San Diego Soliloquies

It's Too Damn Hot

2006-07-14T09:34:00.000-07:00

It's Too Damn Hot

Something no one with a lick of sense living here in the West should be in doubt about:

Warming Climate Plays Large Role in Western U.S. Wildfires, Scripps-led Study Shows

We who live in San Diego get little or no sympathy from the rest of the U.S., or the world, when we complain about the weather. But they should really listen to us about the climate.

Some of the major engines of weather in the world are the the currents created by ocean currents. For example, you've probably heard of the Gulf Stream which carries warm water from the tropical Atlantic into the North Atlantic, moderating the weather in northern Europe. Stop the Gulf Stream and the Arctic starts heading south through Scandinavia. Here on the west coast of the US we have the California current, carrying cold (frigid actually) water from Alaska down here to San Diego. It's a broad swath of water that is much cooler than the waters further west in the Pacific. Since warm air carries more moisture, as winds from the west traverse these cold waters we get condensation, resulting in San Francisco fog, and Southern California's "late night, early morning low clouds and fog". Until now.

It looks like the waters of San Diego are growing warmer with each season. Some species of tropical fish are being found as far north as the Bay Area and further. Meanwhile we have a fire adapted landscape that is exposed to far more heat energy (it used to be that cool and wet falls stopped anyway bad fires. Now we have had wild fires occurring in January!), while more homes and communities spring up amongst the chaparral.

It's too damn hot. It's gonna burn.

2005-12-30T18:39:00.000-08:00

Not So Much Ineffective As Stupid

Digby points out that in additions to the many screwups in the War on Terror we have rarely missed the opportunity to miss an opportunity. The biggest opportunity of 2005 is passing away, as the recovery in Pakistan tries desparately to get food and shelter to people who survived the earthquake there.

I thought we were tapped out after Katrina, but we managed to still money to the Pakistan releief. Given the onset of winter, and the fact that there are still a lot of people that still haven't been reached months after the earthquake, they need more. From Digby quoting Husain Haqqani and Kenneth Ballen of the the Carnegie Endowment:

For the tsunami, 4,000 helicopters were donated to ferry life-saving aid to stricken areas, and in Pakistan just 70 - even though there are almost three times as many people who need the food and shelter to survive than after the tsunami.

International humanitarian assistance doesn't just save lives, it helps fight the war on terror. According to post-tsunami polls conducted by the Maryland-based, non-profit group Terror Free Tomorrow, support for Osama bin Laden dropped by half as a result of international assistance to tsunami victims in the world's largest Muslim nation.

Admittedly we had to clean up after Katrina, but there are a lot of ways we could have led and helped the effort. But, like so many times before, our leaders failed to do the right thing.

2005-12-29T17:51:00.000-08:00

Unhinged Grief

Found amidst pictures of a beautiful white dog...

We had our fourteen year old dog, Luna, euthanized today.

And I am angry. I’m angry and I’m overcome with sorrow.

Luna was the most beautiful dog I have ever seen. She was the smartest, the most docile, the quietest and loveliest creature among her kind, and it makes me angry that something I loved as much as she is dead.

It makes me angry that people walk around this world laughing and scorning eternal life and the resurrection of the dead. It makes me angry that people of the Academy, the Media, the Government, the entertainment industry have got nothing but hatred for Christians and those who suffer the pain of losing beloved people and creatures and who turn with their whole hearts to the redeemer of sorrows and the resurrector of life.

Have these people, these haters, these vicious, cynical homunculi never lost someone, something they loved to death, and not known in their heart that there must be something more than death? Have these wise fools never grasped the depth of grief, the righteous demand for a justice which makes love itself an eternal reward?

(emphasis added)

Um, sorry for your loss, but, huh? Ok, you're torn up inside, but, who the hell is the Academy? And who exactly hates people who suffer the pain of losing beloved people and creatures?

2005-12-26T18:24:00.000-08:00

Summing Up Bush's 2005

"Does bad sh*t just always happen while he's on vacation? Or is he on vacation so much that when bad sh*t happens, odds are he'll be on vacation?"

I'm just sayin' ...

2005-12-23T14:57:00.000-08:00

Time's Photos of the year

You can see them at TIME: The Best Photos of the Year 2005 and vote for your favorite.

I was stunned that the one I picked was ahead of every other photo by at least 10%. For me it's the perfect illustration of duty, honor and sacrfice being observed by those who live it, and those who wonder at it.

2005-12-12T10:09:00.000-08:00

Taking It Personally

Sorry I've been out of touch. I've been busy putting food on my family.

Like a lot of San Diegans, I'm torn about what to do about Duke Cunningham. At the very least, I hope he does some seriously hard time. If I supported the death penalty I would add him to my short list of people who truly deserve it: Jonathan Pollard, The John Walker gang, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen. Stringing up people who truly betrayed and undermined this country should have the chilling effect that the death penalty currently does not have by only executing poor colored folk.

We are reminded all the time that "We are at War", and it seems we will always be at war. This war has cost us billions of dollars, and as a result of that, the war will cost us New Orleans. We are at war and Duke, along with quite a few of the Republicans running the place, are pissing away money like beer at a rush party. And I am personally quite bitter about the amount of time and effort I've spent trying to get into that money stream.

I spent quite a lot of time in companies large and small, trying to get attention for products that could really solve problems the government in general and armed forces in particular were and are having. Most of these products have been communications systems: from instant high-speed communications (in the 2000's) to encrypted portable email (back in the early 90's!). We did it the way dozens of guides tell you you are supposed to, go to the shows, arrange demos for interest groups, respond to RFP's and get coverage in the technical journals. We always suspected that companies who jumped ahead of us in line had a hidden advantage, we just didn't know it was pandering to an over compensating latent homosexual's need for French antiques.

2005-12-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

Gee, You're Dumb

So Scott Johnson, the Big Trunk of Time's Blog of the Year[sic] 2004 wonders why the Pentagon is not responding to Stephen Hayes' Freedom of Information Act requests for documents that prove there were WMD's in Iraq According to Hayes:

unclassified

And Johnson's brilliant conclusion?

Hayes refrains from suggesting the answer here, but the answer is related to the biggest story of the day: The war of the bureaucracy against the Bush administration, and the administration's reluctance to fight back. This is a story that is lying in plain view, waiting to be told.

Let me summarize that for you. In Johnson's view the Pentagon, the one that continuously tells us the war is going well and the sacrifice is worth it, would rather smear the Bush administration than produce documents that prove the war was worth it. Um, one more time: Johnson is accusing the Pentagon of undermining the war effort. Jeez, I thought that was the job of us liberals.

As a San Diegan, may I suggest that Mr. Johnson move some place where the winters are not so long [but not here!], or at least check to make sure that his furnace is well-ventilated? This sort of psychosis may have an organic rather than genetic origin.

2005-10-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

2000 Times

The military personnel delivering the news are readily identifiable by their branch-specific uniform and most likely the vehicle they are driving as well. The personnel delivering the news generally work in pairs.

If they are smart, they will work in threes. Two will approach the door, one will knock, all will wait. It's common that a wife or mother, upon seeing who is at the door, will scream or cry at them to leave, and block the door. It's also common that they will calmly be invited in. The two will deliver the news, and usually wait until they are sure that someone will be there to help the person they've just told with the enormity of what they now must face. That the life they knew, the son, daughter, or spouse doesn't exist anymore, and they will never get to touch, see, hear or listen to them again.

The two who went to the house will then go back to the vehicle, where, if they are smart, the third one is still waiting, still able to drive, only because the third one sat some distance away.

My Dad, as the youngest in his squadron, used to be the third , or second, one, driving the chaplain around the base to tell young Navy wives that their husband crashed, died, or lay broken in the hospital. Dad only told us he used to do that, he never told us how it was.

2005-08-31T18:51:00.000-07:00

More Free Stuff for Giving!

I think I'll use this to track gifts people are offering for giving to Katrina relief.

Over at Crooked Timber in addition to Ted's offer, Eszter Hargittai is offering a copy of her parent's book, Symmetry, a Unifying Concept to any U.S. postal address for a $35 dollar donation. So for $135 to Katrina you get music, a wonderful book of pictures and a lift to your soul.
Babalublog has great information and is offering sexy, sexy t-shirts (while they last) for donations. Usted es un hombre muy generoso! (Lo siento pero muy Espan~ol es muy feo.)

2005-08-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

The Canadians Are Coming!

And they're ready to start buildin, eh!:

Winnipeg-based Mennonite Disaster Service said Wednesday it is gathering donations to help send hundreds of volunteers to rebuild homes.

They are also ready to ship drugs, money and whatever else we need.

Ok, if you want some creative ways to give try these:

Ted Barlow will send you a mix CD (specify your music) if you send $100 or more to Katrina relief
John Rodgers of KungFu Monkey (And, more importantly, Global Frequency), will double your contribution to the Red Cross this month. He's offering this as a shout-out to people who like his work, and, more importantly, people who hate his politics. He hopes you will try to bankrupt him.

Me? I'm going to go earn some more money so I can send it to the Red Cross, the Mennonites, and and the Rescue Dogs

2005-08-31T10:28:00.000-07:00

Katrina Blows their Cover

There are some in the rightwing community who are using the Katrina disaster for straight-up, just as Gawd meant it to be, racism:

JOKE NO LONGER

Everyone knows the 50 different versions of the joke about the Meteor (apocalypse, whatever) heading to earth and The New York Times (or Washington Post) running the headline: "World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit."

Poorest Hit Hardest By Hurricane Katrina

Disaster Disproportionately Affects Those Who Can Least Afford It

Well yeah Jonah. That's because the majority of folks clinging to rooftops are the ones who didn't have a car or disposable income to get the hell out of town. In other words, the poor, you F****** DIP**** WH***!

But leave it to the old-fashioned Brits at the Corner to give it to us straight:

AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW ORLEANS [Iain Murray] A college contemporary of mine whose home is in New Orleans has a few observations, and in this case the language is, I feel, warranted:

The city is f***ed. Some of the looters are people stealing necessaries (which is fair enough and which I understand) but there are a lot nicking jewellery and electronics, including police officers. The latter should all be f***ing shot, in my view...

As you may have noticed from the coverage, the only people left in the city are emergency workers and very poor black people. Of particular concern, is that the latter group generally do not know how to swim.

...

Precisely. ...

Bracing, to hear the truth so cogently put eh wot? Boy! A splash more bitters in the pink gin, damn your heathen eyes!

2005-08-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Gotta Save Money to Send More Poorly Equipped Guardsmen Overseas

Susie over at Suburban Guerilla points us to this article from June 2005:

In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding.

It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said.

Timing kind of sucks, doesn't it? Here's more:

...The cuts mean major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now.

...

One of the hardest-hit areas of the New Orleans district's budget is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes. SELA's budget is being drained from $36.5 million awarded in 2005 to $10.4 million suggested for 2006 by the House of Representatives and the president.

It's mean to point this out on the eve of possibly one of the worst hurricanes to hit the United States, but it's also a perfect metaphor for this administration. They don't believe in global climate change, they've stripped our country of many first responders and most state's national guards, they've spent billions of dollars on a war we did not have to fight, and which they have mishandled from the start (and which they have lost), and now the very people who supported them are paying the price. As always.

May God hold the people of Louisiana and the entire Gulf Coast in his hand, and show them his mercy and comfort in the long days ahead.

2005-08-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

No, You Can't Get Credit for Alchemy Classes Either

...a Christian high school in Riverside County has filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the University of California system, alleging its rejection of the school's "Christian viewpoint" classes unfairly prevents students from meeting college admissions requirements.

The University of California is the finest public educational institution in the world. Campuses of the UC system, including Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSD are consistently ranked in the top tier for the excellence of their instruction, research and graduates. They are also a relative bargain for California residents, a remainder of the times when we Californians invested in the future.

Naturally selection for the UC sysem is very competitive and the requirements are strict, GPA, SAT tests, etc. The UC system also specifies at least 15 yearlong classes in History, English, Mathematics, Language other than English, Visual and Performing Arts, College Prep course and Laboratory Science. That last one is a bit of a stickler for some "Christian Viewpoints" because UC really does mean Science, not sematic gamesmanship and lunacy, like Creationism or Intelligent Design. This is where some people's nose gets out of joint:

The Calvary school lawsuit complains that in January 2004 a UC official informed Christian high schools that two Christian biology textbooks weren't acceptable, and that the schools' science course outlines were "not consistent with the viewpoints and knowledge generally accepted in the scientific community."

...

"If a Christian School can't be Christian, and a Jewish school can't be Jewish, and a Buddhist school can't be Buddhist . . . then the heavy hand of government has suppressed a lot of individual freedom," Bird said. "We're fighting for the rights of all people who have chosen non-public schools."

Poorsina said the UC system recognizes the rights of schools to teach courses they deem appropriate but "we also recognize not all high schools are necessarily geared toward satisfying UC prep requirements."

No one is saying that these schools don't have the right to teach their kids whatever they want. It's just that the University of California system requires those applying for admission to the school demonstrate that they have been taught some laboratory science. And graduates of these schools cannot demonstrate that this is the case, therefore they are not eligible for admittance to a school in the UC system. Bummer for them, but more opportunity for other people. Too bad their parents wasted all that money.

2005-08-23T09:40:00.000-07:00

Hugh Hewitt is dummmm

From today's 06:54am entry

Be sure to vote in Patrick Ruffini's August straw poll. Getting a statistically significant sampling of internet users would provide a very interesting set if data points.

Freedom of speech means, among other things, you can use whatever words you like, even make up your own. But let me explain something to Hugh, and maybe some folks will learn something.

