Accounting Bum

Update

2006-12-28T22:12:00.000-08:00

Now posting at Accountingbum.com/wp.
Class listing at Accountingbum.com.

Haiku

2006-06-08T21:28:00.000-07:00

Heard on KSFO this morning:

Islamofacist,
With two five-hundred pound bombs
Zarqawi is dead.

Conservatism

2006-06-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

Kim du Toit:

Libertarianism is contrary to conservatism, not its first cousin. There are issues that overlap, there might even be some common issues (and much fewer than most libertarians believe withal), but the way in which one determines the right or wrong side of an issue also determines whether one is a libertarian or a conservative.

Libertarians decide issues using the criterion: "Will it increase or decrease individual freedom?"

If it decreases individual freedom, they are against it, almost regardless of the consequences to society as a whole.

Conservatives decide on matters using the criterion: "Will it improve or damage our society?"

I couldn't define it better. I sometimes define myself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. And though I like "Atlas Shrugged", I definitely have not flittered with becoming a Randite. But libertarianism (and libertarians) certainly have a place and a purpose.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Katrina Superdome

2006-05-23T21:32:00.000-07:00

Real Clear Politics:

"TV of the Superdome was perplexing to most folks," Thompson said. "You had them playing the tapes of the same incidents over and over, it tends to bias your thinking some, you tend to think it's worse than it really is." Official estimates at this point suggest the Guard, working from the Dome, saved 17,000 by air and uncounted thousands more by boat.

Let's try that again: The cavalry wasn't late. It didn't arrive on Thursday smoking a cigar and cussing. It was there all along.

The National Guard's response to Katrina was even more robust than I suspected in my reporting for RealClearPolitics in September, and in more detail for National Review, where I revealed for the first time that rescue operations saved up to 50,000 lives, with perhaps an equal number making their way to shelters on their own.

I've stopped buying a paper, mostly because I don't want to pay to be lied to. I read blogs and news/opinion internet sites, listen to talk radio, and watch Brit Hume on Tivo; I figure anything of national or international importance I will find out about.

And I won't have to spend as much time figuring out whose lying about what.

Amnesty

2006-05-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of push (and push back) for the idea that Bush's immigration policy, and the plans proposed in the Senate are not amnesty. They are not "technically" amnesty towards citizenship, though tell that to my Mother who had to jump through more hoops than in the non-amnesty proposals.

But it is absolutely amnesty for the real goal of all illegals, the right to live and work here. And under all plans, including no plan, their children are citizens.

Dead Plan Walking

2006-05-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what was new in Bush's speech. Everybody is talking about Bush putting the Guard on the border, as if that was a new idea. In a "support" role for one year no less. I couldn't imagine how Bush could demonstrate more seriousness about getting tough. Except, oh, an actual (not virtual fence.

My prediction, if this passes its 1986 all over again.

Kiddie Time

2006-05-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

After an 18 page letter from the nutter president of Iran:

Albright Suggests Direct Talks With Iran

This is why the Democrats can't be trusted with foreign policy. It was one thing when we all thought that we were retiring (or at least vacationing) from History, but since 9/11 it's time for adult supervision.

Shall Issue

2006-03-23T20:05:00.000-08:00

Gun-Nuttery.com

News Accuracy

2006-03-08T07:08:00.000-08:00

Opinionated Bastard:

I want to be able to read the New York Times or watch CNN, or listen to NPR and be able to trust what they're telling me. Since I can't do that, since the media is no longer fulfilling their basic function, I have to blog, and I have to read blogs. It pisses me off, because I had better things to do this decade than be my own news service. I don't like having to read transcripts of press conferences because I can't trust the media to even write down what was said correctly. I don't like having to spend hours finding real experts on the web to analyze how this or that media expert has distorted the facts. I don't like having to pore through the blogs of journalists, soldiers and Iraqi citizens so I can get some inkling of how things are really going, without the hype. Even though I do it, I don't even like having to download the Brookings report once/month in order to see what the numbers say about how the war is going.

But I have to do all that, because its the only way I can truly be an informed citizen.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that most of all, I blame the media for being incompetent.

I have, for the most part, stopped watching the news for news. I don't trust their judgement. I don't trust their accounts. I don't trust their accuracy.

Most of all I don't trust their motives. The impression I get is that they want a civil war in Iraq, they want us to lose. For more, follow the link.

