House of Eratosthenes

Now of course nobody ever reads this blog, but if one or two gals happen to trip across it this would be fortuitous viewing for them as we begin the New Year.

I think this would have been good for about fifteen years ago, when women really needed to watch it. Nowadays I think it’s started to sink in, that if a lady wants to have a happy life with her beau, she just needs to pick wisely, appreciate what she finds, and all the rest will follow. Just be ready for a life with a man. Not a puppy dog, not a teddy bear, not a little boy, a man.

It seems there is still a pocket of resistance of young ladies who have yet to figure this out, going by the crap that is still popping up on Lifetime television. Well, like I care. My current gal makes an art out of all seven points, especially #3 and #6.

Heh heh…”…as there is nothing sexy about a downtrodden man.” Based on what I know, my money says this truism is responsible for some two-thirds of all divorces today, and eighty percent of all the ones over the last ten years.

Update: Might as well get the supply of equal time out in front of the demand.

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It Didn’t Start Five Years Ago
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

This one goes into the “required viewing” file. Just click and watch. Make sure the sound is turned on or your headphones are plugged in.

And there’s some quality video-blogging going on below. I can’t endorse every single word because it’s a critique of a movie I’ve not seen, but I like Jimmy’s use of rhetorical questions and skeptical thinking.

Healthy cynicism, folks. It’s not just something to throw in Halliburton’s direction. Save some for the Hollywood “Peace Love Rock-n-Roll” types.

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Cancel The Account
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Okay everybody else is posting this, I might as well too. You really should listen to this from beginning to end. We’ve all been here in some way or another, right?

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Password Salts
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

This article is not long, but manages to cover all the details and cover them well. Makes some good points, seldom considered, too. Interesting read.

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Yikes! III
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

What an ass-and-a-half. Didn’t stop.

It would be very hard to fake this, too…

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On Heavy Words…Like “Justice”
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Let me begin with a crass generalization. Parents are like hostages, and soldiers in foxholes: They believe in God. All of them. If they are atheists, they have real doubts about their atheism that purebred died-in-the-wool atheists do not have. And if they say this is not the case, they’re lying. Certain situations, certain perspectives, give one cause to absorb the news that life hands us day-to-day, and seriously ponder whether a Supreme Intelligence is making itself evident.

Hussein And that’s the thing I can’t help but wonder, as I see Amnesty International turn the notion of “justice” on its head just as 2006 is coming to a close. In the protest they released against Saddam Hussein’s death sentence Thursday, they’ve managed to turn the concept of justice around a hundred and eighty degrees.

“The trial of Saddam Hussein and his seven co-accused before the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT) was deeply flawed and unfair, due to political interference which undermined the independence of the court and other serious failings,” sad Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme. “The Appeals Court should have addressed these deficiencies and ordered a fair re-trial, not simply confirmed the sentences as if all was satisfactory at the trial stage.”

“It was absolutely right that Saddam Hussein should be held to account for the massive violations of human rights committed by his regime, but justice requires a fair process and this, sadly, was far from that, “said Malcolm Smart.”The trial should have been a landmark in the establishment of the rule of law in Iraq after the decades of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. It was an opportunity missed.”

Okay, let’s start with the points of agreement, between AI and myself: Massive violations of human rights. Justice demands a fair process. Mr. Smart and myself are in agreement here: Justice is the administration of a fair verdict and sentence, in the aftermath of violations.

Now somewhere after this common ground has passed underfoot, something has happened which has made Mr. Smart upset, something he regards as unfair. I do not know what it is. Mr. Smart doesn’t want to tell me what it is, and if he does, Amnesty International has whittled his comments down to size because apparently they do not want me to know what it is. It could be this highly meaningful assertion is based, entirely, on the concluding paragraph, which is the only text in the AI press release I can find that even approaches justification for the above:

The trial before the SICT, which began in October 2005 and concluded with the imposition of sentences on 5 November, was widely criticised due to political interference and the court’s failure to ensure the safety of witnesses and defence lawyers, three of whom were murdered during the course of the proceedings, and for failing to establish an effective case against the accused.

