Monday, August 30, 2004
GOOD TASTE MARCHES ON:
According to Technorati, two brand new (and rather different) blogs I hadn't heard of have linked to me, demonstrating that they are both starting out with the very best. Welcome to des femmes and to Ugly Naked Guy.
According to Technorati, two brand new (and rather different) blogs I hadn't heard of have linked to me, demonstrating that they are both starting out with the very best. Welcome to des femmes and to Ugly Naked Guy.
I GOT IT FROM GARY:
Millions of people have been foolish enough to start reading blogs. ("Here, kid, the first one's free!") An ever-growing number have endangered their futures by trying to start one of their own. ("I can quit anytime!") Unfortunately, a small subset of them have now manifested a genetic flaw which turns this idle hobby into a deadly addiction. ("Sorry, Brad darling, but I'm posting tonight!") There is hope, but it was revealed by a rather unexpected source.
One cultural remnant of the many movements in the sixties is Reason. It grew from little more than a Randite newsheet to the world's best known advocate of garbage privatization. Becoming a distant cousin of the establishment did have a seriously diluting effect on its sense of humor. But perhaps I misattribute satire. Maybe we were supposed to take seriously that early article proposing that Dagny Taggart should have formed a ménage à quatre with her threerapists lovers.
What the small-"L" libertarian periodical has never been accused of, before or after its escape from Santa Barbara, is compassionate concern for the helpless dregs of society -- such as those hooked obsessive bloggers. Yet now they have printed a transcript of an attempt to help this new category of social victims.
Just as the social disease of blogging itself is spread by a long chain of casual contacts, this was seen by me at The Owner's Manual, which found it at Neptunus Lex, which spotted it at OxBlog. Help make a better world by passing on the link to friend who never looks up from their keyboard.
Millions of people have been foolish enough to start reading blogs. ("Here, kid, the first one's free!") An ever-growing number have endangered their futures by trying to start one of their own. ("I can quit anytime!") Unfortunately, a small subset of them have now manifested a genetic flaw which turns this idle hobby into a deadly addiction. ("Sorry, Brad darling, but I'm posting tonight!") There is hope, but it was revealed by a rather unexpected source.
One cultural remnant of the many movements in the sixties is Reason. It grew from little more than a Randite newsheet to the world's best known advocate of garbage privatization. Becoming a distant cousin of the establishment did have a seriously diluting effect on its sense of humor. But perhaps I misattribute satire. Maybe we were supposed to take seriously that early article proposing that Dagny Taggart should have formed a ménage à quatre with her three
What the small-"L" libertarian periodical has never been accused of, before or after its escape from Santa Barbara, is compassionate concern for the helpless dregs of society -- such as those hooked obsessive bloggers. Yet now they have printed a transcript of an attempt to help this new category of social victims.
I'm sorry we had to deceive you. This is an intervention. My name is Dr. Wilson. Your friends, family, and coworkers asked me to be here; they're concerned about how your obsession with the election is affecting your life."It's funny because it's true." Read the whole sad tale at "The Vets' Case".
READER: What the hell? Hey -- dammit -- how come the "back" button isn't working?
YOUR BOSS: We had it disabled.
READER: That's enough of this. I'm turning on MSNBC.
DR. WILSON: We cut off the cable, too. So you don't have anywhere to go. Please stay and listen to us.
YOUR FATHER: We love you. We really care about you. This is for your own sake.
Just as the social disease of blogging itself is spread by a long chain of casual contacts, this was seen by me at The Owner's Manual, which found it at Neptunus Lex, which spotted it at OxBlog. Help make a better world by passing on the link to friend who never looks up from their keyboard.
"So the game is endless and ruthless: and there is merriment overhead, but it is very far away."
CONSOLATIO PHILOSOPHIAE:
On Death Row the condemned are marched to execution with a call of "Dead man walking." I didn't hear that on Saturday, but I felt it. I was at a tourist attraction located near a major military training center. Scattered among the other visitors were large numbers of newly minted uniform wearers, with freshly cropped hairdos, strolling with their significant others or parents, taking a holiday before they were shipped overseas. They looked sharp, but they didn't look very cheerful. They know some of them will not return. Even for those gung-ho for the mission, such thoughts dampen the mood during farewell visits.
Why are some of these bright looking young people going to lose their futures, not by accident, but at human hands? Who should we be angry at for this loss of life? Aristotle identified Four Causes for any object which exists. Can those be applied as well to an event like these deaths?
1. The Material Cause would be the bullets, shrapnel, stones, swords (if beheaded), or even a blast of compressed air from the force of a nearby explosion, which actually destroy someone's life. It is pointless to be angry at these physical objects, unless you are a disciple of Pol Pot or the Unibomber and therefore hate all forms of technology on principle. Lead is impervious not only to kryptonite, but to all scolding cries of "Bad bullet! Don't kill anymore!"