"Statistically significant sampling" as used by people who were taught and understand statistics, implies that you are creating a system whereby you create a random sample out of a population that can be reasonably (and mathematically) proven to represent that population. For example, if you were able to create a list of names and phone numbers of everyone in the united states, then you randomly chose 1,500 names from that list, you would have a statistically significant sample. Of people who owned telephones in the United States. So do you see Hugh's problem? He is asking his readers, which are an inherent minority of all internet users, to go and vote, and thus represent all internet users. So a small self-selected group of conservatives will be used in place of a randomly generated population of users.

Ah, you say, you're just another liberal ragging on the ignorance of an individual conservatism. Yep, I am. This particular conservative has stood up in court, and in testimony before the House of Representatives, to argue about whether the Endangered Species Act is effective or even good law (don't worry, he's argued for and against both sides. It only matters who's paying). He's paid to have an opinion. He's apparently not paid enough to actually educate himself to support that opinion with science.

2005-08-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

Effect Measure: Saturday Prayer

Some constructive feedback from the designees

...

Then there's the whole question of the human body. It has a lot of great features, but a few of them just seem -- sorry to have to say this, but it's true -- not very intelligent. To begin with, there's that stupid appendix, that doesn't seem to do anything except get infected. Then there's the birth canal. It's not a problem for me personally but it is for at leat half of my friends. It's too small for the baby's head, causes no end of trouble...

So let's see if thre's a sense of humor among ID devotees. Kinda doubt it, their designer seems to have left a lot out besides logic and critical thinking skills

2005-08-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

Charlie Foxtrot, Maximus

So I'm listening to the news and hear about Iran removing the last IAEA seals from their nuclear facilities. And that reminded me of when we heard so much about IAEA seals at Al Qa Qaa. Remember? US Army units found the former weapons development site that had been closed and sealed by the IAEA? Then they had to move on because we didn't send enough people to defeat Iraq,defend the Oil Ministry and also make sure that little things like explosives didn't get into the hands of future insurgents? Remember?

Well this all ties into something else happening recently. Seems the insurgents are creating more sophisticated bombs, perhaps even creating shaped charges, devices that channel explosive force into a very small area, thus defeating pretty much any armor we have or can come up with. So now even Brads and Abrams are vulnerable. Naturally some people are arguing that these sophisticated bombs are coming from Iran. But if you look at what you need to build a shaped charge (no I'm not going to give you a link, trigger your own visit from Homeland Security), you usually start off with a stable high explosive like RDX. Hey! Wait a minute! What was there just a whole s**tload of in Al Qa Qaa?

The high explosives were stored under the supervision of the United Nations due to their sensitive nature and dual use in WMDs. According to the IAEA, there were 340 tonnes consisting of:

194.741 tonnes of HMX,

141.233 tonnes of RDX,

5.800 tonnes of PETN.

These explosives were stored in solid crystalline form and could be used to make powerful plastic explosives, are safe to transport and do not detonate on impact. The total quantity, 341.744 tonnes (753,417 pounds), would require approximately 40 large trucks to convey.

So let me get this straight. We knew this site had over 300 tons of high explosives. But, because we didn't send in enough soldiers and marines, and these folks had higher priorities, we are now hosing the remains of soldiers and marines out from inside even our most heavily armored vehicles.

Sorry folks, this is too far gone to be saved. This one was lost while we were celebrating over that stupid statue.

2005-08-09T17:12:00.000-07:00

Leading Causes of Stupidity

A long time ago I consigned the founders of the Tobacco Institute to hell. I've got more to add. In fact, if you are in any way, shape, or form part of promulgating the new and vast ignorance called Intelligent Design, you're going to hell. The reason why I know this is that ID is contributing to our economic decline. How you ask? Let the sensei, Kung Fu Monkee, explain:

Seriously. Here you are, Tsui or Sanjay, looking at a new cenury. A century in which the exponential curve of technology's rise becomes a sheer cliff. In which only the most intellectually nimble countries, best able to master new information technologies and couple them with manufacturing bases with high levels of technical training, will survive.

And you're looking at that big bastard across the ocean, the US of A. First to build the Bomb. First to master the secrets of the atom. First to build the semiconductor. First and only tribe of humans who actually put men on the GODDAM MOON, to have stepped on another rock in space. Decoders of the human genome, the VERY BOOK OF LIFE !!! How will we ever stop --

Wow, they forfeit. Cool.

Read all of this. Read it now.

Ok, if you're done with that, here's what I think. I don't comment on, and I certainly don't make fun of, profoundly held religious beliefs. True faith is powerful, mysterious, and life-altering. True faith writes symphonies, consoles the sick and dying, and stregthens people enough to die for the God that calls them to sacrifice. But I have to laugh at people who are so shaky in their beliefs, so enamoured of the fads that sweep through these United States, so damn weak, that something like Evolution challenges their faith in God.

Really people! If you are such a loser, so timid, so scared of truly trying to walk in the footsteps of Jesus that the proven existence of change in the frequency of alleles over time within a species can chase you away, well you don't have faith, you just have a membership in a social club that meets on Sundays. And if your God requires that you insist on ignorance in place of asking and answering questions using the rigors of the scientfic method, please keep him to yourself and out of our educational system. See, I even said please.

2005-08-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

Diagnose this Disease

You, being a normal human being, probably don't expose yourself to lunatics too often. I do because, well, we seem to have quite a few in this country and it's good to get a littel heads up on who the Bush Administration will pander to next. Here's one who attempts to explain Why women's rights are wrong

..."The lesson, as always: Women ruin everything."...

Now, at this point, it is customary for women to immediately reject any assertion that women's rights are wrong as the Talibanistic ranting of an embittered man who has been denied ready access to attractive women's bodies. In the interest of dismissing this red herring, I merely note that few men fortunate enough to possess a turbo Porsche and a record contract at 23 have any reason to be bitter about the hand that life has dealt them.

In fact, I very much like women and wish them well, which is precisely why I consider women's rights to be a disease that should be eradicated.

That's the kind of sick that goes well beyond can't get a date, and well into, "They're evil vessels of contamination who must be purged!". Freud would have turned him down as too much of a stereotype. A cigar may sometimes be a just a cigar, but a turbo Porsche is always a penis substitute. He tries to seem reasonable:

The women of America would do well to consider whether their much-cherished gains of the right to vote, work, murder and freely fornicate are worth destroying marriage, children, civilized Western society and little girls. They can at least console themselves with the thought that, in the long run, it doesn't matter what they do, because the women's-rights ideology is an evolutionary dead end, and it is increasingly apparent that societies embracing it will not survive.

But it's just not all that hard to see someone who writes this crap with a cop's hand on the back of his head, the cop making sure our little ubermensh doesn't bonk his noggin on the roof of the squad car taking him off to jail after a statewide manhunt. But wait!

Vox Day is a novelist and Christian libertarian. He is a member of the SFWA, Mensa and the Southern Baptist church, and has been down with Madden since 1992. Visit his Web log, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and responses to reader email.

With deep apalogies to my friends in SFWA and Mensa, the alignment of his avocations and vocations is just too perfect. He's probably certain that he should be first in line to breed

2005-08-08T08:40:00.000-07:00

On the Horizon

Some philosophers try to distinguish homo sapiens from the rest of the animal kingdom by positing that we are endowed with the concept of the future, we have the ability to think and plan ahead. Other philosophers point out that homo sapiens expends most of its sapience in proving that first gang wrong. Our most recent example? The flu, or, influenza, avian in its current origin:

We know it's coming:

The avian influenza A (H5N1) epizootic outbreak in Asia is not expected to diminish significantly in the short term. It is likely that H5N1 infection among birds has become endemic to the region and that human infections will continue to occur. So far, no sustained human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus has been identified, and no evidence for genetic reassortment between human and avian influenza virus genes has been found; however, the epizootic outbreak in Asia poses an important public health threat.

If these H5N1 viruses gain the ability for efficient and sustained transmission between humans, there is little preexisting natural immunity to H5N1 infection in the human population, and an influenza pandemic could result, with high rates of illness and death.

We also know that there is very little we can do about it now:

...In addition, genetic sequencing of influenza A (H5N1) virus samples from human cases in Vietnam and Thailand shows resistance to the antiviral medications amantadine and rimantadine, two of the medications commonly used for treatment of influenza. This would leave two remaining antiviral medications (oseltamivir and zanamivir) that should still be effective against currently circulating strains of H5N1 virus.

Over the weekend there were some encouraging signs that we are beginning to have the start of a process that might yield a vaccine, but the flu season is coming soon. You need to think about the flu the same way Californians think about earthquakes, when it hits and for a long time afterwards, you are pretty much on your own. So start learning everything you can.

Start with the Flu Wiki. Use it to learn about what you can do for yourself and people around you. Stay informed, and start raising hell. We can control this if we all work together. I'm working to make sure all my clients can continue their operations from home, and helping to get the word out. You figure out what you can do.

2005-08-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

You Have 6 Days to Visit San Diego

You need to see the exhibition Sandow Birk: Leading Causes of Death in America. You undoubtedly missed ComicCon, skipped Street/Parking Lot Scene, and blew off the La Jolla Festival of the Arts. Make it down here and see the Leading Causes of Death in America. You may not be glad you did, but you will be better for it.

And this is not just because I embody (heh, get it?) four of them.

2005-08-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

Names and Hometowns

Since we last spoke:

Chief Warrant Officer Keith R. Mariotti, 39, of Texas.
Chief Warrant Officer Steven E. Shepard, 30, of Purcell, Okla.
2nd Lt. Matthew S. Coutu, 23, of North Kingstown, R.I.
Spc. Rafael A. Carrillo, Jr., 21, of Boys Ranch, Texas
Sgt. Manny Hornedo, 27, of Brooklyn, N.Y
Spc. Robert E. Hall Jr., 30, of Pittsburgh, Pa
Sgt. Chad M. Mercer, 25, of Waycross, Ga
Staff Sgt. Jeremy A. Brown, 26, of Mabscott, W.Va
Spc. Ryan J. Montgomery, 22, of Greensburg, Ky
Sgt. Deyson K. Cariaga, 20, of Honolulu, Hawaii
Spc. Christopher W. Dickison, 26, of Seattle, Wa
Pvt. Anthony M. Mazzarella, 22, of Blue Springs, Mo
Cpl. Lyle J. Cambridge, 23, of Shiprock, N.M.
Staff Sgt. Scottie L. Bright, 36, of Montgomery, Ala.
Pfc. Eric P. Woods, 26, of Omaha, Neb
Spc. Hoby F. Bradfield Jr., 22, of The Woodlands, Texa
Lance Cpl. Ryan J. Kovacicek, 22, of Washington, Pa.
Staff Sgt. Joseph P. Goodrich, 32, of Allegheny, Pa
Sgt. Timothy J. Sutton, 22, of Springfield, Mo
Spc. Benyahmin B. Yahudah, 24, of Bogart, Ga
Cpl. Christopher D. Winchester, 23, of Flomaton, Ala.
Cpl. Clifton B. Mounce, 22, of Pontotoc, Miss
Staff Sgt. Tricia L. Jameson, 34, of Omaha, Neb
Pfc. Timothy J. Hines, Jr., 21, of Fairfield, Ohio
Spc. Jared D. Hartley, 22, of Newkirk, Okla
Sgt. 1st Class Ronald T. Wood, 28, of Cedar City, Utah
Staff Sgt. Jorge L. Pena-Romero, 29, of Fallbrook, Calif
Sgt. Travis S. Cooper, 24, of Macon, Miss
Spc. Ronnie D. Williams, 26, of Erlanger, Ky
Lance Cpl. Efrain Sanchez, Jr., 26, of Port Chester, N.Y
Staff Sgt. Frank Tiai, 45, of Pago Pago, American Samoa
Sgt. Arthur R. McGill, 25, of Gravette, Ark
Staff Sgt. Jefferey J. Farrow, 28, of Birmingham, Ala
Pvt. Lavena L. Johnson, 19, of Florissant, Mo
Cpl. Steven P. Gill, 24, of Round Rock, Texas
Petty Officer 3rd Class Travis L. Youngblood, 26, of Surrency, Ga.
Sgt. Jason T. Palmerton, 25, of Auburn, Neb
Sgt. Bryan J. Opskar, 32, of Princeton, Minn
Staff Sgt. Jason W. Montefering, 27, of Parkston, S.D.
Spc. Ernest W. Dallas Jr., 21, of Denton, Texas
Sgt. Milton M. Monzon Jr., 21, of Los Angeles, Calif.
Pfc. Ramon A. Villatoro Jr., 19, of Bakersfield, Calif
Spc. Jacques E. Brunson, 30, of Americus, Ga.
Staff Sgt. Carl R. Fuller, 44, of Covington, Ga.
Sgt. James O. Kinlow, 35, of Thomson, Ga.
Sgt. John F. Thomas, 33, of Valdosta, Ga.
Sgt. Christopher J. Taylor, 22, of Opelika, Ala.
Spc. Adam J. Harting, 21, of Portage, Ind.
Spc. John O. Tollefson, 22, of Fond du Lac, Wis.
Spc. Adrian J. Butler, 28, of East Lansing, Mich.
Capt. Benjamin D. Jansky, 28, of Oshkosh, Wis.
Spc. Edward L. Myers, 21, of St. Joseph, Mo.
Cpl. Andre L. Williams, 23, of Galloway, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Christopher P. Lyons, 24, of Shelby, Ohio
Pvt. Ernesto R. Guerra, 20, of Long Beach, Calif
Pfc. Jason D. Scheuerman, 20, of Lynchburg, Va
Spc. James D. Carroll, 23, of McKenzie, Tenn
Cpl. Jeffrey A. Boskovitch, 25, of Seven Hills, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Roger D. Castleberry Jr., 26, of Austin, Texas
Sgt. David J. Coullard, 32, of Glastonbury, Conn.
Lance Cpl. Daniel N. Deyarmin Jr., 22, of Tallmadge, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Brian P. Montgomery, 26, of Willoughby, Ohio
Sgt. Nathaniel S. Rock, 26, of Toronto, Ohio
Sgt. James R. Graham III, 25, of Coweta, Okla
Staff Sgt. James D. McNaughton, 27, of Middle Village, N.Y
Petty Officer 1st Class Thomas C. Hull, 41, of Princeton, Ill
Lance Cpl. Timothy M. Bell Jr., 22, of West Chesterfield, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Eric J. Bernholtz, 23, of Grove City, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Nicholas William B. Bloem, 20, of Belgrade, Mont.
Sgt. Bradley J. Harper, 25, of Dresden, Ohio
Sgt. Justin F. Hoffman, 27, of Delaware, Ohio
Cpl. David Kenneth J. Kreuter, 26, of Cincinnati, Ohio
Cpl. David S. Stewart, 24, of Bogalusa, La.
Lance Cpl. Michael J. Cifuentes, 25, of Fairfield, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Grant B. Fraser, 22, of Anchorage, Alaska
Lance Cpl. Aaron H. Reed, 21, of Chillicothe, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Edward A. Schroeder II, 23, of Columbus, Ohio
Lance Cpl. Kevin G. Waruinge, 22, of Tampa, Fla.
Lance Cpl. William B. Wightman, 22, of Sabina, Ohio

all died in Iraq. These are the ones I could get names for.

