakup of the Lakers finds no regret from either Big Jim or Matt Yglesias, although Kevin Drum is probably crying on the inside.

In an interesting twist, the Shaq trade scenarios (dictated largely by cap considerations) strongly suggest that the big man will return to the team that drafted him way-back-when, the Orlando Magic, in (nominal) exchange for Juwan Howard and/or Grant Hill. In a not-so-interesting twist, Lakers owner Jerry Buss is apparently betting his franchise on the possibility that a Colorado jury—fresh on the heels of the UC-Boulder sexual harassment and rape allegations—will be sympathetic to an out-of-state athlete accused of raping a local woman. Glad it’s his money and not mine.

In the Garden of Allah

Steven Taylor debunks the theory that the Saudis didn’t care about saving Paul Johnson:

It seems that with the scant information available, that the logical conclusion is that something about the disposal of the body or the delivery of the video tipped off the Saudi security forces leading to al-Moqrin’s whereabouts and his subsequent death.

An alternative conclusion is that killing al-Moqrin would have pretty much guaranteed that Johnson would be executed; thus, the sensible course of action was to wait until after they confirmed Johnson was dead to go after al-Moqrin (who may not have been at the same physical location as Johnson anyway).