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.)

In Other News

2006-02-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

Iran Focus:

An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

South Pacific

2006-02-10T21:51:00.000-08:00

Carefully Taught

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught.

Muslim Dreams

2006-02-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

M. Zuhdi Jasser:

This question leads me to the subject of our dreams. There are some in my faith who dream of a new Caliphate, a world ruled by and for Islam. It is a seductive call to many in my faith, as dreams always are. But it is anathema to me. I do not believe that we were meant to be one thing, because that, in itself, takes away our free will. My dream can only be real if it is only mine — if it is rooted in the individual success. Once the community or the so-called ummah takes it on as a communal success, it is no longer a dream but an imposition, a violation of freedom and liberty.

Dreams are a funny thing. For example, it is a dream for me that I may one day make the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. But the very thought of living there, makes me feel all hollow inside. Is that not a peculiar thing — that the holiest place for me to visit would not be a holy place for me to live.

That is because the hajj is a dream of mine, a pillar of my faith, but living there would be my reality. The difference between a dream that is fleeting and one that is real always comes down to the question of free will. If I would live there, I would not be free and no devotion that is coerced can ever be true.

That is why my first allegiance is to this country. Without its freedoms and protections, my faith would be something much smaller.

Some have the delusion that it is possible to avoid Muslim rage. It is not, because the rage is not about us. It is about them. Their dreams of domination and fears of inadequacy.

My liberal friends, who are so good at diagnosing disfunctional family relationships seem unable to see this one.

Oh, yeah. Thank God for Muslims like Mr. Jasser.

MSM

2006-02-10T21:34:00.000-08:00

A truisim:

If the MSM stops printing the news, people will stop going to the MSM for the news.

Dennis Clay

The Islamists Have Won

2006-02-10T20:54:00.000-08:00

Bill Bennett:

But CNN doesn't have the solicitude for Jews it has for Muslims. Your policy is not to show these cartoons that were shown in Denmark, but to show one after another of the most anti-Semitic cartoons they could come forward with. CNN Â I don't mean to pick on CNN just because I work for you. But NBC, New York Times, other media Â the Virgin Mary in cow dung, that was fine, we can show that everywhere. Now, the Islamists have won, in that they have intimidated the major news media from showing these cartoons. They have lost, however, in the wider world, because people see that this is just totally nutty behavior Â that these cartoons are shown and that people as a result want to kill people, behead people, burn buildings down.

At the end of the discussion. Wolf Blitzer:

And just to reiterate CNN's policy. CNN is not showing the negative caricatures of the likeness of the Prophet Muhammad because the network believes its role is to cover the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons while not unnecessarily adding fuel to the controversy itself. That is the CNN policy, like so much of the mainstream American news media.

Does that mean we can expect CNN to show the positive caricatures? Never mind, the question answers itself.

Anyone else want to sign up for dhimmitude?

Watch the video.

Update: We have some takers. The Phoenix:

Out of fear of retaliation from the international brotherhood of radical and bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do. This is, frankly, our primary reason for not publishing any of the images in question. Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and as deeply as we believe in the principles of free speech and a free press, we could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year publishing history.

Odious

2006-02-09T19:32:00.000-08:00

Michael Moynihan:

"The Spectator calls on every Swedish blog—left, right and center—to reprint the Mohammad cartoons in solidarity with SD-Kuriren, however odious we find their political views. Freedom of the press doesn’t make exceptions for stupidity and provincialism."

Hugh Hewitt:

Defending the right to publish offensive material and material that compromises the national security doesn't mean and shouldn't mean having to defend the content published. And it certainly doesn't mean having to reprodice the material.

Two additional notes.

Some are arguing that the cartoon with Mohammed wearing a bomb isn't offensive, a very different argument from the "cartoons are offensive, but the West defens the right to be oofensive.". Would a cartoon of Christ's crown of thorns transformed into sticks of TNT after an abortion clinic bombing be offensive? Of course it would be, though of course Christians would not riot or burn embassies in response. At least begin with the obvious: Some of the cartoons were offensive.

It seems required in some circles to decry the irresponsible and counter-productive cartoonists immediately after saying that of course we believe in freedom of the press.

These cartoons aren't odious. Supposedly it is offensive to suggest via pictures that Muhammad might support terrorist bombings, or in the case of another cartoon that he wouldn't.

It's obvious though that the Muslim Imam's that instigated the riots thought that they were'nt odious enough for their purposes. So they had to create some new ones to add in to the mix, including a photoshoped picture of a French pig caller, to get the effect they wanted.

Not only do I not think the cartoons are irresponsible, I think they have had a positive, perhaps important effect. They have had a marelously clarifying effect, just like the Palestinians electing Hamas into power. It has made clear exactly what the stakes are, both our freedoms, and our ability to be safe in our homes and communities.

Unlike the threat of a second 9/11, which is impersonal and general, the threats to the cartoonists are frightingly personal and specific. If we don't want to have to constantly censor our speech in order to not have the threat visit our family and our communities, we need to stop it now.

The cartoons have had their intended effect, which was not offending Muslims, but pointing out how much we have already surrendered our freedom, how much our institutions have already given in, how empty the platitudes about press responsibility and freedom really are.

And if you want to see something that IS offensive, purposely so, that isn't faked by Muslims. . . go here.

And I don't think even that rates as odious.

More Cartoons

2006-02-09T12:53:00.000-08:00

via Cumudgeonly & Skeptical:

"The Study of Revenge" and "Curmdgeonly & Skeptical".

New York Times

2006-02-07T19:42:00.000-08:00

decides censorship is good.

Byrone Calame:

“We've had long and vigorous debate in the newsroom and concluded that publishing the cartoons is not essential to telling the story,” Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, wrote to me in an e-mail Friday evening. I had asked him how The Times was dealing with the cartoon issue.

“On the one hand, we have abundant evidence that a significant number of people -- some of them our readers -- consider these cartoons deeply offensive and inflammatory,” Mr. Keller wrote. “Indeed, to publish them after seeing the outrage and violence across the Islamic world could be perceived as a particularly deliberate insult,” he said.

“On the other hand,” he continued, “we feel we can quite adequately convey the nature of the cartoons by describing them.” I quite agree. I doubt that the descriptions of the cartoons in Times articles over the past four days have left many readers with any major questions about why the drawings could offend Muslims or why some people might find humor in them.

“Like any decision to withhold elements of a story, this was neither easy nor entirely satisfying,” Mr. Keller wrote, “but it feels like the right thing to do.” It’s a tough call. I’m not going to quarrel with it.

I'm sure that possible threats to NYT journalists, property, or revenue had nothing to do with it. I'm sure nothing at all.

If the NYT had the guts to publish the cartoons the greatest benefit to their readers would not be informing them "why the drawings could offend Muslims", but showing them how innocuous they are.

The cartoon most commonly referred to as the most demeaning:

is neither unfair, demeaning (he looks quite handsome to me), or beside the point. Somehow Muslims would have us believe it is quite natural to send one's son to blow himself and enemy civilians up with explosives in the name of Allah, but beyond the pale to show Muhammad with a bomb.

Puhlease.

And anyone (State Department) suggesting that the cartoons do not help the war on terror, get a clue. This is the war on terror. There is no difference between giving up our freedoms to the threat of terror, or giving them up so that we don't offend the highly sensitive (who just might kill some of most visible offendors).

The Middle East is beginning to look and sound like an overgrown child that threatens to hold its breath and break it toys if it doesn't get its ways. The New York Times, and most of the world look like handwringing parents unwilling or unable to go through the pain of giving some necessary discipline.

Might I suggest a spanking?

Cartoons

2006-02-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

David Conway:

Two things have occurred. The first of these is more directly connected with the cartoons than the second, but in reality, it is but an epi-phenomenon of the second. The second event, although, superficially, only remotely connected with the cartoons, is the real reason they appear to have provoked such a belated escalation of outrage. It also holds the key to why the current rumpus presages something far, far worse.

The first event was a tour of the Middle East last December undertaken by a group of Danish imams to publicise the cartoons. With them, however, they reportedly took, not only the offending cartoons originally published but several other far more offensive ones that, apparently, they had themselves been responsible for producing. In other words, the outrage over the cartoons has been deliberately engineered by a fabrication of the grounds for it.

But who wanted or caused the heat to become so turned up and why at that this particular moment?

The clue to the answers to this second question lies in a second event almost certain to occur to today, if it has not already happened by the time this blog gets posted. This is the likely decision today in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its programme of nuclear research. If that decision should occur, when the UN Security Council gets round to considering what form of sanctions to impose on Iran, guess to whom chairmanship of the Council will have passed. You’ve got it... plucky little Denmark.

Suddenly, the pieces fall into shape. The rumpus suddenly escalated, complete with fabricated offensive cartoons, to so enflame Muslim opinion that Denmark could be intimidated directly through a threatened Muslim boycott of its goods, or indirectly by the EU fearful of a wider boycott, into voting in favour of Iran.

Whatever the Security Council eventually may decide over sanctions against Iran, it is unlikely to deter that country from continuing to develop the technology needed to manufacture nuclear weapons, Prospect of its acquisition of them is likely to trigger a nuclear arms race in the region, as well as, sooner or later, oblige Israel or the US to make some pre-emptive strike against it to prevent its programme from reaching completion.

Of such small things are wars made, an emperor killed, cartoons published, a people to nuke.

I pray that the fecklessness of world leaders do not arrive there.

Muslims

2006-02-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

The point I made in this post is that Muslims, by their actions, are not willing to abide by the lowest level of common decency necessary for a modern society.

I am Mormon. I don't expect the world to give up alcohol and tobacco. Somehow Muslims want to turn their prohibition against illustrating the human form, and in particular the prophet Muhammad's form, into a world wide prohibition. We cannot tolerate this.

As an illustrative example, Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), are frequently confronted with "Christian" agitists of the vile sort trying to provoke conflict. And you don't see them threatening anyone.

