To those interested in language, a visitor has left an interesting comment on the dynamics of learning and teaching Korean characters versus Chinese. Also, Joseph has just responded to Conrad’s dismissal of Karl Rove’s conspiratorial tendencies. It’s an interesting thread.

Simple message: September 11. Saddam. Fear. Danger. Terrorist. Anything else is “off-message.” See for yourself! Funny. Watch it all, about 3 minutes.

Via “Dave W.

…but Fox news has actually descended to a new low. This is so pathetic, I want to laugh it off as a joke. But when you consider that a healthy chunk of the US population believes that Saddam Hussein was behind September 11 thanks to the Fox assholes, it’s not funny at all. There are two parts to the post: the Fox story, and then the moment of truth. You have to read both.

As the blogger lamentfully asks, “Is anyone ever going to hold this network to any standard?” Short answer: No. Only us leftie moonbat bloggers.

Kerry comes back, just as he did in the primaries, where he was written off as a loser before his famous bounce-back. From Newsweek

With a solid majority of voters concluding that John Kerry outperformed George W. Bush in the first presidential debate on Thursday, the president’s lead in the race for the White House has vanished, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll. In the first national telephone poll using a fresh sample, NEWSWEEK found the race now statistically tied among all registered voters, 47 percent of whom say they would vote for Kerry and 45 percent for George W. Bush in a three-way race.

Removing Independent candidate Ralph Nader, who draws 2 percent of the vote, widens the Kerry-Edwards lead to three points with 49 percent of the vote versus the incumbent’s 46 percent. Four weeks ago the Republican ticket, coming out of a successful convention in New York, enjoyed an 11-point lead over Kerry-Edwards with Bush pulling 52 percent of the vote and the challenger just 41 percent.

It’s the debate, stupid.

Among the three-quarters (74 percent) of registered voters who say they watched at least some of Thursday’s debate, 61 percent see Kerry as the clear winner, 19 percent pick Bush as the victor and 16 percent call it a draw. After weeks of being portrayed as a verbose “flip-flopper” by Republicans, Kerry did better than a majority (56 percent) had expected. Only about 11 percent would say the same for the president’s performance while more than one-third (38 percent) said the incumbent actually did worse that they had expected. Thirty-nine percent of Republicans felt their man out-debated the challenger but a full third (33 percent) say they felt Kerry won.

So let’s be careful before writing our eulogies for John Kerry. It’s still uphill for the Democrats, but that hill has suddenly become a lot less steep, and it’s not at all insurmountable.

Let’s all sit back and watch as the sanctity of marriage (whatever that means) is destroyed.

And I have to say, it rings mighty hollow to me. (I know this is a couple days old but I just got around to it.)

This was a difficult decision for Google, and we would like to share the factors we considered before taking this course of action.

Google is committed to providing easy access to as much information as possible. For Internet users in China, Google remains the only major search engine that does not censor any web pages. However, it’s clear that search results deemed to be sensitive for political or other reasons are inaccessible within China. There is nothing Google can do about this.

For last week’s launch of the Chinese-language edition of Google News, we had to decide whether sources that cannot be viewed in China should be included for Google News users inside the PRC. Naturally, we want to present as broad a range of news sources as possible. For every edition of Google News, in every language, we attempt to select news sources without regard to political viewpoint or ideology. For Internet users in China, we had to consider the fact that some sources are entirely blocked. Leaving aside the politics, that presents us with a serious user experience problem. Google News does not show news stories, but rather links to news stories. So links to stories published by blocked news sources would not work for users inside the PRC — if they clicked on a headline from a blocked source, they would get an error page. It is possible that there would be some small user value to just seeing the headlines. However, simply showing these headlines would likely result in Google News being blocked altogether in China.

We also considered the amount of information that would be omitted. In this case it is less than two percent of Chinese news sources. On balance we believe that having a service with links that work and omits a fractional number is better than having a service that is not available at all. It was a difficult tradeoff for us to make, but the one we felt ultimately serves the best interests of our users located in China. We appreciate your feedback on this issue.

Having worked closely with Google on their public relations in China (are you there, Debbie?), I’m not surprised at this rather slick and vacuous excuse. Other search engines you can access in China give the links, and if those links cannot be accessed, it’s the user’s headache. But at least the user then has the link, so they can look it up using a proxy server or whatever tool they use to get under the Great CyberNanny’s skirt. To refuse to offer the link is, in effect, kissing the CyberNanny’s ass.