When you look at this list, some things stand out. A lot of sergeants. Senior guys too. The Army and Marines run because of sergeants and senior NCO's. When you see a sergeant in their 30's, that's someone who has spent at least 10 years in direct management of a team, making sure they're trained fed, equipped, rested and ready. First and second level management in a business. The Army likes to have a lot of sergeants, and encourages this by allowing privates to take non-commisioned officer courses that let them skip the rank of corporal.

Then you see some guys in their late 20's who are staff seargeants. These are real comers, marked for great things. A 27 year old staff sergeant has the right stuff, and is overseeing other sergeants, probably reporting to the company commander, or assigned to the top platoon in the company. This is the guy who makes sure the troops and marines are ready to go to war, and is usually signing off on the plans to do it.

You can also see when the Marines have had really bad days. As mentioned before, the Army encourages privatges to go directly to sergeant, whereas the Marines use the ranks more strictly. Also only the Marines have the rank of Lance Corporal, which is the lowest non-commisioned officer rank, between Private First Class and Corporal. Corporals perform a vital function of leading small teams in battle. A Lance Corporal may have some other responsibility such as heavy weapons or communications. When you see a lot of dead Corporals and definitely Lances, it means the marines took heavy causualties.

In this context, if you see a woman or a navy rank, especially if they're young, it usually means that a medic died trying to save someone's life (Army trooper if it's a woman, Marine if it's Navy). That also usually means that Iraqi insurgents had sufficient intelligence and tacitcal coordination to conceal secondary IEDs that caught the medics.

2005-06-27T10:08:00.000-07:00

Priorities

The Washington Post tells us about a conference call where Deputy Undersecretary Laura Miller sets the marching orders for all Veteran's Affairs facilities:

"Dr. Perlin" -- that's Jonathan B. Perlin , undersecretary for health, ... -- "and I cannot stress the importance of this enough," she said. "We are asking that you give this your highest priority. We will continue to ask for daily updates on the status ...

What is this priority? Making sure that:

a picture of Secretary [ Jim ] Nicholson prominently displayed.

Last week, under intense questioning from Congress, Dr. Perlin revealed that the VA was running a $1 billion shortfall for the current fiscal year. The hard hearted congresspeople probably don't give a damn that :

Agency officials said Friday that 100 percent of the VHA facilities have reported appropriate placement of the Nicholson photos.

I care, however, that Nicholson ...

was the author of an April 5 letter to senators saying, "I can assure you that VA does not need [additional funds] to continue to provide timely, quality service. . . . "

Tell me again about how much this administration cares about the military

2005-06-26T16:10:00.000-07:00

So Hugh, What Do You Really Mean?

Salem radio host Hugh Hewitt on his self-named blog:

The Democratic Party and its liberal/left supporters negligence with regard to southeast Asia in the '70s bought about the deaths of millions and the enduring communist governments of Vietnam and Laos and the desperate circumstances of Cambodia. ...

Now the same Democratic Party, the same liberal/left, the same John Kerry and Ted Kennedy and some of the same anti-war protestors grown old and respectable are urging that timelines for unilateral withdrawal be set, the words "bug out" and "quagmire" and back, and once again an ally is beginning to feel the full support of the Democratic Party like a knife in the back.

So Hugh, what do you do about people who stab you in the back? Is it time to start stocking up on plywood and replacement glass? Is that really what you want people to believe you're capable of?

2005-06-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

Bad Week, Funny Ending

So, as you can see I haven't written much, here. I've written a lot though, three releases of software since I last ranted, and I'm desperately trying to get another out before a promised demo on Tuesday. But here's something I had to share from my apache server's error log:

[Fri Jun 24 10:09:46 2005] [error] Multiple password rows returned - this is what is known, in the industry, as a Bad Thing

You know you're starting to crack up when your software begins to get snarky on you.

2005-03-22T11:59:00.000-08:00

Holy Week

Wow, slowly, tentatively, maturity is starting to creep into our society. Here in San Diego, Boshop Robert Brom has apologized to the McCusker family. He goes so far as to offer to celebrate a mass for John himself.

In the 11the Circuit, Judge Whittemore has the sad duty to tell Terri Schiavo's parents what so many other courts have already told them, Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state that she won't recover from. Terri's parents are now captives of an insane confluence of right-wing politics, anti-abortion fanatics and sensation-happy media. I pray Terri doesn't last much longer.

Now, if there were only some way to take guns away from "lost" kids, and put hope into them. The horror that visits us every so often in our schools, so uniquely American, condemns us before the civilized world and any loving God.

2005-03-20T16:14:00.000-08:00

Holy Hypocrite

So it turns out (courtesy of John @ Americablog) that Bishop Robert Brom, who denied a Catholic funeral anywhere in the Diocese of San Diego to John McCusker because of McCusker's business, has a little history of controversy himself. The Catholic Church in Minnesota paid $100,000 to settle sexual misconduct claims against him. Bummer.

One of the main problems with the priest sexual misconduct scandal is there undoubtedly have been unsavory headline seekers and scandal mongers who preyed on innocent and publically identifiable priests. Which only mean such priests should show the mercy Jesus called all of us to show to the "least" of his flock, much less someone who, like McCusker, spent time making this a better place to live.

I've been told many times that "We" are the church. If "We" are the Church, then what is a stupid, evil man like Brom doing in a position to make decisions like this? "We" need to be about getting better employees.

2005-03-18T11:06:00.000-08:00

Steaming Hypocrisy Served By Holy Eunuchs

John McCusker died at age 31 while on ski vacation in Mamoth California. John McCusker was an nightclub owner, entrepreneur and an all around big-hearted guy. He helped raise money for the Polinsky Center, trying to help it become more than just a place where troubled kids are dumped by an uncaring society. He served as Vice-President of the the San Diego Business Association, and helped raise money for scholarships and to fight AIDS.

John was such a valuable member of the community that:

San Diego County Board of Supervisors along with the City of San Diego officially named August 27, 1999 "John McCusker Day" for his outstanding service, leadership and commitment to the county of San Diego and the general well-being of the area residents and for his notable achievements and contributions.

John was 26 at the time.

John was an alum of the University of San Diego, and his funeral was planned for Immaculata basilica on campus. Until the Bishop of the Diocese of San Diego, Robert Brom, told the Immaculata, and every one of the 98 catholic Churches in San Diego and Imperial Counties that John McCusker could not receive the sacrament of a funeral.

You see, that nightclub John owned has a gay clientele. And John was gay.

The diocese issued a statement yesterday, saying: "The facts regarding the business activities of John McCusker were not known by church officials when arrangements were requested for his funeral. However, when these facts became known, the bishop concluded that to avoid public scandal Mr. McCusker cannot be granted a funeral in a Catholic church in the chapel of the Diocese of San Diego." ...

Valdivia wouldn't comment when asked to specify which of McCusker's business activities violated church doctrine. He emphasized that the church's decision had nothing to do with the sexual orientation of McCusker, who was gay. Instead, the decision was based on McCusker's "public activity" as a businessman, Valdivia said.

Maybe if John had been a heterosexual crime boss whose only crimes were loan-sharking, pimping, dealing drugs, and murder he could have gotten a funeral with the Bishop himself presiding.

2005-03-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

Voices in the Late Night

She was yelling at our next door neighbor a few days back, speaking vicious words in a hard cutting tone.

"Don't you turn away from me, don't you ignore me! I'm talking to you and by GOD you will listen this time"

Our neighbor couldn't say anything to this woman who he didn't know, this woman his wife turned into. Later in the day I saw his truck parked near the park, and saw him walking slowly along the pathways, his crippled hands clasped behind his back, his head hanging down wearing the old SDSU cap from the 50's.

It seems that neither God nor evolution cares about us once we pass breeding age; the infirmities of body and mind of old age are things that rarely visited humans when the life expectancy averaged 45 years. I do know that no loving God would visit this disease on people He cared about. Which means that it is up to us as humans to cure it and support the afflicted ourselves.

My next door neighbor is a better man than I, still devout, but wondering now. He too knows that he was richly blessed and unutterably lucky to meet his soulmate, and grateful for every minute with her. I'm not sure that would comfort me if I had to face Alzheimer's in the woman I love, but they seem to help him soldier on, still speaking softly into her sometimes hectoring, sometimes sad and lost, words.

2005-02-21T12:03:00.000-08:00

Visiting the Darkness

There is nothing more powerful, more life affirming, more wonderful than finding your soulmate. The solid love, approval, strength, and support form a foundation from which anything can be built or achieved.

And there is nothing worse than the wait as that person lies on an operating table, the eyes that see into your soul closed by a reversible chemical death, machines pushing oxygen and pulling CO2 past the lips that spoke to your heart, your hopes, your dreams. You know this has to be done as you chant the statistics of how successful they've been before, and the small child voice in your head breaths prayers you'd forgotten decades before. Friends and family speak words that you catch maybe half of, but you struggle to hear and comfort them, just as he or she would.

But then to have the doctors finish, evaluate, then tell you that it may not all be fixed, that you both have more steps to take in this grey, scary journey; it's enough to crush a steadfast heart.

Perhaps unfairly, I measure the presence of a just loving god by how he treats objectively smart, sexy, patient, loving people like the Instawife. May God and the doctors work to bring the Reynolds many years and happy fat grandchildren.

2005-02-19T15:48:00.000-08:00

Calling All San Diego Techies

You may have noticed that San Diego Technical Books, the austere and lovely resource that has saved my butt too many times to count, exists no more. Due to litigiousness that will in no way be reduced by recent "Tort Reforms", SDTC was driven out of business. But a phoenix has arisen from the ashes:

That Technical Bookstore

Map

They are slowly building their inventory back up, so right now it's mostly O'Reilly and whatever Qualcomm wants. But I hope they soon get back to the days of math, astronomy and biology books amongst the contracting handbooks, web design guides, and software manuals.

2005-02-14T17:34:00.000-08:00

And Tay-Sachs is a Social Disease

The newspapers for mouth breathers would have you know that Sickle Cell anemia is one of the many diseases you can catch from dirty immigrants.

Ok, one time for the morons in the audience, Sickle Cell (along with Tay-Sachs) is caused by a genetic mutation, and therefore in *not* transmittable (unless you are the son or daughter of two carriers of the mutation). The Sickle Cell mutation is found among descendants of people from areas with a high incidence of malaria such as West Africa.

Portraying this horrific condition as some sort of potential pandemic, is a pretty good indication of what kind of person you are, ignorant, more than likely racist, and most definitely, profoundly ill-informed . Thus you have all the makings of a great right-wing pundit.

2005-02-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

Good Cop, Bad Night

Read this blog entry:

"It's not a problem"

I have friends in various aspects of law enforcement. There are very few ads applauding cops walking through an airport. But whether they're wearing chocolate chip or blue serge in their uniforms, there are a lot of people protecting you and me as we sleep.

Some people get their cars or furniture repossessed. I repoed some children.

2005-01-26T18:37:00.000-08:00

Lawyers and Numbers Don't Mix

Hugh Hewitt proves that minimal competence with Google doesn't substitute for a solid education. In the link cited, he points the reader to a table "proving" that Black folk don't live so long, therefore they should support Social Security reform so their kids can not live long either. Or something

Listen, I'm only going to say it once, then I'm going to let all my conservative friends dangle from their own ropes. Selling SS reform based on life expectancies that are shortened by social ills that you haven't done bupkis to fix is not going to endear you to the black community. The reason life expectancy skews so radically for Black males is that a significant number of black male children don't make it to adulthood. And we as a society, but most particularly conservatives as a whole, don't care enough to do something change this. Once a black man reaches late middle age he will just as long as anyone else on a statistical basis.

Poor Hugh could have saved himself from this embarrassment if he had actually looked at the table, particularly the lower right hand corner. See those low numbers for black folk? See how it jumps up by 1970? That would be programs such as rural electrification and the Great society getting infrastructure, particularly sewers, into areas that the local white folk hadn't considered a priority. When your kids stop dying in infancy you get quite the bump in overall life expectancy. Also, look at the column for white women. How do you get a 10 year increase in 30 years? How about cutting down on deaths in child-birth with antibiotics and prenatal treatments?

The biggest downside of the Bush election and concomitant increase in conservative influence is the amount of truly stupid, thoughtless people that come to the forefront. The upside is the delicious irony of their venting about big government when it's obvious that no one but the government would pay to have them spread such foolishness.

