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November 30, 2006

When I become The Evil Overlord . . .

Providing the perfect response to idiotic villains in countless moronic movies, Peter Anspach generated his list: The Top 100 Things I'd do if I Ever Became an Evil Overlord, and I have to say that he's an extremely risk-averse would-be baddie, which bodes well for his survival.

My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones.

My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through.

Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

I will not gloat over my enemies' predicament before killing them.

When I've captured my adversary and he says, "Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?" I'll say, "No." and shoot him. No, on second thought I'll shoot him then say "No."

I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled "Danger: Do Not Push". The big red button marked "Do Not Push" will instead trigger a spray of bullets on anyone stupid enough to disregard it. Similarly, the ON/OFF switch will not clearly be labelled as such.

I will not interrogate my enemies in the inner sanctum -- a small hotel well outside my borders will work just as well.

I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.

One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.

I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

I will never utter the sentence "But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know."

When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.

Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

There are an additional series of guidelines (101-152) that could help potential Evil Overlords avoid making the same mistakes as their fallen less-ruthless, not-quite-so evil comrades.

Discovered via The Smallest Minority.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

GIs calling BS on non-lethal "weaponry"

As usual, it's the GIs who have to deal with (read: survive) the idiocy of their desk-bound leaders.

American commanders are trying to get U.S. infantry to carry and use a non-lethal paint ball gun, but the troops are not enthusiastic about it ... The FN 303 is only accurate to about a hundred meters, and the bullet can contain pepper concentrate (that makes the victims skin feel like it's burning), or paint (to mark the guy as someone of note).

[...]

Commanders want the infantry to use the FN 303 because more operations are taking place in Shia Arab areas controlled by radical militias (who want the Americans to leave so Sunni Arabs can be driven out of the country, or a coup can be attempted).

The Shia civilians throw rocks at American troops and stage rowdy demonstrations to block the movement of U.S. soldiers. The Shia Arabs know that American ROE (Rules of Engagement) prohibit troops from firing into crowds, unless someone in the crowd is holding weapons. So it is believed that the FN 303 will allow troops to have some control over these Shia mobs.

The Shia quickly figured out what the FN 303 is (a souped up paint-ball gun), and are not very intimidated by it. Some troops would prefer to have shot guns, which can also fire a non (or much less) lethal round, as well as stuff that will kill or maim, and are more intimidating.

As I understand it, DARPA is testing the efficacy of hydro-elastic polymer-based hydration delivery crowd control systems, which the GIs have taken to calling "water balloons." Name calling and towel snapping are also under consideration.

Sigh.

A commenter at Strategy Page notes:

Cops like shotguns. Not the automatic kind (as you might think), but the old pump-action jobs. The ones which make that ominous "clickety-clack!" sound when you chamber a round.

The glorified paintball gun (the FN 303) is obviously nothing more than a completely non-lethal weapon, and can never be anything but a non-lethal weapon.

A pump-action shotgun, on the other hand, can be loaded with anything. "Beanbag" rounds, gelatin balls filled with pork fat, "rubber bullets," rock salt, birdshot, double-ought buck, rifled slugs, even explosive rounds.

"Do you feel lucky, fellah?" Clickety-clack!

Thanks to the boneheads in charge, I'm guessing that, yeah, the terrorists do feel pretty lucky right about now.

What a bunch of maroons.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:52 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

What you need to know

Everything you need to know to survive, thanks to the folks at Popular Mechanics.

The case studies are interesting too.

Two best tips? Cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly, and the always versatile duct tape.

Posted by Mike Lief at 06:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 28, 2006

Ventura sunset (November 27, 5:50 p.m.)

1/200 at f8.3, underexposed -1.33 stops, automatic exposure, center-weighted averaging.


I took this photo last night with the pocket-sized Casio Exilim EX-S600, one of two digital cameras that have relegated my Nikon 35mm equipment to the back of the closet.

The quality of the images, coupled with the versatility of this pint-sized audio-visual powerhouse, make it my default camera.