Saudi Royals

2006-03-06T22:32:00.000-08:00

Strategy Page:

Given Saudi influence with the Muslim faithful worldwide, the royal family failed to exercise restraint in the cartoon controversy and placed its own narrow self-interest before peace, stability, respect for law, and sanctity of life. The Saudis again demonstrated that it would risk plunging the world into religious war if its domination or survival is perceivably threatened. The Saudi decision to initiate a protest against Denmark and the cartoons was based on well-calculated principles of royal family self-preservation and helped divert world attention from the Hamas Palestinian election victory, uncomfortable Kuwaiti succession issues, and Abdullah's extraordinary security-for-oil agreements with China. The strategic significance of King Abdullah's recent trip to China was overshadowed in the press by the cartoon fiasco, but his trip clearly marked a strategic effort by the Saudi government to shift alliances from the West to Asian countries, especially China, for trade, protection, and support for the Saudi royal family against possible future threats to its repressive regime.

The Saudi royal family could have used the Mecca conference to bring the world's Muslim leaders together in the cause of peace and stability. Instead, King Abdullah chose to play a devious, behind-the-scenes role to bolster Saudi leadership in the Muslim world and reinforce the royal family's survival by using explosive religious issues, energy blackmail and billions in oil money.

I don't think we are even going to begin looking at the Saudi problem until there is no longer a Bush in the White House.

I hope we will begin looking at the Saudi problem when there is no longer a Bush in the White House.

Patriot-ism

2006-03-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

Mudville Gazette:
via Instapundit

In a recent press briefing General George Casey (the commander of Multinational Forces in Iraq) countered virtually every inflated claim made by the media regarding Iraq's recent "civil war" in the wake of the Shrine bombing in Samarra. But there are significant disconnects between what Gen Casey said and how his words are reported. . . .

The media is free to dispute the General's claims - that's expected of them. But in this case they aren't, they are simply using his words selectively in a manner that supports their own previously published fictions. There's no law that says U.S. media outlets are required to report accurately or completely on comments made by military or government officials. Likewise there are no requirements for media outlets to acknowledge that they are printing unverified claims made by "other parties" in the war as confirmed "news" - as was the case in the aftermath of the Shrine bombing (See here and here). But consumers of those reports should be aware of their flaws.

and further from Raph Peters:

They're safe in their enclaves, protected by hired guns, complaining that it's too dangerous out on the streets. They're only in Baghdad for the byline, and they might as well let their Iraqi employees phone it in to the States. Whenever you see a column filed from Baghdad by a semi-celeb journalist with a "contribution" by a local Iraqi, it means this: The Iraqi went out and got the story, while the journalist stayed in his or her room.

And the Iraqi stringers have cracked the code: The Americans don't pay for good news. So they exaggerate the bad.

And some of them have agendas of their own.

A few days ago, a wild claim that the Baghdad morgue held 1,300 bodies was treated as Gospel truth. Yet Iraqis exaggerate madly and often have partisan interests. Did any Western reporter go to that morgue and count the bodies - a rough count would have done it - before telling the world the news?

I doubt it.

If reporters really care, it's easy to get out on the streets of Baghdad. The 506th Infantry Regiment - and other great military units - will take journalists on their patrols virtually anywhere in the city. Our troops are great to work with. (Of course, there's the danger of becoming infected with patriot- ism . . .)

I'm just afraid that some of our journalists don't want to know the truth anymore.

I'm afraid the press has irreparably harmed itself. After this war is over, after the truth is out, after the war is won, after being told years that Iraq was going to hell, the press will come out and say that they didn't lie about it. That they had just reported the what they saw. That they weren't responsible for supporting the terrorists.

And I won't believe them.

Last Concious Act

2006-03-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

John Hinderaker:

The assassination attempt is largely forgotten now; but one thing that should not be forgotten is the heroism of the Secret Service men and White House policemen who saved Truman's life. One man in particular, Les Coffelt, deserves to be remembered. He was manning a guard box outside Blair House, where Truman was living while the White House was being renovated. His usual duties involved giving directions, not gunplay. So he didn't have a chance when one of the Puerto Ricans walked up to his guard booth and shot him three times at point-blank range. The assailant then shot two other agents and stopped next to the entrance to Blair House to reload. It's impossible to say what might have happened, had Coffelt not, as he was dying, dragged himself from the guard booth, risen to his feet, and killed the would-be Presidential assassin with a single shot to the head. It was Coffelt's last conscious act.