A free society needs to protect the freedom to be offensive. I watch South Park, a lot. They've gored my ox a few times. I've even turned off my TV in response once or twice. But the world is a better place because Sourth Park exists, warts and all.

McCain

2006-02-02T21:39:00.000-08:00

Jay Nordlinger:

I thought I could get through my Davos series without groaning over John McCain — but I’m not going to make it. Ignatius introduces him as one who has “worried,” even “anguished,” over Iraq. Sure — because the rest of us have been absolutely sunny about it, and that includes the Iraqis. We have never experienced any worry or anguish. That belongs to the discerning John McCain.

I guarantee you that McCain’s “worry” and “anguish” over Iraq has been a fraction of what President Bush’s has been.

Anyway, McCain tells the crowd that Iraq poses great “challenges,” and that, recent progress notwithstanding, “there’s room for improvement.” In many respects, the Iraqis are “way, way behind.” For example, security is lacking.

Gee, thanks, senator. Good thing he has informed the Iraqis of this — the people who are being shot at every day.

About McCain there is a glibness, a shallowness, a moralism, and this is most unattractive, especially in the midst of those Iraqi democrats, whose necks are on the line.

But everybody loves John McCain. The bandwagon is full to overflowing.

Muhammad

2006-02-02T19:33:00.000-08:00

Michelle Malkin: One, Two, and Three.

Update: I have heard plenty of silly comments today about the cartoons.

As John Hinderaker says "The striking thing about the Mohammed cartoons is how mild they are". None of them rates as offensive as the normal editorial cartoon showing Republicans in my local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle.

And growing up Mormon, I can testify that religious intolerance is an experience shared by many.

What strikes me about the whole episode is that lack of basic civility required for living in a modern society demonstrated by Muslims.

A protest in London. And this by "westernized" Muslims.

As far as I can tell, the major difference between Islam and every other religion is: other religions tell their adherents how to behave; Islam tells how the whole world to behave, to Muslims.

Next they're going to be coming by for their Dhimmi tax.

Instapundit:

Reader John Friedman emails: "I'm sorry. Did I miss the State Dept. analysis of 'Piss Christ?' Perhaps you could link to it."

I'm sorry, but the lesson here is that if you want to be listened to, you should blow things up. That's a very bad incentive structure, but it's the one the allegedly responsible parties have created.

Digital Rights Management

2006-02-01T23:36:00.000-08:00

Robert Bruce Thompson:

DMCA vs. homebrew.

http://www.techliberation.com/archives/032872.php

This article, and the Boing Boing article it links to, talks about how Microsoft is using its DRM as a club to marginalize smaller PC OEMs and home-built PCs. And, although Microsoft has a justifiably horrible reputation for supporting DRM, Apple is as bad or worse, but in subtler ways.

Wendy Grossman wrote an article for The Inquirer a couple weeks ago, in which she presents a "Digital Rights Manifesto". She ended the article by asking, "How's that for a start?" I replied that it was a terrible start, because the whole point of her manifesto was to make DRM palatable to a wide audience, which is exactly the wrong approach.

Simply put, the central question of DRM is who should have control of your computer and the data stored on it. If you think you should be in control of your own computer and data, then you must recognize DRM as the enemy. If you support any form of DRM, including such "benign" forms as those Apple uses for iTunes, then you are ceding control of your computer and your data to corporations and governments.

When I was an accounting software proffessional, my question for any, ANY, accounting software package was, "How do I get my data out to transfer to another system?" Because someday, somewhere that was going to be the key question. Maybe when the company had quadrupled in size three times, and acquired two new product lines, or more likely when the CEO wanted his budgets with color graphs the following month.

The rule should be, its your program and you get to decide how its used, but its my data, and I have to be able to decide how its used.

My daughter has an iPod. Yeah its the best player out there. But iTunes is Apples way of forcing her to buy Apple hardware forever. Either that, or rebuy her music collection over again.

I won't go there.

NSA

2006-01-27T21:14:00.000-08:00

Richard Posner:

The revelation by The New York Times that the National Security Agency (NSA) is conducting a secret program of electronic surveillance outside the framework of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (fisa) has sparked a hot debate in the press and in the blogosphere. But there is something odd about the debate: It is aridly legal. Civil libertarians contend that the program is illegal, even unconstitutional; some want President Bush impeached for breaking the law. The administration and its defenders have responded that the program is perfectly legal; if it does violate fisa (the administration denies that it does), then, to that extent, the law is unconstitutional. This legal debate is complex, even esoteric. But, apart from a handful of not very impressive anecdotes (did the NSA program really prevent the Brooklyn Bridge from being destroyed by blowtorches?), there has been little discussion of the program's concrete value as a counterterrorism measure or of the inroads it has or has not made on liberty or privacy.

I think I'll take Richard Posner's word on legality over that of journalists quoting Founders out of context.

PS. Posner makes an excellant point:

The recent leaks from within the FBI, expressing skepticism about the NSA program, reflect the FBI's continuing inability to internalize intelligence values.

Anyone who's read history of intelligence during WWII would recognize the symptoms. They have changed much on the subject in 60 years. The decision to give them counter-intelligence authority needs to be rethought.

For that matter, we would all probably be better off without both the FBI in intelligence, and the CIA entirely.

Hamas

2006-01-26T21:40:00.000-08:00

So Hamas won the Palestinian elections. Can't say I'm surprised. What did get me today though was all the talking heads saying that this was a set back for the "peace process".

Listen, when one side is busily negotiating and the other side is busily building bombs, there is no peace process.

When one side is busy raising their kids to be doctors and lawyers and engineers, and the other side is busy raising their kids to be self propelled bombs, there is no peace process.

When one side is negotiating land for peace, and the other side is drawing maps showing all the land as theirs, there is no peace process.

When one side has a vibrant activist peace movement, and the other side kills its "collaborators", there is no peace process.

And there won't be for decades. The genius of the Gaza pullout was that Sharon did it independant of anything the Palastinians might say or do.

Marxism Revisited

2006-01-25T18:50:00.000-08:00

Eric S. Raymond:

So: we know the Soviets aimed to apply Gramscian subversion as a war weapon against the West, we know they believed themselves to have succeeded in significant ways, and the dominant cultures of the entertainment industry, the press, and academia behave today precisely as we would expect if they had succeeded in those ways (that is, they sneer at traditional values and patriotism and exhibit pervasive left-wing and anti-American bias). Still think my analysis of academia's decline is so wrong?

Getting back to the thread topic, otherwise intelligent people like Jaron Lanier still screw up their thinking about technology and capitalism by obsessing about "unfairness to the poor" in exactly the same wrongheaded ways the KGB found so useful in 1950, even though today's "poor" are overweight from having too much to eat and own cars and air-conditioners and cellphones. Few things are more pathetic than Marxist cant that doesn't know itself to be Marxist cant, but we hear it constantly—and that is Stalin's victory, toxic memes successfully poisoning our discourse long after the despotism that spawned them has died.

We won the cold war, but little realize how much it cost us. It cost us our culture, an entire decade, and a good part of an entire generation. We are still paying the cost.

Joel Stein:

I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.

I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.

And I've got no problem with other people — the ones who were for the Iraq war — supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of.

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else.

This is the statement of a man coming from outstanding privilege. So outstanding that I doubt he is unable to comprehend that his position in life is due more to birth and luck than initiative. Someone who believes that bullies exist because of the intransigence of their victims, and that if the US military went home nobody would want to fight us.

Update - from a serviceman on TKS:

But as far as whether anyone supports us… look, we are here so that they can have the right to not support us. They are too stupid to realize this… they think the wonderful elysian utopia that is the U.S. is the natural state of things. They don’t seem to understand or comprehend that our nation and its awesome lifestyle and our freedoms are built on the blood and limbs of brave men… and the Constitution is not defended by whining, sniveling eggheads like Tribe and Chemerensky [a lawyer representing Guantanamo Bay prisoners], not defended by overpaid empty suits like Jon Stewart and that smug blowhard Maher….

It’s defended primarily by young men from working class backgrounds who are willing to lay it all on the line for a myriad of reasons… manhood, patriotism, love of their fellow soldiers and Marines, etc. These are concepts that the privileged, protected effete slime like Stein and Dowd could never comprehend. It’s alien to them. And this is what incenses me…that the Dowds, Steins, Ivins, Goodmans, Riches, etc, etc, have a forum whereby they are rewarded with fame, money, prestige, etc, for spewing their toxic nonsense.

This has been long and rambling. Let me finish by saying, when people say they support the troops, it’s basically a catchphrase for saying thank you, I think. It’s a nice gesture and I appreciate it. But when they say they support the troops and not the war, I know they are liars, b/c I do believe that all Stein said was what they all really believe. They all look down on us my friend… we are all either defective as persons, ignorant, poor, etc, etc, for joining the military. They don’t get it…they just don’t get it.

Where's the Outrage

2006-01-22T11:37:00.000-08:00

Thomas Lifson:

There is no evidence visible to me that the New York Times is pursuing the matter of how AFP came to supply it with what amounts to a propaganda photo. If they are doing so, it is rather discreet. Call me crazy, but I think it should be of some deep concern that they are being fed fake photos from the French.

The fake photo lives on in other publications, too. The Times has not exactly done its part to undo the damage it did. The correction it published implicitly puts the blame on AFP. The misspelling of “ordnance” as “ordinance” speaks again to the lack of military exposure of the combined AFP/Times quality assurance effort.

But most importantly, the correction does not address the real significance of the error: the fact that the picture must be a fake, staged with a prop piece of ordnance, not a missile.

Bill Keller must have read my article before he responded to my article, no? If he is in the habit of sending responses to articles he hasn’t read, he is even more arrogant and careless than I thought. So assuming he read my article, he knows that he has published a fake picture. And AFP gave it to him.

To quote Bob Dole, Where’s the outrage?

