The War That Cried Wolfowitz

Liberal opinionist Nicholas Kristoff of the NYTimes had readers come up with monikers for the war in Iraq, which he quite correctly notes has no good name. Gulf War II? Eh. It wasn't fought in the Gulf, and it's all about the Sunni Triangle. His five winning entries were:

Dubya Dubya III Rolling Blunder Desert Slog Mess in Potamia, and Blood, Baath and Beyond

Runners-up include:

Operation Unscramble Eggs A'bombin'nation Tigris by the Tail War of Mass Deception Coup d'États Unis The Charge of the Right Brigade The War of the Roves Operation Kick the Dog The Empire Strikes Out Mission Implausible: A Job Well Spun, and Operation Oops, We Did It Again

Any suggestions from InstantReplay readers? Drop a comment below! My own quick thoughts:
Operation Forget Osama
Operation Unfinished Business
Family Feud: The Second Generation
Crashing the Baath Party
The Afterwar
The War That Wouldn't End

Chime in - I'd like to hear what you hawks would call this conflict.

The M-Word

A chapter of Josh Harris' new book Not Even A Hint is published online. In this particular chapter he addresses one of the most un-addressed but most important issues for young men: masturbation. It's the #1 most uncomfortable subject to talk about with a group of guys, but it's something we need to talk about. Harris' chapter clarifies the issue by putting it in the larger perspective of lust, human fallenness, grace and the glory of God.

As an aside, also check out the Washington Post's article interviewing Josh and others on the subject of lust.

Schilling

The Red Sox took advantage of a 24-hour extension to pick up Curt Schilling from Arizona for two young pitchers and two minor leaguers. Schilling has a hefty price tag, but if he stays healthy and pitches as well as he has the last few years, he'll be a rotation mainstay for as long as we have him. I'm proud to say that two groups I'm proudly a part of: passionate & intelligent Boston fans, and web users, were part of Schill's decision:

After dinner, Schilling logged onto a website created by Red Sox fans and ended up "talking baseball until about 2:30 in the morning... I was just blown over by the passion these people have for this team," Schilling said. "It was funny. It was very cool."

He uses the word "cool".
He stays up late talking baseball.
He likes passionate fans.
He has a collection of video of every pitch he's ever thrown.
He acts as his own scout on opposing hitters.
He struck out 194 with a 2.95 ERA during a poor season.
He has held opponents to a .236 average over his career.
He has a World Series ring.
He plays for the Boston Red Sox.

Mr Schilling, welcome to Beantown!

Happy Thanksgiving!

InstantReplay would like to wish you all a pleasant, wonderful, turkey-filled Thanksgiving! May all your dishes come out right. May all your loved ones be in health. May all your in-laws corner other people in long, boring conversations. May all your plays result in first downs. May all your bathrooms be well-ventilated. May all your girlfriends say "yes" when you propose. May all your flights be on time.

And may all your toilet paper racks be full. True story: our hosts for the holiday just called to ask if we could bring some of the Very Important Paper with us when we come. Because, well, y'know.

Uncle Sam Wants YOU!

I was just introduced by the Ovalstar to a new way to waste enormous amounts of time. I became an officer in his army, charged with creating a force of my own under his. This isn't a massive pyramid scheme (well, it sort of is, but not really); it's a MASSIVE online wargame. Fairly simple, in gaming terms, but it's growing exponentially and becoming a nerdy teenager craze. Gotta love this stuff.

Anyway, to join my army, you don't have to do anything except click two links. That's it, I swear. Go to my recruiting page once twenty-four hours and follow the simple instructions there. You won't be spammed, called or sent to boot camp, and every day you're allowed one click, which builds up my army. As the Ovalstar says, "MUAHAHAHA!!"

P.S. A link to my recruiting page will remain under the "me" section of my links.

Lou Picks The Prez

[Lou] is a smiley, often buoyant lug who is always urging people to "Have a great American day."

So why does he get to pick the president?

