Friday, June 30, 2006
So much for motherhood.
Most of the 'Amber Alerts' around here are warnings that one parent is trying to take a child away from the other parent. This is obviously not an emergency situation, and it's usually a toss of the dice as to which parent would really be worse for the child. It's a cry-wolf waste of the Emergency Broadcast System, and trivializes (even skips!) the rare cases where a life is truly at stake.
When I wrote this about Amber Alerts last week, I was hearing the false 'emergency' tone on the TV for an alert involving Tina Carlsen. This case turns out to be more bizarre than trivial, and exposes a wild contradiction in our laws.
Carlsen was taking her toddler away from a hospital that wanted to give him dialysis treatment; she wants to provide 'alternative' treatment at home. Obviously I don't know any of the inside details; it could well be that the official treatment will undoubtedly save his life, and the 'alternative' will undoubtedly kill him. Statistically, though, the odds are not so strong. Hospitals make plenty of mistakes, and somewhere around 100K Americans are killed each year by medical errors. (Many of those deaths would be prevented by the simple step of bringing doctors into the 19th century if not the 21st: forcing them to type prescriptions.)
A piece of the story:
The state won custody of Riley [the kid] after Carlsen refused surgery. The court order currently prohibits Carlsen from seeing her son without special approval, but Carlsen says that fight is not over.
“He's my baby, I'm gonna fight until I die,” said Carlsen. “I'd rather sit in prison than not fight.”
Carlsen appears back in court next month to fight for custody.
Carlsen, 34, was released from King County Jail Thursday after pleading not guilty to kidnapping charges in King County Superior Court. Just hours earlier, a judge did away with her $500,000 bail, allowing her to go free on her own recognizance.
"It’s been a nightmare. From the day he was born, I've been fighting this. And it’s OK. It'll get good," she said.
In short, what we have here is a tigress of a mother - the type of mother every child deserves - whose theory of medical care differs from the official theory. Because her theory differs, she's being charged with endangerment and kidnapping.
If she had been the opposite kind of mother - an aborting kind of mother - the state would have encouraged her choice, and would have given her a special police escort into the abortuary if any Christians were seen in the vicinity.
Wildly contradictory on the basic level of life and death, good and evil. Not so contradictory on the level of practical politics, though. MDs and abortuaries have tremendous representation in legislatures; Congress contains almost as many MDs as lawyers lately. Motherhood has no lobby.
Full story here. ¶ 7:12 PM
When I wrote this about Amber Alerts last week, I was hearing the false 'emergency' tone on the TV for an alert involving Tina Carlsen. This case turns out to be more bizarre than trivial, and exposes a wild contradiction in our laws.
Carlsen was taking her toddler away from a hospital that wanted to give him dialysis treatment; she wants to provide 'alternative' treatment at home. Obviously I don't know any of the inside details; it could well be that the official treatment will undoubtedly save his life, and the 'alternative' will undoubtedly kill him. Statistically, though, the odds are not so strong. Hospitals make plenty of mistakes, and somewhere around 100K Americans are killed each year by medical errors. (Many of those deaths would be prevented by the simple step of bringing doctors into the 19th century if not the 21st: forcing them to type prescriptions.)
A piece of the story:
The state won custody of Riley [the kid] after Carlsen refused surgery. The court order currently prohibits Carlsen from seeing her son without special approval, but Carlsen says that fight is not over.
“He's my baby, I'm gonna fight until I die,” said Carlsen. “I'd rather sit in prison than not fight.”
Carlsen appears back in court next month to fight for custody.
Carlsen, 34, was released from King County Jail Thursday after pleading not guilty to kidnapping charges in King County Superior Court. Just hours earlier, a judge did away with her $500,000 bail, allowing her to go free on her own recognizance.
"It’s been a nightmare. From the day he was born, I've been fighting this. And it’s OK. It'll get good," she said.
In short, what we have here is a tigress of a mother - the type of mother every child deserves - whose theory of medical care differs from the official theory. Because her theory differs, she's being charged with endangerment and kidnapping.
If she had been the opposite kind of mother - an aborting kind of mother - the state would have encouraged her choice, and would have given her a special police escort into the abortuary if any Christians were seen in the vicinity.
Wildly contradictory on the basic level of life and death, good and evil. Not so contradictory on the level of practical politics, though. MDs and abortuaries have tremendous representation in legislatures; Congress contains almost as many MDs as lawyers lately. Motherhood has no lobby.
Full story here. ¶ 7:12 PM
Loose lips and all that......
The blogworld has picked up on the WW2 "Loose Lips" theme... Back then, it wasn't just posters, it was all through the world of entertainment. I've posted this before, but it seems appropriate now.
The Kingsmen sing "Keep your darn mouth SHUT!", from an episode of Fibber McGee that was completely devoted to the same subject:
Listen... ¶ 3:32 PM
The Kingsmen sing "Keep your darn mouth SHUT!", from an episode of Fibber McGee that was completely devoted to the same subject:
Listen... ¶ 3:32 PM
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Recipe
Dear George:
Here's how you win the war.
Follow these two simple steps.
1. Make a list of everything your fellow liberals claim that you are doing. (Unilateral action, ignoring the UN, lawless, vicious, drilling for oil....)
2. Do those things. ¶ 11:12 AM
Dear George:
Here's how you win the war.
Follow these two simple steps.
1. Make a list of everything your fellow liberals claim that you are doing. (Unilateral action, ignoring the UN, lawless, vicious, drilling for oil....)
2. Do those things. ¶ 11:12 AM
Moussaoui gets it right.
Moussaoui said "I won, you lost."
Now he's been proved right.
I'm not surprised.
A president would defiantly and openly disobey this treasonous 'order'.
What will Kindler Gentler George do?
He will obey the enemy.
Might as well start practicing.
¶ 7:47 AM
Now he's been proved right.
I'm not surprised.
A president would defiantly and openly disobey this treasonous 'order'.
What will Kindler Gentler George do?
He will obey the enemy.
Might as well start practicing.
¶ 7:47 AM
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Burn flags or burn vets?
Just as with the homosexual marriage amendment, this flag-burning thing is purely cynical. If there is in fact a problem, it's a problem of bad judges, not bad text in the Constitution. Adding more text just gives the bad judges more material to create bad decisions. If Congress really wanted to solve the problem, it would find ways to fire most of the existing judges and hire randomly selected - preferably uneducated - people to replace them.
In this case, I'll take it one step further. If Congress really wants to serve veterans, it could find ways to - ahem - SERVE VETERANS, not ways to create a meaningless election-year issue.
Classic example here in Spokane. A Vietnam vet named Doug Dawson fell into long-term drunkenness and ended up as a street bum. Last week, two young evil dickheads found Dawson asleep next to a building. (The local homeless shelters had apparently rejected him for persistent drunkenness.) The two evil dickheads robbed Dawson of his few dollars and possessions, then SET HIM ON FIRE. He lingered several days in horrible pain, then died yesterday. Fortunately the two evil dickheads were caught, and fortunately they did their unspeakable deed in a place like Spokane where they won't get off easy.
I've talked before about the question of crazy folks having the 'right' to be out of asylums. A similar question arises with bums. The old fashioned poorhouse sounds just as mean-spirited as the insane asylum, but I'll guarantee you that an unfortunate veteran like Dawson would not have been SET ON FIRE in a poorhouse.
Story here, including interview with one of the evil dickheads. ¶ 6:28 AM
In this case, I'll take it one step further. If Congress really wants to serve veterans, it could find ways to - ahem - SERVE VETERANS, not ways to create a meaningless election-year issue.
Classic example here in Spokane. A Vietnam vet named Doug Dawson fell into long-term drunkenness and ended up as a street bum. Last week, two young evil dickheads found Dawson asleep next to a building. (The local homeless shelters had apparently rejected him for persistent drunkenness.) The two evil dickheads robbed Dawson of his few dollars and possessions, then SET HIM ON FIRE. He lingered several days in horrible pain, then died yesterday. Fortunately the two evil dickheads were caught, and fortunately they did their unspeakable deed in a place like Spokane where they won't get off easy.
I've talked before about the question of crazy folks having the 'right' to be out of asylums. A similar question arises with bums. The old fashioned poorhouse sounds just as mean-spirited as the insane asylum, but I'll guarantee you that an unfortunate veteran like Dawson would not have been SET ON FIRE in a poorhouse.
Story here, including interview with one of the evil dickheads. ¶ 6:28 AM
Monday, June 26, 2006
Espionage is not reportage
Many of the 'experts' who really should know better (like Fox's legal eagle Napolitano) have fallen into the trap of assuming that the First Amendment protects espionage, and thus there is no way to prosecute newspapers for treason.
You don't need to plumb the minds of the Framers to knock down this idiotic idea.
Just a simple example:
Let's say Chen is spying for China, and he sends his information to his masters by meeting them directly and whispering the information in their ears. This is unquestionably not publication by any definition of the word, so it can be prosecuted as espionage.
Now let's say Schultz is spying for Germany, and he sends his information by placing innocuous-looking coded messages in the classified ads of the New York Times. This is historically a common trick.
Now let's say Risen is spying for al-Qaeda, and he sends his information by placing uncoded articles on the front page of the New York Times.
By the absolutist argument, both Schultz and Risen are totally immune from punishment, because they transferred their illegally acquired information in the form of a 'publication'.
Since spies can (and often have) posed as reporters, and spies often use newspapers and radio broadcasts to transfer their information, it's just fantastically silly to claim that the mode of transmission is what distinguishes between a spy and a 'whistleblower' who is 'serving the public interest'.
Common sense says that anyone who knowingly participates in giving otherwise unobtainable war information to an enemy is a spy, regardless of the physical mode of transfer of the information.
----
Later (Tues morning)... Fred Barnes is making the same argument, though not quite so clearly, in a brief discussion with Ellen Whatchamacallit on Fox. Ellen says in response that the whole kerfuffle is just political. Surprisingly, I find myself agreeing with Ellen, because the Second Ford Administration hasn't done anything serious yet. If they were truly serious about conducting a war that depends heavily on intelligence and monitoring, they would already have arrested all the bureaucrats and congresscritters involved (which must be a small and easily identified set), and they would already have shut down the three enemy newspapers who participated in this act of espionage. Since they haven't taken any of these steps, I'll have to go along with Ellen: Karl Rove is more interested in 'having the issue' than in actually solving the problem of espionage. ¶ 6:44 PM
You don't need to plumb the minds of the Framers to knock down this idiotic idea.
Just a simple example:
Let's say Chen is spying for China, and he sends his information to his masters by meeting them directly and whispering the information in their ears. This is unquestionably not publication by any definition of the word, so it can be prosecuted as espionage.
Now let's say Schultz is spying for Germany, and he sends his information by placing innocuous-looking coded messages in the classified ads of the New York Times. This is historically a common trick.
Now let's say Risen is spying for al-Qaeda, and he sends his information by placing uncoded articles on the front page of the New York Times.
By the absolutist argument, both Schultz and Risen are totally immune from punishment, because they transferred their illegally acquired information in the form of a 'publication'.
Since spies can (and often have) posed as reporters, and spies often use newspapers and radio broadcasts to transfer their information, it's just fantastically silly to claim that the mode of transmission is what distinguishes between a spy and a 'whistleblower' who is 'serving the public interest'.
Common sense says that anyone who knowingly participates in giving otherwise unobtainable war information to an enemy is a spy, regardless of the physical mode of transfer of the information.
----
Later (Tues morning)... Fred Barnes is making the same argument, though not quite so clearly, in a brief discussion with Ellen Whatchamacallit on Fox. Ellen says in response that the whole kerfuffle is just political. Surprisingly, I find myself agreeing with Ellen, because the Second Ford Administration hasn't done anything serious yet. If they were truly serious about conducting a war that depends heavily on intelligence and monitoring, they would already have arrested all the bureaucrats and congresscritters involved (which must be a small and easily identified set), and they would already have shut down the three enemy newspapers who participated in this act of espionage. Since they haven't taken any of these steps, I'll have to go along with Ellen: Karl Rove is more interested in 'having the issue' than in actually solving the problem of espionage. ¶ 6:44 PM
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Just for fun
I've always been tickled by Mark Twain's hyperliteral retranslation of his Jumping Frog story from a French magazine. It's a precursor of today's machine translation.