2005-01-26T16:21:00.000-08:00

Supporting the Troops

A CH-53E Helicopter went down in Iraq, killing 30 Marines and 1 sailor.

These 30 Marines were from Camp Pendleton here in San Diego, and the CH-53E Super Stallion was based two ridgelines over from me, at MCAS Miramar. Miramar was originally a Navy facility, built out in the boonies beyond San Diego before World War 2 as a base for the Navy's dirigibles, which means that it's right in the middle of modern San Diego, with Highway 15 to the East, 52 to the south, and 805 to the west. The Navy flew jets in and out of Miramar, servicing the Pacific fleet and training combat pilots in the Naval Fighter Weapons school, "Top Gun". In the mid-90's though the Navy decided it was easier and cheaper to support the fleet out of Lemoore NAS, and to move the Fighter Weapons School to Fallon.

The Marines have always had their own air assets, and until the re-alignment, ran fixed wind operations out of MCAS El Toro and helicopters out of MCAS Tustin. Since the Navy was moving out of Miramar, it made sense for the Marines to take it over. The base is closer to Pendleton and easier to access.

Expensive housing resides to the west and east, with windows all too eager to shiver in sympathetic vibration to the blades of a helicopter overhead. Sometimes every thing in the house shakes as the conditions in the atmosphere align to transmit the shock waves of blade tips exceeding the sound barrier into the walls of the homes below. Ever since the Marines announced they were moving there have been protests at the noise created by their presence. The Marines agreed to fly circuitous routes to minimize the noise. The most vehement protests were organized in what are now the "reddest" sections of San Diego county.

I don't care if the damn thing shatters my coffee mugs. I wish every one of those marines was back here in San Diego, running training missions and rattling the windows of the shabby MacMansions lining the I-15 corridor. We're losing this war, which was never worth the blood spilled from a paper cut much less the lives, misery and treasure we have spent to now. These men and women are far too good to be wasted in this way, being put in an untenable position that's maintained solely through their sacrifice. Bring them home and let the dishonor fall on the shoulders of us, the civilians who were too weak and confused to use such magnificent troops correctly.

Update The Marine infantry on board the CH-53E were from the Marine Corps base at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. The flight crew was based at Miramar.

2005-01-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

It's a Wonder I Ever Married

2004-12-26T18:08:00.000-08:00

Not Studying the Past, Blindsided by the Present

"The Internet" started a long time ago, with most dating it back to Bolt. Beranek and Newman's experiments in survivable networks for DARPA in the late '60's. In that time we have developed many layers of communication technology that made it easier, first for computer scientists, then technologists, then, slowly, the carbon-based bipedal community with which we share this planet.

Email, uucp, usenet all fostered greater communication, which like any innovation, had its dark and bright sides. The bright side is obvious, the dark side is always surprising. Somehow the freer, more open communication not only allows greater cooperation, growing knowledge and increasing productivity, it also encourages the nuts to bless us with the echoes inside their head. And it was always shocking how many nuts there were.

I remember the first times I ran into the big three idiocies, Holocaust denial, Creationism and "Taxation is Robbery", on Usenet. I was incredulous. It's like the first time you see someone relieve themselves in public. Your initial reaction is, "Oh My God, what drive them to that extremis?" Then, upon repetition of the action you realize that somehow, some way, these people missed some key lessons in the growing up phase of life, of which they are now inexplicably proud. Sometimes folks would gang up to fight these idiotic ideas (though the IRS has done a pretty good job on the third group). But as hot as these got, this was all just bytes flying among geeks and those few civilians brave enough to get on-line.

Then Usenet, ftp, gopher and a new protocol, http, all got rolled up into a concept called a "browser". In the early 90's a lot more people came on-line and the same sorts of issues broke out. There is nothing more stunningly ignorant than a zealot, but, as cable news networks prove daily, nothing more compelling either.

But now, with the triumph of a profoundly ignorant man as president, the most house-trained of the idiocies, Creationism, newly packaged as Intelligent Design, is back in fashion. The newest twist is that by pointing out that this is not science, this is not something that should be taught in schools, and perhaps this imebcility might explain why Johnny and Judy can't add, read or reason, you prove only that you have been brainwashed by the MSM. We're in for a lot of this over the next four years. Now that the presidential campaign is over, where else will all that energy go but into more woe is me, I'm a cruelly oppressed white middle-class Christian in a white middle-class Christian country dominated by a white middle-class Christian culture? It takes a lot of energy to figure out that Evolution is actually an attack on Christianity, that the celebration of Christmas is actually an attack on Christianity and that people trying to follow the message of Christ are actually attacking Christianity.

I personally can't think of a greater attack on the message and meaning of the life of Jesus Christ than modern Evangelicism and its adherents. Package that with the idea that the Lord God lies to us, planting mis-leading clues such as speciation, carbon-dating and fossils to mislead us, to test our faith, and you have a truly pernicous know-nothingism.

But that's just me, another nut hanging on the tree of the blogosphere.

2004-12-25T13:04:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Truce

On this day, 90 years ago, British and German forces stopped fighting long enough to at least play a little football (soccer), exchange rations, tobacco and chocolate, and sing Christmas Carols.

Scholars debate what started it. The most likely scenarios were that German soldiers put up their government-issued christmas trees and sang Christmas carols. Since both these customs had been imported from German into Great Britain (remember, the Windsors came to the UK from Germany. Queen Victoria grew up speaking German and was the Kaiser's grandmother) the English troops knew all the words, in English. Parties that were gathering the dead or scouting in no-man's land reported what they heard, and more men came out of the trenches, to meet up among the shellholes and rotting corpses left from three months of fighting.

The troops met each other, pictures taken, gifts exchanged. Once the corpses were cleared, some soccer games broke out, the only one score was recorded (3-2 Germans). Since all this started informally, it is difficult to figure out when it ended. On some sections of the trenches the fighting started again the next day, in other areas the truce lasted into January.

Commanders were horrified. In the areas where truce remained they rotated in new companies, untainted by the truce. In other areas they started massive artillery barrages to remind the enemy of just how fierce war could be. There is also no record of any truce breaking out in trenches where the French and Germans faced each other.

Most modern scholars emphasize the common cultures when they try to explain how men in freezing, muddy trenches, eating moldy rations and bitten by rats, lice and other pests could possibly see the humanity in fellow sufferers. And don't worry about peace breaking out nowadays either. According to Stanley Weintraub in an interview with the National Review:

I can't imagine such massive concentrations of troops again in a future war, nor can I imagine such collisions of similar cultures. Sadly, I can envision future conflicts with such culturally different opponents as Islamic forces. To see a common humanity in likely future opponents seems unlikely.

Especially when you consider the Geneva Convention (created in response to the horror of European War) as "quaint".

2004-12-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

America's Finest

Besides the Chargers there hasn't been a lot to be proud of in San Diego this year. Our new (old) mayor looks like he was the number 2 vote-getter in the recent election, we are months behind in a financial audit, which caused bond-rating agencies to remove the city from ratings, thereby eliminating our access to capital, and we are looking at a multi-year effort to get our financial house in order as we've underfunded a pension plan that the unions bargained for in lieu of pay hikes.

But there are some bright spots. Perhaps because we regard ourselves as the Telecom Capitol of the World, or maybe just because we're geeks about wireless, networks are popping up all over. There's a fabulous group I hang out with when I have the time that is driving the installation of free wireless networks throughout San Diego, SoCalFreeNet.org (check out the installation pix, and all the pointers to great wireless deals!). And now the City Libraries all have free wireless connectivity (careful, PDF!).

We'll get it together here in San Diego. If Donna Frye gets cheated out of this election, it just increases her clout in the council for the future. We'll get over the hump on the funding, probably by muddling through. But we're also opening things up for our fellow citizens. There's nothing more powerful than information.

2004-12-01T13:54:00.000-08:00

Truth About Global Warming, From Texarkana

An exellent, pithy put-down of the ignorance that argues against global climate change. And most importantly ...

Of course there have always been and always will be "scientists" earning their corporate grant money who stand ready to tell us that (take your pick) tobacco is not harmful or addictive, DDT is safe, acid rain is natural and global warming either doesn't exist or is caused by something'-anything-other than human activity. But part of being a responsible adult is learning to consider the source and purpose of claims like these.

2004-11-24T11:05:00.000-08:00

Real Battlebots

The U.S. Government has several $250,000 remote-controlled robots whose job is to find mines and booby traps and blow them up. Naturally, in this day and age, someone on the ground knows how to do it better and cheaper, for about $1000. Even though they use words like "ideation" here's a big HOO-RAW to Capt Jonathan Kuniholm, and LCpl Howard Akers for development above and beyond the call of duty.

Of course it helps when one of you is a PhD Candidate in Biomedical Engineering at Duke University (Hat Tip: GizModo)

2004-11-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

Edyoucayshun

Seen on a license plate from during the morning commute:

MY KID AND MY $ MONEY$ GOES TO UCSB

2004-11-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

In Line at Albertson's

At Albertson's this time of day, the store is restocking, getting ready for the evening rush. The customers are mostly older or the homebound (unemployed, or worse, like me, consultants). I stopped off for some mushrooms and fat free half and half to see if I could make a less caloric mushroom soup.

The 10 or less line was seven people long. but better than the other line where small children were using the carts as jungle gyms. The additional trouble with the 10 or less line is that it's right by the door, so the querulous, confused or outraged invaribly pick that cashier to vent on. This time it was an older woman, face carved by numerous complaints, who walked up to the cashier waving a loaf of bread in her left hand. I was too far away to hear, but soon the cashier turned to her intercom to request a price check. You could tell she was thrown off a bit because she kept getting the number of her station wrong. She kept telling Chrissy to come to line 3, when she was standing underneath a brightly lit #1 sign. Chrissy found her anyway and led the bread woman away.

I noticed that the cashier was wearing one of those photo buttons, about 4 inches in diameter. I usually see them on the cashiers around the start of the little league season, a proud parent with an image of a boy kneeling with bat in one hand, or crouched over with open glove, ready to snap up a ground ball.

The line moved and the woman ahead of me got close to the cashier. She apparently asked about the son on the button. I heard the end of the cashiers answer:

"Yes, and he's in that battle going on right now."

I looked closer. The picture was a boy in a marine uniform, three inches high. For a second I had a brief sense of unreality, wishing the button was like the wizard pictures in Harry Potter so I could see the quick wave that inevitably went with such a tight but open grin. I concentrated on the collar tabs to see the rank, but my eyes aren't that good, and there is a limited period that you can stare at a woman's chest no matter what it bears.

"Well, I heard that there were four dead, and that it's getting just like Vietnam", the older woman ahead of me had kept talking, telling this mother nothing she didn't already know.

"I've done my praying", the mother said. "I started a while ago and I'm done now."

"Just like Vietnam", said the woman, scrabbling out here change from the tray that automatic change maker had slid it into. "And that is so awful." She gathered up the two small bags.

Chrissy and the bread woman returned. Chrissy told the cashier something in a low voice, as the bread woman shoved me aside and confronted the cashier.

"Told me that it was the wrong kind of bread for 2 for five dollars and that I should read the numbers! Read the numbers! It's like it takes a college education just to shop here." The bread woman's hair had somehow gotten loose from a bun and now shook in echo with her righteous indignation. The bread woman turned away and stomped out of the store. I'm not completely sure anyone paid for the bread squeezed in her hands but then noone would want it.

The cashier turned to me. "Did you find everything you need?"

I truly wished that button was a two way channel, that the marine could see his mother rally so quickly. There was nothing I could say other than,

"Yes, thank you"

We got the transaction done, a bit slowly. There's all kinds of courage in the world and all kinds of ways we ignore it when we find it. I didn't have anything I could tell her. According to news reports that battle for Fallujah was going well and the Marines were in the city center.

2004-11-03T16:06:00.000-08:00

Things That Are Good For The Soul

So I've been remiss for quite some time in keeping up this little one way conversation. I've been working, damn hard, to create some software, and try to get a good man elected President. I only batted .500 and it's left a hole in my heart.

On a day like today you walk softly, carefully, and speak with consideration. The people I know hurt too, and it's a hurt that can intensify, swallow your hope and tomorrow, if you're not careful. You have to read things that are good for your soul, like this powerful confessional/meditation by Steve Gilliard about his horrific illness. You have to spend some time in quiet, thinking deeply about who you are and what you will do. But you also have to be there for the people around you. You can't do this alone, and you shouldn't try.

There are a lot of ways to react to what happened, and I've run through them all. Lash out in anger, run to another country, stay and fight. Each is seductive. I'm trying to channel the first to power the third, while leaving the second as an option. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Update: Fixed the link to Steve's place

2004-06-02T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Worst Kind of Treason

Once in my checkered past I had an association with the National Security Agency. It was strictly non-classified, but it was before the Agency really was "out" of the black closet. It was hammered into me before, during and after this association that the NSA was really the only thing we do right (though the NRO might dispute that) and protecting the secrets of our communication capabilities was really what all the secrecy was all the about. Signals intelligence (along with reconnaissance) are the only real edge we have in intelligence.

But you know what? That doesn't really matter to some sleazebag (or bags) chickenhawk(s) in this administration. Apparently someone got drunk with their old buddy Chalabi and had to brag about achievements that the sleazebag played no role in. Congratulations sleazebag. I hope the cell next to John Walker is open:

The F.B.I. has opened an espionage investigation seeking to determine exactly what information Mr. Chalabi turned over to the Iranians as well as who told Mr. Chalabi that the Iranian code had been broken, government officials said. The inquiry, still in an early phase, is focused on a very small number of people who were close to Mr. Chalabi and also had access to the highly restricted information about the Iran code.