[Because] he is a heady fluke of geography and political math: D'Allesandro, 65, is one of six Democrats in the state senate. He is the only one, until recently, who had not endorsed a presidential candidate. So he is subject to attention and affection and many, many Christmas cards. This is his reward for being a state senator from New Hampshire instead of, say, Kentucky. It is also his reward for being indecisive -- or at least dragging out his choice.

Alernatively,

Because he can. And because it's fun.

Of course, he doesn't decide alone, and there are people - say, Bill Clinton - whose opinions carry a lot more weight. However, if you calculated out the power held by every citizen in electing the next president, with the average being an ideal 1 voter=1 vote, some people would be a lot more equal than others. I might equal 0.01, if I'm lucky. Gandhi, with his New Hampshire vote, might equal 5.8 (and maybe 508 if there was a relevant Republican primary). Lou D'Allesandro, the only uncommitted Democratic State Senator from the Granite State equals a few hundred thousand, if not a million.

Campaign officials express exasperation with D'Allesandro (although only behind his back). "He's milking this thing for all its worth," one high-level campaign operative complains. D'Allesandro's been around. He treats the candidates as well as he can. He takes their flattery and returns it. But only to a point. "My motto is, 'Always leave them wanting more D'Allesandro,' " he says, laughing... "I pinch myself sometimes," says D'Allesandro, who was invited to the Clinton White House four times. "I say, 'Only in America.' "

Of course, this doesn't endear every candidate to the State Where Almighty God Makes Men.

Apparently Kerrey had forgotten to offer the activist a cookie when they stopped in at a bakery. She was insulted. And she was prepared to endorse Tom Harkin. "I had to have breakfast with her the next day," Kerrey says. After an extended grovel, he managed to win her back, but this does not sound fun in the retelling. Kerrey finished third in New Hampshire, behind Paul Tsongas and Bill Clinton, which essentially doomed his campaign. As he left the state, Kerrey posed for a photo flipping the bird next to a "Leaving New Hampshire" sign.

Six Day Weekend

It's like the Six Day War, but without all the panic and the sand.

My mission: to finish three papers, a powerpoint presentation, etc. I'm limiting the amount of work I'll do over this weekend, so that I have an incentive to work hard and get it all done so that by the end of the "weekend" I'll be free to have some fun, or apply to grad schools or something. So wish me luck - it's off to finish my Econometrics paper!

Ecclesiastes

If the internet were a Bible, Despair.Com would be Ecclesiastes. Meaningless, everything is meaningless... achievement, stupidity, adversity, success, goals, and the one they tailor-made for me: persistence. Meaningless, says the web, everything is meaningless.

In Progress: Granite Stater

Kudos to buddy David Parker, MIT grad students, who's staying in touch with his Northern roots and not selling out to the Big City. His new site - Granite Stater - is all New Hampshire, all the time. Later developments might widen the scope, but if you can't make it up north for the foliage, at least check it out at Parker's new digs.

Things Not Peachy in Georgia

Eduard Shevardnadze has been president of the Caucusus republic of Georgia since its independence from the U.S.S.R. a decade ago. Or had been. Nobody wants to say for sure.

Shevardnadze was chased from the parliament after he tried to convene that body in the wake of fraudulent elections on November 2. The opposition leader (Mikheil Saakashvili) and the speaker of Parliament (Nino Burdzhanadze), whose combined ages fail to add up to Shevardnadze's 75 years, engineered the ouster with massive public support. There are no reports of violence, and the architects are calling it a "Velvet Revolution", echoing the Czechoslovak phrase for their 1989 democratization (which was then followed by the Velvet Divorce).

Page Countdown

I have about fifty pages to write between now and December 12th. I have seven written, making today's magic number:
43

Work A Day

I was at Northeastern for 15 hours today doing things that I love with people whom I love. Don't get me wrong: That helps, but I'm still knackered and falling further behind.

PG-13

Another interesting Post article today: Liza Mundy on the ascendancy of the PG-13 movie.