2. The Formal Cause is the pattern or plan, in this case not of the specific conflict, but of military service as such. Troops exist to kill or be killed, to be shot at and to shoot at others. That is the nature of warfare. Absolute pacifists who object to war or violence of any kind can consistently oppose anyone's wearing a uniform; the rest of us must point to some other cause for anger about these deaths.
3. The Final Cause is the intended purpose. Non-leftists would have no trouble spotting the purpose of those deaths as "to kill an American soldier". In a larger sense it is "to drive the Americans out of Iraq", whether to re-establish the Baathist tyranny, to set up a fundamentalist Muslim theocracy instead, or just to seize power for some non-ideological gang of looters. Only liberals would give some silly definition such as "to protect their homeland against imperialistic invaders". Those are U.S. uniforms, not Soviets or Nazis. We're the good guys.
[Some crazed leftists with tinfoil hats claim the troops were sent there without sufficient armor or support just to get them killed, making martyrs for domestic political reasons. Nonsense. This administration isn't clever enough to have thought of that kind of cold-blooded sacrifice. Yes, I might very well have done such a thing, but this is just Rummy's pinch-penny attempt to fight a war on the cheap. He wanted to believe Chalabi's reports that our forces would be welcomed with flower petals instead of gunshots. His wishing didn't make it so, but he didn't actually intend for those soldiers to die.]
4. The Efficient Cause is the agent directly responsible for putting that material together in that form for that purpose. Here most folks with common sense would say that would be the renegade or terrorist who shot the gun, fired the rocket, threw the grenade, or set off the bomb. Liberals would play B. F. Skinner and claim the killing was only a helpless reflex reaction to U.S. soldiers tapping Iraqi tendons with the hammer of foreign occupation. They would say those poor Arabs should not be blamed because they couldn't help themselves, and the one responsible for the killings is really Our Noble Leader, for provoking them by sending in troops.
I take a broader long-range view here. Technically the liberals are correct that no Americans would be getting killed if the President had not sent in any troops. Typically, they have drawn the wrong conclusion from this. Their view is that we should not use force to protect U.S. business interests around the globe. I say that what we should do is not use soldiers, but use even more force. After 9-11 some denounced those who called for invading the countries of Islamic terrorists and forcibly converting them. I said and repeat, we should have just destroyed them all with a thermonuclear rain.
If the Taliban had refused to turn overObama Osama to us, we should have wiped out Kabul with one missile, then made the same demand of whichever warlord claimed to rule the radioactive ruins. None of our troops would have been killed at all. After that dramatic example, think how much better the same approach would have worked with Saddam. Tell him, for instance, stop paying the families of suicide bombers in Palestine. Or else. If you don't, we won't invade Iraq. In fact, we won't even station any of our ships downwind from Baghdad. With his scientists watching the Strontium 90 count rise whenever winds blew from the former country of Afghanistan, he would have caved at once.
Yes, right now it is the terrorists who are pulling the trigger, but only because of our own failure of nerve. We can be mad at the gunmen, but we can also do better for our forces abroad by bolder leadership at home. Sadly, no candidate seems to have the guts to advocate this. I live in a world full of wimps. If I were a delegate to this week's Convention, I might vote for my own nomination, just to make a point to the short-sighted pols who lack the courage of their neo-convictions.
On Death Row the condemned are marched to execution with a call of "Dead man walking." I didn't hear that on Saturday, but I felt it. I was at a tourist attraction located near a major military training center. Scattered among the other visitors were large numbers of newly minted uniform wearers, with freshly cropped hairdos, strolling with their significant others or parents, taking a holiday before they were shipped overseas. They looked sharp, but they didn't look very cheerful. They know some of them will not return. Even for those gung-ho for the mission, such thoughts dampen the mood during farewell visits.
Why are some of these bright looking young people going to lose their futures, not by accident, but at human hands? Who should we be angry at for this loss of life? Aristotle identified Four Causes for any object which exists. Can those be applied as well to an event like these deaths?
1. The Material Cause would be the bullets, shrapnel, stones, swords (if beheaded), or even a blast of compressed air from the force of a nearby explosion, which actually destroy someone's life. It is pointless to be angry at these physical objects, unless you are a disciple of Pol Pot or the Unibomber and therefore hate all forms of technology on principle. Lead is impervious not only to kryptonite, but to all scolding cries of "Bad bullet! Don't kill anymore!"
2. The Formal Cause is the pattern or plan, in this case not of the specific conflict, but of military service as such. Troops exist to kill or be killed, to be shot at and to shoot at others. That is the nature of warfare. Absolute pacifists who object to war or violence of any kind can consistently oppose anyone's wearing a uniform; the rest of us must point to some other cause for anger about these deaths.
3. The Final Cause is the intended purpose. Non-leftists would have no trouble spotting the purpose of those deaths as "to kill an American soldier". In a larger sense it is "to drive the Americans out of Iraq", whether to re-establish the Baathist tyranny, to set up a fundamentalist Muslim theocracy instead, or just to seize power for some non-ideological gang of looters. Only liberals would give some silly definition such as "to protect their homeland against imperialistic invaders". Those are U.S. uniforms, not Soviets or Nazis. We're the good guys.