Whoever you are, I hope you know you will be caught. And the FBI will make an example of you.

2004-06-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

You Get Out to the Coast, Gimme a Call, We'll Hang Out

What does it mean if the most recognizable, and possibly most popular, Republican can't be bothered to leave California to campaign for you? It means you're not a political asset here in the Golden State.

"But, you know, when the question arises about President Bush, I would tell the people I will vote for President Bush, that I'm supporting him and I will support him, and if he comes out here I will support him," Schwarzenegger told the Journal. "So you know, it's a very sensitive thing, but I want to make sure I represent California, and I will stay and do my work in California. This is a totally separate thing.

Ouch

2004-05-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

Echoes of the Past

Enraged by the destruction of Iraqi history and artifacts (did you know that the Iraqi National Library was burned *twice*!), Keith Watenpaugh was part of a group of academics that went to Iraq in June of 2003 to get some idea of the damage. Keith Watenpaugh has a unique perspective on what's happening there because his main are of study is Iraq between the Wars, when the area was run by the Brits and French for the League of Nations. His evaluation? Well the title is America's Incompetent Colonialism.

The CPA?s colonial culture has limited its effectiveness on behalf of the Iraqi people and thus the US taxpayer is not getting a good value for its billions of dollars. And while unique elements of the CPA have made significant contributions to the rebuilding of Iraqi society, here I note especially the work of John Russell in the recovery of Iraq?s ancient heritage, those successes are not balanced by the abuses, corruption, cronyism and incompetence on the other side of the ledger. In part this has been caused by the exportation of domestic US politics to the Green Zone and the appointment of individuals whose sense of Iraqi, Arab, and Islamic cultures (if they have any at all) is shaped by a narrow partisan, cultural or religious agenda - and in some cases the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Meanwhile we learn that, rather than recruit the best and brightest (and possibly Arabic speakers) for the effort in Iraq, the US government plucked resumes off the Heritage Institute's website. So instead of say, unemployed telecommunication engineers who might have helped rebuild Iraq (like, oh say, me), we get

...The 28-year-old daughter of neoconservative pundit Michael Ledeen and a recently minted MBA...

...Todd Baldwin, 28, a legislative aide for Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), thought the opportunity was too good to pass up. John Hanley, 24, a Web site editor, wanted to break into the world of international relations. Anita Greco, 25, a former teacher, and Casey Wasson, 23, a recent college graduate in government, just needed jobs.

Good Luck, kids. Sure hope you know when the contractor you've hired to turn up mobile switching center is actually telling you the truth about the dialing plans, and not accidentally holding back a batch of numbers that can't be traced to sell on the black market.

2004-05-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

RIP - Richard Biggs

Richard Biggs passed away May 22nd. He is best known as Dr. Stephen Franklin on the televison show Babylon 5. He was 43. He is survived by a wife and 2 sons.

2004-05-21T09:22:00.000-07:00

Juan Cole Reaming the Cheerleaders for the War

If you haven't been reading Juan Cole, then you've missed getting analysis from someone who actually knows what' is going on. Today he lets loose on pundits who waved their pom-poms for this idiotic war, while sneering at those of us who urged caution. He also sums up what Vietnam taught us:

The lessons progressives drew from the Vietnam War were that it is unwise for the US to become embroiled in an Asian land war, that Asian nationalism is a potent force that Washington consistently underestimates, that wars cost innocent lives and brutalize those who prosecute them, and that you should not go into a war without an exit strategy.

Well, that and "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line".

2004-05-21T09:11:00.000-07:00

Our Broken Promise

From Frank Rich's review of Fahrenheit 9/11:

"Speaking of America's volunteer army, Moore concludes: 'They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?""

Why should they?

2004-05-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

The Corrosion is Almost Complete

So what if the US Military detained 4 Iraqis who were working for Reuters and NBC? What do you think would happen after the US Military is told that the 4 Iraqis were detained by mistake? Would you think the abuse would escalate?

E&P today obtained from Reuters a report submitted to the company's senior editors in mid-January, less than two weeks after the journalists were detained, by Bureau Chief Andrew Marshall, who had interviewed the three staffers separately. ...

Marshall observed in his report,"It should be noted that the bulk of their mistreatment -- including their humiliating interrogations and the mental and physical torment of the first night which all agreed was the worst part of their ordeal -- occurred several hours AFTER I had informed the 82nd Airborne Division that they were Reuters staff. I have e-mail proof of this."

...

"If they let their feet or hands drop they were slapped and shouted at. Ahmad said he was forced to insert a finger into his anus and lick it. He was also forced to lick and chew a shoe. For some of the interrogation tissue paper was placed in his mouth and he had difficulty breathing and speaking. Sattar too said he was forced to insert a finger into his anus and lick it. He was then told to insert this finger in his nose during questioning, still kneeling with his feet off the ground and his other arm in the air. The Arab interpreter told him he looked like an elephant. ...

2004-05-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Adventures of Couple 243

Who knew that so many lesbians knew all the words to a song from an Audrey Hepburn movie. Who knew there were so many lesbians!

2004-05-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

John Scalzi Says It All

To all the newly legally married folks joining us married folk, Welcome! And never forget John's admonition about the ice cream

2004-05-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

Not Keeping Up On His Reading

Jonah Goldberg may be revealing a little too much leg these days. On seeing his head put on an X-Men action figure he remarks:

I leave for a little while and all of a sudden there are action figures! I agree I'm not much like Cyclops, I'm surprised nobody's compared me to Beast: big, furry, making with the jokes all of the time...

and, um, he's undecided.

I mean come on Jonah! It's obvious you haven't read anything worthwhile on current events recently, and now you're letting it slip that you don't even read comic books anymore?

2004-05-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

Carrying Heavy Water

Hugh Hewitt is a conservative talk show host on the Salem Radio network. He is probably the most intelligent and easily the most personable of the lot, and, most of the time, a reasonable man. When he is not, which happens a lot on his blog, he is a political hack of the sort that who explains everything in terms of Clinton's faults and Bush's glory.

For the last two days Hugh has been exercised the Ted Kennedy said this on the Senate floor:

"Shamefully we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management.

Could anything be more self-evident? Nope, according to Hugh, :

I will not bother to rebut this idiocy. It needs no rebuttal, anymore than Holocaust deniers need rebuttal.

Um, what's the problem Hugh? Are you saying we didn't torture prisoners? Are you saying that what happened at Abu Ghrain is right, correct and in some way shape or form something to be exalted over? Come on Hugh, no one's that stupid.

Oh, except for Rush.

2004-05-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Why It's Not Just Rummy That Must Go

Do you think it's possible that statements like this might have created the climate for Abu Ghraib?:"

It is because the United States places such emphasis on the Geneva Convention that American officials do not consider Al Qaeda covered by the agreement nor are they willing to award the Taliban detainees POW status. ...

President Bush, Fleischer said, had decided that the Geneva Convention of 1949 applies to the conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but not to the conflict with Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan or anywhere else. He also determined that Taliban detainees do not meet the convention's criteria for prisoner of war status.

"Notwithstanding the isolated pockets of international hyperventilation, we do not treat detainees in any other manner than a manner that is humane," Rumsfeld said.

2004-05-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show Explains It All

"So apparently the path to their hearts and minds is not through their electrified genitals."

"Just because we did something doesn't mean we would ever do that thing."

2004-05-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

Beauty in the World

Sometimes you just have to shake yourself free of gloom and look around you, seeking to rinse your eyes and soul with something beautiful.

In the beginning of May the mid-spring warmth here starts the jacarandas blooming. San Diego may rival Pretoria as the Jacaranda City, with whole streets given over to the purple-flowering trees. For example, San Diego streets north of downtown start off named for trees in alphabetic order. Ash Street begins the progression with jacarandas running from Cortez Hill to the bay.

Jacarandas are also profoundly dirty trees. If you park your car beneath one, it may take a big yank to open a door sealed by tree sap. Streets with jacarandas accumulate a dark stain on the sidewalk. But kvetching about the tree's droppings is like complaining about a super-model's shoe bill. The effect is worth the cost.

2004-05-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

This Reminded Me of Something ...

Something has been nagging me as I glimpsed the horrid pictures from Abu Ghraib, where had I seen this before. This morning it finally struck me. Goya, of course. Who else but the man who examined the fly-blown soul of a dying Spain, and recorded the horrors of the resistance to French occupation.

The image of the man standing almost in crucifixion recalls "The 3rd of May 1808 In Madrid", and you can guess who the faceless automatons are. But worst of all are the echoes of Goya's etching, from "Los Desastres" and "Los Caprichios". Look at the way the naked bodies in the photographs call up Esto es peor., and Grande hazaña! Con muertos!. The dead body reminding us of Y no hai remedio. Is there anyway that the rest of the world is not building up these pictures in their minds?

2004-05-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

Here's What We're Fighting For ...

Michel Moore is a pain in the tuchis [sp?], but so are any number of people equidistant to the right of the political spectrum. The genius of our society is that they all get rich off putting their views out there. Unless, of course, your distribution deal is through Disney:

Mr. Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel, said Michael D. Eisner, Disney's chief executive, asked him last spring to pull out of the deal with Miramax. Mr. Emanuel said Mr. Eisner expressed particular concern that it would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor.

And how is this different, other than degree, from decisions made in Iraq based on how relatives of Saddam would react to criticism of his regime?

2004-05-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

There's a Draft Coming

Kevin Drum, along with many others, thinks that there will be no draft:

Personally, I still doubt this is anything more than normal agency planning. However, you may draw your own conclusions based on your own personal level of paranoia.

I respect and admire Kevin, and I would take a pay cut to work for any company he headed up. But beside my mouse pad is a letter from the Selective Service, which I am in the process of responding to. It's an application to serve on a draft board. Interestingly enough, I meet the qualifications perfectly:

Must be 18 years old or older
Must be a citizen of the United States
Men must have registered with the Selective Service, except those born from March 29, 1957 through December 31, 1959.
Must not be an employee of any law enforcement organization
Must not be an active or retired member of the Armed Forces
Must not have been convicted of any criminal offense.

I pray to every deity that humans worship that I will never have to serve.

2004-05-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

CEO - Chief Excuse Officer

Apparently Kevin Drum worked at one or more of the failed startups I worked at. He has bad senior mangers nailed:

...the world is full to bursting with CEOs who have goals they would dearly love to attain but who lack either the skill or the fortitude to make them happen. They assign tasks to subordinates without making sure the subordinates are capable of doing them — but then consider the job done anyway because they've "delegated" it. They insist they want a realistic plan, but they're unwilling to do the hard work of creating one — all those market research reports are just a bunch of ivory tower nonsense anyway. They work hard — but only on subjects in their comfort zone. If they like dealing with people they can't bring themselves to read all those tedious analyst's reports, and if they like numbers they can't bring themselves to spend time chattering with distributors about their latest prospect.

In every company I've worked for that's failed (four so far), the CEO has done two very bad things: 1) Brought in cronies to fill key positions, 2) Failed to acknoiwledge and act on important (and usually bad) changes in the marketplace. Or as Kevin puts it:

And most important of all, weak CEOs are unwilling to recognize bad news and perform unpleasant tasks to fix it — tasks like like confronting poorly performing subordinates or firing people. Good CEOs suck in their guts and do it anyway.

And, of course, this is ultimately how our first "CEO President", the "First President with an MBA" (How exactly did that help him at Harken Energy?):

George Bush is, fundamentally, a mediocre CEO, the kind of insulated leader who's convinced that his instincts are all he needs. Unfortunately, like many failed CEOs before him, he's about to learn that being sure you're right isn't the same thing as actually being right.

2004-05-02T15:07:00.000-07:00

By the Way ...

We lost the battle of Fallujah.

Marines are not stupid. I firmly believe they did not see any good way for Fallujah to end. The Bush administration dithered, allowing the Iraqis to dig in. The Marines knew they faced dedicated fighters supported by professionals from Saddam's army. They knew the dedication of these fighters only increased with every house blown up, every civilian wounded or killed, every minaret collapsed. Marines are our bravest, most effective troops. They also know they cannot throw away their lives for no reason.

How would they have gone about pacifying Fallujah? They probably would have had to go house to house, blowing through walls to avoid the streets and the inevitable booby-traps and ambushes. They would have had to kill innocent civilians, on the off-chance and snap decision that they posed a risk. They would have had to blow up religious buildings because these would inevitably hold stores of food, ammunitions and supplies. They would also hold wounded civilians and fighters, and they would have to die.

And at the end of all that, what would have been accomplished? Maybe we would have some men in custody who resembled those who brutalized the four mercenaries and hung them from a bridge. Or maybe we wouldn't. What we would have is a worldwide example of how committed you have to be to go up against United States Marines, and millions of young Muslim men ready to prove their commitment.

So we didn't fight the battle of Fallujah. The Marines are pulling back and Iraqi forces commanded by an Iraqi general are in charge. We intentionally lost this battle in order to avoid losing the war. Hope it works.

2004-05-02T14:34:00.000-07:00

Building Freedom

Only a profoundly ignorant person would insist that:

...in my lifetime, at least, the United States has generally erred by not being violent enough, rather than by being too brutal.

Really? U.S. soldiers are not violent enough? Tell me, warbloggers. what's the next step beyond this?: (Note, all these acts were perpetrated in one of Saddam's former torture centers)

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

Remember, this is a small minority of soldiers, but according to the General in charge of the rest of this facility, these atrocities were committed at the behest of our intelligence community. They wanted the prisoners softened up before interrogation.

Well, the corruption is out in the open now. We've asked our soldiers, sailors and marines to fight an illegal, immoral war. They did so to the best of their abilities. Now they face the soul-killing job of an army of occupation amongst a hostile people. Occupation of a people who do not want to be occupied inevitably leads to atrocities. Now maybe Glenn Reynolds and the warbloggers he surveyed would be happy with an Amritsar or a Wounded Knee. I am not. I firmly believe that Iraq is our responsibility; we broke it, we bought it. But I also believe we are not the people to fix it.