Critiquing the Critics

Jennifer Howard at the Washington Post published a meandering, verby harangue about blogs. Her complaint: they've become to cozy and self-congratulatory. Her point is well taken: "Now it's a popularity contest in which the value of information is confused with the cool quotient of the person spreading it." However, she misses one major aspect of the blogosphere: it's a community. It's not supposed to be fair, it's not supposed to be an objective social critic alone. Sure it may be, but people would have lost interest in blogging long ago were it not for the communal aspects - and that includes the us-against-them of bloggers-vs.-media establishment.

Howard then endured a firestorm of questioning, plus critiques from everyone from the InstaPundit down.

You Might Be A Nerd...

If significantly positive estimated coefficients on synthesized proxy variables make you smile.

If you do your mental touchdown dance after finding that the school library has the 419-page monograph you've been looking for that contains the only other econometric study of international coffee production wherein exports are the dependent variable, yet fails to include the effects of international coffee export quota agreements, leaving you a perfect niche! Hoo-ah!

Thank God For Weekends!

When God invented the weekend, He knew we needed it. As I've become reasonably busy this semester, I've made more and more of an effort to keep the sabbath holy: church, food, football, friends, quiet time. Spending a day not worrying about duties or anything akin to them is exceedingly therapeutic.

But here's the catch: the Labor Movement invented the two-day weekend. And Northeastern University invented the three-day weekend. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my three day weekends! But that much time off takes some real stewardship. I have a half dozen invitations to social events, all involving Christians and food, and I've also got three major papers coming due. With a little carelessness, I could easily remain busy enough all weekend to get nothing done. Funny how that works - the busier we are, the less we do. Hmm. So, God willing, I'll be un-busy enough to actually put some zeroes and ones together on one of my papers. If I write 10 pages a week for the next four weeks, I'm golden.

Thank God for Thanksgiving break.

Torturing Canadians

You knew that Canadians were subversive... you didn't know that the U.S. government hands them over to Syria for torture! This is very important news, not because we didn't know it happened, but because we've been ignoring the facts. The U.S. needs to be willing to bear the costs of non-torturous justice. Until proven guilty, nobody should be tortured. There may perhaps be a place for torturing convicted terrorists or mob members to save innocent lives, but until the conviction, no dice.

You Might Be A Nerd If

You laugh at Foxtrot.

Utter Desperation

It begins with Lieberman warbling, "Oklahoma! Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I. Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk, Makin' lazy circles in the sky.

Where does it end? Presumably when Lieberman drops out of the race for the Democratic nomination. The Washington Post reports on the flailing candidate, whose failure to make a sound in New Hampshire or Iowa has made him cast about for friendlier territory.

We've obtained a bootleg recording and played it for Lieberman spokesman Jano Cabrera, who told our colleague Dana Milbank: "Oh, God." The actual recording, not available in record stores, can be heard http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/mmedia/politics/111103-2s.htm. WARNING: Not for the squeamish. Listen only on full stomach.

Can you imagine that voice becoming president? He'd make a great Secretary of Health and Human Services, or maybe a White House fact-checker. President? Puh-leeze.

NYTimes: Nobody Knows

The problem of the first cause has always been troubling to those physicists with the balls to consider that the Big Bang did not self-start. The New York Times, in honor of the 25th anniversary of Science Times, tries valiantly to avoid saying "nobody knows" in its dogmatically atheist summation of research on the pre-Big Bang.

For those of us who believe in God, these theories create far fewer problems; while we may differ on the age of earth or the universe, we have no problem agreeing that what happened before the universe is outside of science's realm.

Kerry

Besides misspelling "extraordinary" (his version: extroadaniry), John F. Kerry isn't quite sure what Roe v. Wade was. Also, he obviously has never chatted online or blogged, because his online Q & A is painfully staccato and an embarressment to the verbiage of the Commonwealth. Bethesda, Md.: Senator Kerry, do you support the ban on partial-birth abortions recently signed into law by the President?