I really do hope they got something better than that. “Failure to ensure the safety of witnesses and defence lawyers, three of whom were murdered during the course of the proceedings” simply means that justice is a sufficiently serious concern that people are willing to put their lives on the line to get it. The defense is to be commended for this…as is the prosecution, officers of the court, and everyone else involved. “Failing to establish an effective case against the accused” is nothing but a practical contradiction of the second paragraph quoted above. The dude did his stuff, or else he didn’t. Looks like he did; the court said so, and the facts say so. Moving on.

Thanks to Captain’s Quarters it was brought to our attention Friday that — surprise — the New York Times is none to fond of Saddam’s death sentence, either. And I cannot help noticing the Paper of Record, well-known as our nation’s journalistic flagship, picked up this mostly-unexplained and mostly-unexplored concept of “missed opportunity” and passed it on down, unskeptically, uncritically. In some passages, on a word-for-word basis. History demands it will then be echoed and re-echoed, like everything else that comes out of the Times. Such-and-such Tribune, So-and-so Herald, Mayberry Gazette, on and on and on…their editors read it in the Times, so it must be so.

What really mattered was whether an Iraq freed from [Saddam Hussein's] death grip could hold him accountable in a way that nurtured hope for a better future. A carefully conducted, scrupulously fair trial could have helped undo some of the damage inflicted by his rule. It could have set a precedent for the rule of law in a country scarred by decades of arbitrary vindictiveness…It could have, but it didn’t. After a flawed, politicized and divisive trial, Mr. Hussein was handed his sentence: death by hanging. This week, in a cursory 15-minute proceeding, an appeals court upheld that sentence and ordered that it be carried out posthaste…What might have been a watershed now seems another lost opportunity. After nearly four years of war and thousands of American and Iraqi deaths, it is ever harder to be sure whether anything fundamental has changed for the better in Iraq.

And ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. Poor ol’ 2006 is destined to spin its bones in its grave as it’s retirement is marked by a renewed demonstration of how what’s reported becomes the polar opposite of what’s really happening. Some cranky international activist group like Amnesty International says something was amiss, the Old Gray Lady repeats it, and then from sea to shining sea we’re going to be sold on the proposition that there’s no elephant in the room and no man behind the curtain.

That’s the spin. What does the evidence say, meanwhile? Saddam was guilty of violations and deserved to die — undisputed. He got what he had comin’ to him — measurable.

And here’s where I start to think The Lord works in mysterious ways. It is the eve of a new year; a time when we’re inspired to reflect on the way we’ve been doing things, and find ways to do them better, while keeping an open mind about perhaps doing entirely new things.

And AI, and the Old Gray Lady, make their intentions a little too clear about the word “justice.” They seek to re-define it to something beyond what it really is. Time we had some sort of symposium on what the J-word means. Here in the U.S., it’s a little overdue. Call me a hick, call me a NASCAR hillbilly if you want. Call me white trash. But I do believe the Good Lord wants us to put a little more thought into what justice is. I think He’s a little cheesed-off at the way we’ve been throwing the word around for the last generation plus. I think He put the itch between the ears of our Armani-suited anarchists, so they would sound off RIGHT now, as a way to inspire us to call out their bullshit.

Again: Let us start with the area of agreement. “Justice” means to get what’s comin’ to ya. It is, ultimately, a subjective thing that exists in the mind of the observer, which sometimes can present some problems. In the case of Saddam Hussein, it does not present a problem. He was a bad guy. Nobody with a reputation worth protecting, seeks to assert anything different. So when we look up “justice” in the dictionary, we find…

1. the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause.
2. rightfulness or lawfulness, as of a claim or title; justness of ground or reason: to complain with justice.
3. the moral principle determining just conduct.
4. conformity to this principle, as manifested in conduct; just conduct, dealing, or treatment.
5. the administering of deserved punishment or reward.
6. the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings: a court of justice.
7. judgment of persons or causes by judicial process: to administer justice in a community.
8. a judicial officer; a judge or magistrate.

And I’m thinking definitions #4, #5 and #7 are closest to what we’re pondering here. Note that in all cases, even clear-cut ones like Mr. Hussein’s, this is a matter of opinion. Other cases are not so clear-cut. I go out and get a pet ferret, pet ferrets are illegal where I live, you might say I deserve to spend a year in jail. Other people might say the ferret law is stupid, and I don’t deserve any penalty at all. Someone else, yet, might think the ferret law is so unjust that I deserve a reward for opposing it. These are all legitimate opinions; what makes them so, assuming nothing else does, is that there are no known facts that directly contradict those opinions.