This image was tightly cropped to eliminate the background, and I've reduced the quality to make the jpeg smaller for faster browser load times. It was taken on the camera's "Economy" setting; it'll hold more than 750 images at this resolution.

The key to getting great pictures is actually having a camera close at hand. Because it fits in a pocket with room to spare, I've been able to avoid the dreaded, "Man, I wish I'd brought my camera" Blues.

If anything, it's too small; trust me, use the included wrist strap. When I first got it, the aluminum case made at least a dozen attempts to leap free from my fumble-fingered grasp and head for the pavement.

After so many uncoordinated saves, I gave up and started using the strap whenever the Casio left the safety of my pocket.


Casio_Exilim_EX_S600.jpg


The video capabilities are incredible, too: 640x480 at 30 frames per second, with the internal microphone doing a great job. With a 1 Gigabyte memory card, it can record 60 minutes of video, making a bulky camcorder laughably unnecessary.

For a detailed review, check out Ken Rockwell's take; it'll make a great gift for your favorite shutterbug.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:37 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

November 27, 2006

Michael Ramirez


Posted by Mike Lief at 12:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday morning asshat

Did you hear the latest from Congressman Charlie Rangel (Communist Dem-NY)?

He's the fella who proposed bringing back the draft in 2004, then joined more than 400 of his colleagues in the House and voted "No."

Then he renewed his plan to bring back the draft last week, much to the consternation of the incoming House leadership.

Tired of hiding his feelings about the brave soldiers who fight on our -- and his -- behalf, Rangel got in touch with his inner asshat and let fly.

I want to make it abundantly clear: if there’s anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it.

No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment.

If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq.

Compare and contrast with the previous utterances of Sen. John Kerry (Socialist-Paris).

You know, education -- if you make the most of it, you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.

If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

Black or white, tall or short, thin or fat on the outside, when you examine their corrupt and foetid hearts, you find contempt, derision and loathing for the patriots who join the military. Better educated than at any time in our military's history, Rangel insults them, denigrates their service by implying that gap-toothed rubes join the Army to avoid a life stocking shelves at the Piggly Wiggly.

Take a good look, folks; this is the new Congressional leadership.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:05 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 26, 2006

Steyn on the fate of Europe

Mark Steyn, whose new bestseller American Alone makes the point that demography is destiny -- and the declining birthrates of Western Europe make the oncoming founding of Eurabia a certainty.

Further evidence of the suicide of the West is demonstrated in Steyn's latest column.

Fatma An-Najar, a 64-year-old grandmother ... had a livelier Thanksgiving than most grandmas. She marked the occasion by self-detonating in the town of Jebaliya, and, although all she had to show for splattering body parts over the neighborhood were three "lightly wounded" Israeli soldiers, she will have an honored place in the pantheon of Palestinian heroes. She was, according to the official statistician from the Hamas Book Of Records, the oldest Palestinian suicide bomber ever. And, naturally, her family's pleased as punch.

"We are really happy," her son Zuheir told Agence France-Presse. "She told us last night that she would do a suicide operation. She prepared her clothes for that operation, and we are proud. 'I don't want anything, only to die a martyr.' That's what she said."

Awww, bless the sweet l'il ol' biddy. She wouldn't have wanted to die a long lingering death in some old folks' home. This is the way she wanted to go: quick and painless, except for any Zionists in the immediate vicinity.

An-Najar gave birth to her first child at the age of 12. She had eight others. She had 41 grandchildren. Keep that family tree in mind. By contrast, in Spain, a 64-year old woman will have maybe one grandchild. That's four grandparents, one grandchild: a family tree with no branches.

One has to admire the moxie of the Palestinian Authority, solving their equivalent of the Social Security mess: have lots of kids, then blow the old folks to bits, with a few Yids as a bonus.

Grandma Splodey-Dope had 41 grandkids; my Eastern European Bubbie only had nine, but then she never was interested in becoming a bagel-noshing kamikaze kvetcher, either.

