On a whim just now, for the first time in months, I looked at the statistics for what browser people are using to view my website… and, lo and behold, Firefox has made major gains. If I remember correctly, it was around a 20% share last time I looked. Well, now it’s at nearly 30%. Safari, for its part, has a nearly 10% share. Internet Explorer’s share has dipped below 56%! Wow!

P.S. I also have statistics on OS usage, and let me just say, to the 1.27% of you who are using Windows Millennium… I’m sorry. ;)

UPDATE: My memory was correct.

UPDATE 2: Global statistics here.

Expanding on the ‘Cartoongate’ coverage:

Not content with simple flags, Muslims in the Lebanese capital of Beirut have set the Danish embassy on fire. There are no reports of casualties as of yet, but the building (pictured right) looks partially destroyed. This comes a day after the same thing happened in Syria, where many suspect that the government was complicit in the act by urging and allowing demonstrators to destroy symbols of Western presence (e.g., embassies).

In Lebanon, the army was brought in to establish order, but in neighboring Syria protesters were given free reign. Various governments in the Muslim world are quite displeased: the government of Pakistan passed a resolution denouncing the cartoons, and summoned the Danish ambassador to demand action against the newspaper. Meanwhile, King Abdullah II of Jordan has said that the cartoons were a “crime that that can not be justified under freedom of expression,” and has ordered two Jordanian editors who republished the images to be arrested.

To me, this seems less a furor over the cartoons themselves, and more an opportunity — one might even call it an excuse — to vent against the West. It could have been anything, but these cartoons were just the most convenient device available. The cartoons served as validation to angry Muslim masses that the West looks down on the Muslim world and seeks to suppress it, a touchy thing when four contiguous Muslim states (Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan) are perceived as being ‘meddled with’ by the West. It’s quite ironic, however, that the behavior of these mobs serves as validation to the West that Islam and religious violence go hand in hand.

Indeed, this sort of outburst makes Muslims look far more foolish than the cartoons possibly could, especially as it’s doubtful that all the protesters have even seen the images. As one (now fired) Jordanian newspaper editor said:

“Who offends Islam more?” asked Jihad Momeni. “A foreigner who endeavors to draw the prophet … or a Muslim with an explosive belt who commits suicide in a wedding party in Amman or elsewhere?”

Especially for a religion that claims to be peaceful and tolerant, these outbursts, in some places with shocking, threatening rhetoric, undermines those claims. Thankfully in my area (Washington DC) Muslims appear to be encouraging a more peaceful response:

Cautioning his congregation not to overreact, Magid urged them to follow the model set by the prophet, who is said to have always forgiven those who insulted him, including the woman who deposited her trash on him as he passed her home.

I think the broader issue will be how this affects future relations with the Mid East. Certainly we (the West in general, not the U.S.) have lost some ‘hearts and minds’ over this issue, and that translates fairly directly into a reduced ability to carry out our foreign policy in the region. But will popular violence translate into a larger conflict?

One might take as obvious that it is not the images per se that are inciting these mobs, but politically motivated imams and possibly even governments looking to foment ‘grass roots’ anger to give popular legitimacy to their anti-western policies. Thus far, our answer has been to denounce the cartoons and to call them irresponsible. OK as a tactical diplomatic move I can respect that — but we might have larger, longer term concerns. Will this set of stupid cartoons be the unifying focal point for a pan-Islamic uprising against the West? Or just another flash in the pan?

Posted by Brian (Briandot)

Last night on CBS, a special called Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials offered a “sneak peek” at some of tomorrow’s ads.

source file

The Fabio one is pretty funny… but I hope those aren’t the best anybody has to offer, because if so, that’s kinda lame. They certainly don’t measure up to the old classics, like…

Now that’s a Super Bowl ad.

P.S. So is this.

P.P.S.

Betty Friedan, author of “The Feminine Mystique,” has died at age 85.