Actually, though, today's translation software does such a good job between European languages that it's no longer fun! You can get good stuff by taking a page into Japanese and back into English, but that often gives such total gibberish that it isn't amusing. A quick way to get some fine silliness is to start with an English webpage, then tell Babelfish to translate it FROM French or Portuguese INTO English. About 80% of the original text comes through straight, but when the spelling of an English word happens to fit into the French dictionary, the result is wonderful. For some reason, such accidental correspondences often turn out to be vulgarly appropriate.
For a quick example, here's the Mill as Google takes it "from French" into English. ¶ 8:16 PM
Actually, though, today's translation software does such a good job between European languages that it's no longer fun! You can get good stuff by taking a page into Japanese and back into English, but that often gives such total gibberish that it isn't amusing. A quick way to get some fine silliness is to start with an English webpage, then tell Babelfish to translate it FROM French or Portuguese INTO English. About 80% of the original text comes through straight, but when the spelling of an English word happens to fit into the French dictionary, the result is wonderful. For some reason, such accidental correspondences often turn out to be vulgarly appropriate.
For a quick example, here's the Mill as Google takes it "from French" into English. ¶ 8:16 PM
Madame Polisztra channels the Director
Madame Polisztra found a message waiting in her crystal ball this morning. She opens the channel......
Crystal ball: Ple-ase deposit fi-ave dollars before commencing your conversation.
J. Edgar: Oh, all right, dammit. [clang, clang, clang, ....]
Madame Polisztra: Good morning, Mr. Hoover. Pay phones up there?
J. Edgar: Yes, of course, Missy. I haven't forgotten my tradecraft.
MP: But doesn't new technology appear up there?
JE: Cell phones are a Jap thing, Missy. Nips have their own areas up here, so their stuff doesn't get used in our section.
MP: Internment?
JE: Yep. I didn't like it much the first time, but I've changed my mind up here. Old JC has a real bug up his ass about repentance, and the Japs haven't even begun to repent for what they did to China, the Philippines, and us back in the '30s and '40s. Still proud of it.
MP: Well, sir, what I wanted to talk with you ...
JE: Hey! That isn't a reefer over there, is it?
MP: No, sir! Absolutely not. Just a French coffin nail. Gauloise brand.
JE: All right, Missy, I didn't really think you were that dumb. Your author was, but I guess we educated him. Some. My dossier on him is out of date, so I don't know. Anyhow, smoke 'em while you got 'em. Can't smoke up here, dammit.
MP: Sorry to give you a jolt, sir. It won't be very long before we can't smoke down here either.
JE: Those idiots. Damn Ford administration with their prissy clean hands. I crossed over just before they came to power the first time, and now you've put them back in power a second time.
MP: Ford, sir?
JE: Ford administration. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Kissinger. You put them back in power, so what do you expect? Damn Episcopalians. JC calls them Pharisees, and I guess he's right. They think obeying all the regulations counts for more than defending the country or doing the right thing. Parlor pinkos. When the New York Goddamn Times helps the enemy - like it's been doing since I was down there - you don't just get "offended", you fight back. Steal their secrets. Shut them down. Chesapeake their boss. When Teddy Kennedy gives you orders, you don't obey him, you pull his dossier and educate him. Damn Kennedys anyway. Damn them all in hell.
MP: Don't you mean "all to hell", sir?
JE: You heard me the first time, Missy. Moses didn't want to transfer the whole family, but I reminded him that I've got some very interesting hieroglyphics in his dossier, about the real reason for those 40 years in the wilderness. So down they all go.
MP: Anyway, sir, what I wanted to..
JE: Yes, I know. Those colored boys in Miami. Thought they were jivin' in the big time with the camel fuckers. Turned out they were just rappin' with The Man. Great work. Fine work. Somebody in the Bureau has figured out how to do things right again. Must have learned it from the Brits. He won't last long, though. Damn pinko Fordies will have him on the carpet for breaking some idiotic reg.
MP: Sir?
JE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. You want to know what I'd do different. Okay, here's how we did it with the Commies: We set up entire political movements under our guidance, let the hippie trash join up and "decide" how they would compete with the other movements. Was bad enough trying to spot the informers in your own group; and then you had to worry about whether the Progressive Workers of the Globe was beating your time with the masses, and then you had to wonder whether the PWG was really the Bureau, or whether your own splinter group was really the Bureau. Ah, those were the days. Watching the Reds pissing on each other with Marxist quotes, each trying to be the most orthodox dick in the territory, when they should have been planning and bombing. Looks like the Company might be using that method with the camel humpers, but I don't see any sign that the Bureau is using it at home. There'd be more publicity for the alternate movements if they were.
Crystal ball: Please deposit tha-rrree dollars to continue your conversation.
JE: Tell you what, Missy. I better sign off now. Got to hoard my quarters for the one-armed bandit.
MP: What? Gambling up there? More of your, um, dossiers?
JE: No, this wasn't my doing. My influence only goes so far. This was the Indians. When they go on the warpath to plant a casino, nothing on earth or in Heaven can stop them. Woo woo woo woo woo, ka-ching. So thanks for listening, Missy.
MP: And many thanks for giving us your wisdom, Mr. Hoover. It won't make any difference, but I appreciate it.
Crystal ball: I am sor-ry, your par-ty has be-an disconnected. [Clack!]
-----
Later: Interestingly, it appears that J. Edgar did in fact penetrate an earlier version of the Seas of David, back in the '50s in New York. Makes me wonder if the organization continued as a Bureau-controlled 'ideological virus'. ¶ 7:06 PM
Crystal ball: Ple-ase deposit fi-ave dollars before commencing your conversation.
J. Edgar: Oh, all right, dammit. [clang, clang, clang, ....]
Madame Polisztra: Good morning, Mr. Hoover. Pay phones up there?
J. Edgar: Yes, of course, Missy. I haven't forgotten my tradecraft.
MP: But doesn't new technology appear up there?
JE: Cell phones are a Jap thing, Missy. Nips have their own areas up here, so their stuff doesn't get used in our section.
MP: Internment?
JE: Yep. I didn't like it much the first time, but I've changed my mind up here. Old JC has a real bug up his ass about repentance, and the Japs haven't even begun to repent for what they did to China, the Philippines, and us back in the '30s and '40s. Still proud of it.
MP: Well, sir, what I wanted to talk with you ...
JE: Hey! That isn't a reefer over there, is it?
MP: No, sir! Absolutely not. Just a French coffin nail. Gauloise brand.
JE: All right, Missy, I didn't really think you were that dumb. Your author was, but I guess we educated him. Some. My dossier on him is out of date, so I don't know. Anyhow, smoke 'em while you got 'em. Can't smoke up here, dammit.
MP: Sorry to give you a jolt, sir. It won't be very long before we can't smoke down here either.
JE: Those idiots. Damn Ford administration with their prissy clean hands. I crossed over just before they came to power the first time, and now you've put them back in power a second time.
MP: Ford, sir?
JE: Ford administration. Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Kissinger. You put them back in power, so what do you expect? Damn Episcopalians. JC calls them Pharisees, and I guess he's right. They think obeying all the regulations counts for more than defending the country or doing the right thing. Parlor pinkos. When the New York Goddamn Times helps the enemy - like it's been doing since I was down there - you don't just get "offended", you fight back. Steal their secrets. Shut them down. Chesapeake their boss. When Teddy Kennedy gives you orders, you don't obey him, you pull his dossier and educate him. Damn Kennedys anyway. Damn them all in hell.
MP: Don't you mean "all to hell", sir?
JE: You heard me the first time, Missy. Moses didn't want to transfer the whole family, but I reminded him that I've got some very interesting hieroglyphics in his dossier, about the real reason for those 40 years in the wilderness. So down they all go.
MP: Anyway, sir, what I wanted to..
JE: Yes, I know. Those colored boys in Miami. Thought they were jivin' in the big time with the camel fuckers. Turned out they were just rappin' with The Man. Great work. Fine work. Somebody in the Bureau has figured out how to do things right again. Must have learned it from the Brits. He won't last long, though. Damn pinko Fordies will have him on the carpet for breaking some idiotic reg.
MP: Sir?
JE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. You want to know what I'd do different. Okay, here's how we did it with the Commies: We set up entire political movements under our guidance, let the hippie trash join up and "decide" how they would compete with the other movements. Was bad enough trying to spot the informers in your own group; and then you had to worry about whether the Progressive Workers of the Globe was beating your time with the masses, and then you had to wonder whether the PWG was really the Bureau, or whether your own splinter group was really the Bureau. Ah, those were the days. Watching the Reds pissing on each other with Marxist quotes, each trying to be the most orthodox dick in the territory, when they should have been planning and bombing. Looks like the Company might be using that method with the camel humpers, but I don't see any sign that the Bureau is using it at home. There'd be more publicity for the alternate movements if they were.
Crystal ball: Please deposit tha-rrree dollars to continue your conversation.
JE: Tell you what, Missy. I better sign off now. Got to hoard my quarters for the one-armed bandit.
MP: What? Gambling up there? More of your, um, dossiers?
JE: No, this wasn't my doing. My influence only goes so far. This was the Indians. When they go on the warpath to plant a casino, nothing on earth or in Heaven can stop them. Woo woo woo woo woo, ka-ching. So thanks for listening, Missy.
MP: And many thanks for giving us your wisdom, Mr. Hoover. It won't make any difference, but I appreciate it.
Crystal ball: I am sor-ry, your par-ty has be-an disconnected. [Clack!]
-----
Later: Interestingly, it appears that J. Edgar did in fact penetrate an earlier version of the Seas of David, back in the '50s in New York. Makes me wonder if the organization continued as a Bureau-controlled 'ideological virus'. ¶ 7:06 PM
Friday, June 23, 2006
J. Edgar is back, and I'm glad.
We're hearing more of the usual agonizing on the difficulty of dealing with 'home-grown' terrorism. We're hearing from the mothers and friends of these Miami 'construction workers'. Even allowing for lies and ignorance, it does appear that the Seas of David was just barely Mohammedan. Perhaps a blend of voodoo and Farrakhanism.
The intellectuals on both sides have been focusing heavily on the question of beliefs and creeds. Enemy intellectuals have been using our natural fear of discrimination to confuse us, weakening our ability to prosecute for anything. In reaction, pro-Western intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals (the latter including me) have over-emphasized the connection between Jihad and the principles of the Koran.
It turns out this is the wrong question. The Canadian police and the FBI have been asking the RIGHT question, a nice simple empirical masculine-minded question.
Not "What do you believe?" or "Do you know all the Suras of the Koran?" but "Who are you working for?" By giving the terrorists an opportunity to swear allegiance to the enemy, and by selling them [fake] explosives, the authorities have been able to stop two genuinely dangerous plots.
Penetration isn't new, of course; it's the same method that J. Edgar Hoover used with tremendous success against Communists and related groups in the '50s and '60s. Hoover didn't know the details of Marxist ideology, and didn't check to see if the Reds he pursued were experts in Marxist ideology. He just asked if a group was working on behalf of Russia.
Having been among those Reds (in a marginal way), I can guarantee that J. Edgar's method worked. When you strongly suspect that any member of your group could be an informant, you don't accomplish much. You waste time with tricky and pointless narc-spotting, or you just fall apart.
But the post-Watergate crackdown by the Soviet side of Congress, followed by the even tighter restrictions by the Clinton administration, made it very difficult for FBI to use penetration methods. They may have tried it a few times (e.g. OKC), but in law enforcement as in surgery or any other complex task, you need constant practice to develop skills and maintain structures. Failure (e.g. OKC) made them even more reluctant to use the method.