Sen. John F. Kerry: I don't support the President's law because it doesn't allow the exception for situations where the health of the woman is at risk.
I beleive this is a dangerous effort to undermine a woman's right to choose, which is a constitutional ammendment I will always fight to protect.

FYI, JFK, it's a Supreme Court decision interpreting the constitution, not an amendment.

Graduate School

The deadlines for some grad schools are a month away... so I need to make some decisions. Sure, I'd like to apply to 20 schools, but that would run me upwards of $1000 plus time and energy, and would be rather inefficient. It's a good system, I think, since there isn't a limit to the number of schools you can apply to, but the system rewards focus and set preferences. This of course benefits the people doing admissions, since they have more control over admitted students taken and less work to do.

I am almost 100% sure that I'm going to pursue a Philosophus Doctorus in Economics, with a concentration in development. My GRE scores are competitive: 800 quantitative (93rd percentile), 710 verbal (97th percentile) and 5.5 out of 6 on the analytical essays. GPA is 3.85, I've had Calc I and II, and I plan to take III (multivariate calc) in the spring. I lack matrix algebra, and my school - Northeastern - is more of a liability than a benefit.

So far, I've limited my search to the East Coast, since moving out West somewhere would be a major social cost, and the Eastern schools run the gamut from top to bottom schools, so there's plenty of options here in the Bos-Wash megalopolis that I call home. Here are the programs I've seriously considered:

1. M.I.T. - It's the bomb hizzy of grad schools, but my chances of getting in are slim, let alone of getting aid. Their heavy math focus doesn't help me.
2. Harvard - Their average GRE scores are 797 and 775, respectively, and I lack both academic pedigree and math background. Besides, talk about becoming a sellout...
3. Princeton - Also top-tier, this one receives 800 applications and accepts 25 students, with nosebleed GRE's and both multivariate calc and matrix algebra required. Still out of my league.
4. Yale - Ranked 7th by USNews. Multivariate required, matrix algebra required.
5. Columbia - Good school, good city, good econ program, and decent financial aid. Matrix algebra is recommended, but not required. I don't know if I'm pedigreed enough, but it's probably worth a shot.
6. UPenn - High math requirements, low financial aid, and location in the heart of Philly. What's not to love?
7. NYU - They obfuscate about requirements, which is probably a good thing, and they're 19th ranked in USNews. They also have an excellent aid package, which I'd need if I went to school in Manhattan.
8. Brown - Rhode Island's answer to Harvard is easier to get into, has better aid, and accepts a surprising 40 out of 500 applicants.
9. University of Maryland - As close to D.C. as you can get in a decent Econ program, UMD is well regarded, rejects 675 people per year, has a low math requirement, and is ranked 24th.
10. Johns Hopkins - This school has a great name, and it's tied in the 24-hole with UMD, but it's in Baltimore and requires matrix algebra. Upside is the excellent aid package and it isn't too far from D.C.
11. Boston University - BU wins the proximity prize (3 blocks from my house) and it also wins 3rd ranking honors in Massachusetts, surpassing B.C., Tufts, and UMass in a 1995 ranking that I used for non-top-25.

Applying to all 11 schools could easily run me $600, and some of them I have no chance. I'll most likely apply to:

1. M.I.T. - This is my miracle choice, if I actually go through with it. Gives God the chance to work a miracle (if He wants me at MIT), and allows me to list MIT when other schools ask who I've applied to.
2. Columbia - New York isn't really attractive to me, but I guess it gives me flexibility between Boston and D.C. And it's better than U.C. Davis or something!
3. NYU - I don't really know how much different the next few schools are; they score 3.7 to 3.5 out of 5 on USNews' scale, and the 1995 rankings basically show what I suspect: that they're in the mid-range between the top-tier schools and the shoo-in schools. Anyway, NYU leads both lists, if marginally, and the location is palatable. Their financial aid packages and deeper research if and when I'm accepted will make the decision; not my pre-rankings.
4. Brown - Good name, close to home, good aid all pluses. Rhode Island isn't my idea of a happening place, but it's not Pittsburgh either.
5. UMD - Good reputation, good location, highly regarded in the 1995 rankings. Excellent financial aid could push this over the top.
6. BU - Not only does BU rank a respectable 40th in the 1995 rankings, but its specialty is development economics and 2/3 of the students are foreign nationals. That's good for what I'm planning to do, and it leaves me in town where I can live at home or with friends, and incur lower living expenses than elsewhere (no car needed, etc). On the other hand, it's BU.