Apparently, my liberal Christian brethren are less interested in being fruitful and multiplying than their prolific Middle Eastern brothers and sisters.

The new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to run a national division of the Anglican Communion ... gave an interview to the New York Times revealing what passes for orthodoxy in this most flexible of faiths.

She was asked a simple enough question: "How many members of the Episcopal Church are there?"

"About 2.2 million," replied the presiding bishop. "It used to be larger percentage-wise, but Episcopalians tend to be better educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than other denominations."

This was a bit of a jaw-dropper even for a New York Times hackette, so, with vague memories of God saying something about going forth and multiplying floating around the back of her head, a bewildered Deborah Solomon said: "Episcopalians aren't interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?"

"No," agreed Bishop Kate. "It's probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion."

[...]

Here's the question for Bishop Kate: If Fatma An-Najar has 41 grandchildren and a responsible "better educated" Episcopalian has one or two, into whose hands are we delivering "the stewardship of the earth"? If your crowd isn't around in any numbers, how much influence can they have in shaping the future?

It's the perfect metaphor for the whole Kyoto Treaty, Global Warming hooey: cripple our economies while ignoring the polluters of the Third World; prevent overpopulation, while less Earth-Day sympathetic peoples reproduce at a rate eight times higher than the enlightened Gaia-protecting Euros.

The meek won't inherit the Earth; the weak will bequeath it to those who would destroy us.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Apples and oranges, my friends

What ever happened to the kind of Americans who were willing to endure tough times, sacrifice, fight and die, until the job was done?

The "Greatest Generation" tradition of grit and determination has been supplanted by "When the going gets tough, we have grief counselors standing by."

People's exhibit 1: USA Today.

The Iraq war is about to reach a benchmark that puts it on par with World War II by one measure: Sunday, it will have lasted the same number of days — 1,347 —that the United States fought the Axis.

To be fair to the newspaper, the balance of the article points out the ways in which WWII differed from the task we face in Iraq. But that statistic, that we defeated the Axis in less time than the jihadis, is already being bandied about by the ahistorical America Lasters who seek any means to undercut our efforts to kill our enemies.

The folks at Mudville Gazette have the perfect riposte.

On a related note, at the current rate the US military death toll will surpass that of the 1.5-year long Mexican War (13283) in another 10 or 12 years or so.

I'm not going to do the math on how long it will take to equal WWII's U.S. death toll (the comparison is ridiculous, and only an idiot would make it) but we've already had more killed than on D-Day.

Eclipsing the month-long battle for Iwo Jima could happen soon though -- maybe another 4 years or so.

A better comparison might be the Phillipine's war (1899-1902) -- 4300 American dead, and loads of accusations of imperialism and torture too. Of course, we have left the Phillipines, so that war appears to be over for now.

But then you'd have to know your history to put the current casualties in perspective, assuming you wanted to have an honest debate about the costs of our war against the terrorists.

And so we're left with two explanations for the use of the "We beat Hitler in 4 years but we can't beat Hadji" meme: a false concern for the troops providing cover for a deep-seated strain of anti-Americanism; or a perfect storm of generational ignorance, stupidity and cowardice.

Take your pick; either works for me.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 25, 2006

Welcome aboard!

Welcome Captain's Quarters readers! Take a look around and tell me what you think.

My interests range from law to literature; politics to crime and punishment; movies to military history; photography, punditry and knavery.

I've written about the threat posed by diesel submarines; military service at Camp Roberts; liberal politicians, tyrants and capital punishment; the joys of living with dogs and cats; the mysteries of jury selection and the art of voir dire; life aboard a submarine; and a week learning to march (again) and stay in step.

Please leave a comment if you see something you like -- or that makes you see red; all criticism is welcome.

UPDATE

And a hearty welcome to the folks from Patterico's Pontifications.

I've also written about why I think pacifists are contemptible; the identity of the modern-day sonderkommando; my thoughts on euthanasia, America's seeming lack of remorse, and whether the justice system ought to strive for a just result, or just a result.