But it’s worth pointing out again: Such opinions are not represented in Saddam Hussein’s situation. It is agreed that he is guilty of wretched human violations. That he deserves death is agreed ipso facto. This would be a great time to make a stand against the death penalty, if one is inclined to do so — Amnesty Internatonal is not known for hawkish attitudes where the ultimate punishment is concerned — and in the situation at hand, nobody bothers to lift a finger. Their efforts to confuse the issue, exuberant and enthusiastic as they are, are confined to way the sentence was handed down and do not touch on the sentence itself. Well, that certainly says something.

With that observation, let’s venture forward into the area where we disagree. Those who seek to incite in me some kind of frustration with the way Saddam’s trial was executed (or denied a re-trial), have adhered to a trend of stopping with the argument right after defining this as their stated intent. They define this as the purpose and — right away! — it’s time to whip up the emotions. No logic involved at all. I have been instructed to believe the process is flawed. The particulars of the flaw, are left unmentioned. That says something too; I’ve read all the way through AI’s condemnation, and the Times’ as well. Every word of both of ‘em. Not lengthy epistles by any means, but I would expect that in this exercise I would trip across some foundation. All I got was a snarky observation at the end of Amnesty International’s little tome, to the effect that being involved in the trial was a deadly and dangerous thing.

That’s all I got out of both opinion pieces.

And you know what that tells me? Justice triumphed — where politically motivated people on both sides of the issue sought to thwart it, were willing to kill to confound it. Justice was attacked, and emerged victorious. Hey, champagne all around.

And yet, it seems safe to infer this brightened no one’s day at Amnesty International, or on the editorial board of the New York Times. These folks remain peeved about something…they’ve availed themselves no shortage of opportunity to say what it is…they will not say what it is. Personally, I doubt they want anyone to know what it is. But the better-late-than-never symposium on what justice means — awaits. So let’s give them the full benefit of the doubt, every smidgen of it. Let’s say Saddam Hussein’s trial was flawed and unfair, to such an odious extent that “what might have been a watershed now seems another lost opportunity,” even though those who say this is so, refuse to say why this is. Let’s just go with that anyway.

Is that not justice? You do something awful, and “just desserts” come to you, while the process by which they are delivered, is flawed? It’s still justice, isn’t it? Therein lies the question we’ve been needing to resolve for nearly half a century. So let’s take a look.

Well, move the question-at-hand to some other situation to take the emotion out of it. A hypothetical. I swindle some old widow out of her life savings, which is decidedly a bad thing to do. I invest my ill-gotten gains in the futures market on some kind of “sure thing” — my broker somehow screws up the order. Wrong delivery date on the commodity, or wrong commodity. I lose everything. Stupid broker! What a flawed process. He’s just asking to be sued…but of course, I can’t bring much of a suit now because I have no money. Unjust? Really? Who would say so?

Ever seen “Trading Places” with Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy? The one where Jamie Lee Curtis…yowza. Well, I digress, so let me wipe the drool out of the keyboard and continue onward. Remember the ending? What happened to Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche? Flawed process. The characters played by Akroyd and Murphy, it would seem, are guilty of several felonies — assuming they got caught, or failed to deliver on the orange juice contracts, neither one of which really happened. Badly flawed process. Unjust? Or, were Bellamy and Ameche’s characters “held accountable in a way that nurtured hope for a better future?” Hey, if anyone thought not, it wouldn’t have been funny.

How about acts of violence? How about if I shoot you from some distance for no reason…but since I’m a lousy shot, the bullet misses you, bounces off something, and nails me right between the eyes? Hey, that’s a pretty thoughtless process! I don’t get an appeal for my sentencing! Darn it, someone should do something. It doesn’t nurture my hopes for a better future at all! But what of it? I think everyone would agree there’s “justice” involved in that. Even most people opposed to the death penalty would be on board with that.