[Some crazed leftists with tinfoil hats claim the troops were sent there without sufficient armor or support just to get them killed, making martyrs for domestic political reasons. Nonsense. This administration isn't clever enough to have thought of that kind of cold-blooded sacrifice. Yes, I might very well have done such a thing, but this is just Rummy's pinch-penny attempt to fight a war on the cheap. He wanted to believe Chalabi's reports that our forces would be welcomed with flower petals instead of gunshots. His wishing didn't make it so, but he didn't actually intend for those soldiers to die.]
4. The Efficient Cause is the agent directly responsible for putting that material together in that form for that purpose. Here most folks with common sense would say that would be the renegade or terrorist who shot the gun, fired the rocket, threw the grenade, or set off the bomb. Liberals would play B. F. Skinner and claim the killing was only a helpless reflex reaction to U.S. soldiers tapping Iraqi tendons with the hammer of foreign occupation. They would say those poor Arabs should not be blamed because they couldn't help themselves, and the one responsible for the killings is really Our Noble Leader, for provoking them by sending in troops.
I take a broader long-range view here. Technically the liberals are correct that no Americans would be getting killed if the President had not sent in any troops. Typically, they have drawn the wrong conclusion from this. Their view is that we should not use force to protect U.S. business interests around the globe. I say that what we should do is not use soldiers, but use even more force. After 9-11 some denounced those who called for invading the countries of Islamic terrorists and forcibly converting them. I said and repeat, we should have just destroyed them all with a thermonuclear rain.
If the Taliban had refused to turn over
Yes, right now it is the terrorists who are pulling the trigger, but only because of our own failure of nerve. We can be mad at the gunmen, but we can also do better for our forces abroad by bolder leadership at home. Sadly, no candidate seems to have the guts to advocate this. I live in a world full of wimps. If I were a delegate to this week's Convention, I might vote for my own nomination, just to make a point to the short-sighted pols who lack the courage of their neo-convictions.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
AFFIRMATIVE APPEASEMENT:
Some of us were dubious about attempting to reuse a discarded candidate from another state to challenge the Kenyan Keynoter for the old seat of Senator "talking real money". Our worst fears have been realized. According to the Sun-Times:
The slippery slope here should be obvious. Several legislators have introduced bills to take away young people's driver's licenses for offenses, such as truancy, which had nothing to do with driving. If we have to be certified as "trained" to protect ourselves with Uzis against limp-wristed hordes trying to force us into same-sex marriages, how long will it be before the powers that usurp will start denying us our permits just because we don't recycle our trash, or obey whatever else is the latest politically correct?
Keyes is desperately trying to prove he's "reasonable" by ceding to the state power to decide what we need to defend ourselves. The out-of-state egghead no doubt absorbed this poison while pandering to professors to procure his Ph.D. This blue state refugee doesn't know what neighborhoods are like out in Real America. He has no idea how well armed the Drive-by Democrats are, with their profits from pornography and drugs. His fellow elitist experts from the Left and the Left Behind Coasts mock sensible people concerned about Syrian "musicians", killing us softly with their sacks of "Big Macs" when trapped in jets with them. Alan should pay attention to the unbrainwashed mainstream, not the belittling liberal "intelligentsia".
And no, I refuse to shrink from the ultimate consequence which he mockingly holds up as a "straw bomb". Think of a nightmare world, where President Kerry's Attorney General, She Who Must Not Be Named, having given up her Senate seat from New York for real power, allows the E. U. to disarm and inspect this country for WMDs. With the U.S. out of the way, the stealth commies would come out of hiding in Russia, and march their troops to occupy all of Europe. Next they would join with the Chinese for a joint occupation of America. On that dark day, if there are no nuclear weapons in private hands, how would we defend our native land? When Stalin and Mao's Old World Order attempts to annex us, such outlaw armaments would be our only hope. Legalize private H-bombs now, before it's too late.
As for the Illinois GOP, they have displayed moral bankruptcy all year. Before importing this doctor of political malpractice, they nominated a man guilty of attempted interplanetary miscegenation to face the liberal's unfair-haired Hawaiian hero. Now that their second choice is also self-destructing, they still have a chance (if they act TODAY, which is the last deadline for changing their nominee) to put up someone who will really stir the base voters. With a military record no Swift Boaters will attack, General J.C. Christian has offered to serve. Those losing wastrels who let Lincoln's legacy slip away should seize this unparalled opportunity while they can.
Some of us were dubious about attempting to reuse a discarded candidate from another state to challenge the Kenyan Keynoter for the old seat of Senator "talking real money". Our worst fears have been realized. According to the Sun-Times:
Declaring "the front line of the war against terror once again involves the citizens," Republican Alan Keyes said Tuesday he believes the U.S. Constitution grants properly trained private individuals the right to own and carry machine guns.This is a total sellout by a perennial loser, now so literally gun-shy of the "moderate" Republican voters in Illinois that he prevaricates about the Bill of Rights. Nowhere in the relevant second, ninth, or tenth amendments to the Constitution does it say that only "properly trained" citizens are entitled to such armament.