Unranked Penn State stunned #6 Illinois at home tonight, 66-65, when a 16-point second-half comeback culminated in a go-ahead layup with 8.5 seconds left — giving the Nittany Lions their first lead of the game — and Illinois’s apparent buzzer-beating game-winner was waved off when replays showed it was a split second after the buzzer. The team and crowd, which had already begun celebrating a dramatic victory, were stunned. Sorta like an October 15 scenario…

The loss ends Illinois’s home winning streak at 33, and combined with Southern Illinois’s home loss to Indiana State on Wednesday, which ended the Salukis’ 33-game streak, this means #5 Gonzaga now owns the longest home winning streak in the nation at — you guessed it — 33. The Zags are defending that streak right now against Santa Clara.

The second-longest home winning streak in the nation? #8 Florida, which extended its run to 20 straight games by beating Kentucky a few minutes ago.

In other news, another team that’s pretty damn good on its home floor, #2 Duke, almost lost to unheralded Florida State at Cameron Indoor earlier today, but ultimately edged the Seminoles, 97-96 in overtime.

UPDATE: Zags win! The streak is now 34, and they’re 8-0 in conference play with six games left.

USC men follow up win over mighty* Arizona with loss to lowly Arizona State. One step forward, two steps back. You can scale down all that NCAA Tournament talk now, Boi.

Oh well, at least I still have my Zags. :) I was thinking of temporarily changing the blog’s title next month to “The Irish Trojan Zag’s blog”… I’m not sure where the Gonzaga logo would go, though.

*Actually, Arizona isn’t very “mighty” this year but… shh.

P.S. Speaking of teams that may not be going to the NCAA Tournament, Washington’s valiant efforts to play its way out of “lock” status and onto the bubble continue. The Huskies lost again to Wazzu tonight. I suppose they’ll probably still make it, but jeez, a 5-5 record in a “down” Pac-10 that’s arguably weaker than the Missouri Valley? Getting swept by the lowly Cougars? A #54 RPI ranking that will now presumably drop even further? Just two quality wins… and five bad losses? These are not good things to put on your résumé. Washington, once a Top 10 team, was a #6 seed and falling in Joe Lunardi’s most recent “Bracketology” projection, and that was before tonight’s game. Husky fans should thank their lucky stars for that close home win over Gonzaga in early December, which (along with the win at UCLA) is really the only thing keeping them in the discussion at this point. Yeah, they’ve got 16 wins, but their whole nonconference schedule minus Gonzaga was made up of powder puffs. Bottom line, the Huskies need to avoid further bad losses… starting next Thursday against USC. (I hope they lose to the Trojans and then win out. :)

Are people having trouble with HaloScan or something? I’m getting more traffic than usual, thanks to the InstaBoost (5,656 hits yesterday, 2,872 so far today), but I feel like the comment section is actually quieter than usual, which is odd. Are y’all already pre-drinking for the Super Bowl, or what? :)

(I was tempted to call it “Muhammadgate,” but I suppose that’s probably a bad idea.)

InstaPundit notes that some moderate Muslims are speaking out against the violent anti-cartoon protests that are sweeping Europe: “We must condemn Islamist threats against free speech.” Indeed. Andrew Sullivan thinks European governments should require such condemnation as a condition for immigration into their countries:

[A]ll immigrants should be required to sign a declaration supporting the right of free speech, even blasphemous speech, as a condition of entering the West. Why not?

Why not, indeed. One obviously needn’t accept everything about Western culture and society in order to participate in it, but there are a few basic tenets that are really essential, and basic freedom of speech and the press are definitely on that list. If you think the government should be able to censor blasphemous speech, you really don’t belong in a liberal democracy — especially if you’re willing to resort to violence to make your point.

Sullivan, by the way, has a lot to say about Cartoongate. Just go to his homepage and scroll down.

