"There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life." -- Frank Zappa

All links in orange open in tastefully small new windows.

Updated: 7:17 p.m., 4-10-2003
Brilliantly Dull

My world has only two speeds; hyperdrive and off. This is an inherrently unhealthy way to live. It messes with your Zen.

Deep down, I'd rather be a farmer than a cubicle, huddle-room knowledge worker. I know what Internet time pays; I'm just steadily becoming more aware of the costs. IT is a far different world than my old one. Being a reporter was great because I got paid for asking the questions I wanted to ask anyway.

So instead of creating the most boring blog in the world, I'll just link to it. Go ahead and click there; I'll be away for a bit.

Updated 1:20 p.m. 4-4-2003
Bridge of Sighs

I usually wind up wondering about overlooked things, like with the war, if the Iraqi defense has been stiff in spots, why haven't they blown any bridges? Have they tried and failed? Have they half-heartedly tried? Sir John Keegan, defense editor of The Daily Telegraph in London, asks this question and more.. One possible answer: saw a headline from a South African outfit that said Saddam Hussein left Iraq days ago.

Here in tobacco country, there's quite a bit of unease related to Philip Morris facing a possible bankruptcy filing because of the work of an Illinois judge. Even the New York Tiimes chimed in, saying that asking someone to post a $12 billion bond to file a legal appeal is not the way the American judicial system should work. For background on all this, here's an article from Forbes.

Personally, if I were running PM, I wouldn't threaten to file Chapter 11 reorganization, I'd make it Chapter 7 liquidation. All these states balancing budgets off extorted tobacco money would thoroughly panic because they've already perverted the intent of a health care settlement into operating cash. And the whole premiise was bogus to begin with -- smokers don't cost states more money in Medicaid, they save states money because they die earlier. And how in the world does an industry strike a settlement costing a quarter trillion dollars in 1998 only to keep getting sued?

Someday when I'm not swamped with work and not as dead-tired as I am now, I'm going to write a very long piece about the implications of destroying an industry selling a legal product. As of right now, I'm so disgusted with the process -- and more importantly the corrupting influence of such conduct on the American legal system --that I'd like to see PM just shut down everything.

It would lead to a stock market crash, a massive liquidity crunch in related markets, a huge spike in unemployment, and probably a recession that would ripple across the globe. I'd like to see all this just so I could go to these holier-than-thou money-grubbing lawyers and say "Are you happy now?"

They wouldn't answer me, of course. They'd be too busy going after Coca-Cola for the phenyl-keura-whatever-the-hell-its-called in Diet Coke.

There's money to be made in destruction, and it impacts far more than Big Tobacco. Exhibit A is our planet. Exhibit B is the war on Iraq.

***

Updated 3:55 p.m. 4-3-2003
Soldiers count

The mainstream media routinely reports coalition casualties and offers qualified reports of Iraqi civilian casualties, with the qualification being that those reports can't be confirmed.

What's painfully obvious is that American news consumers are getting very little info on Iraqi military casualties.

Now truthfully, I suspect there are plenty of folks out there who could care less if U.S. forces have killed 1,000 or 100,000 Iraqi soldiers. The Department of Defense got out of the body count business in Vietnam, and reporters aren't allowed to think -- they have to quote, and you can't quote silence.

I bring this up because of recent comments about Iraqi divisions being destroyed. A division is roughly 10,000 people, and that's a lot of funerals.

Thing is, destroyed has a specific meaning in military terms and it is not that everyone is dead or captured. I was reminded of this while reading Phil Carter's blog. ( It's always a joy to see people who read the same obscure stuff that I do). Instead of linking, I'll quote Mr. Carter directly:

Primer: What exactly does "destroyed" mean in Army-speak? Believe it or not, it's a difficult question that military commanders haggle over all the time. It has a specific meaning according to military doctrine; destroy is not the same as "defeat" or "neutralize." According to FM 101-5, the military defines destroy as:
destroy - 1. A tactical task to physically render an enemy force combat-ineffective unless it is reconstituted. 2. To render a target so damaged that it cannot function as intended nor be restored to a usable condition without being entirely rebuilt. Artillery requires 30 percent incapacitation or destruction of enemy force. (See also defeat.)
* * *
defeat(Army) - A tactical task to either disrupt or nullify the enemy force commander's plan and subdue his will to fight so that he is unwilling or unable to further pursue his adopted course of action and yields to the will of his opponent.

So let's assume the coalition has detonated 10,000 bombs or cruise missiles (a conservative number) and say each bomb killed two people (a very conservative number). Let's assume that outside of that aforementioned bombing, essentially five divisions have been destroyed, and define destroyed as 10 percent dead and 20 percent captured or injured.