Buy the book.

It's amazing what can be done by a determined individual, bad or good. Makes the idea of shooting for the thigh look pretty stupid.

Craps

2006-02-28T19:27:00.000-08:00

I work in accounting, a field not known for simpletons, the illiterate, or the merely below average. My wife is a teacher and routinely deals with all three.

Recently I was working with someone who just wasn't getting it. Someone who is unlikely to ever "get" it. And I got a hit on something.

Life is such a crap shoot. The meeting of the gamete with the right zygote, carrying all the right genes, and successfully bringing it to term, and then raising them into a whole individual is a crap shoot. The scariest thing I have ever done is to have three children, and I realized it three time only minutes after each of their births.

Part of the human genome is to shun the unfortunate. Too much danger of continuing bad genes. This ugly trait is entirely too visible on any playground, and not visible enough in any adult group with more than three people. Especially at work.

It is incumbent on us, the winners life's crap shoot, to take care of those of us that lost out. Even if only in small ways.

Most importantly in small ways.

Ben Stein

2006-02-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

Ben Stein:

I have some serious news for you about the war against the terrorists, the war we are fighting to protect our liberties and our Constitution against Islamic totalitarianism. We're losing, big time. I don't mean we're losing in Iraq, where our brave men and women are fighting well in difficult conditions and with the home grown doubters at their heels. Nor in Afghanistan, where our men and women in uniform are also fighting brilliantly.

No, we are losing our freedom here at home, and in a particularly nasty way…

But the media censors itself about the cartoons mocking the prophet of a religion many of whose adherents want to destroy our country and our way of life. We will fight to the death to protect the artists who create Piss Christ, but we'll also fight to the death to protect the feelings of the people who hate us and kill our children. We have surrendered our free expression to people who are at war with us. They kill us in the name of a religion and we bow and scrape to that religion while letting people dump on Christianity and Judaism.

There's a word for this, beyond the words Stockholm Syndrome and the words Political Correctness. The word is cowardice. Or maybe an even shorter word: defeat. Wake up, America. This is serious.

Read it all.

More on TKS:

Stein is at least partially correct. Our MSM, with about four or five exceptions, just offered its unconditional surrender to jihadist standards of the press, and has seemingly agreed to lie to the public about the extent that threats and violence affected their decision making. The official line is, and will remain, "sensitivity to our readers/viewers."

Sharia

2006-02-21T20:02:00.000-08:00

Just a few reasons of the reasons listed that Sharia law is uncivilized.

Jay Tea:

I believe any legal system that requires an allegation of rape to be supported by at least two male witnesses is uncivilized.
I believe any legal system that punishes women who claim to be raped, but do not provide those two witnesses, to have confessed to adultery or fornication and punishes them as above is uncivilized.
I believe any legal system that values the rights and testimony of the adherents of one faith over others is uncivilized.
I believe any legal system that mandates women to cover as much of themselves when in public is uncivilized.
I believe any legal system that mandates women be accompanied at all times by a male relative is uncivilized.
I believe any legal system that mandates adult women of any age need their male guardian's permission for ANYTHING is uncivilized.
I believe any legal system that presumes that men are filled with uncontrollable lusts that can be unleashed by the slightest provocation by a woman is uncivilized.
I believe any legal system that blames the woman for provoking those lusts in a man is uncivilized.

Danegeld

2006-02-21T19:16:00.000-08:00

IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation,
To call upon a neighbour and to say:
"We invaded you last night - we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you’ve only to pay ’em the Dane-geld
And then you’ll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
For fear they should succumb and go astray,
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
You will find it better policy to say:

"We never pay any one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost,
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!"

Rudyard Kipling

Any Questions?

2006-02-21T19:07:00.000-08:00

Victory

2006-02-21T18:49:00.000-08:00

Eric S. Raymond

In a previous post on Suicidalism, I identified some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons. Here is that list again:

There is no truth, only competing agendas.
All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.

As I previously observed, if you trace any of these back far enough, you’ll find a Stalinist intellectual at the bottom. (The last two items on the list, for example, came to us courtesy of Frantz Fanon. The fourth item is the Baran-Wallerstein “world system” thesis.) Most were staples of Soviet propaganda at the same time they were being promoted by “progressives” (read: Marxists and the dupes of Marxists) within the Western intelligentsia.