On the other hand, the USC Daily Trojan on Friday editorialized not only that “just because a newspaper can print something does not mean it should” (a reasonable statement), but that the newspapers which published the cartoons “are to blame” for the violence (a ridiculous statement). Wow. By that logic, the American policies that upset Islamists before 9/11 “are to blame” for the attacks. Amazing.

A quick refresher for the DT’s editors: if you do something bad, you are morally responsible for it. You are “to blame” for your own actions. But if someone else does something immoral and/or violent, allegedly in (over)reaction to the bad thing that you did, you are not morally responsible for their actions. Perhaps, as a practical (not moral) matter, you should have anticipated it and should have been more careful, but you are NOT “to blame” for someone else’s sins.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt’s take is worth reading:

The furor over the Danish cartoons is sparking an odd reaction among some commentators in the West who see no contradiction in condemning the idiocy of Joel Stein or the repulsiveness of Tom Toles while urging solidarity with the idiot newspapermen in Denmark who thought it a good idea to not just illustrate Mohammed, but to include some illustrations designed to offend. Like Toles and Stein, they sought a cheap reaction, and getting it, are alarmed that anyone could be judgmental of their efforts.

Of course the thugs who threaten violence against the idiots are evil, and the reaction across radical Islam is every bit as chilling and outrageous as the 1989 fatwa against Rushdie.

But I think the third course between the cartoonist provocateurs and the radicals waving guns at the EU employees in Gaza is to denounce without ambiguity or excuse the latter but at the same time to delineate a very bright line between what the West stands for and the churlishness of the caroonist provocateurs. …

The cartoons were in bad taste, an unnecessary affront to many of the 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, just as Joel Stein affronted the military, the families and friends of the military, and as Toles did the same to the wounded, and their families, friends and admirers. Of course each of them had the absolute right to publish their screed, and the Danish (and now Norwegian) governments must reply to demands that these papers be punished with a steely refusal to be dictated to as to their culture of free expression and the protection of the vulgar and the stupid.

But don’t cheer the vulgar and the stupid.

There are hundreds of thousands of American troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the globe among Muslim peoples who they are trying to befriend. The jihadists like nothing more than evidence that these troops represent a West intent on a new crusade and a new domination of Muslims. Idiot cartoonists make our troops’ jobs more difficult, and the jihadists’ mission easier.

We rightly condemn and must continue to condemn every anti-Semitic outburst from the president of Iran and every anti-Semitic cartoon published in the hate press of the Middle East. Those condemnations loose some of their force among some of the world if we rush to defend those cartoons that can objectively be seen as anti-Muslim.

The jihadists are the enemy, not the Muslim world. Refusing to recognize how idiot cartoonists can indeed offend Muslims who are not only not Islamofascists but also our allies and even our fellow citizens is to refuse Muslims the right to at least the same level of disgust that Christians display when they denounce stupid NBC series like The Book of Daniel or shows like Will & Grace. …

Cartoonists seeking to offend need to be defended against violence, but they don’t deserve praise…for their gift to the jihadists.

I have sometimes found Hewitt’s analyses to be far too partisan/ideological for my tastes, but this one makes a lot of sense. And he sets himself apart from the idiot DT editorialists by saying we must “denounce without ambiguity or excuse” those who would commit violence in (over)reaction to the cartoons. Only the rioters and arsonists “are to blame” for the riots and arson. But the cartoonists are to blame for their stupid cartoons, and they are also arguably being very unwise, even though they don’t share the “blame” (again — blame is a moral concept) for the overreaction.

As the West’s showdown with Iran escalates, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is talking tough:

“Looking back to German history in the early 1930s when National Socialism (Nazism) was on the rise, there were many outside Germany who said ‘It’s only rhetoric — don’t get excited’,” she told the assembled world defense policy makers.

“There were times when people could have reacted differently and, in my view, Germany is obliged to do something at the early stages … We want to, we must prevent Iran from developing its nuclear program.” …

U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman applauded Merkel and urged the world to take the Iranians seriously.