2004-04-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

Just Another Traffic Accident

So here's a cute little meme scuttling around right-wing heads like a cockroach chased by a flashlight's beam:

"The casualties we've had (in Iraq) are much more like the casualties for training during peacetime than during war," [Michael - ed] Barone said.

Let me get this straight. The casualties we are suffering right now are "like the casualties for training". Well, Mike, let's take a look at that. The United States Military, Mike, is actually quite concerned about safety, Mike. Here's an example: The 82nd Airborne shutting down operations for all of June 13, 2002 in order to focus on safety training.

Why, Mike? Let them explain:

During FY01, the Division experienced 525 reportable airborne operations accidents and one (MIRPS) fatal accident. 421 of the reportable accidents were parachute landing fall-related injuries. Also, there were 21 static line injuries, 34 DZ hazard, 11 entanglement, and 6 tree-landing related injuries. Issues that need special attention: PLFs, continue to account for more than 80% of all airborne operations injuries. Static line injuries appear to be on the increase.

Among my military and ex-military freinds there are quite a few trainers. In the military, if you get really good at your job you are picked out to teach others how to do it. Not unusual, most companies do the same. Except that most companies are not training you in ways to stay alive, are not training you in settings where mistakes get you hurt or dead, where grades are not on the curve but binary, you live and get to go home with a whole breathing body. These people I know tend to be extraordinary teachers, because they get reviewed every day. Just count the noses that go into the barracks at night on two feet, then subtract from the number of noses that left the barracks on two feet that morning. Total should be zero. When it's not, the military becomes quite concerned. The trainer responsible can be court-martialed, sometimes kicked out, and sometimes even sent to prison.

So here's a handy guide to tell your fellow citizens apart. If someone tells you that our losses are minimal, no more than training accidents, you now know you are not dealing with a human, but with a disease. This is a creature without thought, compassion or reason. I can't believe someone as stupid as Michael Barone gets a paycheck much less a pundit's gig. Oh wait a minute, he works for Fox News Channel. Never mind.

2004-04-11T19:04:00.000-07:00

It’s the War, not the Warriors

I have a deep abiding respect for the military, and particularly the Navy and Marines. This may come as a surprise to some, but not to anyone who grew up in San Diego. My father was a naval aviator, and quite a few family friends were as well, including a few Blues.

Moving to the Bay Area and attending the University of California surprisingly widened my acquaintance as I added Army and Air Force ROTC types to the Navy folks I gravitated to. In my business career I have worked with, been managed by and hired quite a few officers and enlisted men. This included a Marine ex-LRP with whom I spent a surreal night plotting how to get our team to the American Embassy in Madrid should the then-current bombings and assassinations by ETA provoke street violence and demonstrations (we were setting up high speed data communications gear overlooking the Royal Palace. Explaining to heavily armed Guardia Civil why we were banging around with night vision goggles at 4 am in broken Spanish still remains a personal high point).

I know military personnel about as well as an outsider can. Our volunteer force consists of people that I think are far too good to be wasted on any war, which is as it should be. You see these fine people make up my military. As a citizen of the United States I bear part of the collective responsibility for the use and misuse of these my fellow citizens, 4166 of whom have been killed or wounded in a war fought for no good reason.

Any real student of history (which, thanks to the professionalism of the services, describes all of our armed forces) knows that this region has been hostile to occupying powers, many of whom also promised freedom to the Iraqis. Our military went in knowing this was a really bad idea, and that they were the ones who were going to pay for it. They did it anyway. They knew that there was no plan, and they would have to pick up the pieces. They are sacrificing themselves for us, not just in getting wounded or killed, but the day to day corrosion that happens in war.

Any competent commander will tell you that equipment and people have a limited effective life span in a war zone. With equipment it’s obvious; the wear and tear, sand in the gears, treads wearing out, the critical maintenance that gets deferred. Now think what happens to people day in and day out. There has not been a single day the US and coalition forces have not been under fire. They are stationed in a country where they suspect more people are starting to turn on them, yet still our forces try to make it safe. How long before the corrosion of being hated, of encounters with people you can’t communicate with, of being fired at, start to wear down our people? I am in awe of the job they have done so far, and how they’ve conducted themselves so far. I also know that everything has limits.

There can be no greater recruiting tool for those who hate us than our invasion of Iraq. There is no greater mistake in recent times than diverting our forces from the long and difficult war on terror and using these forces to create even more enemies for the United States of America. Had they wit enough, or half the courage and forbearance shown by our men and women on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, our leaders would have apologized already, and would be organizing planeloads of UN troops to take over the rebuilding of Iraq.

2004-03-05T10:43:00.000-08:00

And a Bunny Shall Lead Them

[Susan] Krabacher flew to Port-au-Prince via Miami last Monday to try to protect the six schools and three orphanages run by a foundation she co-founded about a decade ago with her husband, Joe Krabacher. She made the trip despite travel warnings from the U.S. State Department and intimate knowledge of the dangers in the country.

About a decade ago, Susan Krabacher was moved by a television show to do something about the orphans in Mongolia. A friend suggested a place closer to home, Haiti. She went there, was moved by what she saw, and ended up buying an abandoned hostpital and starting up an orphange.

She now spends four to six months each year living and working in Cite Soleil, known as the most hopeless of the Port-au-Prince slums. In that time, she’s taken in hundreds of starving children abandoned on street corners. She’s rocked babies as they died in her arms and nursed sick children stuck by their sores to hospital mattresses. She’s spent days digging through the morgue for the bodies of children so she could give them a proper burial.

For her trouble, she’s contracted lice, scabies, mange, and was treated for encephalitis. She’s been menaced by gangs, confronted by voodoo witch doctors, and shaken down by bureaucrats who wanted bribes to let her continue her work.

If you would like to help the Former Miss May 1983 help the kids of Haiti, the website is www.haitichildren.org. All donations go directly to aiding the children. Administrative costs are covered by the founders.

2004-03-05T10:27:00.000-08:00

Standing Up For Teachers

The Massachusetts teacher of the year will not being going to Washington to accept his award from Rod Paige, Secretary of Education. You see, Jeffrey R. Ryan lost a friend on September 11th, and doesn't really appreciate Rod Paige calling him, other teachers, and their union, terrorists, which Paige did on February 23, 2004.

... Ryan said: "Nazi death camps aren't funny. Lynching people isn't funny. Famine isn't funny, and terrorism isn't funny. I just couldn't show up and shake that man's hand after he made those remarks."

Ryan also called the No Child Left Behind Act a ""stealth tactic by the Bush administration to undermine public schools."

Now, just join it up with the fact that both Bush and Paige helped foist the "Texas Miracle" fraud on us and you have a typical Bush trifecta of uncaring, incompetent frauds gnawing away at the foundations of our government and society. May November arrive soon

2004-03-02T18:20:00.000-08:00

Jonah Goldberg Looks Into the Abyss

Every political movement has its crazy aunt in the attic. What distinguishes modern conservatism, and the modern republican party, is the alacrity with which the aunt is invited down into the parlor to hold forth in front of guests. The newest example, is Denis Prager, telling us that :

America is engaged in two wars for the survival of its civilization. The war over same-sex marriage and the war against Islamic totalitarianism are actually two fronts in the same war.

Yep, those special operators massing in the Northwst corner of Pakistan, now that the administration is finally serious about tracking Osmama bin Laden, can expect that their next deployment will be the Castro Valley and Polk Street, staging in Ghirardeli Square no doubt.

This insanity finally sunk into at least one neo-con legacy, Jonah Goldberg:

Now I understand what he's saying and I agree with several of his specific points but he glosses over the point which should supercede all others: "secular nihilists" -- or whatever you want to call them -- aren't murdering people. They aren't blowing up buildings, hijacking planes or shooting at our soldiers either. To date, no gay dudes have been caught on international flights trying to ignite their shoes.

Of course, Jonah is quite aware that he's been riding the tiger of conservative stupidity too, so there'll be a backlash for his apostasy:

I expect I'll be getting more email like this one:

Jonah, Most of the time I agree with you, but just because gays don't see themselves as TRYING to destroy America doesn't mean that that's exactly what they're going to do. Although, it may be conscious after all. Radical leftists are attempting to turn America into a country that it is not. America is NOT the Netherlands. America is NOT Canada. These people won't be happy until we're just like them, and that will eventually mean the shutting down of any and all dissenting opinion, which (only my opinion) WILL lead to the incarceration and persecution of those daring to dissent (killing? Maybe not yet, but we'll see). I agree with Prager on this one.

I think it's finally dawning on Jonah what the distinction of modern conservatism is. Rush and the talk-shows continues the trend that the National Review started. They brought the crazies out. Now they have to live with them.

2004-03-01T12:04:00.000-08:00

Art

For some reason all the hoopla over Friday, Bloody Good Friday leaves me more pensive than amused. Though Menken's admonition is as always apropos (especially given the box office reports) I wonder more about the artistic impulse to create this movie, and how that impulse was guided by its intended audience. I am also reminded of Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes.

Goya was an ambitious man, an incendiary talent who was born in a complacent time. In order to join the Spanish Royal Academy, Goya produced a crucifixion scene that completely fit the tastes of his audience. Of course, the members of the audience were the Academy so Goya's picture is really just a pastiche of Valazquez's still, unsettling “Christ on the Cross” and Anton Meng's contemporaneous “Christ on the Cross”. Velazquez's Christ hangs dead on the cross, blood still seeping, the sacrificial lamb dangling from the altar. Meng's Christ looks like he is about to lead a cheer atop Golgotha. Goya split the two, executing a technically brilliant but bloodless (in all senses) submission. Goya's painting would have joined Meng's in richly deserved obscurity had not his native talent and obsessive need to explore the limits of art created the masterpieces we now know him by.

The Passion of the Christ has already made a lot of money, and made a lot of people think. That's more than the vast majority of movies do. It's an accomplishment, but it ain't art. Art changes things. When something that is real art gets made, the world is a different place for it. Of course the difference can quickly becomes mundane through repetition. So Velazuez's Christ, becomes Meng's becomes Goya's becomes a thousand suffering Jesuses painted on everything from black velvet to (now) celluloid and (soon, probably available now in Taiwan) optical disk.

So if we arbitrarily pick Velazquez, at the mid-point of the Spanish Inquisition, as the starting point to this journey of the portrayal of Christ, what might be an endpoint, or at least a balance? As is usual in Spain, for this we must turn to a Catalan, Dali's Corpus Hypercubus. I wonder what the reaction would be like to a movie that ended with this as a crucifixion scene. Mankind (actually womankind) honestly contemplating what the story of the sacrifice of Jesus means, rather than being pummeled by the brutality and squalor of a common Roman death.

2004-02-23T11:53:00.000-08:00

Could You Help Me?

Give some money to Jim Capozzola. Right now, I can't afford to, though through the kindness of brothers, family, and a hard-working wife we are nowhere near destitute. Jim is. If you started blogging as I did, wandering from Instapundit into the darkness of overly serious amateur pedants, loony libertarians and cynical hacks, The Rittenhouse Review was a godsend of often gentle humor, wry self- deprecation, and, occasionally, a keyboard that should be registered as a WMD for the stupid, evil, and thoughtless. He could use a lot of small donations and a few big ones. And, knowing his religiousity, a prayer to St. Jude wouldn't hurt either.

2004-02-23T11:43:00.000-08:00

Watching Sunday Morning Junior Basketball

So Marian and I spent part of Sunday morning watching my brother coach his son, a nephew, and assorted over-achievers through their last game of the season in junior basketball. They lost, but that is not even beside the point. I watched a group of kids passing the ball, setting up for shots, blocking out on free throws, cheering for each other and rebounding. And we cheered every time we saw a crisp pass, good shot, tenacious defense and (sometimes lucky) rebound. That is the point.

We don’t have kids, we have nieces and nephews instead. It’s the best of all possible worlds in most ways. You kind of get to be grandparents without being a parent. You’re the mysterious adult presence that grows familiar, but without the contempt parents sometimes get. With a little work, and a lot of luck, you can also get respect. Maybe Marian and I are getting there with our nephews and nieces, but only because they are really good kids with exceptional parents. We integrate ourselves into the web of family, society and love that surrounds these kids to help them, and ourselves.

We are a part of other families as well, and this is the point of this canoodling. Watching the couples line up in San Francisco and New Mexico, I can’t help but feel a kinship with them. They want to connect into the web that holds society together, to be the boring salt of the earth that mows their lawn, pays their taxes, worries about anniversary gifts, and tries to cheer the good parts of society on. Good on them. It will add to the supportive roar in small places, like junior basketball games, school plays, and youth orchestras, choirs and theaters.

2004-02-10T22:37:00.000-08:00

Damn

I was incredibly excited about Wesley Clark. We gave money, time and support to the campaign, but it was not to be.

Mark Kleiman probably says it best for everyone who supported Clark:

There's no telling what the next chapter of this extraordinary life will be, but I predict that it will be good for the country, and will leave those of us who supported him feeling proud.

2004-02-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

The Abyss Looks Back

By now you've probably read a lot of the conservative reaction to Bush's appearance on "Meet The Press". The ones that are not scared have a whistling past the graveyard sound to them. They just realized that this guy, a little over three years into his administration, still can't articulate where he's going and what he's doing. Or can he? You decide. This is how the interview ended:

President Bush: No, I'm not going to lose.

Russert: If you did, what would you do?

President Bush: Well, I don't plan on losing. I have got a vision for what I want to do for the country. See, I know exactly where I want to lead. I want to lead us I want to lead this world toward more peace and freedom. I want to lead this great country to work with others to change the world in positive ways, particularly as we fight the war on terror, and we got changing times here in America, too.