Bad Form

Barbara Blackmon sucks - no matter what her pigmentation is. She ran a belligerent campaign against a popular incumbent and lost 37% to 61%. Run of the mill political campaign, right? Oh wait, no this time it's all about race, according to Blackmon.

InstantReplay's reaction: don't run for statewide office; you need to run for something that gets you to D.C., because that's the only place in the world where you can get away with using race as an excuse for your own shortcomings.

To Paraphrase Things Another Way...

Me: "Please?"
God: "No."
Lesson: It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
Growth principle: Following the path of least resistance keeps us from an intimate relationship with God.

Go, go, go Joseph

The story of Joseph is well-known, now to popular culture as well as Sunday School attendees, thanks to Donny Osmond. Poor Joe, the hard-working head servant, gets the shaft for falling afoul of the lady of the house. She of weak morals and strong will gets her hands on his toga - with a mind to more - and he flees in his skivvies. She's so insulted that she gets her jealous husband to dump him in the slammer.

Now, we generally jump ahead to the dream stuff, which is pretty cool. And it feels to us who know the story like this is how it's supposed to go. It's part of the plot - tragic, dramatic, unfair. An actor with some soul can even get the audience to shed tears with the chords of "Close Every Door To Me". But even as an actor in "Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", I never stopped to think how the real Joseph must have felt. I mean, after the initial shock of his unceremonious imprisonment (which was about as much fun as a root canal), what was going through his mind...

"Um, God. Yeah, you there? I was beginning to wonder. So you're in control right? Because this is looking kinda sketchy. I thought you had this thing with rewarding man according to his deeds? I could have slept with the ho, even if she did have that gawdawful Sphinx eyeshadow all over her face. If I had, I'd still be the #1 servant, and I'd be getting favors from the missus to boot. This isn't exactly an incentive to be righteous, you know?

"I mean, isn't being sold into slavery enough - I learned my lesson! I've been humble and hardworking, and pure - to a fault, apparently. And don't try and tell me this is another object lesson, because I sure don't see anyone around me getting object lessons in slavery and life imprisonment! For real, God, you've gotta come up with a better benefits package, or I'm going start comparison shopping pretty soon. There's enough gods in Egypt to go around, and you aren't keeping up your end of this patronage racket very well! And I really hope you don't think family loyalty is gonna keep me coming back after what you let them do to me. There's only one word for this, God, and that's unjust. This is a travesty of heavenly justice. This is no good deed going unpunished. This is the righteous suffering while the wicked flourish!"

Eventually he came around to trust God; I don't know how long it took, but I'd be willing to bet it wasn't as quick or trite as Sunday School would have us believe. Eventually God as well brought things around, showing Joseph and history why he'd been sold into slavery and unjustly imprisoned. As Joe says to his brothers, "what you intended for evil, God used for good".

Would that I had that kind of faith and attitude.

HELP!

I have tons of homework due, I just had a job interview, taught 2 classes, and spent the day at a conference. I have a new 4-day conference starting on Thursday. I have 35 unread emails in my in-box (all homework due to me). I have dozens of students to keep track of and grade. I have 3 major projects due at the end of the month. And there's half a dozen other things I'm forgetting (purposely or otherwise). HELP!

Published!

My good friend Danielle just got published in Relevant Magazine, an online zine for & by Christian young people. She says she wrote the article last Spring on the same day she came to my place with friends for dinner. We had meatloaf, and she got the recipe. And she wrote the article in 10 minutes!