This Miami raid tells me that J. Edgar is back in business. And I'm absolutely happy, even if I have to eat some intellectual crow. ¶ 3:39 PM
The intellectuals on both sides have been focusing heavily on the question of beliefs and creeds. Enemy intellectuals have been using our natural fear of discrimination to confuse us, weakening our ability to prosecute for anything. In reaction, pro-Western intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals (the latter including me) have over-emphasized the connection between Jihad and the principles of the Koran.
It turns out this is the wrong question. The Canadian police and the FBI have been asking the RIGHT question, a nice simple empirical masculine-minded question.
Not "What do you believe?" or "Do you know all the Suras of the Koran?" but "Who are you working for?" By giving the terrorists an opportunity to swear allegiance to the enemy, and by selling them [fake] explosives, the authorities have been able to stop two genuinely dangerous plots.
Penetration isn't new, of course; it's the same method that J. Edgar Hoover used with tremendous success against Communists and related groups in the '50s and '60s. Hoover didn't know the details of Marxist ideology, and didn't check to see if the Reds he pursued were experts in Marxist ideology. He just asked if a group was working on behalf of Russia.
Having been among those Reds (in a marginal way), I can guarantee that J. Edgar's method worked. When you strongly suspect that any member of your group could be an informant, you don't accomplish much. You waste time with tricky and pointless narc-spotting, or you just fall apart.
But the post-Watergate crackdown by the Soviet side of Congress, followed by the even tighter restrictions by the Clinton administration, made it very difficult for FBI to use penetration methods. They may have tried it a few times (e.g. OKC), but in law enforcement as in surgery or any other complex task, you need constant practice to develop skills and maintain structures. Failure (e.g. OKC) made them even more reluctant to use the method.
This Miami raid tells me that J. Edgar is back in business. And I'm absolutely happy, even if I have to eat some intellectual crow. ¶ 3:39 PM
Thursday, June 22, 2006
FBI gets one right!
Since I've knocked the FBI early and often, I should register applause early when they FINALLY get one right. This is the first serious terrorist cell they've ever caught before it acted. Ever.
Still not fully clear if the terrorists are Black Muslims (i.e. Farrakhanites) or blacks who follow the actual Mohammedan faith. Sounds like the latter, since one of them is apparently Jamaican. As in Richard Read and Lee Boyd Malvo. You can bet that the Jamaican is the leader, since native-born American blacks always follow Jamaican-derived blacks.
-----
Oops, apparently Haitian, not Jamaican. That's less expected.
Listening to the smarmy experts on CNN, putting out the usual 'fraction of a fraction' stuff, and saying that 'home-grown terrorists' are hard to spot because they look and act just like anyone else. Well, no. If they are truly serious about their adherence to Allah, they don't look and act like the rest of us. Infidels don't poke their asses in the air like dung beetles five times a day.
-----
From the Miami Herald: Apparently the local black infidels didn't have any trouble distinguishing these fellows:
One man who lives across the street from the warehouse where the search warrant was served described the suspects as an unusual group of men, almost cultist, who wore military-style clothes and kept to themselves.
The 12 to 15 men in their 20's and 30s appeared to be from Haiti and from the Bahamas.
"I bet they've gone across the water" he said, believing some had escaped the federal agents.
"They would be gone all day and come back at night to the warehouse to sleep. They sold shampoo and hair grease on the street, just like the Ben Yahweh people," he said. "They were not threatening but nobody messed with them."
The Ben Yahweh reference may be obscure nationally. Yahweh Ben Yahweh was a black preacher's son from Enid who somehow turned himself into a cult leader in Miami in the 1980's. His followers killed 14 white transients, but got zero national coverage because the MSM just can't stand to break its standard Klansman template for hate crimes.
I only heard about Ben Yahweh because I lived in Enid for a long time and continued to subscribe to the hometown newspaper.
It's encouraging that the Miami black population remembers this evil man as evil, despite the MSM attempt to eliminate him from history.
-----
Anderson Cooper on CNN just now: "This alleged incident would appear to bolster Vice President Cheney's oft-stated belief that the world is a dangerous place."
I'm trying to imagine Lowell Thomas saying in 1944, "Today's alleged discovery of so-called concentration camps, where the tiny fraction of a fraction of allegedly bad Nazis are hijacking the reputation of good and peaceful Nazis by allegedly killing a few apparently Jewish people, would appear to bolster the Roosevelt administration's oft-stated view that Nazis are a dangerous enemy."
Still trying to imagine....
Still trying....
-----
Aha! Now I can hear it.
-----
News Bulletin! News Bulletin! We have Ed Murrow reporting from Auschwitz in Poland. Ed, are you there?
Ed: Yes, Lowell. I'm standing at the entrance of this alleged, so-called, and let me underline and italicize the so-called, "concentration camp." We have Brother Schmidt here, who just came out of the gate.
Brother Schmidt: Goot efening, Edt.
Ed: Brother, the Democrat administration in Washington says you are Nazis.
BS: Nein, ve iss not no kind of Nazis.
Ed: What are you, then?
BS: Ve iss chust a little business. Ve iss called SS Company.
Ed: What does SS stand for?
BS: Um, it stants for Super Soap Company.
Ed: Okay, and what about all those alleged human bodies we see behind us here?
BS: Oh, dem iss chust demonstration models. Ve use dem to show how peoples can use our soap.
Ed: I must say, those alleged bodies certainly smell like dead bodies.
BS: Vell, of course dey iss smellink. Makes besser de demonstration ven dey smell bad.
Ed: Yes, I understand. Back to you in New York, Lowell.
BS: Heil Hitler!
Lowell: Well, this certainly gives the lie to the obviously fake claims by our pernicious Democrat-controlled administration. This isn't a so-called concentration camp at all. It's just a little business struggling to stay afloat in the face of our constant evil bombing.
[Inspiration, of course, from CNN, the Gift that keeps on giving. Gift in the German sense, that is.]
¶ 7:02 PM
Still not fully clear if the terrorists are Black Muslims (i.e. Farrakhanites) or blacks who follow the actual Mohammedan faith. Sounds like the latter, since one of them is apparently Jamaican. As in Richard Read and Lee Boyd Malvo. You can bet that the Jamaican is the leader, since native-born American blacks always follow Jamaican-derived blacks.
-----
Oops, apparently Haitian, not Jamaican. That's less expected.
Listening to the smarmy experts on CNN, putting out the usual 'fraction of a fraction' stuff, and saying that 'home-grown terrorists' are hard to spot because they look and act just like anyone else. Well, no. If they are truly serious about their adherence to Allah, they don't look and act like the rest of us. Infidels don't poke their asses in the air like dung beetles five times a day.
-----
From the Miami Herald: Apparently the local black infidels didn't have any trouble distinguishing these fellows:
One man who lives across the street from the warehouse where the search warrant was served described the suspects as an unusual group of men, almost cultist, who wore military-style clothes and kept to themselves.
The 12 to 15 men in their 20's and 30s appeared to be from Haiti and from the Bahamas.
"I bet they've gone across the water" he said, believing some had escaped the federal agents.
"They would be gone all day and come back at night to the warehouse to sleep. They sold shampoo and hair grease on the street, just like the Ben Yahweh people," he said. "They were not threatening but nobody messed with them."
The Ben Yahweh reference may be obscure nationally. Yahweh Ben Yahweh was a black preacher's son from Enid who somehow turned himself into a cult leader in Miami in the 1980's. His followers killed 14 white transients, but got zero national coverage because the MSM just can't stand to break its standard Klansman template for hate crimes.
I only heard about Ben Yahweh because I lived in Enid for a long time and continued to subscribe to the hometown newspaper.
It's encouraging that the Miami black population remembers this evil man as evil, despite the MSM attempt to eliminate him from history.
-----
Anderson Cooper on CNN just now: "This alleged incident would appear to bolster Vice President Cheney's oft-stated belief that the world is a dangerous place."
I'm trying to imagine Lowell Thomas saying in 1944, "Today's alleged discovery of so-called concentration camps, where the tiny fraction of a fraction of allegedly bad Nazis are hijacking the reputation of good and peaceful Nazis by allegedly killing a few apparently Jewish people, would appear to bolster the Roosevelt administration's oft-stated view that Nazis are a dangerous enemy."
Still trying to imagine....
Still trying....
-----
Aha! Now I can hear it.
-----
News Bulletin! News Bulletin! We have Ed Murrow reporting from Auschwitz in Poland. Ed, are you there?
Ed: Yes, Lowell. I'm standing at the entrance of this alleged, so-called, and let me underline and italicize the so-called, "concentration camp." We have Brother Schmidt here, who just came out of the gate.
Brother Schmidt: Goot efening, Edt.
Ed: Brother, the Democrat administration in Washington says you are Nazis.
BS: Nein, ve iss not no kind of Nazis.
Ed: What are you, then?
BS: Ve iss chust a little business. Ve iss called SS Company.
Ed: What does SS stand for?
BS: Um, it stants for Super Soap Company.
Ed: Okay, and what about all those alleged human bodies we see behind us here?
BS: Oh, dem iss chust demonstration models. Ve use dem to show how peoples can use our soap.
Ed: I must say, those alleged bodies certainly smell like dead bodies.
BS: Vell, of course dey iss smellink. Makes besser de demonstration ven dey smell bad.
Ed: Yes, I understand. Back to you in New York, Lowell.
BS: Heil Hitler!
Lowell: Well, this certainly gives the lie to the obviously fake claims by our pernicious Democrat-controlled administration. This isn't a so-called concentration camp at all. It's just a little business struggling to stay afloat in the face of our constant evil bombing.
[Inspiration, of course, from CNN, the Gift that keeps on giving. Gift in the German sense, that is.]
¶ 7:02 PM
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
(Had it)²
Like many Americans, I had it with Arabs and Mohammedans on 9/11.
If I had been in charge, I would have systematically destroyed all signs and followers of Allah, beginning on the first day with Mecca, Medina, Qom, and any other location ever described as a 'holy city'. On the second day, I would have gone on television and played Arab Roulette. Picked an Arab country at random (which would have turned out to be Saudi Arabia, because the drawing was fixed) and vaporized the featherless bipeds that infested it. I would then have claimed the territory and its oil. On the third day, I would have given the sons of Allah 48 hours to hand us Osama's head on a stick, or lose another country. And on from there, until the sons of Allah were either gone from the earth or totally surrendered.
Basically, I would have started where we left off in 1945. In that year we figured out how to win a major war.
I suspect a very large number of loyal Westerners (not just Americans) were in a mood to respond similarly.
Some of us were intellectually thankful when Bush tried a more gradual approach, and waited to see how the latter worked.
At this point it's obvious that the gradual approach has changed the mind of Qaddafi, who was not a major player in Jihad anyway. So it's not 100% failure. But Jihad still runs strong, with no indication of losing its will.
I haven't been softened by the number of our casualties, which is still quite low by historic standards. I am irritated that our casualties and expenses are not accomplishing the ultimate goal of the war, which is to make the Jihadi lose his blood fetish. I haven't been softened by watching the various beheadings; it's a fact that horrible things happen in war. But on the rare instances when our own troops perform somewhat symmetrically in revenge, we get all agonized and start eating our own.
We often hear 'The enemy can't defeat us militarily'. Oh? Really?
In terms of equipment and troop numbers, that's undoubtedly true. But will matters more than numbers in war. Our soldiers have the will. Our leaders do not.
-----
Despite my deliberate insensitivity, the latest action involving the two captured prisoners broke through my shell. Okay, they were taken prisoner, tortured, then killed. Nasty, but a relatively normal part of war.
For some reason, the act of booby-trapping the corpses was entirely too much.
Treating enemy soldiers with contempt is normal. We should do it more.
Turning enemy soldiers into weapons is beyond all boundaries.