"You're not talking about giving citizens access to atom bombs and other things," the former presidential candidate said. "That's ridiculous."
The slippery slope here should be obvious. Several legislators have introduced bills to take away young people's driver's licenses for offenses, such as truancy, which had nothing to do with driving. If we have to be certified as "trained" to protect ourselves with Uzis against limp-wristed hordes trying to force us into same-sex marriages, how long will it be before the powers that usurp will start denying us our permits just because we don't recycle our trash, or obey whatever else is the latest politically correct?
Keyes is desperately trying to prove he's "reasonable" by ceding to the state power to decide what we need to defend ourselves. The out-of-state egghead no doubt absorbed this poison while pandering to professors to procure his Ph.D. This blue state refugee doesn't know what neighborhoods are like out in Real America. He has no idea how well armed the Drive-by Democrats are, with their profits from pornography and drugs. His fellow elitist experts from the Left and the Left Behind Coasts mock sensible people concerned about Syrian "musicians", killing us softly with their sacks of "Big Macs" when trapped in jets with them. Alan should pay attention to the unbrainwashed mainstream, not the belittling liberal "intelligentsia".
And no, I refuse to shrink from the ultimate consequence which he mockingly holds up as a "straw bomb". Think of a nightmare world, where President Kerry's Attorney General, She Who Must Not Be Named, having given up her Senate seat from New York for real power, allows the E. U. to disarm and inspect this country for WMDs. With the U.S. out of the way, the stealth commies would come out of hiding in Russia, and march their troops to occupy all of Europe. Next they would join with the Chinese for a joint occupation of America. On that dark day, if there are no nuclear weapons in private hands, how would we defend our native land? When Stalin and Mao's Old World Order attempts to annex us, such outlaw armaments would be our only hope. Legalize private H-bombs now, before it's too late.
As for the Illinois GOP, they have displayed moral bankruptcy all year. Before importing this doctor of political malpractice, they nominated a man guilty of attempted interplanetary miscegenation to face the liberal's unfair-haired Hawaiian hero. Now that their second choice is also self-destructing, they still have a chance (if they act TODAY, which is the last deadline for changing their nominee) to put up someone who will really stir the base voters. With a military record no Swift Boaters will attack, General J.C. Christian has offered to serve. Those losing wastrels who let Lincoln's legacy slip away should seize this unparalled opportunity while they can.
Monday, August 23, 2004
A CORRECTABLE FLAW:
You can find this news leak at: Dohiyi Mir:
You can find this news leak at: Dohiyi Mir:
The GOP has offered a preview of the main plank of the platform they will unveil at the upcoming Republican National Convention: John Kerry wasn't killed in Vietnam, so he is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief. ...If The Ketchup Consort really should take this to heart, he can still do the honorable thing. All he has to do is leave a note blaming his suicide on PTSD from Vietnam. I'm sure the RNC would then apologize for questioning this man's qualifications, admitting that he proved he was capable of having being President after all. Go for it, John.
"But really, if John Kerry were a real war hero," he continued, "he'd have gotten himself killed like Captain Humbert 'Rocky' Versace. Now that's a guy who could be President. Kerry? Just has some shrapnel still stuck in his thigh to this day. Oh, boohoohoo, my leg hurts! How un-Presidential is that?"
Saturday, August 21, 2004
HADJI'S HEROES:
The Al-Jazeera satellite television station has rethought its strategy because of the ban imposed on it by the new Iraqi government. They've choked over taped beheadings, and decided to follow the approach Mel Brooks used with Nazis: make them an object of laughter, so that they will lose their psychological power to frighten. Of course the Arab station's targets are not European fascists, but Western infidels. To mock both Christians and Marxists, they're plagiarizing an old American TV show, Hogan's Heroes.
Their new Arabic sitcom, Hadji's Heroes, is set in the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay. The good guys in this are the noble imprisoned terrorists, always fooling their slow-witted American guards to make the camp a center for espionage and sabotage. The captured Talibaners are led by an anonymous Saudi called Colonel Hadji. Just as in those classic U.S. movies from World War II, his cell includes plenty of ethnic diversity. There are members from Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Their most outlandish conspirator is their computer whiz, Sergeant Leroy X, a Black Muslim from Watts who sports an Afro and mirrored sunglasses.
These jihadis run rings around their clueless captors. The camp commander is the Navy's Captain Hoosegow, a timid paper-pushing bureaucrat, made even more laughable for the Arab audience because she's female. She plays the Christian straw figure here, wearing a cross and often stuttering tirades to the inmates about how her God is stronger than Allah. Their other main foil is their jailer, Marine Sergeant Stools, most noted for his desperate refusal to be aware of what's going on right under his nose. He plays the ultimate decadent Westerner, an open agnostic who keeps repeating "I know nothing!" Al-Jazeera decided to prove these two characters were not examples of religious bigotry by having both roles played by Christian actors from Palestine.