Bill Keller’s lack of protest over being had, his lack of evident resolve to get to the bottom of the situation, and his unwillingness to confront the actual criticism I made suggest some pretty ugly conclusions. He has been duped and he is content to pretend it is all just a little thing, not his fault, and that doesn’t matter very much, anyway. Or so it seems.

Is this really the extent of his regard for publishing the truth?

Freedom

2006-01-17T21:00:00.000-08:00

via Jay Nordlinger:

A Hawaii Special Forces soldier was shot in the head during a firefight in Afghanistan and lived to tell an amazing story. The military honored Army Master Sgt. Suran Sar at Camp Smith with a Silver Star. The prestigious medal is the military's fourth highest award.
Sar was leading a 12-member team on an aerial reconnaissance mission in March. When the two helicopters they were in landed, the soldiers came under attack. Sar jumped out and chased an enemy fighter into a bunker.

"As soon as I entered the door, the guy shot me first," said Sar. "He shot at me three times. Two missed and one hit me in the head."

The bullet left a hole in the right side of his helmet, but the 39-year-old only suffered a scratch and bump on his forehead. Sar kept fighting to help the rest of his team pinned down by gunfire. The soldiers secured the area and seized several weapons after the fierce fight.

"His actions under overwhelming direct enemy fire, even after receiving a head wound, were instrumental in securing the objective area and the survival of his fellow soldiers," said Maj. Greg Kalua of Special Operations Command, Pacific.

Sar is from Cambodia. He became an American citizen in 1986 to seek a better life after leaving his war-torn country.

"I lost most of my family there, and nobody here can tell me what it's like, the loss of freedom," said Sar. "I don't have kids, but when my kid comes out, I don't want him to have to live like me when I grew up."

After seeing his comrades killed in other battles, Sar is grateful to be alive.

Business Plans

2006-01-11T21:40:00.000-08:00

Joel Stein:

Number One. Don’t start a business if you can’t explain what pain it solves, for whom, and why your product will eliminate this pain, and how the customer will pay to solve this pain. The other day I went to a presentation of six high tech startups and not one of them had a clear idea for what pain they were proposing to solve. I saw a startup that was building a way to set a time to meet your friends for coffee, a startup that wanted you to install a plug-in in your browser to track your every movement online in exchange for being able to delete things from that history, and a startup that wanted you to be able to leave text messages for your friend that were tied to a particular location (so if they ever walked past the same bar they could get a message you had left for them there). What they all had in common was that none of them solved a problem, and all of them were as doomed as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

I once did the marketing plan for a company looking for funding. The secret was that it was planning on being in a commodity market, that wasn't obviously commodities. It hasn't funded yet, and may not ever.

But I have been there once.

He also predicts start-up first month sales. And I believe him. It's well worth reading.

2nd Amendment

2006-01-06T20:23:00.001-08:00

via Irons in the Fire:

"Some people think that the Second Amendment is an outdated relic of an earlier time. Doubtless some also think that constitutional protections of other rights are outdated relics of earlier times. We The People own those rights regardless, unless and until We The People repeal them. For those who believe it to be outdated, the Second Amendment provides a good test of whether their allegiance is really to the Constitution of the United States, or only to their preferences in public policies and audiences. The Constitution is law, not vague aspirations, and we are obligated to protect, defend, and apply it. If the Second Amendment were truly an outdated relic, the Constitution provides a method for repeal. The Constitution does not furnish the federal courts with an eraser." --9th Circuit Court Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, dissenting opinion in which the court refused to rehear the case while citing deeply flawed anti-Second Amendment nonsense (Nordyke v. King; opinion filed April 5, 2004)

Disunity

2006-01-04T19:16:00.000-08:00

Powerline:

The deep, potentially crippling disunity that alarms Blankley stems not from the president's rhetorical shortcomings. It stems primarily from the fact that many Democrats (including some key Democratic leaders) and many influential members of the MSM hate conservatives, George W. Bush, and much about the country that has placed Bush in power, more than they hate the people who are trying to kill us.

In a unipolar world, the real fight is over who controls America. The assumption is that America will win whatever fight it enters. The goal is to keep it from fighting.

Complexity Theory

2006-01-01T15:51:00.000-08:00

Michael Chricton:

Now, if we are to do better in this new century, what must we do differently? In a word, we must embrace complexity theory. We must understand complex systems.

We live in a world of complex systems. The environment is a complex system. The government is a complex system. Financial markets are complex systems. The human mind is a complex system---most minds, at least.

By a complex system I mean one in which the elements of the system interact among themselves, such that any modification we make to the system will produce results that we cannot predict in advance.

Furthermore, a complex system demonstrates sensitivity to initial conditions. You can get one result on one day, but the identical interaction the next day may yield a different result. We cannot know with certainty how the system will respond.

Third, when we interact with a complex system, we may provoke downstream consequences that emerge weeks or even years later. We must always be watchful for delayed and untoward consequences.

Michael Chriton's speeches are always worth the trip. This one is good just for the history of Yellowstone. But it has much more.

But most troubling of all, according to the UN report in 2005, is that "the largest public health problem created by the accident" is the "damaging psychological impact [due] to a lack of accurate information…[manifesting] as negative self-assessments of health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of initiative, and dependency on assistance from the state."

In other words, the greatest damage to the people of Chernobyl was caused by bad information. These people weren’t blighted by radiation so much as by terrifying but false information. We ought to ponder, for a minute, exactly what that implies. We demand strict controls on radiation because it is such a health hazard. But Chernobyl suggests that false information can be a health hazard as damaging as radiation. I am not saying radiation is not a threat. I am not saying Chernobyl was not a genuinely serious event.

But thousands of Ukrainians who didn’t die were made invalids out of fear. They were told to be afraid. They were told they were going to die when they weren’t. They were told their children would be deformed when they weren’t. They were told they couldn’t have children when they could. They were authoritatively promised a future of cancer, deformities, pain and decay. It’s no wonder they responded as they did.

In fact, we need to recognize that this kind of human response is well-documented. Authoritatively telling people they are going to die can in itself be fatal.

Iraq 2005

2006-01-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Strategy Page:

The column placed the January 2005 Palestinian and Iraqi elections in historical context. These were not the revolutions of generals with tanks and terrorists with fatwas, but the slow revolutions of the ballot box, with political moderates and liberal reformers the genuinely revolutionary vanguard. To massage Churchill's phrase, these revolts were the beginning of democratic politics, where "jaw jaw" begins to replace "war war" and "terror terror."

These slow revolts against tyranny and terror continue, and are the "big story" of 2005 and the truly "big history" of our time.

Partisan, ignorant, fear-filled rhetoric tends to obscure this big history, in part because the big story moves slowly. The democratic revolt is grand drama, but it doesn't cram into a daily news cycle, much less into "news updates" every 30 minutes.

"There is none so blind as they that won't see. " You can even google it.

Iraq has thrice voted, and the world is changed. And some would turn the clock back for short term partisan purposes.

Worse is those that believe that Arabs are incapable of either democracy or freedom.

And sad to say, there are those who believe that draining the terrorist swamp is not sufficient reason for spending American blood and treasure.

Fortunately the deed is done and cannot be returned as long as we stay the course for the next few years.

Kwanzaa

2005-12-30T16:49:00.000-08:00

Ann Coulter:

Kwanzaa itself is a lunatic blend of schmaltzy '60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. Indeed, the seven "principles" of Kwanzaa praise collectivism in every possible arena of life Â economics, work, personality, even litter removal. ("Kuumba: Everyone should strive to improve the community and make it more beautiful.") It takes a village to raise a police snitch.

When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from "classical Marxism," he essentially explained that under Kawaida, we also hate whites.

Not to disparage anybody's belief system or anything, but . . .

For something that is neither traditional, African, religious, or a holiday, which was started by paranoid felon, torturer, abuser, and FBI informant (with some not sure which gets more traction) Kwanzaa get an amazing amount traction and good press.

Hoaxers to Whores

2005-12-30T16:30:00.000-08:00

Kathleen Parker:

Men haven't turned away from smart, successful women because they're smart and successful. More likely they've turned away because the feminist movement that encouraged women to be smart and successful also encouraged them to be hostile and demeaning to men.

Whatever was wrong, men did it. During the past 30 years, they've been variously characterized as male chauvinist pigs, deadbeat dads or knuckle-dragging abusers who beat their wives on Super Bowl Sunday. At the same time women wanted men to be wage earners, they also wanted them to act like girlfriends: to time their contractions, feed and diaper the baby, and go antiquing.

And then, when whatshisname inevitably lapsed into guy-ness, women wanted him to disappear. If children were involved, women got custody and men got an invoice. The eradication of men and fathers from children's lives has been feminism's most despicable accomplishment. Half of all children will sleep tonight in a home where their father does not live.

Did we really think men wouldn't mind?

Meanwhile, when we're not bashing men, we're diminishing manhood. Look around at entertainment and other cultural signposts and you see a feminized culture that prefers sanitized men - hairless, coiffed, buffed and, if possible, gay. Men don't know whether to be "metrosexuals" getting pedicures, or "groomzillas" obsessing about wedding favors, or the latest, "ubersexuals" - yes to the coif, no to androgyny.

As far as I can tell, real men don't have a problem with smart, successful women. But they do mind being castrated. It's a guy thing. They do mind being told in so many ways that they are superfluous.

Even now, the latest book to fuel the feminist flames of male alienation is Peggy Drexler's lesbian guide to guilt-free narcissism, "Raising Boys Without Men." Is it possible to raise boys without men? Sure. Is it right? You may find your answer by imagining a male-authored book titled: "Raising Girls Without Women."

Speaking as a divorced man, the only part of my parenting that is valued is my child support payments. That is the only part of the divorce decree and its aftermath that is actually, effectively inforced. The rest is just lip service. Too much chance of men not buying into it.

And the continual mantra of deciding for what's best for the child is just that, a mantra. I've yet to see a single decision decided on the welfare of my child. And forget about my other children. Unless my wife divorces me they are persona non-grata to the court. Well not quite. The court does allow them half of much of my support as my first child.