So the question I have for Amnesty International and the New York Times — and all of us, as we begin a new year — is this: How come we’re supposed to re-define “justice” from what we all know it really is…just because a human process is involved? What’s different, other than the potential for abuse of the retrial process in artificial proceedings? Mr. Smart, unlike the editorial board of our nation’s most prestigious newspaper, at least as the balls to say what he’d like to have done differently. If he had his way, the retrial would be granted. How this fixes any of whatever issues he had with the first trial, of course, goes unanswered…since there’s no good answer. And what those issues were, exactly, I don’t think I have a good understanding of it even though he’s gone out of his way to try to explain it to me. I know what decision was made, that he doesn’t like; I don’t know anything else about his beef.

Meanwhile, the asshole Saddam’s dead. Now, throughout the year I’ve been talking with some folks about Mr. Hussein’s death sentence. It impresses me that even people who are opposed to the death penalty, in several cases, “would grant an exception” for Iraq’s former despot. So…although justice can be a subjective thing, it seems acceptable to a broad cross section of us that this was just. Saddam Hussein did not deserve to live, and in politics as well as in tactics, his continued survival endangered others. With few, meaningless exceptions, the agreement on this is universal.

The debate before us, therefore, is whether the ends justify the means. That’s assuming I’m willing to grant that this trial was somehow unfair — a concession I make, here, only to pursue the argument. It hasn’t been substantiated very well, even by those who are obviously very passionate about substantiating it.

We must define what justice is. Is it the delivery of what’s deserved, or the process by which it is delivered? You know what? It seems to be the delivery itself. The end does justify the means. The process is secondary.

The process does remain somewhat important because it has the potential to change what is deserved. This observation has no bearing at all in the case of Saddam Hussein. So some of our more pacifist types seek to make the process of delivery a primary consideration, simply for the sake of protesting things. That is their fatal flaw, for the process is not primary at all. It is decidedly subordinate, especially when you talk about “landmark[s] in the establishment of the rule of law.” Corrupting that, is done far more effectively by denying the guilty what they got comin’, than by delivering what they got comin’ through a trial that some peevish activist group happens to dislike in some nebulous way. Saddam Hussein got what was deserved, and justice was done. The New York Times says the trial “could have set a precedent for the rule of law in a country scarred by decades of arbitrary vindictiveness” — and based on the information I’ve been able to find, it has achieved exactly that.

Next problem?

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Back to Sixth Grade
Thursday, December 28th, 2006

This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, is one of the last places on earth where people are respected for knowing things — specifically, knowing how to do things. All over the civilized world, this respect is in a rapid decline. It is receding faster than my hairline. You doubt me?

Check out the word “qualified.” Listen real close the next time you hear it used. Does it have anything to do with ability…anything at all whatsoever?

No, nobody uses it that way anymore. “Qualified” no longer means you’re experienced doing things equal to, or greater than, the task to be done, and have made a success of yourself as you do that. That’s what it used to mean. Qualified, today, means you have some kind of accreditation. That would be bad enough if said accreditation had to do with demonstrating that you know things, but this has been corrupted too. Today, it has to do with holding the right opinions about things. Yet-unproven opinions. As in…you think boys are better at three-dimensional problems and girls have better social skills, you fail — you think boys and girls are equal in everything they do, you pass. Opinions like those. That’s what it takes to be what we call “qualified” for things now. We’ve become a rather pasteurized, utopian society, in which promotions to higher offices of trust have less and less to do with merit and competence, and more and more to do with ensuring people with good opinions outrank people with bad ones.

For an even more incandescent example, listen a little more closely next time you hear the word “unqualified.” A generation ago this would have meant someone was about to mention inexperience in whoever was unqualified. That’s no longer the case today. Again, it’s got to do with holding unpopular opinions…or failing to present credentials, which would have proven a candidate holds the right opinions.

And every once in a great while we see evidence of this problem, said evidence usually not quite as damaging as it could be, when you think about it. File this one under “cheap warning about where we’re headed.”

Talk about a high-stakes test. The radio audience was live and the question for teachers union president Randi Weingarten involved sixth-grade math: “What’s 1/3rd plus 1/4th?”

Weingarten, however, is a not a sixth-grader or a math teacher. She’s a lawyer and a union boss who once taught high school social studies - and no one told her there was going to be a quiz. “I would actually have to do it on paper,” she said when asked yesterday to complete the math problem on WNYC’s “Brian Lehrer Show” where she was a guest. Mike Pesca, who was filling in for Lehrer, introduced the show’s education topic by saying American college grads can’t do basic math while high school grads in Canada and middle-schoolers in India have no trouble.