The prisoners have built a secret tunnel under the wall that comes out in the office of the head of the Cuban espionage agency, Raúl Sinlafe. He is a caricature of atheist communists, a bearded cigar smoking rum drinker who aids their plots because they will help destroy capitalism. They manipulate him easily by spouting slogans like "Trabajadores del mundo, unen!" From there they engage in clever schemes to mess up the Yankees.
In the premiere episode, a new Muslim chaplain comes to Guantánamo, a very tall Chinese-American pro athlete named Yao. He converted when the U.S. reinstated the draft, trying to get the same exemption that Ali claimed in the 1960's. Unfortunately for him, the new President Kerry was so determined to separate church and state that he ended all ministerial deferments. The Army conscripted Yao and stuck him in the chaplain's corps. Playing on his naive sentimentality, the prisoners soon have him smuggling out coded messages, which he thinks are innocent letters to their families.
While the camp personnel are shown as ineffectual jokes, there is a recurring character who is depicted as a truly nasty fanatic enemy of Islam. That is FBI Agent Everhigh, who dresses like a seventeenth century Puritan, and keeps hissing about a modern Crusade against the Muslim world. He suspects Yao of helping the prisoners, and has him charged as a traitor. Hadji gets Leroy X to hack into Yao's seized computer in Everhigh's office, and replace their coded letters with filthy pictures from the web. That preserves the secrets of their network, but only saves Yao from execution. Lacking evidence to convict him of treason, the frustrated FBI man instead gets him court-martialed for possession of erotic pictures.
This show may seem silly, but it is actually a very clever move in a worldwide cultural war. American conquests in that struggle aren't just with fast food franchises, soft drinks, blue jeans, and rock; another major export is television programs. Look how many of our couch potatoes are glued to their screens for sitcoms, and consider how much social propaganda they unwittingly soak up amid the laugh tracks. Now shows like this one will offer an alternative, aimed not just at Arab audiences, but the entire world.
Way back in 1959, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a classic short story, often anthologized, warning about a Red Chinese plot to morally corrupt America with direct satellite broadcasting of increasingly raunchy and perverse erotic programs. Its title, which now may be prophetic about these efforts at Muslim cultural terrorism, comes from its frightening last three words:
The Al-Jazeera satellite television station has rethought its strategy because of the ban imposed on it by the new Iraqi government. They've choked over taped beheadings, and decided to follow the approach Mel Brooks used with Nazis: make them an object of laughter, so that they will lose their psychological power to frighten. Of course the Arab station's targets are not European fascists, but Western infidels. To mock both Christians and Marxists, they're plagiarizing an old American TV show, Hogan's Heroes.
Their new Arabic sitcom, Hadji's Heroes, is set in the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay. The good guys in this are the noble imprisoned terrorists, always fooling their slow-witted American guards to make the camp a center for espionage and sabotage. The captured Talibaners are led by an anonymous Saudi called Colonel Hadji. Just as in those classic U.S. movies from World War II, his cell includes plenty of ethnic diversity. There are members from Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Their most outlandish conspirator is their computer whiz, Sergeant Leroy X, a Black Muslim from Watts who sports an Afro and mirrored sunglasses.
These jihadis run rings around their clueless captors. The camp commander is the Navy's Captain Hoosegow, a timid paper-pushing bureaucrat, made even more laughable for the Arab audience because she's female. She plays the Christian straw figure here, wearing a cross and often stuttering tirades to the inmates about how her God is stronger than Allah. Their other main foil is their jailer, Marine Sergeant Stools, most noted for his desperate refusal to be aware of what's going on right under his nose. He plays the ultimate decadent Westerner, an open agnostic who keeps repeating "I know nothing!" Al-Jazeera decided to prove these two characters were not examples of religious bigotry by having both roles played by Christian actors from Palestine.
The prisoners have built a secret tunnel under the wall that comes out in the office of the head of the Cuban espionage agency, Raúl Sinlafe. He is a caricature of atheist communists, a bearded cigar smoking rum drinker who aids their plots because they will help destroy capitalism. They manipulate him easily by spouting slogans like "Trabajadores del mundo, unen!" From there they engage in clever schemes to mess up the Yankees.
In the premiere episode, a new Muslim chaplain comes to Guantánamo, a very tall Chinese-American pro athlete named Yao. He converted when the U.S. reinstated the draft, trying to get the same exemption that Ali claimed in the 1960's. Unfortunately for him, the new President Kerry was so determined to separate church and state that he ended all ministerial deferments. The Army conscripted Yao and stuck him in the chaplain's corps. Playing on his naive sentimentality, the prisoners soon have him smuggling out coded messages, which he thinks are innocent letters to their families.
While the camp personnel are shown as ineffectual jokes, there is a recurring character who is depicted as a truly nasty fanatic enemy of Islam. That is FBI Agent Everhigh, who dresses like a seventeenth century Puritan, and keeps hissing about a modern Crusade against the Muslim world. He suspects Yao of helping the prisoners, and has him charged as a traitor. Hadji gets Leroy X to hack into Yao's seized computer in Everhigh's office, and replace their coded letters with filthy pictures from the web. That preserves the secrets of their network, but only saves Yao from execution. Lacking evidence to convict him of treason, the frustrated FBI man instead gets him court-martialed for possession of erotic pictures.