At this point, I've (Had it)² with the sons of Allah, and with our totally inadequate and mis-aimed defense. ¶ 9:30 AM
If I had been in charge, I would have systematically destroyed all signs and followers of Allah, beginning on the first day with Mecca, Medina, Qom, and any other location ever described as a 'holy city'. On the second day, I would have gone on television and played Arab Roulette. Picked an Arab country at random (which would have turned out to be Saudi Arabia, because the drawing was fixed) and vaporized the featherless bipeds that infested it. I would then have claimed the territory and its oil. On the third day, I would have given the sons of Allah 48 hours to hand us Osama's head on a stick, or lose another country. And on from there, until the sons of Allah were either gone from the earth or totally surrendered.
Basically, I would have started where we left off in 1945. In that year we figured out how to win a major war.
I suspect a very large number of loyal Westerners (not just Americans) were in a mood to respond similarly.
Some of us were intellectually thankful when Bush tried a more gradual approach, and waited to see how the latter worked.
At this point it's obvious that the gradual approach has changed the mind of Qaddafi, who was not a major player in Jihad anyway. So it's not 100% failure. But Jihad still runs strong, with no indication of losing its will.
I haven't been softened by the number of our casualties, which is still quite low by historic standards. I am irritated that our casualties and expenses are not accomplishing the ultimate goal of the war, which is to make the Jihadi lose his blood fetish. I haven't been softened by watching the various beheadings; it's a fact that horrible things happen in war. But on the rare instances when our own troops perform somewhat symmetrically in revenge, we get all agonized and start eating our own.
We often hear 'The enemy can't defeat us militarily'. Oh? Really?
In terms of equipment and troop numbers, that's undoubtedly true. But will matters more than numbers in war. Our soldiers have the will. Our leaders do not.
-----
Despite my deliberate insensitivity, the latest action involving the two captured prisoners broke through my shell. Okay, they were taken prisoner, tortured, then killed. Nasty, but a relatively normal part of war.
For some reason, the act of booby-trapping the corpses was entirely too much.
Treating enemy soldiers with contempt is normal. We should do it more.
Turning enemy soldiers into weapons is beyond all boundaries.
At this point, I've (Had it)² with the sons of Allah, and with our totally inadequate and mis-aimed defense. ¶ 9:30 AM
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Ou sont les Neiges d'Antoine, part deux
I've bitched and moaned repeatedly about our bizarre situation where the American media are devoted strictly to giving the enemy side, while pro-American news and propaganda is only available on the Samizdat band. I hoped that Tony Snow would do some little part toward rectifying the situation, but no go. He's sucking up to Traitor Helen Thomas, and appearing on various news programs to say nothing at all. (What about the New York cyanide plot that we halted? "Won't confirm or deny.")
Meanwhile, we receive an important and positive bit of information - namely, that part of the Star Wars (SDI) setup is actually usable, and is now activated - through the indirect channel of Japanese news. Most Americans were not aware that any part of SDI was ready to use; I had the sense that it was still in development.
Memo to Snow: If you actually want to have public support, you might start by telling us about our successes. You can rely on the enemy (CBS, NBC, NYT, Fox, etc, etc) to describe our failures in great detail.
"Won't confirm or deny" is absolutely inadequate in today's situation.
I must conclude that the Bush "administration" genuinely dislikes and disdains public support, and doesn't especially care if the enemy wins or not. ¶ 1:26 PM
Meanwhile, we receive an important and positive bit of information - namely, that part of the Star Wars (SDI) setup is actually usable, and is now activated - through the indirect channel of Japanese news. Most Americans were not aware that any part of SDI was ready to use; I had the sense that it was still in development.
Memo to Snow: If you actually want to have public support, you might start by telling us about our successes. You can rely on the enemy (CBS, NBC, NYT, Fox, etc, etc) to describe our failures in great detail.
"Won't confirm or deny" is absolutely inadequate in today's situation.
I must conclude that the Bush "administration" genuinely dislikes and disdains public support, and doesn't especially care if the enemy wins or not. ¶ 1:26 PM
Monday, June 19, 2006
Bush on Persia
Very interesting speech right now. Appealing to the Westernized element among Persians, who are the 'Episcopal end' of the Mohammedan spectrum, and who have always chafed under the basically Arab dictatorship of the mullahs. Appealing to their sense of lost empire (Cyrus), which is part of the underlying drive toward domination. Basically telling the Persians (as opposed to the other, less civilized parts of Iran) that their desire for empire can best be satisfied by turning into a fully modern country, where their tremendous intelligence can be used constructively.
Includes a promise to put more effort into 'Radio Free Europe' type of outreach.
Might be two years late, but it's still just right. ¶ 7:38 AM
Includes a promise to put more effort into 'Radio Free Europe' type of outreach.
Might be two years late, but it's still just right. ¶ 7:38 AM
Focusing on 'missing'
Apparently two of our soldiers have been taken prisoner by the enemy. Our media and government are describing the act in civilian terms, as 'kidnapping', and we're devoting 8000 soldiers to the effort of finding the 'kidnapped' soldiers. Two of the searchers have been injured, and if we keep it up, several will undoubtedly be killed. Does this make any sense?
I understand the military motivation: soldiers are more likely to risk their lives when they know they will be rescued from bad situations. But devoting huge segments of our force to the search is exactly what the enemy wants us to do. While we're distracted, they're free to work elsewhere with less interference.
Our distraction is undoubtedly a product of our 'Amber Alert' media culture, which doesn't stop genuine and brutal kidnappings (e.g. Joseph Duncan) but only encourages bad women to create an impressive national fuss to punish a husband or boyfriend. ¶ 7:16 AM
I understand the military motivation: soldiers are more likely to risk their lives when they know they will be rescued from bad situations. But devoting huge segments of our force to the search is exactly what the enemy wants us to do. While we're distracted, they're free to work elsewhere with less interference.
Our distraction is undoubtedly a product of our 'Amber Alert' media culture, which doesn't stop genuine and brutal kidnappings (e.g. Joseph Duncan) but only encourages bad women to create an impressive national fuss to punish a husband or boyfriend. ¶ 7:16 AM
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Reason for hope?
I've mentioned the Words At War series before. One of its episodes gives a unique picture of a previous occupation and how it succeeded. 'Mother America', by Carlos Romulo, describes how we turned the Philippines from a colony into a generally friendly ally. I'd guess modern military strategists are trying to follow this same model in Iraq; the similarities are remarkable.
Will it work there?
I must admit ... my sense of our total failure and idiocy has been modified by hearing this example of the very same techniques with the very same early indications of failure, followed ultimately by success.
Here's a 10-minute segment from the radio program. It's told in the form of a conversation with a Filipino version of John Doe. Sounds a bit corny now, but the 'common man' theme was a standard way of setting up a story in the '40s.
The book 'Mother America' is probably out of print, available
from Alibris.
-----
Afterthought: There is one big strategic difference. The Filipino insurgents in the early 1900's were purely local, with no external support or implications, while the Iraqi insurgents of today are acting for, and assisted by, the global Mohammedan caliphate. Thus allowing the Filipinos to have their own form of government was simply a matter of 'respect and dignity', as Romulo says. When we allow the Iraqis to implement sharia law through democratic means, we are giving the worldwide enemy more territory.
So unfortunately the analogy fails.
Cynically: If Kindler Gentler George were interested in selling or explaining his actions, he would do well to use the Philippine example. In this case it's probably best that he doesn't want public support, because this story is mighty attractive and persuasive, and would postpone our awakening. If the example were used with modern advertising technology, it would anesthetize our natural impatience with an administration that can't figure out who the enemy is; an administration that uses Democracy as a tool to give territory to the enemy. ¶ 8:23 AM
Will it work there?
I must admit ... my sense of our total failure and idiocy has been modified by hearing this example of the very same techniques with the very same early indications of failure, followed ultimately by success.
Here's a 10-minute segment from the radio program. It's told in the form of a conversation with a Filipino version of John Doe. Sounds a bit corny now, but the 'common man' theme was a standard way of setting up a story in the '40s.
The book 'Mother America' is probably out of print, available
from Alibris.
-----
Afterthought: There is one big strategic difference. The Filipino insurgents in the early 1900's were purely local, with no external support or implications, while the Iraqi insurgents of today are acting for, and assisted by, the global Mohammedan caliphate. Thus allowing the Filipinos to have their own form of government was simply a matter of 'respect and dignity', as Romulo says. When we allow the Iraqis to implement sharia law through democratic means, we are giving the worldwide enemy more territory.
So unfortunately the analogy fails.
Cynically: If Kindler Gentler George were interested in selling or explaining his actions, he would do well to use the Philippine example. In this case it's probably best that he doesn't want public support, because this story is mighty attractive and persuasive, and would postpone our awakening. If the example were used with modern advertising technology, it would anesthetize our natural impatience with an administration that can't figure out who the enemy is; an administration that uses Democracy as a tool to give territory to the enemy. ¶ 8:23 AM
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Tucker on Yucca
William Tucker has a highly informative short article on Yucca Mountain in the latest American Enterprise. [The article isn't online yet.]
Tucker's core point:
The discouraging news is that the real work at Yucca Mountain hasn't even begun. Right now the DOE is still seeking a construction license from the NRC, of which the EPA's million-year emissions satndard is only a small part. If and when the license is ever granted, the DOE must bore six more miles of passage ways ... take another four years. Then DOE must secure an operating license - an opportunity for more environmental intervention that could stretch out a decade. At best, the entombment of the nation's spent fuel will not be complete for 28 years.
What makes this effort so bizarre is that 95% of the material ... could be recycled as fuel. ... The fatal turn came in 1976 when Jimmy Carter cancelled the nation's fuel reprocessing under the quaint notion that burying the small amounts of plutonuium produced in commercial reactors would prevent other nations from developing nuclear weapons. Somehow North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, and Iran all missed this point.
Needless to say, France shows us the way. France has been running a breeder reactor, the Phenix, since 1984. So we don't need to do any significant research and development, which is fortunate since we couldn't do it anyway.
So, what is our current alleged president, Jimmy II, doing about all of this? The only step he's taken in the entire realm of energy lately is to LOCK UP EVEN MORE OF THE OCEAN FLOOR.
WHEN DO WE GET A FUCKING GOVERNMENT???????????????????????????
After the next major Mohammedan attack, that's when. If there's anything left to govern. ¶ 12:03 PM
Tucker's core point:
The discouraging news is that the real work at Yucca Mountain hasn't even begun. Right now the DOE is still seeking a construction license from the NRC, of which the EPA's million-year emissions satndard is only a small part. If and when the license is ever granted, the DOE must bore six more miles of passage ways ... take another four years. Then DOE must secure an operating license - an opportunity for more environmental intervention that could stretch out a decade. At best, the entombment of the nation's spent fuel will not be complete for 28 years.
What makes this effort so bizarre is that 95% of the material ... could be recycled as fuel. ... The fatal turn came in 1976 when Jimmy Carter cancelled the nation's fuel reprocessing under the quaint notion that burying the small amounts of plutonuium produced in commercial reactors would prevent other nations from developing nuclear weapons. Somehow North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, and Iran all missed this point.
Needless to say, France shows us the way. France has been running a breeder reactor, the Phenix, since 1984. So we don't need to do any significant research and development, which is fortunate since we couldn't do it anyway.
So, what is our current alleged president, Jimmy II, doing about all of this? The only step he's taken in the entire realm of energy lately is to LOCK UP EVEN MORE OF THE OCEAN FLOOR.
WHEN DO WE GET A FUCKING GOVERNMENT???????????????????????????
After the next major Mohammedan attack, that's when. If there's anything left to govern. ¶ 12:03 PM
Vive la France, part deux
Via Jihad Watch, France has done the right thing yet again: passed a tough set of controls on immigration.