Sorry. I'm letting my bitter divorced male through.

But I do wonder when society is going to figure out it has a boy problem that can't be solved by drugs (the legal kind). Especially considering that the boys will turn into men.

For My Son

2005-12-30T16:24:00.000-08:00

via Roger Schultz:

Oligopolies & P2P

2005-12-30T14:04:00.000-08:00

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. If there is any place in the world other than London, NY or LA that should have exciting vibrant music, this is it. And it doesn't.

It doesn't have a good country station (good as defined as one with adequate power closer than 3 counties away). The only high power jazz station (KKSF 103.7 - "smooth jazz", my dentist plays it) is only jazz when compared to folk music or acid rock. There are two classical stations, both of which seem to take there cue from the San Francisco Symphony to "educate" their listeners by regularly playing obscure 19th century and 20th century disharmonic crap (though listening this past week wasn't bad, maybe management has changed, though probably it's just because of Christmas). And the rock stations seem to be either programmed for teenagers, or are playing the same songs over and over and over that caused me to stop listening to them ten years ago.

Robert Bruce Thompson:

Creatives are quite capable of churning out good new content and lots of it. The death of rockÂnÂroll was not due to a lack of good new material, it was caused--IMO--by radio stations refusing to play from a broad range of the hundred or more records released every week, and instead, adopting tight playlists of 20 to 30 songs played for months before being removed, and almost never allowing the plethora of good new entries to be heard at all. That dried up the music industry, the repetition drove audiences away, and ultimately killed the biggest mass-market that radio ever had--and it was HUGE: ABC supported the development of its television network for many of its early years, including the switch to color, with the massive revenue of its own rockÂnÂroll radio stations in the top 5 markets. But just as Jerry P. points out that Microsoft did not grow to be a giant with egregious copy protection and registration schemes, the tightening noose of programming policies at immensely successful radio stations, killed the goose with the golden eggs.

If the radio, television, and movie industries would stop demanding that every product they release have instant-hit potential, eternal shelf-life, and--for music albums--12 hit singles, and instead, nurture a return to producing new product and lots of it, there would be little need for copyright protection. The focus would be on new product and more of it, not on outrageous legal and physical limitations aimed at squeezing every penny from each existing product in the catalog.

The problem is that neither the people that make the music, nor the people that listen to the music control the music. Music is controlled by the people distributing the music. And they're fighting to keep it. Same for the movie industry. And the weapon they are using is IP, intellectual property.

IP is actually two things. The first is a meme, the idea that ones thoughts and creations are property the same as land and material possessions. The second is a legal structure that codifies and reinforces this perception.

The original idea of IP in patents and copywrite was that government gave limited protection to authors and inventors so as to encourage production for the benefit of society. This has morphed into the government maintaining these "rights" for the benefit of, not artists and inventors, but their employers and distributors. All in the name of constitutional protection of "property".

This past month I read Hernando de Soto's The Mystery of Capital. Highly recommended. Right up there with The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor.

Speaking of real property (as in real estate) Mr. de Soto:

The crucial point to understand is that property is not a physical thing that can be photographed or mapped. Property is not a primary quality of assets but the legal expression of an economically meaningful consensus about assets. Law is the instrument that fixes and realizes capital.

pg 157, The Mystery of Capital

Law, in other words, should reflect the consensus about property. In America it obviously doesn't, just as the Federal 55mph speed law didn't.

Congress, that highly respondent body to the Golden Rule (He who has the gold makes the rules), has been slowly shifting IP law in favor of owners (versus artists) and distributors. This is also reinforced by all politicians propensity to enforce the past power structures instead of future ones.

The legal outcome the country is moving towards will result in a system where companies own IP produced by individuals under contract, and only a license is sold to consumers. The license will allow the playing or use embodied in a single physical mechanism. The mechanism (CD, book, download, etc) may not be transferable, and any use of the IP with any other physical mechanism will require a new license.

In many respects we are effectively there. It doesn't matter how many times in the past I have bought a song. I could have bought it on 8track, cassette, 45, album, and CD. And try using that to justify converting your CD to MP3 if there is copy protection on it, even a 10 second clip. You may have the "fair use" rights to use something, but not the legal ability.

And they are trying to enforce a similar defacto system onto digital television. Right now cable systems are not allowed (in most circumstances) to carry broadcast TV without payments. All at the urging of broadcast station owners. Why included commercials are good enough on the air, but not over cable (which will expand their audience) is beyond me.

I suspect that 200 years from now we will look on the studio system the same way we currently look at the guild system. That is via historians that don't view guilds as prototypes for modern socialism.

Funny how we keep seeming to have the same arguments over and over again.

Haircuts

2005-12-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

With todays culture, ethics, and environment, if you are raising a boy, letting him have a pony tail or an ear ring is just asking for trouble.

Contrair-wise: stay away from a boy with either. This goes double for girl observers. And speaking from experience, the men they grow up into can be trouble too.

I don't know which is cause and which is effect, but the correlation is definitely there.

Santa

2005-12-28T21:23:00.000-08:00

Santa was good this year and brought me a new CZ carbine in 7.62x39.

While I was at the dealer filling out the paper work I saw a stack of videos including Shaun of the Dead. I joked that I was tempted to show it to my kids after telling them that this is why Daddy buys guns.

The real reason has more to do with this. You can live in hope that nothing bad will ever happen, wait for the police to take a report after something bad happens, or take responsibility for what happens. Kind of like in New Orleans a few months ago.

As one plywood sign propped outside a New Orleans house said, "One dog, two claw hammers, shotgun and ugly woman inside. Don’t even think about looting."

I was thinking the other day. "We're at war. It is going to last years. The enemy is already here. Why wouldn't I want weapons."

Just like Red Dawn.

Jed Eckert...The Leader...
Which Red Dawn Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

That's the ticket.

Rules to Live By

2005-12-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

From the AnarchAngel,
The 20 things I know about Kids.

I can't say that I'm as disciplined as his rules say. But then I can get away with it because of who my kids are, genuinely nice, and a little spacey.

The hard part about giving child rearing advice is that I know about my kids, but I don't know so much about your kids.

One of the secrets of life is that kids tend to follow their parents (for lots of reasons), and so the people with the most potential for insight into them is their parents.

Livin' High

2005-12-26T13:00:00.000-08:00

on eggnog and stuffing.

I finally got my computer completely fixed. It only took slipstreaming XP Service Pack Two into an installation disk and doing a repair install.

Oh, well. I'm never installing free unsought software again.

Kentucky

2005-12-16T17:49:00.000-08:00

FG:

Once again I am blown away by the KY public servants. I parked my car downtown in a private lot (1.00/hr) and walked the 3 blocks to the sheriff’ office. Going thru the door and expecting a gate and metal detector, found only a smiling black officer who, noticing the big manila envelope, said, unsolitedly, “6^th floor, turn right, the CCDW office is the 2^nd door on your right”.
Remember my driver’s license story? Same thing. No one was manning the window, but this nice 60’ish lady got up from another window came over, filed out the application, took my picture, collected 65.00. Thanked me for being prepared with the right paper work, gave me my receipt and said that the state was getting them back in 3 to 4 weeks instead of 5 to 6. She was very pleasant, cheerful and polite and blushed when I compared her to the CA crowd. All in all, it took longer to get a cup of Starbuck’s after, than it had to apply for the permit. And she was a bit rude.

So, I’m home and about to go over to Shooter’s and install a laserMax in the recoil spring of my .45.

Damn I love KY.

And you should hear his story about dealing with Kentuckies DMV. Fast, no line, and polite. Kind of like Kevin Costner's line in "Bull Durham" about women in the big leagues having brains and legs.

I'm gettin out of California as soon as I can manage it. Probably about when I hit 65.

Virus

2005-12-14T20:02:00.000-08:00

I did something really, really stupid the other day. I let a virus install itself on my computer. The virus was called Spy Axe.

It installed with a bunch of other things, but Spy Axe was the bad one.

My first hint was that IE didn't initially open my home page (Instapundit, what else?). I was annoyed, but I didn't think too much about it because the page looked official, and both Microsoft and Symantec products tend to act like viruses at times. (Makes you wonder what their real intention is).

But then I got this little beauty.

I ran my Norton anti-Virus, Spybot, and AdAware. They cleaned some stuff off (not much, I try to run clean). So I googled the warning message text starting with stealth and ending with dll. From that I learned that I was infected with Spy Axe/Spy Trooper. So I googled that.

And found this.

Found the cure to the SpyAxe popup activity! I actually got desperate enough to complain last night through their website email form. Tonight I got a reply from them stating a lot of complaints came through due to affiliate's illegal advertising of their product. They provide a simple fix that really worked. Here is the instructions they sent:
------------------
In order to clean your PC from infections related to Spyware Axe product, please follow the instructions below:
1) Save Uninstallers.zip from http://www.spyaxe.com/uninstall/uninstallers.zip to your desktop or HDD.

2) Extract 2 files "illegal_adv_uninstall1.exe" and "illegal_adv_uninstall2.exe" to your desktop or your HDD using WinZip.

3) Execute both of them one by one by double-clicking with your mouse.

4) Reboot your PC

He seemed a little naive, but I tried it. I went to their site, downloaded the uninstall file, and ran it. Maybe I was a little naive too. It didn't work.

It either:

didn't work.
worked, but an additional little nastiness was installed when I was originally infected that reinstalled the program every time I rebooted.
the uninstall program loaded that little piece of nastiness.

My next attempt to me to this page. About three or four hours later I did my final reboot. Success! My IE home page was no longer hijacked. Unfortunately Spy Axe was still trying to install itself every time I rebooted. Fortunately Norton Anti-Virus was blocking it from installing. Unfortunately it closed IE every time it did.

Second Day.

So now I figured that there was a file in Windows that was corrupted, or replaced, that was kept re-installing the program. So I turned off System Restore in Computer Properties, and then sorted the files in my Windows/System32 directory by date modified. Then I deleted every file modified the day before my system was corrupted.