This show may seem silly, but it is actually a very clever move in a worldwide cultural war. American conquests in that struggle aren't just with fast food franchises, soft drinks, blue jeans, and rock; another major export is television programs. Look how many of our couch potatoes are glued to their screens for sitcoms, and consider how much social propaganda they unwittingly soak up amid the laugh tracks. Now shows like this one will offer an alternative, aimed not just at Arab audiences, but the entire world.
Way back in 1959, Arthur C. Clarke wrote a classic short story, often anthologized, warning about a Red Chinese plot to morally corrupt America with direct satellite broadcasting of increasingly raunchy and perverse erotic programs. Its title, which now may be prophetic about these efforts at Muslim cultural terrorism, comes from its frightening last three words:
Land of Lincoln and Franklin and Melville, I love you and wish you well. But into my heart blows a cold wind from the past; for I remember Babylon.
Friday, August 20, 2004
HOW TO KEEP THEM DOWN ON THE FARM:
Sometimes you just have to read the fine print. Buried deep within this Zogby poll is this gem:
Sometimes you just have to read the fine print. Buried deep within this Zogby poll is this gem:
Voters with active passports prefer Kerry 58% to 35%, while those without a passport are for Bush 48% to 39%.The prescription is obvious. We can help ensure Our Noble Leader's second term by having the Republican majority in Congress pass an emergency anti-terrorism bill requiring all holders of U.S. passports to renew theirs this fall. A simple cross-check against voter registrations can tell us which ones need to be "suspended pending further review". (We shouldn't actually revoke them until after election day.) If Zogby is right, then a very large number of newly travel-challenged people will suddenly change their minds and vote against that former resident of Europe and his African spouse. Nothing concentrates the mind like knowing you can't escape.
ANOTHER BREACH IN THE WALL:
A top Homeland Security official has apologized to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy who was stopped at airports because a name similar to his appeared on the government's no-fly list of terror suspects. ... Kennedy said he was stopped at airports in Washington, D.C., and Boston three times in March. Airline agents told him he would not be sold a ticket because his name was on a list. When he asked the agent why, he was told, "We can't tell you." ... Each time, a supervisor recognized Kennedy and got him on the flight.That's according to this story, which was spotted by "and then..." What's wrong with this picture? Obviously the guards on the ground actually doing the job accurately recognized the Chappaquiddick Knievel as a serious threat to our security. Unfortunately, they were overruled by higher-ups, trying to butter up the big shot. We need to take such politics out of airport security, and let the professionals do their jobs. Wouldn't you feel safer knowing that at least one Doddering Democratic Pretender wasn't free to use the airplane toilet over your home?
Thursday, August 12, 2004
I DON'T THINK SO:
You are Leviticus.
Which book of the Bible are you? brought to you by Quizilla
I found this quiz at Starsplash but I don't believe it is accurate. That's not just in my case, which gave this surprisingly "legalistic" result, no doubt showing again the ill effects of studying law. I also tried it again with some role-playing. It was very easy to get Romans or Revelations, but its questions were too limited to cover the vast diversity of books in the Bible. I think the author only selected a few of them as answers. My own favorite one has always been Judith. It may be in the Apocrypha, but its merciless bloodthirstiness, inspired and exampled by a woman, always made her my very own role model.
You are Leviticus.
Which book of the Bible are you? brought to you by Quizilla
I found this quiz at Starsplash but I don't believe it is accurate. That's not just in my case, which gave this surprisingly "legalistic" result, no doubt showing again the ill effects of studying law. I also tried it again with some role-playing. It was very easy to get Romans or Revelations, but its questions were too limited to cover the vast diversity of books in the Bible. I think the author only selected a few of them as answers. My own favorite one has always been Judith. It may be in the Apocrypha, but its merciless bloodthirstiness, inspired and exampled by a woman, always made her my very own role model.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
SHE'S PROBABLY IN THE ZEN ROOM:
Apparently intimidated by my own parodies of her anti-Bush song parodies, the Mistress of Mock, Mad Kane, has cut and run, fleeing to a new medium: the haiku. She has retreated in defeat from using as her source fine traditional U.S. musical and pop songs. Instead she has adopted a Japanese verse form. This is just following the example of her new hero, that multilingual foreigner-marrying un-American, The Ketchup Consort. Even when she lapses into including a recognizable lyric, it is from some other country. For instance, read her snarking at one speechwriter who will be helping Republicans this fall:
Proper haiku about nature, sans human beings, do have appeal to some other leftist scribes, however. Reports are that the tree-hugging author of Earth In The Balance will take this idea and become a guerrilla eco-poet, changing his name to Che Gorevara. Here's his first deep green opus, called "A Tear For Kyoto":
Apparently intimidated by my own parodies of her anti-Bush song parodies, the Mistress of Mock, Mad Kane, has cut and run, fleeing to a new medium: the haiku. She has retreated in defeat from using as her source fine traditional U.S. musical and pop songs. Instead she has adopted a Japanese verse form. This is just following the example of her new hero, that multilingual foreigner-marrying un-American, The Ketchup Consort. Even when she lapses into including a recognizable lyric, it is from some other country. For instance, read her snarking at one speechwriter who will be helping Republicans this fall:
Peg Noonan's on leave.That third line was lifted from what has been described as "the greatest political rock song of all time", but it was not penned under Old Glory, but the Union Jack. Kane is now writing new examples every day, all attacking Our Noble Leader or other good conservatives. This politicization dishonors the Japanese masters of this art by ignoring many established traditions. One is "Each Haiku must contain a kigo, a season word, which indicate in which season the Haiku is set." Most important is "Use only images from nature." That is what they are supposed to be about, not partisan personal pastiches.