Those calculations would put the number of dead Iraqi soldiers at 25,000, a staggering number under any standard.

Let's try to put that in perspective. Remember the impact 3,000 dead on 9/11 had on 285 million Americans? The Iraqis have one tenth the U.S. population and the death toll is eight times higher.

I can hear it now -- "You didn't liberate my brother, you killed him."

The think-tank term for the process of selling your position as liberator instead of conqueror is "winning hearts and minds."

Americans will be well served by remembering that thousands of those hearts will be broken.

And plenty of people will be looking for revenge.

***

Updated: 7:45 a.m. April 2, 2003
Spring Forward

Nice to see the celebrations for the rescue of PFC Jessica Lynch, but pardon me for feeling a bit tempered by the fact it is entirely possible that other American POWs may have been executed by their captors. I have a feeling every reporter in the Gulf wants to put her on camera, but I hope she is treated in the same manner as a rape survivor and given plenty of time to heal. Survivor guilt can be expected, so folks, please just leave her alone for awhile. There are plenty of other interviews out there -- like, for instance, the studs who pulled off the rescue.

As the mainstream media continues to swing from one emotional extreme to another, the news on the war this morning is quite positive. According to Russian intelligence quoted by Venik Aviation, we can expect this latest offensive to ease up after four to five days for rest and refueling. Based on electronic intercepts, including intercepts of embedded reporters talking, supposedly, off-the-air to their editors, reinforcements won't make it to the front lines until April 7.

Remember, too, that it's the Pentagon's job to lie during warfare. It is safe to assume that when it comes to the final push on Baghdad, a large body of coalition troops are going to appear essentially out of nowhere (the west or north). Surprise is a huge advantage in warfare. Expect one. I'm sure the Iraqis never expected the US military to make a dash through the Karbala Gap either.

And some links of note...

... From Bifurcated Rivets, since I'm such a usability and interface nut, how about the usability of protest signs?

... I didn't realize Ben and Jerry's was a left-wing menace, but in keeping with the theme of the All-American theory of making money off war, may we present Star Spangled Ice Cream. The flavors are a hoot.

... And as part of my duty to keep my buddies hip, here's the 411 on 420.

Weapons of Bath Destruction
..."Blogging is TV for people who read." Quote from a recent convert to Stupidity & Hydrogen.

... Hey, what's a war if somebody can't make money on it? How about some weapons of bath destruction? ... I just don't get this defender of freedom figurine. ... And just as I predicted a few weeks ago, there are now 32 Iraqi surrender leaflets for sale on eBay.

... The mother of all alternative Iraqi war commentary -- a site based on Russian intercepts of coalition military radio traffic that is apparently legit.

... Somebody bought a lotto ticket at the Virginia State Fair that wound up being worth $11.2 million. Yesterday was the deadline for turning it in. Nobody did. Imagine bucking one in 14 million odds and not bothering to check the ticket. That's a truly special category of putz.

April Fool's
My favorite unofficial holiday, and in recent years, it's been time for Web site parodies for Broznews. The entire Apfoolery archive is here, but my favorites are the 2002 Richmond Times-Dispatch, the 2001 CNN and the 2000 Nando.

It was with great sadness that I had to tell Broz I couldn't do one this year because of an insane work schedule. Over the past few weeks, I'd be storing up some gags in headline-punchline style. They work better when surrounded by bogus news site graphics, but, hey, here goes:

HGTV visits Snoop Dog's crib
No word yet on the His and Ho's bath towels.

Winona Ryder wins Oscar
"She was just perfect when she said 'Not guilty.'"

Hillary Clinton's ex-boyfriend tells all
"She was so frigid, if you nibbled on her neck your tongue would stick."

Scientist discovers what women really want
"Essentially a vibrator with an income," researcher says.

FX show "American Candidate" to turn running for president into a game show
Almost as much fun as seeing Bill Clinton on "To Tell The Truth."

Tabloid runs photos of Clara Harris' dead husband
He looks a little run down.

Latest example of French bashing
Historian says 100 years ago, workers had to chisel armpit hair off the Statue of Liberty.

Terrorism expert says a dirty bomb is an explosive wrapped in nasty stuff
Sounds like a corn dog to me.

Southern Baptist convention buys cell phones for preachers
"Can you save me now?"

Yet another UN demand on Saddam Hussein
He must now admit that the beret makes him look a little gay.

Cost-cutting hits Catholic Church
Sister Margaret outraged that the Trinity got downsized to Holy Duo.