If you're a dog guy (or gal), you might want to take a look at Bogie, the character with the worried gaze at the top of the page.

And if you're a whacked-out dog lover, check out Bogie living the American dream; opening up a can of whup-ass; attacking the sheriff; stopping to smell the flowers; getting his (neat) freak on; remembering Yasser; practicing mind control; getting freaked out by the cats; and dominating Mean Kitty

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:37 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 24, 2006

Thanksgiving rituals: Who's best at boning a turkey

If you snickered at the title of this post, then you'll probably agree with me that David Hardy has one of the best Thanksgiving tales I've heard; ribald and silly, it also manages to illustrate the difference between men and women.

Not quite as good as Pete Schweaty's Christmas treats, but still funny.

Yeah, when it comes to humor, men are easily amused. Want proof? The Three Stooges are comedic geniuses.

I rest my case.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Your health teacher was right

Apparently it's true: failing to wash your hands after going to the bathroom can be hazardous to your health.

FORT WORTH, Texas -- A bloody brawl erupted outside a tavern after one customer thought another failed to wash his hands after using the bathroom, according to police.

One man was hospitalized with stab wounds. Another was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

According to a police report, the fight broke out Thursday after Eric Jennings Kisiah, 27, became upset about a customer's apparent hygiene failure at the Tumbleweeds Sports Bar.

Witnesses told police Kisiah confronted the customer and two of his friends, calling them names, telling them they were dirty and threatening to "slash their throats."

Kisiah then hid near a shrub outside the bar and charged the group as they left, the police report said.

One of the men ... was stabbed four times, police said.

They don't fool around in Texas. Remember the Seinfeld episode when Jerry's in the men's room at a restaurant and sees the chef leave the stall without pausing to wash?

The urban comic can do nothing more than cringe -- along with the viewers -- in full-blown urban angst.

Seems like folks in the Lone Star State are a little better than their Noo Yawk cousins at reminding strangers that cleanliness is next to godliness.

Big time.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving


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Where do you sound like you're from?

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Midland
 

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

Philadelphia
 
The West
 
Boston
 
The Northeast
 
The Inland North
 
The South
 
North Central
 
What American accent do you have?
Take More Quizzes


I'm fascinated by accents, always have been; I seemed to pick them up easily. My college French professor used to tell me during our time in France, "Monsieur Lief, you 'ave a parfait accent; you sound like you were born à Paree. But your vocabulaire! Mon dieu! So small."

When I was in Israel, same thing. People would rattle on at me in Hebrew, 'cause what little I knew sounded like it was coming from a Sabra, i.e., a native-born speaker, but I'd exhaust my vocab in about three or four paragraphs.

Hailing originally from New York, with a few years spent in New Jersey, I often have a tinge of Gotham via the Turnpike in my speech. However, it seems that when I'm away from my Brooklyn-esque family, I revert to a neutral inflection.

Perhaps I'll hang up my bar card and try my hand at voiceover work.

Or not.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:25 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 22, 2006

Rotten judge update

Remember the story of the Utah judge who threw a man in jail for having the nerve to sigh and leave her courtroom?

I wrote:

[E]very so often, thanks to a rare alignment of the stars, we get a perfect judicial storm. Combine a power-mad judge, a citizen willing to speak his mind, and some videotape and -- voila! -- the voters have everything they need to throw this bum out on her keester.

The video is simply unbelievable.

Wanna bet she wins reelection?

Well, this is one bet I'm glad to have lost. Justice was done; 54 percent of the voters thought Judge Lewis proved she was unfit to wield a gavel.

Sometimes the goodguys do win.

More background on her here and here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

How'd you know he was a terrorist?

So asks Robert Avrech, a self-described observant Jewish screenwriter, of his friend.

"So, how'd you know he was a terrorist?"

"I didn't. I mean I knew him. He worked here in Efrat. For years."

"So what made you think he was suddenly dangerous?"