The main points as listed by BBC and other sources:
Only the qualified get "skills and talents" residency permit
Foreigners only allowed in to work, not live off benefits
Foreign spouses to wait longer for residence cards
Migrants must agree to learn French
Migrants must sign 'contract' respecting French way of life
Scraps earlier law on workers getting citizenship after 10 years
Deport school-age illegals AND their parents after finishing
current school term!
-----
The illegals are revolting (yes, I know, it's an old joke) which is an excellent indication that the Sarkozy law is exactly correct.
As usual these days, we need to follow the French model, but of course we won't. We are the surrender monkeys now. ¶ 8:27 AM
Via Jihad Watch, France has done the right thing yet again: passed a tough set of controls on immigration.
The main points as listed by BBC and other sources:
Only the qualified get "skills and talents" residency permit
Foreigners only allowed in to work, not live off benefits
Foreign spouses to wait longer for residence cards
Migrants must agree to learn French
Migrants must sign 'contract' respecting French way of life
Scraps earlier law on workers getting citizenship after 10 years
Deport school-age illegals AND their parents after finishing
current school term!
-----
The illegals are revolting (yes, I know, it's an old joke) which is an excellent indication that the Sarkozy law is exactly correct.
As usual these days, we need to follow the French model, but of course we won't. We are the surrender monkeys now. ¶ 8:27 AM
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Odd security breach on Seattle ferry
Yesterday the Seattle ferry system was shut down briefly by a menacing incident. A man drove right through the toll-gate onto a ferry, then got violent when the guards on the ferry questioned him. At the other end of the trip, he was arrested and his car was checked; bomb-sniffing dogs picked up explosive residue.
Video here.
What really set my corpuscles on end: the man's identity is being very carefully concealed. No name given, face blurred on the TV reports. When that happens, I assume that the authorities are protecting a Mohammedan terrorist from 'hate crimes'.
However, the available information points away from that assumption. Apparently the man is well-known to Seattle area police, and is known to be drunk and crazy. (Of course the news report mumbled something about 'mental health issues', which means crazy.)
Running with the latter assumption, this still points to a significant problem that our long Leninist infiltration has generously given us. Over the last forty years, the push for 'human rights' and 'equality' has moved crazy people out of institutions and onto the streets.
I remember seeing the documentary 'Titicut Follies' (which launched the whole campaign of 'patient rights') when it first came out in 1967, and I remember being appropriately, um, shocked by the terrible way the inmates in that Massachusetts asylum were treated.
In the ensuing years, I mostly lived in the lower-class neighborhoods where the 'freed' crazies lived, and knew several of them. I watched them suffer, watched them cause suffering for the non-crazy neighbors, and watched them tie the police in knots, because even when fully crazy, the 'freed' inmates know their special privileges forward and backward.
'Titicut Follies' was shown just once in recent years; I think it was 1992 on PBS. I watched it then, and was inversely shocked. By comparison to the folks I had seen and known on the streets, the schizies in the asylum were obviously happier, healthier, safer and more comfortable.
Moreover, the inmates weren't creating confusion for law enforcement. It's an unfortunate fact that some crazies have a compulsion to imitate violent events they see on the news. As in pouring out white powder in public places when anthrax is in the news, or driving forcefully onto a ferry with firecrackers in your car.
Presumably this same realization - that the documentary now served an inverse purpose - must have dawned on somebody at PBS, which is why they never repeated the film again. ¶ 8:35 PM
Video here.
What really set my corpuscles on end: the man's identity is being very carefully concealed. No name given, face blurred on the TV reports. When that happens, I assume that the authorities are protecting a Mohammedan terrorist from 'hate crimes'.
However, the available information points away from that assumption. Apparently the man is well-known to Seattle area police, and is known to be drunk and crazy. (Of course the news report mumbled something about 'mental health issues', which means crazy.)
Running with the latter assumption, this still points to a significant problem that our long Leninist infiltration has generously given us. Over the last forty years, the push for 'human rights' and 'equality' has moved crazy people out of institutions and onto the streets.
I remember seeing the documentary 'Titicut Follies' (which launched the whole campaign of 'patient rights') when it first came out in 1967, and I remember being appropriately, um, shocked by the terrible way the inmates in that Massachusetts asylum were treated.
In the ensuing years, I mostly lived in the lower-class neighborhoods where the 'freed' crazies lived, and knew several of them. I watched them suffer, watched them cause suffering for the non-crazy neighbors, and watched them tie the police in knots, because even when fully crazy, the 'freed' inmates know their special privileges forward and backward.
'Titicut Follies' was shown just once in recent years; I think it was 1992 on PBS. I watched it then, and was inversely shocked. By comparison to the folks I had seen and known on the streets, the schizies in the asylum were obviously happier, healthier, safer and more comfortable.
Moreover, the inmates weren't creating confusion for law enforcement. It's an unfortunate fact that some crazies have a compulsion to imitate violent events they see on the news. As in pouring out white powder in public places when anthrax is in the news, or driving forcefully onto a ferry with firecrackers in your car.
Presumably this same realization - that the documentary now served an inverse purpose - must have dawned on somebody at PBS, which is why they never repeated the film again. ¶ 8:35 PM
Great news, and how it's reported
The huge 'take' of both documents and dead Mohammedans resulting from Zarqawi's death is wonderful news. For the last year or so, we'd been just sitting there waiting for the enemy to kill more of us. Our troops were certainly doing something in that time: building schools and water systems, but not destroying the enemy.
Now we're back in business!
It's sort of interesting (but hardly surprising) to note the headlines on this story in the Google news search. Essentially they fall into three categories:
The leftist media focus only on the scary part, the future danger:
US Identifies al-Zarqawi's Successor
Most foreign papers focus on the documents and the strategic implications:
Al-Qaida sought US-Iran war
Only a few - mainly Southern - TV stations and newspapers give a headline that encourages Americans to think about our progress toward victory:
Hundreds of raids net hundreds of insurgents
The latter form would have been universal in WW2. ¶ 9:21 AM
Now we're back in business!
It's sort of interesting (but hardly surprising) to note the headlines on this story in the Google news search. Essentially they fall into three categories:
The leftist media focus only on the scary part, the future danger:
US Identifies al-Zarqawi's Successor
Most foreign papers focus on the documents and the strategic implications:
Al-Qaida sought US-Iran war
Only a few - mainly Southern - TV stations and newspapers give a headline that encourages Americans to think about our progress toward victory:
Hundreds of raids net hundreds of insurgents
The latter form would have been universal in WW2. ¶ 9:21 AM
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Let King be king, part II
Rep. King shows how to build a wall on our southern border. While he builds the model, he discusses why we need the wall, and why Mexico needs the wall.
Eminently worth WATCHING!
-----
After I stopped recording, he made the best point of all: Illegal workers are helping to turn North America into Latin America, with a tiny elite and a labor-intensive underclass. Our elites (who really don't need the North American economy anyway) benefit from cheap labor, while the middle class fades into oblivion.
I pray every night that SOMETHING will let King take over as our executive. Third party candidacy, impeachment, constitutional crisis, whatever. He's the smartest and sanest politician we have, and the best explainer and teacher.
[Technical note: Yes, Polistra dreams with C-Span captions. She's a character in a political blog, after all .... Whaddaya expect?] ¶ 8:15 PM
Eminently worth WATCHING!
-----
After I stopped recording, he made the best point of all: Illegal workers are helping to turn North America into Latin America, with a tiny elite and a labor-intensive underclass. Our elites (who really don't need the North American economy anyway) benefit from cheap labor, while the middle class fades into oblivion.
I pray every night that SOMETHING will let King take over as our executive. Third party candidacy, impeachment, constitutional crisis, whatever. He's the smartest and sanest politician we have, and the best explainer and teacher.
[Technical note: Yes, Polistra dreams with C-Span captions. She's a character in a political blog, after all .... Whaddaya expect?] ¶ 8:15 PM
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Ecofascists on the march
We've been having some very serious weather around here in the last week or so. South of Spokane, the town of Spangle was hit by a flash flood on Saturday after an inch of rain fell within one hour. The town's mayor wasn't surprised; she's been trying for several years to clear brush and silt from the creek that flooded. What stopped her? The state SS-Totenkopfverbünde, which (like all fascists) enjoys watching humans suffer and die to preserve the purity of a pre-human state of nature.
A parallel but far worse situation happened in '02 near Hanford. A small brushfire was started by farm machinery. Luckily, a county worker towing a backhoe passed by and saw the fire. He unloaded his backhoe and began to plow a firebreak around the small fire. Unluckily, a psychopath belonging to the State SS-Totenkopfverbünde was driving around looking for new ways to kill people and destroy property. He immediately realized the County man was plowing on Endangered Habitat, so he pulled rank and ORDERED THE COUNTY MAN TO STOP PLOWING. The fire then expanded without any human interference, and ended up destroying about 200 buildings and killing one human. I'm sure the SS-Totenkopfverbünde got a warm glow from watching the destruction.
How much more does it take? When will local officials start to rebel in favor of civilization? Local officials in many places have been rebelling against civilization for a long time: Librarians refusing to give info about terrorists, mayors creating sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
Video of the Spangle flood here
¶ 10:24 AM
A parallel but far worse situation happened in '02 near Hanford. A small brushfire was started by farm machinery. Luckily, a county worker towing a backhoe passed by and saw the fire. He unloaded his backhoe and began to plow a firebreak around the small fire. Unluckily, a psychopath belonging to the State SS-Totenkopfverbünde was driving around looking for new ways to kill people and destroy property. He immediately realized the County man was plowing on Endangered Habitat, so he pulled rank and ORDERED THE COUNTY MAN TO STOP PLOWING. The fire then expanded without any human interference, and ended up destroying about 200 buildings and killing one human. I'm sure the SS-Totenkopfverbünde got a warm glow from watching the destruction.
How much more does it take? When will local officials start to rebel in favor of civilization? Local officials in many places have been rebelling against civilization for a long time: Librarians refusing to give info about terrorists, mayors creating sanctuary for illegal immigrants.
Video of the Spangle flood here
¶ 10:24 AM
Fort Lewis again
Something is definitely going on there. As in recruitment by enemy forces?
Spec. Suzanne Swift told officers she did not want to go back to Iraq. She was picked up Sunday night at the request of the Army. Stronach said Swift was arrested at her family's home without incident.
She was listed as AWOL late last year and her unit left for Iraq without her. She served her first tour in Iraq with a military-police unit in 2004, her mother, Sarah Rich, told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Rich said her daughter broke down and said she could not return because of the war and the way she was treated. She said her daughter was belittled, called names and frequently propositioned.
More here
-----
Madame Polisztra predicts: It will turn out that Swift is a Commie activist, who didn't intend to serve at all, but enlisted solely to create this situation. Swift will become the latest Infallible Victim. Bank on it. ¶ 10:14 AM
Spec. Suzanne Swift told officers she did not want to go back to Iraq. She was picked up Sunday night at the request of the Army. Stronach said Swift was arrested at her family's home without incident.
She was listed as AWOL late last year and her unit left for Iraq without her. She served her first tour in Iraq with a military-police unit in 2004, her mother, Sarah Rich, told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Rich said her daughter broke down and said she could not return because of the war and the way she was treated. She said her daughter was belittled, called names and frequently propositioned.
More here
-----
Madame Polisztra predicts: It will turn out that Swift is a Commie activist, who didn't intend to serve at all, but enlisted solely to create this situation. Swift will become the latest Infallible Victim. Bank on it. ¶ 10:14 AM
Monday, June 12, 2006
Stopped clocks, federal judges
Stopped clocks and Federal judges occasionally do something right, and judges deserve praise on those rare occasions.
This time, a Federal district judge in Yakima has overturned Initiative 297, approved overwhelmingly last November by the Useful Idiots of this state. Prop 297 attempted to stop the shipment of nuke waste to the Hanford nuclear facility, which would have monkey-wrenched the existing waste disposal setup.