“From the writings of Hitler during the 1930s and Mein Kampf to the polemics of bin Laden in the 1990s, there is ample evidence that sometimes when people write and say that they hate you and … they want to destroy you, in fact they mean it and will try,” he said.

Indeed.

The Washington Post is reporting (along with every other major news outlet) that the IAEA has officially referred Iran to the UN Security Council in a 27-3 vote. The only three to vote not to refer them are quickly becoming a short list of ‘usual suspects’: Syria, Cuba and Venezuela. Even Russia and China, both of which have fairly close ties to Iran (economic as well as military), joined the United States and most of Europe in the decision. Unfortunately the immediate effects are mostly diplomatic, with any further action to be postponed:

Under an agreement reached Monday between the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany, the council will not take any action on Iran for at least a month, giving Tehran a grace period to change its tactics, stop its enrichment activities and cooperate more fully with IAEA inspectors.

[…]

U.S. and European diplomats have said that they envision a “graduated” diplomatic approach to slowly build pressure on Iran, and that sanctions currently are not being considered. Nonetheless, Iran reportedly has been withdrawing money from European banks and stockpiling critical materials that could be difficult to get if an embargo or sanctions were imposed.

Certainly it seems like there will be a certain amount of time before anything substantial is done, and that even if action is taken, it will be in the form of sanctions rather than military action. (However, given statements by the president of Iran regarding Israel and the United States, many observers would be unsurprised if unilateral action took place, making any UNSC moot.)

Posted by Brian (Briandot)

The theme of my Floomashoy post was ch-ch-ch-changes… but sometimes, when comparing old photos to new ones, you notice how much things don’t change. Take these pics of Sean, from 1998 (junior prom) and 2005 (my wedding)…

Heh.

(Well, the beard is new. But the enthusiasm on the dance floor remains constant.)

Hmm… how long till Sean’s students discover this post? :)

Far worse than watching Notre Dame lose another overtime game (at this point I’m almost numb to that) and drop to 1-8 in conference play (average margin of defeat: 3.25 points) was listening to the ESPN commentator verbally fellate the Irish and Mike Brey throughout the game. On and on he babbled about how good a coach Brey is (ha!), about how the players play with so much effort (what is this, middle school?) and so forth. It was ridiculous. Don’t give Brey credit that he doesn’t deserve! This season is a train wreck and the last thing we need is to delude ourselves about it.

At one point, looking back on all of Notre Dame’s close losses, he said something along the lines of, “You can’t fault the coach or the players — it’s just been bad luck.” HA!!! Yes I can fault the coach for repeatedly calling terrible plays after timeouts in crucial situations, and the players for repeatedly taking bad, low-percentage shots (like Quinn’s forced, desperation 3 with plenty of time still on the clock) and making other bonehead mistakes.

I wasn’t terribly upset about the loss to West Virginia last week because the Mountaineers actually earned that one; we didn’t give it away. But in most of our losses, we’ve given the game away with late blunders. Plus, as the (far more competent) commentators on the West Virginia game noted, a big part of our problem is our tendency to fall way behind early, expend an enormous amount of energy coming back, and then run out of gas at the end. It’s completely predictable, and the solution is to play harder and better earlier in the game, so we don’t have to rely on dramatic, exhausting comebacks. Forget all the last-second drama; the bigger problem is our inability to play well for 40 minutes. The seeds of our heartbreaking losses are planted in the first half of these games, when we’re letting our opponents walk all over us.

Bottom line: it’s not just bad luck. We suck.

P.S. Nice shot by Taquan Dean, though. Can’t take that away from him.

Emily notices an interesting pair of headlines.

Ok, we picked up our tickets. Super Bowl here we come!

All right, everybody, what’s your prediction for the final score of tomorrow’s Super Bowl? I’m too lazy to organize a formal contest, but leave your picks in comments, and I’ll give a postgame shout-out to the most accurate one(s)…