The GOP's her new boss.
Same as the old boss.
Proper haiku about nature, sans human beings, do have appeal to some other leftist scribes, however. Reports are that the tree-hugging author of Earth In The Balance will take this idea and become a guerrilla eco-poet, changing his name to Che Gorevara. Here's his first deep green opus, called "A Tear For Kyoto":
Warmth melts Greenland ice,
Slows Gulf Stream, and chills New York:
Buildings glaciers slice.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
OLD EUROPE STRIKES BACK:
I've been a poll watcher before myself. (Doesn't that fill you with confidence in our election system?) I remember hearing one voter denounce as "intimidating" the appearance at the polls of an armed law enforcement officer, who only came to escort a technician from the election office. What I wanted to ask this obvious Democrat was, well, did the presence of his gun scare you into voting Republican? If so, as Martha would say on visiting days at her new barred residence, that's a good thing. Now we need to consider seriously whether the presence of European "observers" is planned to scare good conservative voters into voting for the French candidate for President this fall.
Remember how The Ketchup Consort was bragging about all those foreign leaders telling him they hoped he would win? This looks like proof he was telling the truth after all. Now they're sending multilingual Orcs to ogle our balloting. Don't most states prohibit non-voters in the polls unless they are official poll watchers? Don't most of them require poll watchers to be eligible voters themselves? Is ignoring these laws the opening shot of the Occupation of America by the E.U.? First get us used to their minions snooping over our shoulders in the voting booth, then we won't be as bothered when they strut onto the floor of our legislatures and Congress itself.
Will they try to discourage male WASP voters with questions about the U.N. Charter? Will they be wearing their own E-Uniforms, or just a "small, unobtrusive" foreign flag? Don't let them get away with this bullying. Pester them until they give up and admit their true loyalty. Tell the police later you were only quoting Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2 (Act V, Scene 3): "Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!" Otherwise we'll soon be living in that dismal defeated dystopia foreseen by Ward Moore in his classic nightmare story, "It Becomes Necessary".
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe plans to observe the US presidential election this year, concerned by the disputed results in 2000, a spokeswoman said. ... The US State Department said it welcomed the OSCE's decision to send a team and denied it meant the fairness of the upcoming US election was in doubt.It's no surprise that Colin's sycophants wimped out on this and said "Y'all come on in," but Our Noble Leader should be worried. Remember all those liberal denunciations of Bill Rehnquist during his confirmation hearings for Chief Justice? They claimed he had tried to intimidate minority voters in Arizona, just by asking them simple questions about Constitutional law to make sure they were qualified. I always dismissed that as silly partisan paranoia, but this article makes me wonder if maybe they were right, for the first time in their lives. We should recall the words of Len Deighton: "Eternal paranoia is the price of liberty; vigilance is not enough."
I've been a poll watcher before myself. (Doesn't that fill you with confidence in our election system?) I remember hearing one voter denounce as "intimidating" the appearance at the polls of an armed law enforcement officer, who only came to escort a technician from the election office. What I wanted to ask this obvious Democrat was, well, did the presence of his gun scare you into voting Republican? If so, as Martha would say on visiting days at her new barred residence, that's a good thing. Now we need to consider seriously whether the presence of European "observers" is planned to scare good conservative voters into voting for the French candidate for President this fall.
Remember how The Ketchup Consort was bragging about all those foreign leaders telling him they hoped he would win? This looks like proof he was telling the truth after all. Now they're sending multilingual Orcs to ogle our balloting. Don't most states prohibit non-voters in the polls unless they are official poll watchers? Don't most of them require poll watchers to be eligible voters themselves? Is ignoring these laws the opening shot of the Occupation of America by the E.U.? First get us used to their minions snooping over our shoulders in the voting booth, then we won't be as bothered when they strut onto the floor of our legislatures and Congress itself.
Will they try to discourage male WASP voters with questions about the U.N. Charter? Will they be wearing their own E-Uniforms, or just a "small, unobtrusive" foreign flag? Don't let them get away with this bullying. Pester them until they give up and admit their true loyalty. Tell the police later you were only quoting Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2 (Act V, Scene 3): "Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!" Otherwise we'll soon be living in that dismal defeated dystopia foreseen by Ward Moore in his classic nightmare story, "It Becomes Necessary".