I'm in shul with Karen's brother David. We've just finished davening Ma'ariv. I've run into an old buddy of mine from Bensonhurst. We went to yeshiva high school together and have not seen each other in years. But Larry, not his real name, is well known -- for a few years ago he shot down a terrorist here in Efrat. Larry is no John Wayne. He's middle-aged, has an infectious smile, wears a yarmulke. Larry is ... a regular guy from Brooklyn.

"Look," say Larry, " he was an Arab worker, we got along just fine. But the day I saw him wasn't one of the days he was supposed to be here. Also he was heading into the neighborhood supermarket, a place he never ever went into. Plus he was wearing an overcoat on a very hot day. It was all wrong."

"What did you do?"

"I was outside when I spotted him. I followed him inside and I looked at his face and he looked, I don't know, all drugged up."

"How did you know you weren't shooting an innocent man?"

"He sizzled."

"Excuse me?"

"He tried to self-detonate. There was a malfunction. I saw smoke. I didn't want to take a chance on there being a second trigger. We were in a supermarket. Women and children all around. I drew and and shot him in the chest."

"Shot him dead?"

Larry shrugs and half smiles: "Hey, us Bensonhurst kids had to grow up tough, right?"

"I guess."

Larry and I make plans to get together again. He lives a few blocks away from David. As he walks away, a night breeze kicks his jacket aside and there's his Glock, sitting in a Fobus speed holster. I think to myself: This is Dodge City. Thank G-d for my buddy from Bensonhurst and others like him; valiant citizen soldiers ready and willing to strike at the genocidal jihadists who are living within our gates.

That's the reality of life in Israel; unrelenting hatred manifesting itself in an desire to kill men, women and children, even though they may know and trust their would-be murderers.

I like the imagery, of Brooklyn-born gunslingers walking the streets of this Middle-Eastern Wild-Wild-West, ready to defend the innocent bystanders from the bad men who come to town, seeking to sow their wild oats with C-4 and shrapnel.

The only Jews I've known who aren't allergic to guns are Israelis, for whom an armed citizenry are the first responders, the only ones in a position to stop the bomber before he can begin the killing.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Can't carry a tune in a bucket

Want to find out if you're tone deaf? This site, put together by a medical student who worked at the neurology lab at Beth Israel/Harvard Medical School, claims to test your ability to differentiate between different notes or pitch, with scientific certainty.

According to Jake Mandell, "Excellent" musicians rarely score above 80 percent. I only managed 61 percent, but the test doesn't allow you to repeat the musical phrases, so you only get one chance to hear the A/B comparison, putting me into the possible "memory deficit" category, a distinct possibility, as anyone who knows me will tell you.

The only possible problem I can see (or hear) with the program is the inability to repeat the musical phrases, resulting in only one opportunity to hear the A/B comparison --

What?

You already said that.

I did?

Yes.

When?

In the preceding paragraph.

Oh, er, yes.

Ahem.

Give it a whirl; it's painless, interesting, and, if you're anything like me, you'll forget all about it, so you can do it again -- for the first time.

Sigh.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:39 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 21, 2006

Murder in the streets

Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey has a photo update on the reaction of Lebanese Christians to the assassination of Pierre Gamayel, the anti-Syrian minister of industry.

Sandmonkey's take on the assassination -- with numerous updates -- paints a grim picture for the region, with the Lebanese and Israel the main victims of Syria's deadly machinations, as Hezbollah comes closer to taking over an entire nation.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The real Great Santini

Pat Conroy graduated from The Citadel in 1967, turning his years at the military academy into several best-selling books, but his most famous novel was The Great Santini (later made into a film starring Robert Duvall), based in part on Conroy's father.

Conroy returned to The Citadel to deliver a graduation address, and the whole thing is worth a read, but the part I liked best was how he described his dad, painting a vivid portrait of the man in a few paragraphs.

My father, 6’3, 230-pound Marine Corps fighter pilot, knuckles dragging along the ground when he walked. When he was dying, I interviewed Dad. I said, "Dad, tell me about what it was like in the war."