This is pure bullshit. Now, I can’t say exactly who you can write to at Google to express your opinion, but you may want to try dfrost@google.com.

UPDATE: Be sure to see Adam’s letter to google — and then write your own!

Check out this wonderful analysis of our little debate last night. Sample:

This was supposed to be the debate that played to the strengths of Bush and his administration. Foreign policy in general and the protection of the United States from terrorism in particular, according to all the polls and every talking head within earshot, are the areas where George supposedly commands the high ground. That illusion came crashing down on the stage in Coral Gables.

How else can one describe the demeanor and behavior of Bush, as seen by 40,000,000 television viewers and heard by millions more radio listeners? Shrill. Defensive. Muddled. Angry, very angry. Repetitive. Uninformed. Outmatched. Unprepared. Hesitant. Twenty four minutes into the debate, Bush lost his temper, and spent the remaining hour and six minutes looking for all the world as though he were sucking on a particularly bitter lemon…..

No amount of spin will be able to undo the reality of what took place in Florida on Thursday night. What happened on that stage was an absolute, immutable truth. Bush looked bad. Worse, he looked uninformed, overmatched and angry. Worst of all, he’s going to have to go through it two more times.

I have no iullusions. Karen and Karl are working right now to prep bush for the next debate. They’ll work (again) on that agonizing smirk and tortured chimp grimaces. They’ll have him armed with barbs and zingers. Luckily, Kerry knows they’re prepping bush and he’ll be prepared. He has one vast advantage, and it’s called intelligence. And needless to say, shrub is painfully vulnerable on domestic issues; he can’t try to blame it all on 911 as he does (or tries to do) whenever we talk about Iraq.

Ryan Lizza delivers the goods in a wonderfully lucid and insightful examination of why Kerry won.

The first inkling that the Bushies know their man didn’t do so well comes minutes after the debate ends when Karl Rove walks into the press filing center. Like a game of telephone, the conventional wisdom that Kerry won the debate is already seeping out across the sea of journalists in the room. Into this skeptical ether, Rove tries out a line: “It was one of the president’s better debate performances and one of Kerry’s worst.” Vince Morris of The New York Post stares at Rove and asks, “Can you say that with a straight face?”

It gets better. Point by point, Lizza shows why bush lost so badly (and how it might not have happened if he and James Baker hand’t insisted on rules they thought would trip Kerry up).

They always say you don’t win the debate the night it’s held, but in the days afterwards based on how it’s spun. So far, it looks like it’s going to be a major victory for Kerry, and I’m ashamed that I first thought it was closer to a draw than a big upset. Now we know — bush was demolished.

From last night

In Iraq, no doubt about it, it’s tough. It’s hard work. It’s incredibly hard.

It’s-and it’s hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it’s necessary work.

We’re making progress. It is hard work.

You know my hardest, the hardest part of the job is to know that I committed the troops in harm’s way and then do the best I can to provide comfort for the loves ones who lost a son or a daughter or husband and wife. [sadly, no one asked my question]

Her husband, P.J., got killed-been in Afghanistan, went to Iraq. You know, it’s hard work to try to love her as best as I can knowing full well that the decision I made caused her, her loved one to be in harm’s way.

Yeah, we’re the job done. It’s hard work.

Understand how hard it is to commit troops. I never wanted to commit troops. I never – when I was running – when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I’d be doing that, but the enemy attacked us, Jim, and I have a solemn duty to protect the American people, to do everything I can to protect us.

Hmmmm. I thought Osama Bin Laden attacked us, not Saddam Hussein. Details.

Anyway, if it’s so hard for him, maybe he should do us all a favor and resign.

A new friend of mine here in Arizona has started a new blog , Hanzi Smatter. In his own words:

It will be dedicated to the misuse of Chinese characters (hanzi) in Western culture. If you have any photographs of someone’s tattoo, t-shirt, post cards, or any kind of item with Chinese characters on it, please feel free to email them to me, and help my blog to grow.

It’s just getting started, but so far it looks great! Be sure to go there.

Update: I see Sinosplice beat me to this.