IOCTRL.DLL would not delete. So I opened Task Manager to close it down. Couldn't see it. I rebooted into Safe Mode (press F8 repeated while booting). Tried to delete it again. This has always worked for me before, but damn it didn't this time.

So I opened Task Manager again to close the process. This time I knew it wasn't me. There was only a handful of processes open, and I knew all of them were not IOCTRL.DLL. "Damn this virus is evil!"

By this time it is after midnight . I give up and go to bed.

Third day.

Feeling more alert I take another look at the problem. I try running AdAware again in SafeMode. I still can't remove the file. I use Hijack This to see if that can kill something effective. No luck. Then I got smart. I had downloaded Kill Box the first day. So I used it to delete the file.

Now my computer is virus free. All I got to do is repair the damage I did getting it that way. A repair installation of windows shouldn't be too hard, should it?

Lessons learned:

Never ever install unsought free software. Taanstafl.
Use FireFox.
Don't trust virus authors to uninstall their viruses.
Learn Linux.

Optimism

2005-12-14T18:02:00.000-08:00

Ben Connable:
@ the Washington Post

It is difficult for most Americans to rationalize this optimism in the face of the horrific images and depressing stories that have come to symbolize the war in Iraq. Most of the violent news is true; the death and destruction are very real. But experienced military officers know that the horror stories, however dramatic, do not represent the broader conditions there or the chances for future success. For every vividly portrayed suicide bombing, there are hundreds of thousands of people living quiet, if often uncertain, lives. For every depressing story of unrest and instability there is an untold story of potential and hope. The impression of Iraq as an unfathomable quagmire is false and dangerously misleading.

It is this false impression that has led us to a moment of national truth. The proponents of the quagmire vision argue that the very presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is the cause of the insurgency and that our withdrawal would give the Iraqis their only true chance for stability. Most military officers and NCOs with ground experience in Iraq know that this vision is patently false. Although the presence of U.S. forces certainly inflames sentiment and provides the insurgents with targets, the anti-coalition insurgency is mostly a symptom of the underlying conditions in Iraq. It may seem paradoxical, but only our presence can buffer the violence enough to allow for eventual stability.
The precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops would almost certainly lead to a violent and destabilizing civil war. The Iraqi military is not ready to assume control and would not miraculously achieve competence in our absence. As we left, the insurgency would turn into internecine violence, and Iraq would collapse into a true failed state. The fires of the Iraqi civil war would spread, and terrorists would find a new safe haven from which to launch attacks against our homeland.

Anyone who has spent even a day in the Middle East should know that the Arab street would not thank us for abandoning Iraq. The blame for civil war would fall squarely on our shoulders.

The people arguing for an immediate withdrawal are not serious. The last thing they want is to be blamed for "losing" Iraq. I mean losing in the sense that we used to talk of "losing" Russia shortly after the breakup of the USSR.

The very people who used to argue against going into Iraq because a. Iraqi's weren't capable of democracy, and b. it would devolve into civil war are now arguing that we should leave immediately, or as close to it as possible. Egads, shades of 1973.

Now we are on the verge of winning. The Sunni's are buying into voting. Iraqi's are turning against Al Zaqauri . We are slowing taking apart the rat lines in western Iraq, and puting in place permanent Iraqi troops.

And they want to pull out.

I believe the real thing they fear is victory. That, and a world that doesn't require expert supervision by the superior and the annointed.

Go to Hell

2005-12-13T22:14:00.000-08:00

Video on Political Teen:
via Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

Iraqi voter, “Anybody who doesn’t appreciate what America has done and President Bush, let them go to hell”.

Seasons Greetings

2005-12-12T23:09:00.000-08:00

Ding Fries Are Done.

via Sondra K

Moral Conscience

2005-12-11T10:20:00.001-08:00

Amir Taheri:
via Powerline

But there was an even bigger reason why I was interested in the occasion. The FPA had decided to award its very first prize for a dialogue of cultures to Akbar Ganji, an Iranian investigative reporter who is on a hunger strike in Tehran's Evin Prison.

Together with several colleagues, I had been trying for months to persuade the Western media to take an interest in Ganji, a former Khomeinist revolutionary who is now campaigning for human rights and democracy. But we never got anywhere because of one small hitch: President Bush had spoken publicly in support of Ganji and called for his immediate release.

And that, as far as a good part of the Western media is concerned, amounts to a kiss of death. How could newspapers that portray Bush as the world's biggest "violator of human rights" endorse his call in favor of Ganji?

To overcome that difficulty, some of Ganji's friends had tried to persuade him to make a few anti-American, more specifically anti-Bush, pronouncements so that the Western media could adopt him as a "hero-martyr." Two years ago, similar advice had been given to Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian lawyer who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She was made to understand one stark fact of contemporary life: You will not be accepted as a champion of human rights unless you attack the United States.
Ebadi had accepted the advice and used her address during the prize ceremony in Oslo to launch a bitter attack on the United States as the arch-violator of human rights. To the surprise of many Iranians, she had eulogized the 400 or so alleged terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay, but made no mention of the thousands of political prisoners, including some of her own friends and clients, who languish in mullah-run prisons throughout Iran.
Would Ganji adopt a similar tactic in order to get media attention in the West? The answer came last January and it was a firm no.

There is something wrong when our leaders of moral conscience cannot tell the bad guys from the good. There is something even more wrong with us when they insist that martyrs of moral conscience compromise themselves before they recognise or help them.

There is an aspect of the emporers new clothes to all the moral preening of the glitterata and other elites. Perhaps it was always thus.

But the starkness of the contrast between those who have and would free a country, and those who have and would enslave it . . .well it would take someone of complete moral blindness to miss it.

Dems

2005-12-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

explained by Chris Muir. Governor Dean elaborates.

One year ago they were saying that they would have done the war better.

Six months ago they were saying that we didn't have enough troops in Iraq.

Now they want to declare victory and surrendur.

Yes, for some the Vietnam parallels will never end.

Sunni Intransigence

2005-12-06T18:56:00.000-08:00

William J. Stuntz:

The third lesson is the most important. Brief wars rarely produce permanent results, but long wars often do. Had McClellan's army taken Richmond and ended the war early in 1862, slavery and secessionism would have survived, and "the South shall rise again" would have been a prediction rather than a slogan. Hitler conquered most of Western Europe--Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and France--in a two-month campaign in the spring and early summer of 1940. It took five years to undo the conquest. But the long, hard slog to Berlin worked: The Thousand-Year Reich was ended centuries before its self-proclaimed expiration date. Napoleon's marshals occupied Spain in a few months in 1808. It took Wellington and Spanish guerrillas six years to dislodge the French. But the dislodging lasted: In the 19 decades since, no French government has ruled an acre of the Iberian Peninsula.

What would have happened had the second Iraq war turned out like the first, as the White House apparently expected? Saddam would have been toppled, the Iraqi people would have celebrated, order would have been restored quickly, followed by a speedy exit for British and American troops. Then what? Maybe the rule of Iran-style Shia mullahs, perhaps another brutal Sunni autocrat to take the place of the last one, possibly an endless civil war between the two. Today, there is a real chance of a vastly better result--precisely because the insurgency survived, because it wasn't quickly defeated. Sunni intransigence needed to be crushed slowly; a quick in-and-out war was not enough to kill the dream of forever tyrannizing Iraqi Kurds and Shia. More important, thousands of senseless murders over the past 32 months have taught Iraqis--Sunni, Shia, and Kurd alike--just how vicious Zarqawi and his allies are. That lesson will have very useful consequences for the long-term health of the region.

Shooting

2005-12-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

I went to the range yesterday with my son. Not only did he do well, and carried two pockets worth of used brass, but I did so also.

I have been having difficulty with my right retina. The doctor was saying that there wasn't much to do about it, except possibly to get shots of cortison in the eyeball to reduce swelling. Which to me seemed more than slightly related to thumb screws.

Two weeks ago when I went shooting I couldn't make out the white dots on my sights with my right eye. I was seriously considering learning to shoot with my left, which wouldn't be too hard with my pistol, but a little more difficult with my bolt action rifles.

Losing functional use of my eye has been difficult in other ways also, and long term could be a harbinger of more seerious problems. I don't know any blind or semi-blind accountants. Computer use would change also, and recreational reading could get pretty restricted.

Prayer seemed my only hope.

Yesterday I suddenly realized that I could see the white dots of my sights. Not only could I see them, I saw them without distortion. Checking further I realized that I was seeing better with my right eye than my left (which is normal for me).

God is good.

Digital Rights Management

2005-12-03T21:36:00.000-08:00

Stewart Baker (Bush Administration):
via Instapundit

It's your intellectual property -- it's not your computer.

I figure the digital rights management craze is like copy protection and dongles in the 1980's. At some point publishers will figure out that they make more money without strong restrictions.

But in the meantime consumers/voters need to watch out for politicians that believe intellectual property is a natural right.

The Muddled Middle

2005-11-29T20:19:00.000-08:00

Today I have seen one of the scariest sights I have ever beheld. I have seen that vast font of electoral wisdom, the undecided middle. I talked with a woman that is considered "conservative" for our area, the San Francisco Bay Area.

She likes Thomas Sowell, and her representative George Miller. Thomas Sowell, if anything, is either more conservative or more libitarian than I am. George Miller comes from the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. If she actually understood and believed Thomas Sowell, there would be little, if anything to like about George Miller.

She thinks it is the job of politicians to bring federal money home, and the government to do more for people, by which she accounts Diane Feinstein and George Miller are doing well. But she also laments the changes she sees in her community, rising crime and decreasing personal responsibility among them.

A woman who thought Willy Brown did a bad job in the state legislature, and was glad to see him removed by term limits, but who also thought he was just fine as Mayor of San Francisco. Though he was equally corrupt in both positions, he was much less criticized for it while mayor.

I end it here. I ventured as far as I dared today. I'm afraid of what I would have found if I discussed Clinton. Either one of them.