Until Yucca Flat gets up and running we're getting by with several different workarounds for nuke waste, including storage at Hanford. Needless to say, Yucca Flat is being stalled by envirofascist litigation, which could be solved if we had a President.
So Bravo to Judge McDonald! He actually supported the law, which is a rare and excellent thing in a judge.
-----
Correction: Yucca Mountain, not Yucca Flat. The latter is a more common phrase, which must be why I automatically write it, but it's not the actual name of the place!
¶ 7:09 PM
This time, a Federal district judge in Yakima has overturned Initiative 297, approved overwhelmingly last November by the Useful Idiots of this state. Prop 297 attempted to stop the shipment of nuke waste to the Hanford nuclear facility, which would have monkey-wrenched the existing waste disposal setup.
Until Yucca Flat gets up and running we're getting by with several different workarounds for nuke waste, including storage at Hanford. Needless to say, Yucca Flat is being stalled by envirofascist litigation, which could be solved if we had a President.
So Bravo to Judge McDonald! He actually supported the law, which is a rare and excellent thing in a judge.
-----
Correction: Yucca Mountain, not Yucca Flat. The latter is a more common phrase, which must be why I automatically write it, but it's not the actual name of the place!
¶ 7:09 PM
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Age of Tolerance
A while back I wrote an illustrated micro-story in the dhimmitopia vein, and bemoaned the fact that no full-length dhimmitopias were available. I was wrong. There are at least two. I've been reading one, 'Age of Tolerance' by Glenn Reinsford, who also authors the Religion of Peace news site.
It's riveting. I've been reading it instead of sleeping. Not good for me, but a fine recommendation for the book!
Reinsford isn't Dickens or Steinbeck; his bag of authorial tricks is limited, so the start and the major transitions are a bit clumsy. Overall, though, the book is every bit as good as 'alternate histories' by big-name authors. Once you get past the first couple of pages, the plot and characters will absorb you entirely.
'Age of Tolerance' isn't instantly apocalyptic; it simply starts with al-Gore being elected in 2000, and takes us convincingly into a world where Diversity and Tolerance lead to slow surrender.
I wanted to comment on it just now because Reinsford makes the 9/11 'Jersey Girls' [and their descendants in the alternate future] a central part of the book. Reinsford's point is the same one that Ann Coulter is pushing: the Jersey Girls have in fact become absolute tools of the Left who enjoy exerting the Infallible Power of Victimhood more than anything else in life.
An especially egregious example is visible on C-Span this weekend. The Jersey Girls are issuing new Ex Cathedra Dicta to a congressional committee, and Useful Idiot Chris Shays is near tears as he genuflects to the Dicta.
A couple years ago the Girls ordered FBI and NSA to do a better job of connecting the dots. This time they are ordering NSA to STOP connecting the dots because it turns out their own Leninist organizations and traitorous associates are among the dots. Could hardly be more transparent, and Useful Idiot Shays is lapping it all up.
While Reinsford may have intended his history to be alternate, I'm afraid it's more actual than alternate, and I'm afraid the 'branch of time' beginning with al-Gore is not significantly different from the 'branch' that starts with Kindler Gentler George. ¶ 3:05 PM
A while back I wrote an illustrated micro-story in the dhimmitopia vein, and bemoaned the fact that no full-length dhimmitopias were available. I was wrong. There are at least two. I've been reading one, 'Age of Tolerance' by Glenn Reinsford, who also authors the Religion of Peace news site.
It's riveting. I've been reading it instead of sleeping. Not good for me, but a fine recommendation for the book!
Reinsford isn't Dickens or Steinbeck; his bag of authorial tricks is limited, so the start and the major transitions are a bit clumsy. Overall, though, the book is every bit as good as 'alternate histories' by big-name authors. Once you get past the first couple of pages, the plot and characters will absorb you entirely.
'Age of Tolerance' isn't instantly apocalyptic; it simply starts with al-Gore being elected in 2000, and takes us convincingly into a world where Diversity and Tolerance lead to slow surrender.
I wanted to comment on it just now because Reinsford makes the 9/11 'Jersey Girls' [and their descendants in the alternate future] a central part of the book. Reinsford's point is the same one that Ann Coulter is pushing: the Jersey Girls have in fact become absolute tools of the Left who enjoy exerting the Infallible Power of Victimhood more than anything else in life.
An especially egregious example is visible on C-Span this weekend. The Jersey Girls are issuing new Ex Cathedra Dicta to a congressional committee, and Useful Idiot Chris Shays is near tears as he genuflects to the Dicta.
A couple years ago the Girls ordered FBI and NSA to do a better job of connecting the dots. This time they are ordering NSA to STOP connecting the dots because it turns out their own Leninist organizations and traitorous associates are among the dots. Could hardly be more transparent, and Useful Idiot Shays is lapping it all up.
While Reinsford may have intended his history to be alternate, I'm afraid it's more actual than alternate, and I'm afraid the 'branch of time' beginning with al-Gore is not significantly different from the 'branch' that starts with Kindler Gentler George. ¶ 3:05 PM
Cultural Sensitivity: pro and con
1. Three of the enemy creatures being held at Guantanamo have caused their own bodily functions to cease. Very good. But we are handling these self-imposed cessations with Sensitivity to the enemy's Culture. Very bad. Wrong, wrong, wrong. We should handle these stoppages with sensitivity to OUR CULTURE, following the Murawiec rule. Treat the carcasses with utter contempt. Grind them up, mix them with pork, and feed them to the seagulls.
2. However, cultural sensitivity is not always a bad thing. Consider the proposed New York state rule allowing ethnic - but not religious - profiling. This might have made sense in 2000 or so, when the active Jihadis were mostly Saudis. Even then, I don't think you can accurately distinguish a Saudi from other Mediterranean types by vision. At this point in history it makes no sense at all, because the leaders of Allah's Army have figured out how to mix with the crowd more effectively.
A better approach is to bring in a Culturally Sensitive Tool: a dog. Just walk through the subway or airport with a friendly and pushy dog. Perhaps a rambunctious Retriever who enjoys sniffing crotches. Watch how the people respond, and most of all watch how the dog responds. Lifelong Mohammedans hate dogs with such a violent passion that even a relatively insensitive human can spot it, and the infinitely more sensitive dog will be hurt by the powerful emotion. This won't work with recent converts who grew up in civilization, but it will definitely spot Arabs. ¶ 2:22 PM
2. However, cultural sensitivity is not always a bad thing. Consider the proposed New York state rule allowing ethnic - but not religious - profiling. This might have made sense in 2000 or so, when the active Jihadis were mostly Saudis. Even then, I don't think you can accurately distinguish a Saudi from other Mediterranean types by vision. At this point in history it makes no sense at all, because the leaders of Allah's Army have figured out how to mix with the crowd more effectively.
A better approach is to bring in a Culturally Sensitive Tool: a dog. Just walk through the subway or airport with a friendly and pushy dog. Perhaps a rambunctious Retriever who enjoys sniffing crotches. Watch how the people respond, and most of all watch how the dog responds. Lifelong Mohammedans hate dogs with such a violent passion that even a relatively insensitive human can spot it, and the infinitely more sensitive dog will be hurt by the powerful emotion. This won't work with recent converts who grew up in civilization, but it will definitely spot Arabs. ¶ 2:22 PM
Thursday, June 08, 2006
V-Z day
Torn between an intellectual desire to treat Zarqawi's death as "lonely, useless, ignored, unextraordinary, unromantic, trivial", versus the plain bloodthirsty human exultation at an enemy's death, Polistra finds a good symbolic answer.
Mainly, thank God we didn't capture Z and "try him as a war criminal". That would be the worst of all possible worlds, and it would be the normal Bush behavior. (Due Process and Rule Of Law count more than defending the country.) Perhaps hotter heads prevailed in this instance. ¶ 9:33 AM
Torn between an intellectual desire to treat Zarqawi's death as "lonely, useless, ignored, unextraordinary, unromantic, trivial", versus the plain bloodthirsty human exultation at an enemy's death, Polistra finds a good symbolic answer.
Mainly, thank God we didn't capture Z and "try him as a war criminal". That would be the worst of all possible worlds, and it would be the normal Bush behavior. (Due Process and Rule Of Law count more than defending the country.) Perhaps hotter heads prevailed in this instance. ¶ 9:33 AM
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
What's wrong with Fort Lewis?
I'm normally opposed to closing any military bases for the sake of economy. I have big trouble with the BRAC process. But I'll cheerfully make an exception for Fort Lewis, Washington. Something very strange seems to have been happening there, for a very long time. Beltway Sniper John Williams (alias Muhammad) served at Fort Lewis. Mohammedan chaplain Yee, who was apparently communicating with the enemy at Guantanamo, was based at Fort Lewis and still practices there after the charges were mysteriously cancelled. Spokane's serial prostitute killer Robert Yates served at Fort Lewis. And now we have this so-called 'conscientious objector' named Ehren Watada, also based at Fort Lewis.
Good coverage of Watada here.
Incidentally, Watada is being coached by an anti-American leader named Judy Linehan, who is part of the pure Communist "United for Peace and Justice" movement, and who was proud to host George Galloway when he visited this side of the pond. ¶ 6:59 PM
Good coverage of Watada here.
Incidentally, Watada is being coached by an anti-American leader named Judy Linehan, who is part of the pure Communist "United for Peace and Justice" movement, and who was proud to host George Galloway when he visited this side of the pond. ¶ 6:59 PM
Random
Mike McGavick is running for Maria Cantwell's Senate seat here in Wash. McGavick seems to be a decent guy, but he's essentially running as a liberal. No reason to replace one liberal with another; and I'd much rather have an honestly labeled liberal like Cantwell. What's interesting about McGavick's campaign is that he is running on McCain's coattails. Listening to his ads, you'd assume that McCain was the current president!
Here is his latest TV ad, which illustrates the approach perfectly.
-----
Via NRO, this bit of idiocy from Kindler Gentler Georgie. In the middle of a war, when he should be using executive orders to work around bad "judges" and to open up territory for oil drilling, he instead uses an executive order to spend yet more money on yet one more Federal program that will accomplish exactly nothing except spending yet more money.
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
-----
One piece of good news: The House (barely) approved Steve King's amendment to the Homeland Security omnibus bill, which forbids funding any city or state that offers sanctuary to illegal immigrants!
This will, of course, never make it through reconciliation. Nevertheless, as we die painfully of radiation burns after Persia's attack, it will be nice to remember that some small bit of our government was not 100% treasonous. ¶ 8:55 AM
Here is his latest TV ad, which illustrates the approach perfectly.
-----
Via NRO, this bit of idiocy from Kindler Gentler Georgie. In the middle of a war, when he should be using executive orders to work around bad "judges" and to open up territory for oil drilling, he instead uses an executive order to spend yet more money on yet one more Federal program that will accomplish exactly nothing except spending yet more money.
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
-----
One piece of good news: The House (barely) approved Steve King's amendment to the Homeland Security omnibus bill, which forbids funding any city or state that offers sanctuary to illegal immigrants!
This will, of course, never make it through reconciliation. Nevertheless, as we die painfully of radiation burns after Persia's attack, it will be nice to remember that some small bit of our government was not 100% treasonous. ¶ 8:55 AM
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
1860 all over again
Listening to MSNBC's account of the State Department report on 'human trafficking' aka slavery. According to their expert, Germany is a major hub, but slavery is going on equally in every country.
Hmm. Let's look at the State Department report itself.
The lowest Tier represents the worst areas. Everybody, eh? Take the Watch List and the third tier together, and you've got all of our good 'Broad Strata' friends, including our good friend UAE who is qualified to run our ports.
The full report is here.
Highly informative and well-presented, without the 'everyone is guilty' nonsense. More proof that the State Department has become (if only by forfeit) the most hard-nosed section of our govt. ¶ 9:42 AM
Hmm. Let's look at the State Department report itself.