Teen-age boy disappointed in "The Vagina Monologues"
"I thought it was going to be a ventriloquist show."

San Francisco's Gold Gate Bridge threatened by terrorists
Castro Street ponders moving to mauve alert.

Today's weather:
With this recent cold snap, the weather's dipping into the teens more often than Mark Chmura.

Left on the cutting room floor of Brozfool 2003 were the necessary graphics for a brutal parody of a certain technology company named after the physics principle of something going down the tubes faster.

It was, after all, a company that in the course of a year and a half, cut my pay while calling it an accounting adjustment, stuck me with a bigger than necessary tax bill, put me firmly in the department of dealing with difficult clients, and then rewarded my efforts by laying me off for somebody cheaper.

Now if you're familiar with the old joke about the difference between a hooker and a lawyer (the hooker will stop f-----g you when you're dead), here's the rest of the story.

This company proceeded to cut my promised severance benefits, screwed me over for benefits from the state unemployment commission and didn't bother to pay the only medical claim I ever filed. And they managed to do this just before getting delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

I've never said anything about all this publicly because you never have any credibility -- you're always the disgruntled ex-employee even when you have facts behind you. My message to that company is that I'm very gruntled, thank you very much, and that the iron laws of karma should not be trifled with.

Some day in the future, something really bad is going to happen to that outfit, and on that day I'm going to have to explain to people the meaning of the word "schadenfreude."

And why should I bring this up? Because a project manager from there sent me an email asking for a favor related to an old project. This manager was a dandy fella to work with and an all-round good dude.

Hope he understands why I declined.

***

Extra, extra read all about it
The March blog archives are here. My favorite essay from my first month of blogging (as opposed to running an online mag) is reprinted below. In a month dominated by war, my favorite was an essay written the first morning of the worldwide alert on SARS.

Updated: 3-16-2003

A mystery disease with no cure. It used to be called life.

As of right now, researchers don't know if SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is caused by a virus or a bacteria. But they do know that neither antibiotics nor antivirals are doing any good, and worse, that the disease has a wicked way of infecting health care workers.

Medical experts have long worried about super strains of diseases that are beyond antibiotics. Perhaps people should remember that the conquering of infection (a medical miracle) is a fairly recent event in human history. (Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1929.)

Assuming, for a moment, that this disease is not the beginning of the end of life on Earth, it might be a useful lesson to those alleged educators who want to deny evolution and teach that wack-ass creation science. Remember the case of the Kansas State Board of Education?

Folks, evolution is not a theory in need of further fossil proof. Evolution is a fact. Everything evolves and adapts, and you don't need fossils to prove it. Tiny things, simple organisms, mutate at amazing rates. One of the best places to observe natural selection and evolution is in medicine. Yes, everything evolves -- even viruses and bacteria.

If I'm facing death in a raging epidemic, and I've been deciphering server logs, if I'm putting in free overtime while a new plague approaches, I will be seriously bummed. Perhaps we should indeed live every day like our days could end suddenly. It certainly makes a better slogan than a financial plan.

I found the whole concept of a worldwide alert on a rapidly spreading fatal disease quite unsettling. On a rational level, you play it down; on a cellular level, it connects.

Makes me want to smell my girlfriend's hair.

***

Stephen Crane, the guy who wrote "The Red Badge of Courage" from his imagination and wrote" The Open Boat" after experiencing life as a war correspondent, would have made a great blogger. He wrote books and articles and even poetry. Like most Americans, I can recite very few poems from memory, and unlike most everyone on the planet, most of the poems I can recite are Crane's.

So with sweeping death looming and The First Dumpling 102 miles away, this Crane poem came to mind. It's from The Black Riders and Other Lines. As with most Crane works, the first line is also the title.

Should the wide world roll away,
Leaving black terror,
Limitless night,
Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand
Would be to me essential,
If thou and thy white arms were there,
And the fall to doom a long way.

 

About the blog
Mr. Marshall apologizes for the lack of post-a-comment technology.and email links. It all springs from his philosophy of not carrying a cell phone. If you have one, people will call it.

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March 2003

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Should the wide world roll away

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Broznews
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Mr. Marshall is a reporter turned web developer turned information architect and interface designer.

If he ever won a McArthur genius grant, he'd study Earth-friendly building techniques. If he won a Niemann Fellowship, he'd study the myth-making aspects of American capitalism. If he ever won the lotto, he would, over his lifetime, give away more money than he actually won.

Mr. Marshall spends weekdays in Richmond, VA. and weekends with The First Dumpling in Virginia Beach.