Democrats

2005-11-29T19:52:00.000-08:00

The Democrats have been like gamblers doubling down after every losing bet. Losing in 2000 and 2002 they decided to confront Bush in 2004.

Having lost in 2004 they are doubling down again, hoping to create an Iraqi withdrawal that they can spin as US/Bush loss, knowing their negative spin will create the very conditions they are hoping for. Because almost the only way we can lose now is through losing heart, and giving up.

It once was said that politics stopped at the waters edge. This went the way of many things, like Senate comity, Judicial restraint, bipartisanship, and journalist integrity.

In a way these are all linked. Because before the real question to be answered was who was going to win the war, us or them. But now, in unipolar hyperpower world the question is who will win here. So some feel justified to cheat.

In a simpler age:

And yet, neither Dewey nor Willkie chose to make partisan or campaign issues of any of these things. Indeed, on the signal event of the era, they remained virtually silent. Why?

Wendell Willkie explains:

“If I could write my own epitaph and if I had to choose between saying, ‘Here lies an unimportant President,’ or ‘Here lies one who contributed to saving freedom at a moment of great peril,’ I would prefer the latter.”

And thus too Thomas Dewey:

“I would rather lose the presidency and win the war than the reverse.”

The reason for their silence was simple: both cared more for American victory at war than any advantage of their own.

And in the comments:

Paul Seale Says:
November 28th, 2005 at 10:26 pm
It is never easy to put country before personal ambition - but I believe that these men did that. I believe there is a generational gap in those who are running for office now and those in the past. Many who run now look for the short term implications and impulses instead of what may be truly in the best interest of the nation.

That said it is up to us, the electorate, to make that decision and vote for who has the best vision of the future and must hold the candidates accountable.

rivlax Says:
November 29th, 2005 at 4:46 am
No. 1, your statement (”It is never easy to put country before personal ambition.”) says it all. That’s how far we’ve come. In 1940 I think that would have read: “It is always easy to put country before personal ambition.”

Our problem is not so much that our politicians have gotten smaller, there have always been vain and venal men seeking power, but that our voters have become more willing to listen to their blandishments and be seduced by their enticements.

We have an electorate that expects to have their cake and eat it too, and will vote out any that says differently.

Randy Cunningham

2005-11-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

San Jose Mercury News:

A mansion, a yacht and $1.8 million in cash. Silver candelabras and a Rolls Royce.

The details of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's ill-gotten gains, contained in his plea agreement admitting bribery and tax evasion, read like a "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" fantasy.

The plea document also shows how a lawmaker who seemingly hungered for money and the trappings of wealth played the system for years, falling deeper into corruption as he was eagerly helped along by some of the dealmakers who populate Washington.

Constituents of Cunningham, a San Diego-area Republican and Vietnam War hero, said they were outraged by his admissions.

My Dad once, at social occasion principally attended by old time Alameda residents, was asked who he favored for mayor in upcoming campaign. The incumbent, a lifelong resident, was favored by many in the room. My Dad said he thought the opponent should be elected because it wasn't good to leave anybody in power too long.

And so it goes. It is human tendency for anybody to feel that their success is of their own doing. That they deserve their success, and acheive it in proportion to their deserving.

To see this in action one must merely turn on CSPAN whenever it covers a Senator or Senate event. It almost doesn't matter which Senator of which party. Rather than being our servants, they would become our masters.

And it is not far from there to feeling deserving of even more, and to do whatever is necessary for it.

I would make a comment about the lowering of morals in these sad times, but in this morals have always been low. In both parties, and at all times.

Update: See Belmont Club for some background info on Randy Cunningham.

Iraqi WMDs update

2005-11-29T19:17:00.000-08:00

I first posted on this here.

A member of the Iraqi Survey Group writes about why we "haven't" found WMDs in Iraq.

The laws of irony are strictly enforced. The first WMD we found was actually used against us. A roadside bomb filled with binary Sarin exploded near a convoy carrying ISG personnel. Sarin is a non-persistent nerve agent. As such, it can not be safely and effectively stored. Instead, it must be used quickly after it is made. Therefore shells or warheads do not actually contain sarin. Instead they contain two chemicals (binary) which form sarin when they are mixed. The shell is fired, the chemicals mix on the way to the target, the shell explodes, viola, you have a chemical weapon. But since this shell was in a roadside bomb, it didn’t mix correctly, and the troops who were exposed weren’t killed. In fact, for reasons I will enumerate later, the terrorists who set up that IED most likely had no idea what was contained in their stolen munition.

We found mustard shells which had gone past their expiration date. We found yellowcake, Joe Wilson, and eventually enriched uranium, Scott Ritter.

But the physical evidence doesn’t tell the whole story. The interrogation portion does that. Many, many scientists talked about Saddam’s weapons production. The production wasn’t large scale, and it wasn’t quality stuff, but it was there. The question on your mind is this: where is the rest of the stuff? The answer is very simple and very complex.

First, it’s in Syria. According to the UN and every intel agency on the planet, right before the war 5000 big rigs worth of “stuff” crossed the border, never to be seen again.. What kind of stuff was this? I’ll give you a hint -- it’s stuff Saddam didn’t want captured. Personnel, money, art work, maybe drugs, and certainly WMD. People need to use their God-given common sense. If you had valuable WMD you wanted to safeguard from the big, bad American Crusaders, where would you send it? Not to Iran. Those crazy Mullahs are your enemies. Not to Kuwait or Turkey, Saddam considered them America’s stooges. Send it to Syria. After all, it wasn't as if he had no warning what was coming.

Not so long ago there was a mutual defense pact between Iraq and Syria. Also, neither Assad has never been a friend of America - dapper westernized suits be damned. Saddam figured he could hide it in Syria and when the Americans left and he could safely come out of hiding, Assad would give some of it back.

Second, it’s in the desert. Check out these links to seesome of what we discovered purely by chance. What else is under there?

Photos of buried treasure
More buried treasure

Third, and most disturbingly, it’s under Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), headquarters of… drum roll please… the ISG. Let me explain how such an improbable thing came to pass. There never was much WMD in the first place. The problem with bio, chem, and nukes is that you don’t need many of them to cause a hell of a lot of problems for someone. And once you have them, it's incredibly easy to make more. So Saddam’s entire stockpile of the stuff amounted to a large warehouse. He probably kept it together to make it easier to control, and to hide it better. He also probably kept it close to Baghdad, which was supposed to be the fallback point for pretty much his entire army. He couldn’t keep it in the city; too much chance of discovery. The only place near most of his palaces, his barracks, and his most loyal troops was the airport. To cause further confusion in sorting, Saddam did not have his munitions labeled - this is standard for countries that use Warsaw Pact arms and doctrine. It derives from having a large dose of well-developed paranoia and fear of having Saddam's own henchman overthrow him in one of their several ill-fated coup attempts.

The idea of Sadaam not having WMD programs after finding over a ton of uranium there is ludicrous. But being ludicrous is not an hinderance when the media refuses to point it out.

Vegetarians

2005-11-26T10:12:00.000-08:00

Dr. Helen:

I now look skeptically at people who preach vegetarianism to others as a type of religion--they are often the same ones who tout peace and brotherhood while trying to mask their feelings of aggression. My husband once said that he did not worry about violence from peace activists but frankly, I would rather hang out with a crowd of hard core gun addicts. I find them more capable of understanding and controlling their own aggression. People who preach peace in the face of appalling violence deny their aggression and target it at others who are not deserving of it or who are trying to protect them. I cannot justify that.

My best friend is a vegetarian. But he doesn't do it as a religious undertaking either.

Iraq War Plan

2005-11-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

Opinionated Bastard:

How was I able to read the tea leaves that the New York Times and the Washington Post missed? Simple. I've always understood the war plan.

The war plan, for good or ill has never been to occupy the country. It's always been the plan for the Iraqis to provide security in their own country. In other words, do the exact opposite of what we did in Vietnam:

Instead of installing a puppet government, we've spent 2.5 years building up an Iraqi one.
Instead of having 500,000 troops and 60,000 casualties from trying to take over Vietnam, we've 170,000 troops but only 2,000 casualties because we weren't trying to take over.

In other words, instead of going into Iraq and trying to run the country like we did in Vietnam (Step 1 install a Christian leader in a Buddhist country? What idiot thought up that one?), we've done the minimal amount of work to keep Iraq in a holding pattern until the Iraqis could run it.

It's pretty simple really, and it's actually not a bad plan. I think the US has learned the lessons of Vietnam and Somalia; let people run their own countries. The main mistake we made in this whole war was thinking that it wouldn't take most of 2004 to train the Iraqi Police and Army. It just takes time to do that kind of thing.

After winning the initial conflict in the first 45 days, there wasn't a whole lot of progress for the next year, year and a half. I am tempted to say that it was because the State Department was put in charge of reconstruction, but I don't know that. I do know that it has taken us that long to figure out what we need to do to convert a muslim arab country into a reasonably viable democracy. Which is no small task.

We're finally on the verge of winning the aftermath. The Iraqi army and police are coming online. We're reducing the Baath'ist and terrorist strongholds. The Iraqi constitution was just confirmed, and the first elections under it are due next month.

And as usual for this war, the Democrats and press are ready to declare quagmire and are trying to force defeat on us.

Freedom

2005-11-18T15:34:00.000-08:00

Sgt. Hook - letter:

I have watched on television how the American public questions why their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are fighting and dying in a country 9000 miles away from their own soil. Take the word of a soldier, for that is all I am, that our cause is a noble one. The reason we are here is one worth fighting for. A cause that has been the most costly and sought after cause in our small span of existence on our little planet. Bought in blood and paid for by those brave enough to give the ultimate sacrifice to obtain it. A right that is given to every man, woman, and child I believe by God. I am talking of freedom.

Freedom. One word but yet countless words could never capture it’s true meaning or power. “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” I read that once and it couldn’t be more true. It’s not the average American’s fault that he or she is “blind and deaf” to the taste of freedom. Most American’s are born into their God given right so it is all they ever know. I was once one of them. I would even dare to say that it isn’t surprising that they take for granted what they have had all their life. My experiences in the military however opened my eyes to the truth. . .