The lowest Tier represents the worst areas. Everybody, eh? Take the Watch List and the third tier together, and you've got all of our good 'Broad Strata' friends, including our good friend UAE who is qualified to run our ports.
The full report is here.
Highly informative and well-presented, without the 'everyone is guilty' nonsense. More proof that the State Department has become (if only by forfeit) the most hard-nosed section of our govt. ¶ 9:42 AM
Monday, June 05, 2006
Gay amendment
On a concrete political level:
I really wonder what Electoral Engineer Rove is thinking this time. Does he truly believe this will energize anybody? At some earlier point (say 2002) it might have served his cynical purpose. Now it will only energize the Dems, because none of the conservative base is even listening any more.
On a deeper level:
Yet another case of asking the wrong question. It's violently true that we have a problem with federal 'judges' serving the enemy. But no change in the text of the Constitution will have even the remotest effect on this problem, because 'judges' get their kicks from turning the Constitution upside down and ripping it to shreds. Adding another bit of text will not stop Reinhardt and his fellow traitors; it will just give them another piece of text to turn upside down.
Guaranteed: Reinhardt will find a way to read this amendment to require homosexual marriage, and nobody will have the guts to stop him.
The cure for the problem is to get rid of the bad 'judges'. Easiest way is to eliminate the appeals courts entirely and set up new courts. By executive order. If this makes a problem with employment contracts, fine. Keep on paying the traitors and give them nothing to work on. It's a common trick in union shops or tenure-bound universities: you can't fire the incompetent or disloyal, but you can prevent them from doing any more harm.
-----
Afterthought: If the Constitution were still in effect, a good case could be made for refining the 'full faith and credit' clause. Even in the hands of non-mischievous judges, it leads to peculiar and evil results. Consider Dred Scott, which was strictly in accord with the clause but destroyed the proper 'self-regulating' action of federalism. On the other end, consider a driver's license or a doctor's license, which would seem to be a contract, and thus should be valid in all states. Federalism would work better if drivers, doctors, and other licensed folks, were more free to vote with their feet and move their skills from bad states to good ones. I don't pretend to know what phrasing would fix both of those problems, but it's clear that the existing language forces an honest judge to create these bad results. ¶ 12:35 PM
I really wonder what Electoral Engineer Rove is thinking this time. Does he truly believe this will energize anybody? At some earlier point (say 2002) it might have served his cynical purpose. Now it will only energize the Dems, because none of the conservative base is even listening any more.
On a deeper level:
Yet another case of asking the wrong question. It's violently true that we have a problem with federal 'judges' serving the enemy. But no change in the text of the Constitution will have even the remotest effect on this problem, because 'judges' get their kicks from turning the Constitution upside down and ripping it to shreds. Adding another bit of text will not stop Reinhardt and his fellow traitors; it will just give them another piece of text to turn upside down.
Guaranteed: Reinhardt will find a way to read this amendment to require homosexual marriage, and nobody will have the guts to stop him.
The cure for the problem is to get rid of the bad 'judges'. Easiest way is to eliminate the appeals courts entirely and set up new courts. By executive order. If this makes a problem with employment contracts, fine. Keep on paying the traitors and give them nothing to work on. It's a common trick in union shops or tenure-bound universities: you can't fire the incompetent or disloyal, but you can prevent them from doing any more harm.
-----
Afterthought: If the Constitution were still in effect, a good case could be made for refining the 'full faith and credit' clause. Even in the hands of non-mischievous judges, it leads to peculiar and evil results. Consider Dred Scott, which was strictly in accord with the clause but destroyed the proper 'self-regulating' action of federalism. On the other end, consider a driver's license or a doctor's license, which would seem to be a contract, and thus should be valid in all states. Federalism would work better if drivers, doctors, and other licensed folks, were more free to vote with their feet and move their skills from bad states to good ones. I don't pretend to know what phrasing would fix both of those problems, but it's clear that the existing language forces an honest judge to create these bad results. ¶ 12:35 PM
Cudjo, Jihad, Murawiec
At one time my friend Larry owned a big unruly Australian Shepherd named Cudjo. Every time I visited Larry and his family, Cudjo tried to hump my leg. And every time he tried I pushed him away quickly, which took considerable force. After several months of this, I finally decided to let Cudjo finish off, just because nothing else had worked. When Cudjo made it past the first few seconds without resistance, he grinned as dogs will do; but after he finished he gave me the most remarkably complex look.
His face said "Hmph. That wasn't nearly as interesting as I thought it would be."
Sure enough, Cudjo ignored me after that.
Laurent Murawiec at Hudson Institute has written an interesting paper on Jihad, essentially proposing the Cudjo solution. Murawiec pulls a comparison to the early Christian version of Jihadis: the various sects that bloodied Europe from about 1000 to 1500 AD. These sects had the same 'pornography of blood' as Jihad: a fetish for gore and guts paralleled with a religious passion for human sacrifice.
How did the Church finally get rid of these sects? Through the Inquisition. By insuring that the would-be killers got killed before they could connect their deaths with the 'sanctifying' or orgasmic purpose.
One martyr will have followers, ten martyrs will be admired and emulated. One thousand dead martyrs who died unheralded die in vain. If Ahmadinejad and others die in vain and uselessly they will not die as martyrs but as slobs. For the ... jihadi, his death is the only thing that matters to him: take that away and nothing is left.
It does not mean, as the jurors of the Moussaoui trial were apparently led to believe, that "you cannot make a martyr out of him, since this is what he wants."
Make his death a lonely, useless, ignored death. Unextraordinary, unromantic, trivial deaths shatter the glory of the jihadi's death.
True, this is infinitely harder and nastier than just letting a dog squirt on your leg. And it's logically harder to kill a buzz connected with the future hope of self-sacrifice, because the individual (by definition) won't see afterward that it wasn't nearly as interesting as he thought. But a large enough number of examples will lead ultimately, if indirectly, to the same type of learning: Disconnect the object from the fetish. Remove the glow.
-----
Sidenote: Though I think Murawiec's prescription is on the mark, I have an academic quibble with his dia ...um... gnosis. He uses the term 'Gnostic' to describe both the pre-Enlightenment Christian sects and the modern Jihadists, and bases his connection on the gnostic tendency. This may be one common factor, but the 'claim of secret knowledge' isn't the underlying passion that leads to the impulse of mass slaughter. What causes genocide and world domination is instead the need for purity in body, soul, and nature.
In any case you need extra motivation and indoctrination to complete the manufacture of a suicide weapon with legs, but the common factor, the underlying explosive, is always the passion for cleanliness and purification, not the possession of certain secret knowledge.
-----
Irrelevant footnote, July 06: I just remembered that the dog's name was Mingo, not Cudjo. A feature on PBS last night included a conversation with some black lady named Suzanne Mingo, which flashed a dim spark in my ancient vacuum-tube memory. "Mingo! That was the damn dog's name!" So I'll add this correction to appease the gods of accuracy, but I'll leave the entry as it stands, because I like the cryptic sound of 'Cudjo, Jihad, Murawiec.'
¶ 12:28 PM
His face said "Hmph. That wasn't nearly as interesting as I thought it would be."
Sure enough, Cudjo ignored me after that.
Laurent Murawiec at Hudson Institute has written an interesting paper on Jihad, essentially proposing the Cudjo solution. Murawiec pulls a comparison to the early Christian version of Jihadis: the various sects that bloodied Europe from about 1000 to 1500 AD. These sects had the same 'pornography of blood' as Jihad: a fetish for gore and guts paralleled with a religious passion for human sacrifice.
How did the Church finally get rid of these sects? Through the Inquisition. By insuring that the would-be killers got killed before they could connect their deaths with the 'sanctifying' or orgasmic purpose.
One martyr will have followers, ten martyrs will be admired and emulated. One thousand dead martyrs who died unheralded die in vain. If Ahmadinejad and others die in vain and uselessly they will not die as martyrs but as slobs. For the ... jihadi, his death is the only thing that matters to him: take that away and nothing is left.
It does not mean, as the jurors of the Moussaoui trial were apparently led to believe, that "you cannot make a martyr out of him, since this is what he wants."
Make his death a lonely, useless, ignored death. Unextraordinary, unromantic, trivial deaths shatter the glory of the jihadi's death.
True, this is infinitely harder and nastier than just letting a dog squirt on your leg. And it's logically harder to kill a buzz connected with the future hope of self-sacrifice, because the individual (by definition) won't see afterward that it wasn't nearly as interesting as he thought. But a large enough number of examples will lead ultimately, if indirectly, to the same type of learning: Disconnect the object from the fetish. Remove the glow.
-----
Sidenote: Though I think Murawiec's prescription is on the mark, I have an academic quibble with his dia ...um... gnosis. He uses the term 'Gnostic' to describe both the pre-Enlightenment Christian sects and the modern Jihadists, and bases his connection on the gnostic tendency. This may be one common factor, but the 'claim of secret knowledge' isn't the underlying passion that leads to the impulse of mass slaughter. What causes genocide and world domination is instead the need for purity in body, soul, and nature.
In any case you need extra motivation and indoctrination to complete the manufacture of a suicide weapon with legs, but the common factor, the underlying explosive, is always the passion for cleanliness and purification, not the possession of certain secret knowledge.
-----
Irrelevant footnote, July 06: I just remembered that the dog's name was Mingo, not Cudjo. A feature on PBS last night included a conversation with some black lady named Suzanne Mingo, which flashed a dim spark in my ancient vacuum-tube memory. "Mingo! That was the damn dog's name!" So I'll add this correction to appease the gods of accuracy, but I'll leave the entry as it stands, because I like the cryptic sound of 'Cudjo, Jihad, Murawiec.'
¶ 12:28 PM
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Polistra is troubled...
Polistra is ill with a mysterious malady.
The doctor has been called.
- - - - - - - - - -
Polistra: Please, Doc, what's wrong with me?
Doctor: Young lady, you've got the disease everyone's talking about. Yes, you've got the Word Flu. Worst case I've ever seen.
Pol: Is it .... ? Is it .... ?
Doc: No, it's not fatal. But it will turn your brain to mush if we don't cure it quickly.
Pol: Okay, Doc. What do I need to do?
- - - - - - - - - -
Doc: Give up television entirely, get plenty of rest, and take one of these daily.
Pol: What is it?
- - - - - - - - - -
Doc: 'Words at War'. Dramatized versions of stories from a long-distant time and place when words actually meant something, and when lives actually meant something.
Pol: I feel better already, just knowing there's a cure.
Doc: The first story is the strongest possible prescription for Word Flu. What's more, you're in the story!
Pol: Huh? Me?
Doc: Well, not precisely, but a young lady that you'll definitely recognize.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dear reader, if you want your own antidote to the Word Flu, OTRCAT.COM is the place to get it. They have a special emphasis on archival items like Roosevelt and Churchill speeches, and the best selection of truly fine and intelligent radio programs from that era, like 'Words at War' and 'Theater of Romance'. Nothing in today's media remotely compares to those two series for sheer literary quality, not even counting the more obvious question of bias. You won't find any cheap flag-waving or glossing over the terrors of war, but you will find a steady and deep commitment to the success of Western civilization and Christianity. Those writers and actors knew in their hearts and spines that we were better than the enemy, so they didn't have to say it or show it.
[The preceding was an unpaid but enthusiastic endorsement!] ¶ 8:22 PM
Polistra is ill with a mysterious malady.
The doctor has been called.
- - - - - - - - - -
Polistra: Please, Doc, what's wrong with me?
Doctor: Young lady, you've got the disease everyone's talking about. Yes, you've got the Word Flu. Worst case I've ever seen.
Pol: Is it .... ? Is it .... ?
Doc: No, it's not fatal. But it will turn your brain to mush if we don't cure it quickly.
Pol: Okay, Doc. What do I need to do?
- - - - - - - - - -
Doc: Give up television entirely, get plenty of rest, and take one of these daily.
Pol: What is it?