THERE'S JUST NO PLEASING SOME PEOPLE:
When we do give out names, what happens? Democrats desperate to dethrone our President now attack this as a "leak". They even play "gotcha" with his national security advisor's TV appearances, claiming she admitted that. As one of her underlings put it in that same article
A key Democratic senator yesterday demanded that the Bush administration explain how the name of a valuable Al Qaeda double agent appeared in the press last week.... The Times report cited both "senior American officials" and Pakistani sources. Yesterday, Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, demanded the administration clarify which provided the name.For months now we've been hearing liberals denounce Our Noble Leader's administration for unprecedented secrecy, including its refusal to release the names of those hundreds of terrorists in Guantanamo. The truth is that policy was set up to protect the innocent. Rummy knew full well that no one would believe the media's calling those people "alleged" terrorists, so to protect their right to a fair military tribunal, he kindly just sat on their names. I disagreed with this at the time, thinking this concern for their reputations was simply appeasing the ACLU. I wanted to plaster their faces all over the press, and promise that "They'll get a fair trial, then hang." Once more, pussy-footing politics prevailed over bold Old Testament justice. Now look how this has come back to bite us.
When we do give out names, what happens? Democrats desperate to dethrone our President now attack this as a "leak". They even play "gotcha" with his national security advisor's TV appearances, claiming she admitted that. As one of her underlings put it in that same article
"She was in the middle of making a point and he interrupted her, and she reflexively repeated 'on background,' but she was not confirming it and went on to complete her thought".Those who disbelieve that as "spin" just don't know Dr. Rice. Her blindly repetitive adherence to the talking points of the day is so legendary that Karl refers to her as "Polly". But she just can't win. Hide the names, and it's an evil conspiracy. Reveal them, and it's a callous political plot. This is not a liberal "double standard" to criticize us; it's a simple single standard: whatever we do is wrong.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
A FIRST STEP:
That is the traditional reaction to the news that a bus full of trial lawyers has gone over a cliff. It also applies to today's anniversary of the August 4, 1869, decree by Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico:
That is the traditional reaction to the news that a bus full of trial lawyers has gone over a cliff. It also applies to today's anniversary of the August 4, 1869, decree by Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico:
"Being desirous of allaying the dissensions of party strife now existing within our realm, [I] do hereby dissolve and abolish the Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby degree the disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than ten, nor less than five years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our imperial decree." --San Francisco Herald, August 4, 1869Karl, are you listening? Fortunately, we didn't establish this kind of imperial rule under Saint Ronald. While Michael is a fine liberal-bashing patriot, he was adopted. Think about us suffering now under the Slayer of Stem Cells, Emperor Ron, Jr. But our current First Family offers much better prospects, now that the future Empress Jenna has begun campaigning for Our Noble Leader. She can also count on good advice from the Duke of Tallahassee.
Monday, August 02, 2004
"VOTE AS YOU SHOT":
Memo to Karl R.:
You call that a July Surprise? Getting the Pakis to "capture" a second-rater like that one utterly failed to prevent The Ketchup Consort from getting a Boston baked bounce in the polls. We need something more serious to guarantee Our Noble Leader's second term. Here's a suggestion which will have to be followed quickly.
Today John Heinz-Kerry complained that the President had not called Congress back into session to implement recommendations of the 9-11 commission. Have him do it, now. The Demagogic candidates will not be there anyway, just like they've been ducking votes all year. In their absence, consider this good news from a survey of rural voters:
Memo to Karl R.:
You call that a July Surprise? Getting the Pakis to "capture" a second-rater like that one utterly failed to prevent The Ketchup Consort from getting a Boston baked bounce in the polls. We need something more serious to guarantee Our Noble Leader's second term. Here's a suggestion which will have to be followed quickly.
Today John Heinz-Kerry complained that the President had not called Congress back into session to implement recommendations of the 9-11 commission. Have him do it, now. The Demagogic candidates will not be there anyway, just like they've been ducking votes all year. In their absence, consider this good news from a survey of rural voters:
Those with no guns favor Kerry 51-43. For those with 1-2 guns, they favor Bush 49-44. And, for the folks who keep 3 or more guns at home, the numbers are 64 Bush, 30 Kerry.This gives us an opportunity. While we still have a Republican majority in both houses let's ram through a bill to fight terrorism by requiring gun ownership by everyone. To ensure multiple weapons in the house, let's insist on one for each adult. It works for Switzerland, which hasn't been invaded (or had significant terrorism) in many generations. It will also have the wonderful advantage of reducing crime in two ways. The knowledge that homeowners all have guns will deter some, and the presence of those weapons will permanently end recidivism by the others. We can show how compassionate we are by providing gun stamps for the poor. Those who oppose this plan will be denounced for helping the terrorists. This November, all the newly armed voters will guarantee us four more years.