After Weingarten stumbled, another guest quickly produced the correct answer: 7/12ths, leaving Weingarten to explain herself.

“I do it the old-fashioned way,” she said. “You take your paper, your pen, you add it up and get the fractional whatever.” “And you show your work,” Pesca offered. “And you show your work,” Weingarten agreed. “A good teacher will look at it and talk to you about what went right and what went wrong, like they do in Singapore.”

Math expert Alfred Posamentier, dean of the City College school of education, said most Americans can’t add fractions in their heads, leaving Weingarten in good company. “I hate to say it, but I would cut her slack on that one,” he said.

I wouldn’t. You know, just take a look at what’s happening here. It’s a case of one class of people, entirely abdicating their rights and responsibilities, surrendering them to be administered by a different class of people. The assumption in place is that these non-producing, life-and-death-decision bureaucrats know something that “qualifies” them to make these decisions. Everybody knows that isn’t really true; everybody understands it’s really about having the right names in your Palm Pilot. Nobody says that out loud, everyone understands it’s so.

And the President of a teacher’s union can’t do sixth-grade math.

Oh yeah, I understand that’s the way of the world. I understand the dunces are in charge, and we’re instructed to believe they’re oh so much smarter than everybody else when they’re really not — unless the name of the guy on top is George W. Bush, anyway. I know things have worked this way for a long time, and anyone who expects anything different, is simply showing their naivete. I get that. What I don’t understand is this:

Things are this way, because we put up with it. Why do we put up with it?

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Most Innovative Products of 2006
Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Title says it all. These are high-tech hardware and software products, some of them pretty interesting. One or two I’m actually thinking about buying, now that I know they’re out there.

I’ll just throw this one in, it’s a binary editor that’s also on my list. And two outliners, here and here, that I’m evaluating. I’m in the final stages on those and I’m pretty pleased with the results. Expecting to purchase one or the other soon, maybe both.

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Parasite Makes Men Dumb and Women Sexy
Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Hmmm…well, this would explain a lot.

A common parasite can increase a women’s attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says.

About 40 per cent of the world’s population is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, including about eight million Australians.

Human infection generally occurs when people eat raw or undercooked meat that has cysts containing the parasite, or accidentally ingest some of the parasite’s eggs excreted by an infected cat.

Eh, 40? I’d say that’s a little low.

Until recently it was thought to be an insignificant disease in healthy people, Sydney University of Technology infectious disease researcher Nicky Boulter said, but new research has revealed its mind-altering properties.

“Interestingly, the effect of infection is different between men and women,” Dr Boulter writes in the latest issue of Australasian Science magazine.

“Infected men have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to…”

Waitaminnit, I just thought of something. Out on Miss Cellania’s website. Video games, pretty video games (h/t, YesButNoButYes). Me like video games, they have blinkin lites.

Man, Miss Cellania is a looker. She’s hawt. Think I’ll take some steak out of the freezer for tonight. Me like steak. Me like Miss Cellania, she purty.

As Dave Barry might say…”Toxoplasma Gondii” would be an awesome name for a rock band.

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Sexiest Women in Sports in 2006
Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Malia Now hey, waitaminnit. Isn’t it discriminatory to notice that women look good when you watch sports? Aren’t you supposed to cheer them on as they make it in a “man’s world,” ignore their sexuality in favor of their performance stats, and indulge in a charming fantasy that men and women are exactly the same?

Well ya know, I never could get that one down cold. And someone else had a tough time of it too. Judging from some of the poses it doesn’t seem the lady athletes were taken by surprise in any way.

I’m just happy to be living in a country where it’s okay to notice nice-lookin’ women are nice-lookin’ women. It wasn’t ever thus.

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Best Sentence IV
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Shapiro I’ve never particularly cared for Ben Shapiro. The man is a good writer, but so are many others, and I always got the impression he was getting a lot of attention because of his pedigree, his educational history, and his age. The habit he has that gets under my skin, is to write about what he thinks is going on, and comment about it as if it’s an established fact. Now, in all fairness, everybody who writes about current events ultimately has to do this, over and over again. I try to sprinkle mine with “I can’t prove it, but” or words to that effect. To me, when I write about something, there’s a situation involved. The situation has become worthy of comment, because something has been left unexplained — so you start with what has been left unexplained. And within that, you start with what you know for a fact. Only then do you opine about what could be going on, to explain what has been left unexplained.