- - - - - - - - - -
Doc: 'Words at War'. Dramatized versions of stories from a long-distant time and place when words actually meant something, and when lives actually meant something.
Pol: I feel better already, just knowing there's a cure.
Doc: The first story is the strongest possible prescription for Word Flu. What's more, you're in the story!
Pol: Huh? Me?
Doc: Well, not precisely, but a young lady that you'll definitely recognize.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dear reader, if you want your own antidote to the Word Flu, OTRCAT.COM is the place to get it. They have a special emphasis on archival items like Roosevelt and Churchill speeches, and the best selection of truly fine and intelligent radio programs from that era, like 'Words at War' and 'Theater of Romance'. Nothing in today's media remotely compares to those two series for sheer literary quality, not even counting the more obvious question of bias. You won't find any cheap flag-waving or glossing over the terrors of war, but you will find a steady and deep commitment to the success of Western civilization and Christianity. Those writers and actors knew in their hearts and spines that we were better than the enemy, so they didn't have to say it or show it.
[The preceding was an unpaid but enthusiastic endorsement!] ¶ 8:22 PM
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Blast from the past
Here's what FDR would say in response to our hand-wringing over rumors of 'atrocities'.
January 1945.
Listen.
In text form:
Further desperate attempts are being made to break our lines and slow our progress. We must never make the mistake of assuming that the Germans are beaten until the last Nazi has surrendered.
And I would express a most serious warning against the poisonous effects of enemy propaganda. The wedge that the Germans attempted to drive in western Europe was less dangerous in terms of winning the war, than the wedges they are continually attempting to drive between ourselves and our allies.
Every little rumor which is intended to weaken our faith in our allies is like an actual enemy agent in our midst, seeking to sabotage our war effort.
There are here and there, evil and baseless rumors against the Russians; rumors against the British; and rumors against our own commanders in the field. And when you examine these rumors closely, you will observe that every one of them bears the same trademark: Made In Germany.
We must resist this propaganda; we must destroy it, with the same strength and the same determination, that our fighting men are displaying as they resist and destroy the Panzer divisions. In all of the far-flung operations of our own armed forces, on land and sea and in the air, the final job, the toughest job, has been performed by our average easy-going, hard-fighting young American, who carries the weight of battle on his own shoulders. It is to him that we and all future generations of Americans must pay tribute.
But: it is of small satisfaction to him to know that monuments will be raised to him in the future. He wants and he needs, and he is entitled to insist upon, our full and active support NOW.
-----
Compare this to Bush's response to enemy propaganda: "Not gonna discuss an ongoing investigation."
Bush is certainly ... brief. ¶ 5:16 PM
January 1945.
Listen.
In text form:
Further desperate attempts are being made to break our lines and slow our progress. We must never make the mistake of assuming that the Germans are beaten until the last Nazi has surrendered.
And I would express a most serious warning against the poisonous effects of enemy propaganda. The wedge that the Germans attempted to drive in western Europe was less dangerous in terms of winning the war, than the wedges they are continually attempting to drive between ourselves and our allies.
Every little rumor which is intended to weaken our faith in our allies is like an actual enemy agent in our midst, seeking to sabotage our war effort.
There are here and there, evil and baseless rumors against the Russians; rumors against the British; and rumors against our own commanders in the field. And when you examine these rumors closely, you will observe that every one of them bears the same trademark: Made In Germany.
We must resist this propaganda; we must destroy it, with the same strength and the same determination, that our fighting men are displaying as they resist and destroy the Panzer divisions. In all of the far-flung operations of our own armed forces, on land and sea and in the air, the final job, the toughest job, has been performed by our average easy-going, hard-fighting young American, who carries the weight of battle on his own shoulders. It is to him that we and all future generations of Americans must pay tribute.
But: it is of small satisfaction to him to know that monuments will be raised to him in the future. He wants and he needs, and he is entitled to insist upon, our full and active support NOW.
-----
Compare this to Bush's response to enemy propaganda: "Not gonna discuss an ongoing investigation."
Bush is certainly ... brief. ¶ 5:16 PM
Friday, June 02, 2006
Asking the wrong questions
Extending yesterday's entry....
In all of these current situations, both political sides are asking and answering the wrong questions.
The left always asks "What did Bush [or the relevant leader] know and when did he know it?" This is a totally weird question in any case; it only allows enemy agents to play Woodward and Bernstein. It never leads to a solution or an improvement.
Generally, the administration and its defenders ask "Are we obeying the law? If so, everything's OK."
This question is not insane or weird; it's thoroughly understandable. But it is equally useless toward finding real improvements or solutions.
The question we need to ask is: "What action will help win the war?" Or on a lower level, "What action will help to restore the lives of these people toward normalcy?" If this action happens to disagree with current laws, or if it will likely lead to litigation, then change the laws or forbid the litigation. If it will give enemy agents new propaganda, counter them with truth. Loud and clear.
The executive branch has the power to do those things, and previous executives have succeeded in war and disaster by doing those things. Bush refuses to do those things, and thus ends up in a position of failure where the Left's idiotic question is the only thing publicly visible.
If the Katrina refugees need housing, give them housing. Trailers, Cusato Cottages, whatever it takes. If we need to kill civilians who threaten our soldiers, kill civilians. By the millions if needed. Make their deaths anonymous, mechanical and meaningless. Whatever it takes to harsh Jihad's mellow. If New York City is running a competent terrorist intelligence agency, bulldoze the treasonous CIA and the Christian-hating, Hoffa-obsessed FBI. Let NYC take their money (and their competent personnel if any) to expand its competent agency.
Officials take an oath to "uphold and defend" the Constitution. Those are two separate verbs. Upholding is fine when we're not under attack. Defending means, above all, insuring that the nation and its people continue to exist. Once that goal is secured, we can return to Upholding. ¶ 11:06 AM
In all of these current situations, both political sides are asking and answering the wrong questions.
The left always asks "What did Bush [or the relevant leader] know and when did he know it?" This is a totally weird question in any case; it only allows enemy agents to play Woodward and Bernstein. It never leads to a solution or an improvement.
Generally, the administration and its defenders ask "Are we obeying the law? If so, everything's OK."
This question is not insane or weird; it's thoroughly understandable. But it is equally useless toward finding real improvements or solutions.
The question we need to ask is: "What action will help win the war?" Or on a lower level, "What action will help to restore the lives of these people toward normalcy?" If this action happens to disagree with current laws, or if it will likely lead to litigation, then change the laws or forbid the litigation. If it will give enemy agents new propaganda, counter them with truth. Loud and clear.
The executive branch has the power to do those things, and previous executives have succeeded in war and disaster by doing those things. Bush refuses to do those things, and thus ends up in a position of failure where the Left's idiotic question is the only thing publicly visible.
If the Katrina refugees need housing, give them housing. Trailers, Cusato Cottages, whatever it takes. If we need to kill civilians who threaten our soldiers, kill civilians. By the millions if needed. Make their deaths anonymous, mechanical and meaningless. Whatever it takes to harsh Jihad's mellow. If New York City is running a competent terrorist intelligence agency, bulldoze the treasonous CIA and the Christian-hating, Hoffa-obsessed FBI. Let NYC take their money (and their competent personnel if any) to expand its competent agency.
Officials take an oath to "uphold and defend" the Constitution. Those are two separate verbs. Upholding is fine when we're not under attack. Defending means, above all, insuring that the nation and its people continue to exist. Once that goal is secured, we can return to Upholding. ¶ 11:06 AM
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Kindness of strangers
Polistra is feeling sort of Blanche DuBoisish in this scene.
The house is a replica of the Katrina Cottage, designed by Marianne Cusato as part of an effort to re-house Katrina refugees in more comfortable, natural and attractive quarters than the trailers which FEMA was supposed to provide.
The cottage is designed to be mass produced, and to be resilient in the face of wind and flooding. It's tiny (308 square feet!) but efficient, and can be expanded to form part of a bigger house.
There's a good long article on the subject in the latest issue of American Enterprise, dealing with the New Urbanist movement among architects. The essence of New Urbanism really should harmonize with basic American conservatism, but until now the architects (like all other professions) have been so deeply imbued with leftist tastes and leftist rhetoric that no conservative could stand to get near them.
Mississippi Renewal is starting to bring the two sides together, with several interesting results.
Needless to say, FEMA will not help with any of this. Because the Cottage is built without wheels, it counts as "permanent housing" under FEMA regs, so it won't get any funding. FEMA only funds trailers, and because of other regulations it must leave those trailers to rot in storage. All very logical to somebody, I'm sure. So the whole Cottage project must depend on the kindness of strangers.
-----
Over and over and over again, we see bureaucrats following their Regulations and performing their Due Process Of Law to insure that government never does anything useful, only gives harmful results.
If we had a president, he would crack the whip on bureaucrats and remind them of the basic purpose of their agencies.
Same with the military and the latest 'massacre'. Bush allows the enemy to own the field in propaganda, saying only that we must go through the Due Process Of Law.
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.
We must stop trying to appear Better Than Them. Every time we try to Behave Nicely in order to look Better Than Them, we only lose a battle and cede more territory to Them.
The plain fact is that WE ARE BETTER THAN THEM. Western Civilization is better than Arab savagery by a long shot. By a light year. By a hundred parsecs. If we must do horrible things in the course of a war, we must do horrible things. Kill as many civilians as necessary to eliminate the carriers of savagery. We understood this in 1945, and we won that war SPECIFICALLY because we understood it.
(Qualifying note: I am not saying that the United States is better than any other nation. On most important measures like prosperity and freedom, we are about 4th or 5th. But we're the only nation that has the resources to fight for Western Civilization, so that the other nations on this side can be even better than us!) ¶ 10:46 AM
Polistra is feeling sort of Blanche DuBoisish in this scene.
The house is a replica of the Katrina Cottage, designed by Marianne Cusato as part of an effort to re-house Katrina refugees in more comfortable, natural and attractive quarters than the trailers which FEMA was supposed to provide.
The cottage is designed to be mass produced, and to be resilient in the face of wind and flooding. It's tiny (308 square feet!) but efficient, and can be expanded to form part of a bigger house.
There's a good long article on the subject in the latest issue of American Enterprise, dealing with the New Urbanist movement among architects. The essence of New Urbanism really should harmonize with basic American conservatism, but until now the architects (like all other professions) have been so deeply imbued with leftist tastes and leftist rhetoric that no conservative could stand to get near them.
Mississippi Renewal is starting to bring the two sides together, with several interesting results.
Needless to say, FEMA will not help with any of this. Because the Cottage is built without wheels, it counts as "permanent housing" under FEMA regs, so it won't get any funding. FEMA only funds trailers, and because of other regulations it must leave those trailers to rot in storage. All very logical to somebody, I'm sure. So the whole Cottage project must depend on the kindness of strangers.
-----
Over and over and over again, we see bureaucrats following their Regulations and performing their Due Process Of Law to insure that government never does anything useful, only gives harmful results.
If we had a president, he would crack the whip on bureaucrats and remind them of the basic purpose of their agencies.
Same with the military and the latest 'massacre'. Bush allows the enemy to own the field in propaganda, saying only that we must go through the Due Process Of Law.
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.
We must stop trying to appear Better Than Them. Every time we try to Behave Nicely in order to look Better Than Them, we only lose a battle and cede more territory to Them.
The plain fact is that WE ARE BETTER THAN THEM. Western Civilization is better than Arab savagery by a long shot. By a light year. By a hundred parsecs. If we must do horrible things in the course of a war, we must do horrible things. Kill as many civilians as necessary to eliminate the carriers of savagery. We understood this in 1945, and we won that war SPECIFICALLY because we understood it.
(Qualifying note: I am not saying that the United States is better than any other nation. On most important measures like prosperity and freedom, we are about 4th or 5th. But we're the only nation that has the resources to fight for Western Civilization, so that the other nations on this side can be even better than us!) ¶ 10:46 AM