Every police station here has a dozen or more memorials for officers that were murdered trying to ensure that their people live free. These are husbands, fathers, and sons killed every day. What if it were your country? What would your choice be? Everything we fight for is worth the blood that may be shed. The media never reports the true HEROISM I witness everyday in the Iraqi’s. Yes there are bad one’s here, but I assure you they are a minuscule percent. Yet they are a number big enough to cause worry in this country’s future.
I have watched brave souls give their all and lose thier lives and limbs for this cause. I will no longer stand silent and let the “deaf and blind” be the only voice shouting. Stonewall Jackson once said, “All that I have, all that I am is at the service of the country.” For these brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including your son Cindy Sheehan, I will shout till I can no longer. These men and women are heroes. Their spirit lives on in their military and they will never be forgotten. They did not die in vain but rather for a cause that is larger than all of us.

ADD

2005-11-18T08:04:00.000-08:00

Dr. Helen reports on a study (found in this book) that relates use of ritalin to absence of male parenting. Subnote: Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) is frequently refered to by proffessionals as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD).

The authors of this sudy suggested that social forces may be major contributors to ADHD. Among these social forces are: "the absence of positive father role models; the presence of a revolving door for negative male role models brought into the home; poor parenting; the need for order in the classroom when teachers are severely curtailed in meting out discipline; and a declining appreciation in our culture of what constitutes normal boy behavior." This study was never given much attention by the mental health community as the "solutions" were not politically correct at they emphasized the deficit of a male role model.

I wonder how this lack of positive role models and declining appreciation for normal boy behavior plays out with the shortage of male teachers in the classroom. Could male children be taking Ritalin as a substitute for their absence?

Well, yeah.

Let's see, fathers typically are the enforcers of discipline in the home. ADD kids need lots of discipline. Without fathers they frequently don't get enough. Schools do not support adequate discipline of kids (too likely to get teachers sued). Instead, teachers have become advocates of medication.

My wife sees this play out in her school every year. This includes kids with two mommies. This is one place where the "all it matters is that you love a child" theory breaks down. There are others, like boys don't get role modeling and adequate boundaries on handling raging amounts of testosterone, girls don't see healthy examples of men and learn to avoid assholes in relationships.

No matter how much I would like to be the nurturing, emotionally supportive parent, I am by biology and ability thrown into the role of the heavy with my kids. And they are better off for it.

Democrats

2005-11-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

Sadaam Hussein and Iraq in their own words.

See the video.

National Ammo Day

2005-11-14T22:43:00.000-08:00

Five more shopping days.

Mosul, Iraq

2005-11-13T12:35:00.001-08:00

COSBY: You know, we've seen some of these amazing pictures that we're showing here. You know, Michael, there's a photo I want to show of a soldier and a baby girl, in particular. Here it is. Why is this photo so meaningful, Michael?

MICHAEL YON, EMBEDDED BLOGGER: Well, I shot that photo on a day when a suicide or homicide car bomber ran into one of our Stryker vehicles, injured a couple of our soldiers, and, unfortunately, there were a lot of children who had crowded around to wave at our people.
And the attackers had every opportunity to just wait a couple of blocks and attack our guys later, without the children being around, but instead chose to attack straight through the children.
And Major Bieger, who is in the photo, found the little girl -- her name is Farah -- and decided he wanted to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible.
And so he picked her up, wrapped her in a blanket, and loaded her into one of our vehicles and started to take her to the hospital as fast as possible. And unfortunately, little Farah died en route.
We went back to that neighborhood the next day, and the people there actually welcomed us with open arms. They welcomed us into their homes.
We got into a firefight there again the next day. And the people in that part of the city began to give us more and more information about the terrorists until it got to the point where -- it's very dangerous to be a terrorist now in Mosul, because...

COSBY: You know, it's incredible to hear these stories, Michael.

So just put them on the air, dammit. It shouldn't take Bruce Willis.

Patriotism & Dissent

2005-11-13T12:15:00.000-08:00

President Bush:

While it is perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. Many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: 'When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security.' That's why more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.

The stakes in the global War on Terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our Nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory.

See more here, here, and here.

I think it's indisputable that much (most) of the anti-war rhetoric is done for partisan purposes, if not straight out anti-Americanism. The idea that most of the protestors are acting out of patriotism, or wanting to support the troops by bringing them home is laughable.

Everytime I hear a liberal talking head accuse his opponent of calling him "un-patriotic" I think he "doth protest too much."

Bush Derangement Syndrome

2005-11-13T12:06:00.000-08:00

Dr. Sanity:

As a psychiatrist I work with patients who use maladaptive psychological defenses all the time. The goal of treatment is to help them develop insight and self awareness and begin to take responsibility for their own lives and actions; and to face reality--no matter how painful or unpleasant--not to close their eyes and hope and wish it will go away.

In other words, to act like mature adults and deal with it.

As long as they focus all their energy on hating Bush and act like the whiny petulant and angry child, who expects daddy to instantaneously make everything better-- or else they won't like it; then they don't ever have to act like mature adults and cope with reality in a mature fashion. It is soooo much easier to blame everything on daddy.

It gets better.

Iraq WMD

2005-11-09T18:35:00.000-08:00

Short link about what was found in Iraq

Human Events:

• Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium

• Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons

• Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas

• Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs

• Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin

This is not a complete list. It also doesn't count chemical weapon precursor materials in Iraqi arms depots, the rolling biological labs that were meticulously wiped down with caustic chemicals, misc. dual use equipment found in Jordanian junk yards or showing up in European used equipment markets.Plus it would be interesting to take a good look at was stored in the Bekka Valley while under Syrian control.

I have a strong suspicion that any chance to find most of this stuff was lost when Powell announced in the U.N. what we knew, and then dithered around for six months trying to get Russian and French politicians to buy in to the invasion.

Update: This is a post by someone part of the group looking for WMD's immediately after the War.

But the physical evidence doesn’t tell the whole story. The interrogation portion does that. Many, many scientists talked about Saddam’s weapons production. The production wasn’t large scale, and it wasn’t quality stuff, but it was there. The question on your mind is this: where is the rest of the stuff? The answer is very simple and very complex.

First, it’s in Syria. . .
Second, it’s in the desert. . .
Third, and most disturbingly, it’s under Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), headquarters of… drum roll please… the ISG.

Time Waster

2005-11-07T20:25:00.000-08:00

Blue Balls

Women

2005-11-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

I have been known to have women issues a few. . . hundred times. But mostly my problem is that I expect to be treated like an equal.

So it's good to get some validation, courtesy of Maureen Dowd. Or should I say at the expense of Maureen Dowd.

See Roger L. Simon and Dr. Helen.

Disney

2005-11-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

Disney hasn't made a good movie since they got rid of Jeffrey Katzenberg. They've had to outsource all of their production. Now they've released one they made themselves. Good luck. I give you Chicken Little.

The Man Watching

2005-11-03T23:10:00.000-08:00

by Rainer Maria Rilke

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

Ashes Time

2005-11-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

We pretend we are the captains of our fate, that our life's course is within our hands, until we are so buffeted by life that we decide that it is beyond all control. The truth is both and neither.

Life is bigger than we are. We live in a society resulting from the actions and agreements of millions of individuals. Shit happens: bad health, bad boss, bad marriage, bad parents, accidents, hurricanes, earthquakes, war, pestilence. You know, stuff. There used to be a word for this that has gone out of favor, fate.

On the other hand, we don't acknowledge how much we are in control of our lives: bad planning, bad relationships, bad attitudes, bad habits, bad friends. You know, the stuff we know we could do, but don't. The reasons we listen to Dr. Laura, or Dr. Phil, or Dr. whoever we think can fix us this week.

And however much I try to fix myself, no matter what cures I find, I still end up in ashes time. A time when I discover my plans have all gone awry. When any initiative I may make is doomed to failure before I begin. When what I thought was secure is going, going, gone.

Ashes time. Time to hunker down, hold on, persevere. Time to let go, open up, give in. Time to reflect, reach out, meditate and pray. This is when I realize my goals and strivings, my very actions were wounds against my soul.

So I struggle to understand my true nature, so I can better reflect it in my actions, and move on. But mostly I hold my self still, feel the pain, the despair, and cry out to God.

Ashes time.

And then someday, hopefully, it will no longer be ashes time.

Enigma

2005-11-03T19:02:00.000-08:00

I defy you to figure out what these guys are doing and who their courses are being marketed to. But they are very good at it.

CDRA

Scooter Libby

2005-10-30T11:03:00.000-08:00

Lanny Davis:

First, each side seems unable to resist applying a double standard, doing and saying exactly what only recently it criticized the other side for doing and saying.

Lanny Davis seems only slightly less repugnant here than when he was defending the indefensible under Clinton. Unlike then, no one is publicly trashing the prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. No one is saying that what Mr. Libby did was O.K. No one is using the office of the President to undermine the process. No one is using private detectives to covertly intimidate witnesses. To suggest an equivalency while claiming high mindedness seems . . . oh somewhat Clintonian.

On the other hand, what Scooter Libby did was bad, wrong, illegal. He was a fool to lie in front of a grand jury when the full weight of the government was against him. But then we all do foolish things. Having committed no crime worth investigating, he committed one avoiding the investigation.

His crime was worse than Martha Stewart's who merely lied to investigators, who legally were allowed to lie to her. But clearly not as bad as Clinton's, who not only was guilty of the original charge, but spread the stain throughout not only the Whitehouse, but throughout the political culture, and society at large.

Mr. Davis continues his specialty under the Clintons, moral relevancy justifying wrong doing by using arguments of "everyone is doing it". Which everyone is not. If they were, Mr. Libby's indictment would have been successfully delayed until late 2007, after the Whitehouse trashed the prosecutor for three years, followed by a midnight pardon.