Shapiro seems to be opposed to this…which is fine, it simply means he is creating a product intended for consumption by others.

Obama But early his morning I was looking for an article on this weird phenomenon I don’t understand, called Barack Obama. Obama is a freshman senator from Illinois, a possible candidate for the presidency in ‘08. He is a candidate the way Julia Roberts is a movie star: A good one, the evidence says only a good one and not a great one. But the hype says he’s more than great, he “walks on water” and he’s the “real deal.” NOBODY knows why this is, as far as I can see. To reason and common sense, he’s simply more articulate than our current President. And many others are that much.

And I was googling for an article that was wondering the same thing, and sought to explain it — the way I would have. I’m not sure I was able to dredge it up again; this thing in the Seattle Times has a few phrases that set of some bells. Maybe that’s it. But by mistake, I run into this thing by Ben Shapiro. Once again, Shapiro has it down cold, he knows everything. This is no great offense mind you — where he speculates, he speculates safely. And, again, other people are just eating his product up and demanding seconds, so that’s great. It’s just, once again, I’m seeing a younger man who hasn’t learned things about what-you-don’t-know-yet, that I’ve had to learn. He’s a living pictogram of lessons I’ve already been taught, that I have no desire to learn again.

But Ben Shapiro is becoming an excellent writer. He’s a better writer than Barack Obama is a presidential candidate; not just good, but great.

And hey, if he thinks he knows something about this Obama character that I’m just starting to figure out, there’s a pretty good likelihood that he’s right. I’m still more confused and befuddled than young Shapiro, so for the time being I’ll read what he has to say about Sen. Obama. Nothing, absolutely nothing I say, has come to my attention that would directly contradict the explanations Shapiro has to offer. And he seems to have turned that corner that aspiring writers sometimes turn, where his output actually becomes a source of education and entertainment at the same time. In that sense, he’s more senior than I am.

He has virtually no voting record; he has virtually no articulated positions. Ask his advocates, and they will describe him as “a breath of fresh air” — but ask them about a single position he holds, and they will stare at you as though you are speaking in tongues. They will tell you, however, that Obama “understands” every position you hold…Where’s the meat? It’s all well and good to campaign on the basis of “common sense” and “smart government,” as Obama did in his softball interview with Tim Russert, but no politician in history has ever campaigned on any other basis. Where does Obama stand? His own writings display the weakness inherent in his platform of “understanding”: If you profess to understand everything, you understand nothing. Not every conflict can be glossed over by “hugging it out.” Focusing more on “understanding” and less on questions of morality coddles the immoral.

Take, for example, Obama’s “understanding” with regard to our enemies in the war on terror. In his new introduction to his first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” Obama writes, “My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another’s heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.” Except, of course, that Obama proceeds to “understand” those he has just dismissed, blaming terrorism on “the underlying struggle” between “worlds of plenty and worlds of want” — a neo-Marxist interpretation of the rise of Islamofascism. “I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless,” Obama writes, “how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago’s South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into despair and violence.” This is a sickening comparison; even the worst inner city youths generally do not join up with Al Qaeda.

What makes him a good writer? Many things in this piece do, but this sentence stands out: “There is a thin line between being open-minded and empty-headed.”

Bingo. You nailed it.

Although my indictment against Mr. Shapiro stands — what it comes down to, is, like a teenager he’s “young enough to know everything” — this is not necessarily bad. In fact it can come in handy. People like me need people like him.

Here’s a case where I would like to apply the energies of one who is quick to figure things out, and slow to uncertainty: How the Republicans will handle Barack Obama should the freshman senator be nominated. With questions like the ones I have, it’s impossible to find the Achilles’ Heel of a given target; but I have high confidence Mr. Shapiro has identified it correctly. Senator Obama is weak. Weak is a one-syllable word, easily understood, with a primal meaning for those interested since prehistoric times.