I've said before that winning the cold war wasn't without cost. We are still paying for it. And this is the short list.

I look at governments pandering before the cartoon rioters and wonder what the cost of winning against Islamo-Facism will be.

Hubris

2006-02-21T18:36:00.000-08:00

Randall H. Nunn:
via Rand Simberg

David Gregory, I revoke my proxy.

Who is God

2006-02-20T12:47:00.000-08:00

Alasdair Palmer:

They simply do not realise how seriously Muslims take their religion. Islamic clerics regard themselves as locked in mortal combat with secularism.

"For example, one of the fundamental notions of a secular society is the moral importance of freedom, of individual choice. But in Islam, choice is not allowable: there cannot be free choice about whether to choose or reject any of the fundamental aspects of the religion, because they are all divinely ordained. God has laid down the law, and man must obey.

'Islamic clerics do not believe in a society in which Islam is one religion among others in a society ruled by basically non-religious laws. They believe it must be the dominant religion - and it is their aim to achieve this.

I get the feeling that people, say the Bush administration, would like to somehow include the Muslims into a greater God worshipping religious affiliation. The way that protestants were brought together, and then Catholics, and most recently Jews, so that it is common to speak of our shared Judeo-Christian heritage.

I don't think we share a similar heritage with Muslims. The clearest example is the concept of agency. I was taught that we were given agency (freedom) in order to make mistakes and learn. All major Christian and Judaic faiths that I am aware of believe in the free will of man. Which makes a natural fit with democracy and our constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Muslims don't think that way. Whatever God they worship demands submission, slavery. I don't worship him.

Allah is not my God, nor another name for the God I worship, nor a reconceptualization of him/her/it that presides above all and is only faintly understood by us below.

There will be no reconciliation, because when and if Muslims decide to worship a god that believes in free will, they will no longer be worshipping Allah.

PS. The rest of the article is just as good.

CCCP

2006-02-20T09:53:00.000-08:00

Captains Quarters:

Controversy, Crap, and Confusion Press.

Update: Here's kinder, gentler version.

Intestinal Fortitude

2006-02-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

Captains Quarters:

When our media has the testicular fortitude to report on terrorists honestly, then they will have gained the moral authority to lecture any White House on censorship and the responsibility of fully informing the public. Until then, such demonstrations as we saw this week by the White House press corps only stands as a perverse monument to the media's hypocrisy and venality.

Muhammad Cartoon

2006-02-20T07:17:00.000-08:00

Unbelievable clarity.

Sides

2006-02-19T22:55:00.000-08:00

BlackFive:

The media has shown that they are not only partisan, but actively opposing the policies of our elected government. Perfect clarity shows in a refusal to print cartoons out of purported concern for Muslim sensibilities, then a shameless scramble to publish anything that again allows Abu Ghraib to tarnish the administration. All concern for Muslim sensibilities goes right out the window when a chance to hurt the administration is in play. What total disgraceful Bullshit!

We are in an information war. That is how terrorism works. Terrorists do heinous acts in order to get coverage and promote fear. And to a great extent it is working. Just look at European ministers and politicians falling all over themselves advocating some sort of "soft" censorship to protect Muslim sensitivities.

The press continually confronts the administration attempting to find fault with it. Just look at the huge over reaction about the Cheney shooting incident for an example. Or the absolute need they express to publish all the Abu Ghraib photos.

Then the press turns around and cooperates with terrorists. Even employing some as stringers on occasion. Or in a different way, their diffidence about publishing the cartoons. Muslims don't want us to publish them? Fine, we won't publish them.

Objectively the press is on the other side.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

2006-02-11T09:41:00.000-08:00

I am here to defend the right to offend.

It is my conviction that the vulnerable enterprise called democracy cannot exist without free expression, particularly in the media. Journalists must not forgo the obligation of free speech, which people in other hemispheres are denied.

I am of the opinion that it was correct to publish the cartoons of Muhammad in Jyllands Posten and it was right to re-publish them in other papers across Europe.

Read the whole thing.

For those not familiar with Ms. Ali you can read this short bio, or Wikipidia. You can also watch an excerpt from her film "Submission", for which the director Theo Van Gogh was murdered. (You remember the comments at the last Oscars remembering him don't you, don't you. Oh, wait. Never mind.)