Russert: Biggest issues in the upcoming campaign?

President Bush: Who can properly use American power in a way to make the world a better place, and who understands that the true strength of this country is the hearts and souls of the American citizens, who understands times are changing and how best to have policy reflect those times.

And I look forward to a good campaign. I know exactly where I want to lead the country. I have shown the American people I can lead. I have shown the American people I can sit here in the Oval Office when times are tough and be steady and make good decisions, and I look forward to articulating what I want to do the next four years if I'm fortunate enough to be their president.

One would have thought that a nationwide broadcast with the top-rated Sunday Morning news show might have been a good time to do the articulating

2004-01-31T17:28:00.000-08:00

Proving the Obvious

Donald Luskin is only the latest right-wing fool to gleefully publish a list of quotes supposedly proving that Al Gore was a doofus. The trouble is that each and every one of these "quotes" actually came from Dan Quayle, the living proof of the advice: "If you can't be smart, at least be pretty." The Official Quayle Quotes (with sources) can be found here.

2004-01-31T15:32:00.000-08:00

How to Be a Really Bad Parent

America's Worst Mother&trade continues to show us how. In this week's edition, she locks herself out of the house with the stove on and a two-year old wandering through the kitchen. Fortunately Mom is extricated from here position by the two-year old just in time to answer the phone. It's another brainless idiot about to join in a chorus of Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little. You see they've got trouble, trouble, trouble, right there in suburbia. Seems that:

"She" is the Capable Mother, an impressive figure at our children's school who arrived last year and immediately set about massing an army of followers. In addition to trouncing other women in the giving of coffee mornings (ahem), the Capable Mother started an afterschool song-and-dance group that has the subversive feel of a cult. She distributes junk-food snacks and plays music that other parents abominate. She puts elementary-school girls in sexy stockings, and urges her charges to gasp with Bob-Fosse-esque satisfaction when they've completed a move.

Oh my god, Dance has reared its ugly head, with those sexy stockings (Um, leotards?).

As a kid and teenager I was involved in theater, which given my obvious talents meant that I set up lights and rang the curtain up and down. It was a good experience for me, and fabulous for those who could actually dance, sing or act. It built self-confidence, presence, and showed the rewards of risk-taking, hard-work, and perseverance. Naturally, we can't have something like that happen to our kids. Because otherwise they might not grow up to see SEX in every little thing that our pre-pubescent kids do.

Wandering around Balboa Park this morning, as we lucky San Diegans get to do, we passed by the Casa Del Prado Theater. There were several youth groups in rehearsal and it looked like the dance groups were on break, because the snack stand next door was flooded with girls with their hair back in tight buns, swaddled against the cool shadows of the eucalyptus trees, ordering some of the thousands of calories they burn through in their busy days. A couple bit down on hamburgers that looked good enough for a Bob-Fosse-esque sigh, but these girls were too busy for all that. They had another rehearsal to go to, another performance to put on, another way that they make their (non-imbecilic) parents proud. If there's one thing we know about kids that get turned on to the arts, sports, volunteering, or any one of hundred other activities that Capable Mothers introduce them to, it's that these kids are far less likely to fall victim to the crap our society has waiting for them. God help the kids of America's Worst Mother&trade

Update

Just noticed something from Tbogg's telling of this tale. (BTW, America's Worst Mother&trade is a registered trademark of the Snark Corporation, TBogg, CEO.)

In speaking to the other biddy, America's Worst Mother&trade harangues:

"Listen," I say firmly, opening my invisible vial of spine-straightener. Having bottled the genie of erotic jazz dance in our previous school, I am utterly unafraid of seeming ungroovy when it comes to putting children in fishnets. The Capable Mother is what happens when good people do nothing. She is the human equivalent of Nintendo.

"Tell your daughter the main reason mothers exist is to protect children. Tell her you wouldn't be doing your job if you paid for her to spend two hours a week under the influence of someone who makes such Dubious Moral Judgments."

America's Worst Mother&trade then shows us that, while she may be a moral arbiter of the highest order, she don't know crap about basic kitchen safety or protecting her kids from physical danger:

We hang up. My sous-chef climbs up on the kitchen counter, and I lift the lid off the fragrant beef.

"Your kid's got a hell of a steam burn Ma'am, and it looks like she may lose that eye. But Good Lord, what shining morals she has!" I don't even let my dogs in the kitchen when I'm cooking, and you would think a real mother would care more about her two year old than I care about my dogs.

2004-01-26T18:51:00.000-08:00

Failing the Turing Test

So my email has been a bit hair-raising recently. "US Bank" told me that my accounts were frozen, "Visa" told me someone might have stolen my credit card, and, to top it off, the "FDIC" told me that:

In cooperation with the Department Of Homeland Security, Federal, State and Local Governments your account has been denied insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation due to suspected violations of the Patriot Act. While we have only a limited amount of evidence gathered on your account at this time it is enough to suspect that currency violations may have occurred in your account and due to this activity we have withdrawn Federal Deposit Insurance on your account until we verify that your account has not been used in a violation of the Patriot Act.

As a result Department Of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge has advised the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to suspend all deposit insurance on your account until such time as we can verify your identity and your account information.

Golly, Tom Ridge got involved personally! Gee!

Needless to say these were frauds, all of them asking me to press a little button, answer a few simple questions, and it will all be cleared up. "All" in this context meaning any checking or credit accounts they could get access to. I am vaguely intrigued as to their hit rate. They've almost got the message right. That paranoid style fits the zeigeist of some folks so well. You know, with a little tweaking I betcha they hook Lileks or Reynolds.

Ah well, it's a nice change from the people who are solicitous of the size, length and performance of my and, (looking over her shoulder as she opens her mailbox) my wife's, penis.

2004-01-25T21:11:00.000-08:00

War Porn

I got this link through a back channel. Apparently, someone got hold of an Apache gun camera video featuring the wonders of IR. Something to remember, if you decide to watch it. Guns, and anything metal (which is heat conductive and therefore colder than our waterlogged flesh), show up as dark against the brighter background created by the heat of life. So, if any one of these three men (I assume they are men) were carrying guns you would be able to tell. You would see them.

Instead you see the last few seconds of three lives. The first one is splattered across a road, the second smeared against a tractor(?) he huddled against, the last tries to hide beneath a truck, then, obviously wounded, tries to escape or maybe just writhes in pain. Not to worry though. The last eleven rounds destroy him and a small truck. The scene ends as the camera blurrily captures the cooling bits of body and blood cooling in the roadway having been torn from the body of the first. I don't see guns. I don't see armaments on the vehicles. I do see what seems to be murder.

War porn. Makes bringing home the ears of the enemy seem so 60's.

2004-01-24T17:37:00.000-08:00

Hoping Against Hope

I don't know Spalding Gray. I admire his work, and I was upset that he was reported missing. Now I learn that his closest friends believe him dead.

Apparently Spalding Gray always suffered from depression, heightened by a horrific car accident that he was improperly treated for. But that's me reporting what little facts I know to you. The fear that a dear and close friend may be gone rattles through the writings of John Perry Barlow, who I've linked to above. May the God of all mercy grant peace and repose to the souls of Spalding and his family and friends.

2004-01-19T15:35:00.000-08:00

Pseudo-Autodidact and Shut-in Clausewitz Can't Read

Over at the USS Clueless, Steve den Beste tells us all about: An imminent big lie.

You see, in the first two paragraphs of an article in Sunday's Washington Post, Glenn Kessler wrote:

The Bush administration's inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- after public statements declaring an imminent threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein -- has begun to harm the credibility abroad of the United States and of American intelligence, according to foreign policy experts in both parties.

In last year's State of the Union address, President Bush used stark imagery to make the case that military action was necessary. Among other claims, Bush said that Hussein had enough anthrax to "kill several million people," enough botulinum toxin to "subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure" and enough chemical agents to "kill untold thousands."

So Steven gets all hot under the collar:

They say, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity", but we seem to have gone beyond any possible stupidity now. Have we reached the point where we can assume there's a conspiracy to spread a big lie? And where we can safely dismiss the opinions of anyone who repeats it?

...

That [referring to the second paragraph of the Kessler article] was the SOTU address where Bush said that we could not afford to wait until such threats became "imminent". AAaargh!

Steven thinks that when people say:

Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary, 9/6/2002

George W. Bush, President, 10/5/2002

Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary, 12/4/2002

Colin Powell, Secretary of State, 2/5/2003

Etc.

that we should ignore all these statements, including those that came after the State of the Union address, and focus on that fact that in the State of the Union address Bush said we should strike before it's "imminent". The intention of the article is that our friends, allies, and even internal consumers of our intelligence have to wonder what the product is worth now. Every single one of those statements that Bush made in the SOTU is a nail in the coffin of our credibility.

The best part of Steven's little diatribe though, is that it proves he (and Glenn Reynolds) can't read for content anymore, just ideology. In the first paragraph, Kessler says:

...after public statements declaring an imminent threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein

In the second paragraph, Kessler writes:

In last year's State of the Union address, President Bush used stark imagery to make the case that military action was necessary.

The first statement, by using what normal English speakers realize is a plural, Kessler implies that there was more than one statement on more than one occasion. In the second statement, Kessler is describing a differing tactic that supplemented the "public statements declaring an imminent threat" a tactic where "President Bush used stark imagery to make the case", rather than the declarative statements Kessler described in paragraph one. See how flexible a working vocabulary is?

By the way, all the statements above are stolen from Billmon, who provides an easy sortable list of the um, "mistakes"(?) Bush and his folks made. Remember, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity".

2004-01-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

Decimation

The word decimation means to remove 1/10th. In the Roman legion, decimation referred to a punishment meted out to legions that ran from battle or mutinied. One of every ten legionaires was picked out, and the other nine were forced, under penalty of death, to beat their compatriot to death. In its common usage today it connotes a horrible level of destruction. There is also usage where the verb to decimate means to extract a 10% tax.

Through Mark Kleiman I learned that, according to David Hackworth, strictly speaking, the forces of the United States currently stationed in Iraq (numbering about 135,000 troops) have been decimated.

The Pentagon has never won prizes for the accuracy of its reporting, but I think it’s safe to say that so far somewhere between 14,000 and 22,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have been medically evacuated from Iraq to the USA.

So at the end of this turbulent year, we must ask ourselves: Was the price our warriors paid in blood worth the outcome? Are we any safer than before our pre-emptive invasion?

Even though Saddam is in the slammer and the fourth-largest army in the world is junkyard scrap, Christmas 2003 was resolutely Orange, and 2004 looks like more of the same. Or worse.

I have no doubt the many and several blogs of war see this as a necessary price for freedom, but I wish each and everyone of those casualties had nothing more important to worry about than whether USC got screwed out of national championship

2003-12-31T14:04:00.000-08:00

Glenn Reynolds Pushes for Ethnic Cleansing

Apparently things are slow enough in Knoxville that Professor Instapundit has time to vent:

this post

We should make them suffer how, Glenn?

These folks are our enemies, and deserve to be treated as such. They don't deserve a state of their own. It's not clear that they even deserve to keep what they've got.

So what does that mean? The Palestinian authority should be disbanded? The West Bank and Gaza strip are then administered by whom? Or are you proposing that the folks in these areas (especially those in areas referred to by some as Judea and Samaria) be, umm, relocated? To create some Lebensraum perhaps?

Congratulations Glenn. You are have now allowed your free-floating anxiety of the post September 11th world to push you over the edge into gibbering paranoia. Though you are in familiar company (Lileks, Little Green Footballs, Den Beste, etc), it ain't a very nice neigborhood. And, god willing, when the United States gets some adults back in charge in 2004, the neighborhood will no longer be anywhere near the confluence of power and opinion it is now. Not a good career path for a professor of law.

2003-12-31T08:40:00.000-08:00

On Protesting Too Much

New Texan Rod Dreher is a bit touchy when it comes to sad truths about his new fellow-staters. Apparently David Macaulay, author of Castle, Cathedral, and other excellent books about The Way Things Work has a new book, Mosque. (If you haven't read Macaulay's books, and most especially if your kids haven't, you need to get them. Start with Castle.)

Macaulay's newest is no doubt a challenging topic now. A New York Times article, describes the book as:

... almost assiduously apolitical. There is little mention of the Ottoman campaigns of conquest or sultans who murdered their brothers to cling to power. The Islamic pilgrimage is mentioned; the concept of jihad is not.

Mr. Macaulay said he wanted the book to seem as if it had been written 20 years ago. To bring up these topics, he said, would have been too much of a departure.

"You can always find the fringe element, the guys making a bomb behind the mosque," he said. "You can find the same fringe element behind a right-wing church in Texas. But if you stick to the architecture, what it says about human desire and capability is universal, the desire to extend yourself beyond this life.

Mr Dreher, new convert to Texas, new convert to Catholicism, not new to ignorance responds:

Ah yes, all those Baptist madrassas in the piney woods down here are turning out suicide bombers by the bushel. I tell you, we live in constant fear down here in Dallas that an Assemblies of God zealot from the outskirts of Midland is going to blow Neiman Marcus sky-high. What guilty-liberal rot from Macaulay. He should be ashamed of himself.

Apparently Mr. Dreher got to Texas too late to hear about David Koresh and is unfamiliar with the usage of "a" to denote a singular instance. Though maybe Rod reveals too much in assuming that liberals are afraid of "an Assemblies of God zealot from the outskirts of Midland". Tell me Rod, should we be? Is there another one out there?

2003-12-27T19:22:00.000-08:00

Having Just(!) Finished Quicksilver ...