I’m taking it as a mostly-established tradition, now elevated beyond any possible doubt, that the Republicans won’t use this against him. If they do, they won’t do it properly. To much of the electorate — especially those who re-elected President Bush in ‘04, but voted for a Democrat Congress in ‘06 — it is a highly relevant issue. Why is it, that the issue of Sen. Obama’s weakness on issues, will not be exploited?

Why will it not be discussed by the Republicans — not even to a tiny fraction of the volume and rage, with which Democrats excoriate George Bush for his public-speaking failures?

Have we reached a point where Democrats and Republicans agree, that the spoken style is everything, and positions on issues mean nothing?

This is still something I must conclude with a question mark. Other folks, Shapiro included, are far more certain about what’s going on. I’d sure like to hear from them.

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Jon Carry Aloan in Irak
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

None of the troops that are stuck there, seem to want to talk to him or even be seen with him. I guess they lack the education to know who he is.

I really don’t want to be a Democrat right now. You know, the actual leaders and representatives and movers-n-shakers who have to decide what the platform’s going to be. I don’t want to be those guys. YEAH they won…let’s face it, the Republicans don’t have a winning party right now. But putting the Democrats in charge — that was just a case of, status quo not good, do anything BUT the status quo. Fair enough.

But I think it’s going to start sinking in: If you are a Democrat, you are REQUIRED to think soldiers are the very lowest rung of society, just a notch above the homeless. Uneducated, antisocial, anger-management issues, maybe retarded, probably disease-infested. If you’re a Democrat, and you happen to meet someone in the military who genuinely impresses you in a positive way — you MUST keep that a secret to yourself. Spill the beans that there are intelligent, dedicated professionals in our military, and you’ll get kicked outta the club.

The electorate, as a whole, will catch on to that. Someday. And when it happens, the Democrats are going the way of the Whig party. I hope it happens in the next two years.

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Ford Down
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

President Ford was a contender in the first BAD political decision I ever made. I’m glad I was eight years too young to actually elect that asshole Jimmy Carter.

Rest in peace, Mister President.

Update 12/28/06: On the subject of our new senior elder statesman from Georgia…I must confess I’m a little worn-out of writing about Mr. Carter’s various episodes of cluelessness, impertinence, dickheadedness, desperately-disguised vapidity and general effluence. I thought new sidebar addition SeeJaneMom did a fantastic job on the same subject, and shall not try to outdo her there.

At Sunday supper earlier in the week, between the soup course and the main event, Granddaddy had flatly stated, “That sonuva cracker bitch, Jimma Cartuh, is gonna march his ass into Washington and make sure we all look like hicks.” Oh, the prophesying I was witnessing.

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The Last Milestone?
Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Okay, so here is where we note that the death toll of U.S. servicemen in Iraq has just passed blah blah blah blah blah…

…those of you reviewing this much later on, the yardstick today is, the official Associated Press death toll of the September 11 attacks. Wowee, this is a really important occasion. Well you know, for those who personally knew the recently deceased, I’m sure it is. But not as far as U.S. policy. In fact I couldn’t help noticing the following…

The deaths — announced Tuesday — raised the number of troops killed to 2,974 since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003. The figure includes at least seven military civilians. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks claimed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

“The joint patrol was conducting security operations in order to stop terrorists from placing roadside bombs in the area,” the military said in a statement on the latest deaths. “As they conducted their mission, a roadside bomb exploded near one of their vehicles.” [emphasis mine]

Yeah, a roadside bomb that was set by someone. Now, what did they want, I wonder? Could it be…propaganda? Because, yeah, I’m sure to a left-wing war protester it’s going to come as a huge shock that terrorists fight propaganda wars. But they do. And the fact is, that bomb had a purpose. It’s been settled for a long time now, that when the American media knows about something, the terrorists that our guys are fighting in Iraq, know about it too. And the media has been salivating over this “greater than the 9/11 death toll” thing since last week.

And so now that we’ve passed 2,973, news outlet after news outlet after news outlet plays it up. And let me guess…oh this is so hard to predict…if I dare to say this might have a positive effect on the endeavors of our enemies I’m going to be hit with a tidal wave of sarcasm, and I will become the latest evidence of the chilling effect, that those who dare to dissent are called unpatriotic. Right?

So thanks to sarcasm and paranoia, we aren’t allowed to think such a thing. Hey, there’s a chilling effect all by itself. But meanwhile, we know the terrorists want our anti-war protesters to win more arguments. We know this. It’s an established fact. And we know the roadside bombs are just a way to make this happen. That’s an established fact, too.