Thank God we aren't going through that again.

Update: See this.

2000 Dead

2005-10-29T17:08:00.000-07:00

Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr
via Michelle Malkin

Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances. I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.

It is not often the dead speak for themselves.

Muslims

2005-10-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

Irons in the Fire:

Just read about the burned terrorist bodies and 'muslim outrage' at Wizbang. I have to agree with Jay; the 'mainstream Muslim community' does want it both ways- "Don't blame us, they're not true Muslims" and "You're not showing these Muslims proper respect!". To quote one of the commenters, "Pigshit". Either the bastards who set off a car bomb to kill a bunch of women and children or men applying for jobs are Muslims and you worry about their treatment, or they're murdering wastes of oxygen and don't deserve any consideration. You can't claim them when it suits you and disclaim them when it doesn't. Make up your damn minds, and in the meantime, shut the hell up.

The hypocrisy of it all wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't tolerated, no encouraged, no, instigated by self righteous europeans and leftists.

'Nuff said.

Fight

2005-10-27T19:50:00.000-07:00

AnarchAngel:

I don’t fight unless it’s life or death, because every fight IS whether you want it to be or not. If he had thrown a punch I wouldn't have just hit him back, I would have taken out his throat, or his ribs, or his eyes, or broken an arm or a leg. If he kept coming (and some of them do for some reason, long beyond the time they should give up) or one of his three friends got involved, I would have broken his neck, or cruchedhis windpipe, or just taken out my knife and killed him with it, and them too if they moved in to the fight.

You fight until the threat is neutralized, or until you can retreat beyond the range of the threat. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t fight to win, I don't fight to kill, I fight to stop; and if that means killing someone, then that is what I will do.

Once a grown man has thrown a punch that is it. It’s not “jsut a fistfight”, they are trying to kill you. I have seen too many fights end with someone dead, or near to it, intentional or not. An adult fight isn’t like in the schoolyard, every fight is life or death and you had better treat it that way, or your going to be the one they carry out.

Which is why Florida's self defense law makes sense. Too many people are prosecuted for not retreating, or are choosing higher risks to retreat.

In England it is almost illegal to defend yourself. Just remember that next time the anti-gun folks hold it up as an example.

Progressivism

2005-10-27T15:52:00.000-07:00

Jonah Goldberg:

The Progressives revived what amounted to the medieval view of society as a living organism with the state — run by experts — as the new king. Hegel had declared in The Philosophy of History that “the state is the actually existing, realized moral life. . . . The divine idea as it exists on earth.” The Progressives believed this, particularly Woodrow Wilson, who was a soaked-to-the-bone Hegelian. . .

Progressivism was now called “liberalism” even though it represented the exact opposite.

Which is why conservatives are actually liberals, and liberals are actually statists, and . . .

Well just read the whole thing. And I understand there is a book in progress to boot. I'm looking forward to it.

Harriet Miers

2005-10-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hugh Hewitt has been pushing Harriet Miers. Via Captains Quarters we get two responses, one on air with Mr. Hewitt, and one on the 'net.

Personally I'll be glad to see the last of Harriet Miers. Unlike the John Roberts, the more I hear, the less I like. And to answer Mr Hewitt's question, "Does George W. Bush deserve any loyalty from his party?", my answer is no.

George Bush stiffed us on this Supreme Court nomination. He knew he was stiffing us, or should have known, which is all but the same. He had plenty of opportunity to get a feel for how his supporters felt. And I knew there was a lack of support for her before she was nominated. And it isn't even my job to keep track of stuff like that.

This may be the most important nomination in my lifetime. Certainly it is the most important in over a decade, given that it is the only opportunity to swing the court to a more conservative/libertarian/originalist stance.

And he blew it.

I would rather George Bush list slowly in the wind for the next three and a half years than see Ms. Miers on the Court. By the time he leaves office Iraq will be won, and it looks like there ain't much else happening until then.

Update: Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination. I wonder how long they have been trying to find a good way to do that. I just hope they nominate someone good this time.

The Gun Guy

2005-10-25T19:10:00.000-07:00

My favorite gun blogger is up and running again, and I didn't realize it.

The Gun Guy.

And of course, National Ammo Day is coming up.

Retention

2005-10-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

Greyhawk:
via Instapundit

The number one reason for staying in the Guard is:

..."because as I look around at the state of this nation and see all of the weak little pampered candy-asses that are whining about this or protesting that, I'd be afraid to leave the fate of this nation entirely up to them."

Death

2005-10-18T22:49:00.000-07:00

I have a friend whose mother is in the hospital. She is partially paralyzed, which may be alleviated or cured by an operation, but the long term prognosis is not good. She's 85, and dying. The hardest part for my friend is that her mother isn't''t sure she wants to live.

-------------------

I remember when I was very young, just growing up, trying to figure out the rules the world worked by.

Then I was a teenager trying to figure out who I wanted to be.

Later I was in my twenties discovering myself.

In my thirties I buckled down and worked at being responsible and successful.

Now I am in my forties. I have bought my sports car, then turned around and sold it. I've already discovered that some things I want I will never have, and dedicated myself to the next generation. I am middle-aged.

Life is like that, a series of stages, each one deeper than the one before. Each succeeding change more harder and more subtle than its predecessor. Until finally we have learned the last lesson of this life, and are ready to move on.

Some of us move on gradually and some of us suddenly, sometimes by preference, and sometimes not. But all of us are approaching the final transition.

My wife's grandmother a few years before her death decided she was only going to eat what tasted good to her. My mother-in-law tried to talk her into eating more so she could stay alive. Her Grandmother asked, "why do I want to stay alive? All my friends are dead."

Our life is so dear, our bodies so precious, that it is hard to give up. The greatest tragedies are those who lose, or give up, this precious gift too soon.

But give it up we must.

Joy

2005-10-18T20:58:00.000-07:00

More Numa Numa Dance.

To Hugh Hewitt

2005-10-17T21:55:00.000-07:00

To Hugh Hewitt:

I've been listening to you for about a year, ever since I first discovered you coming out of San Jose.

But you've lost me on Miers. Not that I won't tune in. But I heard you talk last week to Jonah Goldberg, looking for a statement that he wanted an "elitist" judicial or journal paper record. And then summarized it as such with the next guest.

Count me with Jonah. I don't need Ivy League, I don't need judicial experience, I don't need journal papers. What I do need is something, anything that indicates that she is conservative. And working for a conservative in a profession that prides itself in acting dutifully for axe murderers doesn't impress me.

She is probably right of center. The president is right of center. But not nearly as much as the press portrays him. So when she says that she reflects his understanding of the constitution, I'm not reassured. That covers enough ground to sign McCain-Feingold, the No Child Left Behind education bill, and argue for affirmative action in the courts. Neither does it preclude supporting precedent allowing federal prosecution of either locally grown medical marijuana or state assisted suicide.

Roe vs. Wade, travesty that it is, is not even on my top ten list of Supreme Court issues. The Reverend Dobson attesting to her feelings on Roe doesn't help on substance. Justice Kennedy similarly assured Senator Helms upon his nomination and look where he is now.

I'm unimpressed, and unmoved. The president would have been much better served if had released her nomination as a trial balloon, just as he did shortly before announcing with John Roberts. There the White House looked like they were all set to go with a candidate that the base wouldn't have supported. So they fell into what looks like will be an excellent pick.

Would that he had done that with the latest nomination. I haven't listened to Bush critics before now about personality flaws. Mostly what they saw as flaws I perceived as strengths given the national and world circumstances. But now, I don't know. I don't know if this pick came out of arrogance, or pique, or a desire to avoid domestic conflict, but it's a bad choice.

Better that he had picked a fight with the libs, including Lincoln Chafee and John McCain, than with his base. I have supported him on two issues, foreign policy is the war, and domestic is the judges. And he hasn't quite eliminated one, but surely has diminished it.

I hope you understand what I'm trying to say, better than I am saying it. There has been a little too much ad hominems on this issue, on both sides.

Thanks

Iraq Elections

2005-10-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

via Sooni

Bill Roggio:

Either al Qaeda did not have the resources to conduct such attacks, could not penetrate the security of the Coalition, or did not have the will to attack Iraqis exercising their democratic rights. No matter what the reason, this is a victory for the Iraqi people and another strategic defeat for al Qaeda. When given a choice between the vision of the Islamists and the ideal of freedom, Iraqis brave the jihadi's threats of violence and reject al Qaeda's hateful ideology. Every time.

This is a great victory for Iraq and the U.S. Whether the constitution passes, which I think likely, or it doesn't, the entire country is buying into the one country, democratic ethos. Al Qaeda couldn't even dent the turnout. And they are due to elect a new government in December.

I think this will be another case of the media crying doom right up to the minute before victory.

Blue vs. Red

2005-10-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

NR Online:

In your essay, you quote Fiorello LaGuardia's famous maxim: "There is no Republican or Democratic way to clean streets." But my experience as a manager at two NYC agencies during the Giuliani administration tells me that there are differences -- significant differences.

The Democratic way, at least in present-day New York City, means fundamentally throwing money at the problem. It means hiring more public employees who will be protected by civil service regulations from accountability. It means doing things basically the same way they've been done for decades. It tends to measure government inputs rather than actual outputs or results.

The Republican way, as I have experienced it here since 1994, means seeking accountability. It means measuring the performance of employees not just the dollars spent or the numbers of persons deployed. It means seeking to determine indicators of cusotmer [sic] satisfaction.

Which eloquently defines the fight over fixing schools.

Arrogance

2005-10-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

I saw a bumper sticker yesterday driving to work:

Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy teaching.

As if a group of people that can't handle an unruly eight year-old without the use of pharmaceuticals could handle Osama Bin Laden.

Heck, forget Bin Laden, they couldn't handle Chirac.

And my wife's a teacher, my in-law's are teachers, and at the moment I'm a teacher. They're generally nice folks. I just wouldn't choose them for a game of power politics.

Now their union leaders, maybe.