I seriously love this story: NEWS.com.au | Aussie in claim to throne

2003-12-24T18:35:00.000-08:00

Whose Child is This?

Nobody says it better than the Good Doctor, Luke:

Luke 2

⁴

⁵

⁶

⁷

⁸

⁹

¹⁰

¹¹

¹²

¹³

¹⁴

Of course, Linus does a good job on this too. Peace to you, your loved ones and all of us, on this special night.

2003-12-24T09:49:00.000-08:00

One Heh Too Far

Here is Instapundit's daily contribution to the ongoing debate regarding our country's foreign policy:

TIM BLAIR has a comprehensive roundup of quotes from 2003. Don't miss it. Meanwhile, here's a good one from Andrew Sullivan:

Our leading bishops demand hard evidence of Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction. If we were to demand the same level of proof from their profession, they would all be out of a job.

Heh. Indeed.

Ummm... does that mean that the whole WMD enterprise cannot be understood based on fact, but must be regarded as an article of faith? In whom must our faith reside then?

2003-12-23T16:02:00.000-08:00

One Shopping Day Left to Stunt Your Child's Mental Capacity

Through the good offices of Theresa Nielsen over at Making Light I learned that the National Review has a book service that features such find books as:

Life in the Great Ice Age and Skeletons in the Closet by Oard, Beverly; Oard, Michael; Parker, Gary

“I know the Bible is true, but where do the ice ages fit in? And what about "ape men" and "cave men"’?"” Here are the answers in two attractive volumes designed for children ages 8 to 12. They make a wonderful aid when it’s time to teach your children about creation and science.

So I meandered over at looked up their other science selections.

Lessee. Since all of this is under homeschooling, I guess this makes the parents responsible for making sure the kids get the most out of them. There are four sets of books which purport to refute evolution, thus guaranteeing the child a career that can not include biology, or any sane application of the scientific method. There's also a set that covers weather and the bible and science and the bible.

Then there's The Astronomy Book, whose blurb burbles:

The Astronomy Book

One wonders about the author's grasp of cosmology, given his need to reassure possible purchasers that no description of biological processes makes it into his astronomy book.

So what career path is left after years of homeschooling in lies, superstition, and ignorance? Well, given how many homeschooled are doing it, conservative punditry seems to be the only option.

2003-12-21T10:38:00.000-08:00

Well, Someone's Gotta Say It

Kathryn Jean Lopez has a bone to pick with the truth in today's Corner:

According to Thomas Cahill,

Cahill's full quote is this:

"Jews, Christians, and God's Word: A Common Heritage of Prayer and Action,"

Thomas Cahill wrote my favorite book on early Christianity, The Desire of the Everlasting Hills, and his research clearly informs his opinions on modern American politics. This book would make a wonderful present for any thoughtful person on your gift list.

2003-12-19T18:49:00.000-08:00

The Dreaded 'K' Word

The Corner is nonplussed that President Bush would send out a Kwanzaa greeting. I must admit that I was taken aback as well, mostly because I too have Nick Confessore's mental image:

President Bush

Not surprisingly, The Corner's many African American, and Caribbean, readers are far more upset than the Corner Crew:

It strikes me as a curious form of reverse stereotyping generated by a segment of the African American community that demeans the legitimate cultural heritage of blacks in the United States. Even if that heritage is one that includes slavery.

Ummm..., Ok then.

Well, it certainly was nice that all three of them logged on today to provide such prompt commentary.

2003-12-18T17:40:00.000-08:00

Way Too Much Information

In the second of a two-parter over at National Review Online Jennifer Roback Morse presents us with this:

We are more married now than when we were contracepting and keeping separate checkbooks, even though our sexual drive was more intense. Our sexuality is directed toward the unity and fruitfulness of our family. We don't fulfill those purposes perfectly; we never did. But at last, we've gotten out of our own way so we can finally make some progress.

I was not aware that contracept was a word, much less a verb whose gerund is contracepting. Neither is Merriam-Webster. I would ask her to conjugate it, but she might get the wrong idea.

Jennifer is apparently tenured somewhere, but she has mixed feelings about it:

... I was one of those career women who planned to wait until I got tenure and have a baby during the summer. Imagine my surprise when a year went by with no baby. Though I'm fairly certain that she's not teaching medicine, her credentials are, I guess, one of the reasons why she was paid by National Review to let us in on her marriage's fertility (nil), adoption status (white kid from Romania) and her strange reason for taking in kids from the San Diego County Department of Child Welfare :

Part of the reason we wanted to become foster parents is that we admired our Catholic friends with large families. We were long past the age when we could have the size family they have.

As the oldest son of one of those Catholic families, let me tell you that I wouldn't choose to grow up any other way, but I wouldn't want to grow up with a Mom who desperately wanted to be just like us.

So you might think this is one of those anti-feminist, I burned my separate checking account the same day I got the extra shaping Maindenform bra, now I'm a real woman articles from National Review right? Well, you'd be wrong sucker:

The question isn't whether the law can create life-giving, self-giving love, because of course, it can't. The question is whether it will point us in the right direction. Redefining marriage to include homosexual unions will actively lead us astray.

That's right. She realized that gays getting married is just as evil as maintaining two separate checking accounts.

Yet another reason to be careful driving on San Diego freeways.

2003-12-18T11:16:00.000-08:00

Life-Changing Technology Ahead

The FCC has announced its intention to open up spectrum around 5.9 GHz to be dedicated to intelligent transportation systems. So, in 5-10 years your car radio will start to receive real-time traffic reports from sensors buried in the pavement, rather than old reports from Metro Traffic.

2003-12-18T11:02:00.000-08:00

Wisdom from the Kos Man

Kos is invited to a debate, and declines:

Today I got an email from a prominent writer at a prominent opinion mag. He has started an anti-Dean blog, and wanted to start a "debate".

I declined, and in the process, formulated a new policy.

I guess Kos is a Dean man, and I'm all for Clark. But I whole heartedly agree with Kos about his new policy

It is clear that our nominee will be either Dean or Clark. No one else has a shot. Therefore, I will not criticize or point to criticism of either of those two candidates. Each one of those guys has his plusses and his cons, and each one of them can beat Bush. That's all that matters.

The right is already trying out the arguments against Dean and Clark. They have the months ahead to recite them over talk radio, trying to make them stick.

We are all on the same team, and the time to "merge the tribes" is just a month or two away. We need to start coming together for the sake of the party and our country.

Amen

2003-12-18T10:46:00.000-08:00

The Right's View of the Left Side of the Blanket

The deliciousness of the news that Strom Thurmond had a child with a black housekeeper is obviously tempered by the fact that the situation constituted the closest thing to rape that doesn't involve a weapon.

Meanwhile, the gang at National Review, specifically Rick Brookhiser, reminds us to be careful:

We are confident that we are better people than he was, because we were born later. But let us scrutinize our lives and our social arrangements for our own iniquities.

Rick, boobahla, darling, let me break it to you slowly. While it may be true that your social circle includes the odd rapist, drug addict, or racist, I can assure you neither I nor my friends count illegitimate children fathered on household help among our iniquities.

2003-12-17T21:06:00.000-08:00

Why Still So MADD?

MADD started off trying to raise awareness about drunk-driving; too many people were being killed by drunks who had already been arrested many times. With awareness raised, with laws in place lowering blood alcohol levels, with businesses supporting designated drivers, and alcohol manufacturers reminding us to drink responsibly. So, this pretty much says "Job well done, time to move on.", doesn't it?

Nope. I just got their latest fundraising plea. Not going to be giving them anything, but I did find out how you too can start a non-profit, from "... one of the most widely supported and well-liked non-profit organizations in America".

2003-12-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Eat Your Dog Food

As I might have mentioned before, I am unemployed. In the 10 months since walking away from the smoking crater left by my former company, I've sent out the usual hundreds of resumes, been on very few interviews, networked like crazy, expanded my skill set, shown flexibility, etc. Lat week the unemployment benefits ended, but through a combination of savings, family and a loving wife, we're doing ok. All in all my experience has been just about the best of everyone I know that's out of work. Lots of people are scratching away, working very hard to find work.

Such insight adds a piquant savor upon reading Bruce Bartlett's Townhall Column, in which he states:

Thus, ironically, elimination of extended unemployment benefits will almost certainly reduce the unemployment rate.

Ummm... How's that again?

...the effect of extending benefits beyond 26 weeks simply extends the date when they have to take a job. One estimate concluded that for each week benefits are extended, the average duration of unemployment increases by about a day.

You know you are reading a conservative when you get that hand-waving "One estimate" crap. Okay Bruce, show your work. What economist or group of economist, publishing in what peer-reviewed journal came anywhere near stating that decreases in the length of unemployment benefits correlates with (much less causes) an increase in employment

As I've mentioned before, hard-core conservatism isn't real conducive to data gathering and analysis.

2003-12-14T12:25:00.000-08:00

Excellent

Saddam Hussein joins the Ex-Dictator Mug Shot Collection.

This is a triumph for the hard dedicated work of our military and intelligence folks. I can't imagine a group of Americans who deserve a heart-felt congratulations more.

Let's hope that this stabilizes Iraq enough to make progress at bringing the country into democracy.

2003-12-12T15:47:00.000-08:00

A Cluesless Man Covers a Thoughtless Administration

It has suddenly come to Rich Lowry's attention that the Bush administration is rat-f**king active military and vets, and well, he'd like someone to explain it all to him.

Hey Rich, how about this July 2nd editorial from The Army Times:

In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap ?— and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately.

For example, the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful and unnecessary ?— including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty. This comes at a time when Americans continue to die in Iraq at a rate of about one a day.

Similarly, the administration announced that on Oct. 1 it wants to roll back recent modest increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones.

It goes on:

The chintz even extends to basic pay. While Bush?’s proposed 2004 defense budget would continue higher targeted raises for some ranks, he also proposed capping raises for E-1s, E-2s and O-1s at 2 percent, well below the average raise of 4.1 percent.

Let's put this into perspective. Right now, an E-1 tops out at $1,150.80 a month base pay. An E-2 tops out at $1290 base, and an 0-1 gets $2746 after 3 years of service. E's are enlisted people and O's are officers. Here's a chart to explain enlisted rank and pay grades, and this one's for officers.

Congress, and especially the Senate, told the White House what it could do with those recommendations, and the pay raises this year have run from 3.7% to 6.25%. The variation occurs because Congress and the Military "target" certain critical groups to try and retain them. These tend to be the senior Non-Commissioned Officers (NCO's) (Think Staff Sergeant and above, Chief Perry Officer and above for navy), and mid-level officers (Majors and Colonels and Lieutenants and Lt Commanders).

How about this proposal for vets?

Here's the proposed pay chart for 2004. Look at that chart and try to imagine raising a family, Now try to imagine raising that family in San Diego, home of the Pacific Fleet and newly crowned "least affordable housing market" in the entire state of California. Now imagine that your Commander in Chief has repeatedly shown that he only cares how you look as background for his campaign ads.

2003-12-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

Speaking Truth to Power?

Sometimes you see tha barest hint that that hoary old "million monkeys typing" thing might be right. Kathryn Jean Lopez over at NRO inadvertently sees the turth:

laughed

Wow. "...the national-security of our nation is being run by morons who are making us increasingly less secure by the minute." Couldn't have said it better myself.

2003-12-06T16:45:00.000-08:00

Why Didn't They Cover This in International Negotiations?

Today's New York Times has an article entitled Tough New Tactics by U.S. Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns. In it we are treated to this prceless commentary:

"'You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force - force, pride and saving face."

Oy.

The article describes how we've ringed entire towns wth razor wire, and blown up buildings in retaliation for attacks on our troops. In other words, we're a real occupyin' force now.

The United States Armed Forces are now blessed with an impossible job, and they are doing it alone, courtesy of the idiots currently runnig our government. But we are now using Indian and Boer War tactics against entire towns in Iraq. We are punishing entire towns for the actions of a few because we have no intelligence assets to tell us who is actually killing our troops. As I've said before, we're stuck in the wrong war in the right place at the wrong time. My opinion on this mess? We kicked over the anthill, we're responsible for whomever takes over in the chaos. That being said we need to get some group other than us in there to do the organizing.

2003-12-05T18:12:00.000-08:00

Problems in EIB land

Tough times for the Excellence In Broadcasting network. Not only is Rush Limbaugh having troubles with annoying search warrants, it also looks like the Rwandan branch office's Christmas party is cancelled, permanently.

2003-12-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

Noone Here but Us Ostriches

A game we all play from time to time is wishing ill on those who so richly deserve it. Though the most artful example is Dante's Inferno, haven't we all devised eternal punishment for people and institutions that seem to skate through life, and never seem to pay for the devastation they reap? No matter when I play I always reserve the lowest pit in hell for one group, The Tobacco Institute. No matter what evidence was found, no matter what the data revealed, no matter what true science discovered, The Tobacco Institute could be counted on to trot out its experts, all with impressive credentials, to try to convince the public otherwise. It was Ignorance objectified, whose only purpose was to pander to the sloth and illiteracy of Americans for as long as possible, until finally the Tobacco companies had to cave.

Now the Institute is reduced to fighting smoking bans and complaining about tobacco taxes while at the same time having to admit that yes, smoking is addictive and can cause serious disease.

The legacy of the Institute has been amplified with modern lobbying. Companies realized that all you need to do when controversy breaks out, is pay for another group to scream louder than the facts. One website, Tech Central Station, seems to have been created just for this purpose.

So watch and wait for the reaction to this group announcing that, yep, Earth is warming, and yep, humans make a significant contribution to resulting global climate change. It should come as no surprise to those interested in climatology and geomorphology (all three of us) that these pronouncements come from the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center, and the head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. It may come as a surprise to their ultimatum boss, one George Bush, but that's another posting entirely.