Well, I’d just like those who assign some special significance to this event, to highlight for the rest of us what it actually means. I’ll bet they can’t. What, Iraq is a failure in some “official” way now? If it is now, and it wasn’t before, then there must be some rule that the military death toll in a given engagement is not supposed to exceed whatever enemy attack somehow inspired that engagement. And yet we have no such rule, so that’s bullshit. What else? Anybody? Buuuueeeelller?

On the whole, the citizens of FARK have recognized this to be a bullshit milestone that means nothing. Let me repeat that…the denizens and derelicts that hang around FARK. FARK, where most of the account holders have never come up against something bad that wasn’t George Bush’s fault. Where people who haven’t been sober after 10 a.m., since they first started going to college nine years ago, spout off about George and Don and Condi plotting the September 11 attacks with the terrorists. Where the “thermite theory” of the collapsing towers, lives on indefinitely. Where Ralph Nader is the man best qualified for the White House, unless Rosie O’Donnell can somehow be pursuaded to run. On FARK…they see through this bullshit milestone.

Well, if they see through it, anyone can.

And yet, all the disgusting morning coffee-table “news” shows, are covering it wall-to-wall. The most common-sense insight you can use, is going to tell you the terrorists have been working their skinny asses of for this milestone for weeks, months maybe. Always working for the next propaganda push. And now that they’ve gotten it, the media is happy to oblige, and make sure the win is as big as it can possibly be. Only too happy. And none of this is going to stop at the water’s edge. Whatever renewed calls for “immediate redeployment” are issued as a direct or indirect result of this meaningless milestone — they will become public knowledge, all the world over. And, as always, the terrorists will watch what we do, refine their tactics, and re-engage, as they’ve been doing since Day One.

Just disgusting.

Yeah, we’re supposed to leave this whole process undisturbed because of the First Amendment. And yet…you wouldn’t be able to have this kind of “news” in World War II. And nobody seems to be able to explain to me how a constitutional passage ratified in the late eighteenth-century, mandates us to a slow, passive suicide today, when in 1943 it did no such thing.

Anybody? Buuuuuuueeeeeeelller?

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Wii Will Kill Us All?
Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Leah Maybe I’ve been a little too tough on the newfangled video games. Some of these pictures taken with Nintendo’s Wii look pretty good (some sissies would say this is NSFW, although I don’t see how; you’ve been warned).

But Will Payne of the Harvard Crimson remains a skeptic. His article diligently warns us against our upcoming fate, that “it’s only a matter of time before someone pokes a friend’s eye out with a renegade Wiimote. On the popular gaming message board 1up.com, poster Shadowfamicom warns ominously that ‘the Wii will kill us all.’”

Heh…it’s good to know we’re destined to survive global warming after all.

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How To Be The Perfect GirlfriendSunday, December 31st, 2006

It Didn’t Start Five Years AgoSaturday, December 30th, 2006

Cancel The AccountSaturday, December 30th, 2006

Password SaltsSaturday, December 30th, 2006

Yikes! IIISaturday, December 30th, 2006

On Heavy Words…Like “Justice”Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Back to Sixth GradeThursday, December 28th, 2006

Most Innovative Products of 2006Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Parasite Makes Men Dumb and Women SexyThursday, December 28th, 2006

Sexiest Women in Sports in 2006Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Best Sentence IVWednesday, December 27th, 2006

Jon Carry Aloan in IrakWednesday, December 27th, 2006

Ford DownWednesday, December 27th, 2006

The Last Milestone?Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Wii Will Kill Us All?Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Christmas 200

How To Be The Perfect Girlfriend
Sunday, December 31st, 2006

It Didn’t Start Five Years Ago
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Cancel The Account
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Password Salts
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Yikes! III
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

On Heavy Words…Like “Justice”
Saturday, December 30th, 2006

Back to Sixth Grade
Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Most Innovative Products of 2006
Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Parasite Makes Men Dumb and Women Sexy
Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Sexiest Women in Sports in 2006
Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Best Sentence IV
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Jon Carry Aloan in Irak
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Ford Down
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

The Last Milestone?
Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Wii Will Kill Us All?
Tuesday, December 26th, 2006