He told me about coming off the aircraft carrier Sicily in Korea. His was the first squadron that got there, and they said, "Keep the Koreans north of the Naktong River." So he dove down—the first plane the North Koreans had seen—he dove down toward the enemy. I said, "How did you do, Dad?"

He said, "I did pretty good, son." He said, "I had a good sign—they were running. It’s good when you see the enemy running. There was another good sign, son."

"What’s that, Dad?"

"They were on fire."

That was the man who dandled me on his knee when I was a young boy—the Great Santini. I once introduced my father when I was giving a talk like this, and I said, "My father decided to go in the Marine Corps when he found out that his IQ was the temperature of this room."

My father got up right behind me. He stared down at the audience and he said, "My God, it’s hot in here. . . it must be at least 165 degrees."

Check out the rest of his speech. If you've not blinked away a tear or two by the time you reach the end, you're a heartless bastid.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 20, 2006

Wild Kingdom

I can't think of a better tribute to Steve Irwin than this laugh-out-loud hilarious encounter with the strangest creature the Crocodile Hunter ever met: Ross the Intern.

Pineapple! PINEAPPLE!

Heh.

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

That's not a paintball gun. This is a paintball gun

minigun shooting.jpg


There's a paintball competition during the local corporate games, and the D.A.'s office has a team that usually does quite well. I have a sneaking suspicion I know which colleague is going to be sporting this bad boy the next time he steps onto the hunting playing field.

**Correction**

I've been informed by my sources that the D.A. has a LazerTag team, not paintball.

Mea culpa.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Read a blog, save a mind

Dean Barnett, who blogs on Hugh Hewitt's site, participated in a series of phone conferences with the would-be leaders of the GOP House minority.

During the conversations, Barnett posed a question to each candidate, and the responses were -- and are -- troubling.

As was the case with three previous conference call attendees, I asked Boehner the question. To refresh your memory, I had asked three other congress-people the following:

What books have you read about Islamic terrorism against America and the West?

None of the three were able to name a single book. Boehner followed suit, saying that he had read books on the subject but that he couldn’t give me any names.

Okay, well, at least the congressmen are keeping tabs on the existential threat we face via something other than the MSM, right? Dipping a toe into the World Wide Web, mebbe?

One blogger asked Boehner what blogs he reads. Oddly, given the self regard of the blogging community (a phenomenon that I am hardly immune from), this was the first time anyone had asked any of the representatives such a question.

I thought it was a softball. I figured Boehner would say Powerline and Instapundit and of course the blogs represented on the conference call. Instead, Boehner responded that he doesn’t read blogs, but that he does have a member of his staff who reads them and periodically prepares a digest for him on what the blogs are saying.

The questioner then fired off a follow up: From where does the congressman get his news? Boehner told us that he gets his news mostly from the newspapers.

The newspapers? THE NEWSPAPERS!?

Jeebus, where's my scotch coffee? That means the Republican opposition leader is no better informed than my mother (Sorry, Mom.), who regales me with tidbits of wisdom she receives from the geniuses at the L.A. Times and the network news.

Just the other day, Mom was telling me about the great, impartial news titan Ted Koppel, who appeared on that non-partisan program, "The Daily Show," with Jon Stewart.

Koppel was explaining that George Bush joined the Air National Guard so he wouldn't have to go to Vietnam, and now he's gone to Vietnam so he wouldn't have to go to America.

HARDY-HAR-HAR! Oh, STOP it, will ya? You're KILLING me!

Sigh.

"But Mom," I said, "you do realize that Koppel's repeating a lie."

"What do you mean?"

"When Bush volunteed to fly fighters for the Texas Air National Guard, his unit was sending pilots to Vietnam. Therefore, to claim that he chose a path guaranteed to keep him out of combat is manifestly untrue. And if the joke is predicated on an untruth, then it's funny only to those who find scurrilous personal attacks amusing -- like esteemed members of the Fourth Estate such as Monsieur Koppel."

Needless to say, my comments were received with all the warmth due a fart in church.

During a memorial service.

In the moment after the final, "Amen."

But Barnett points out the greater issue at work here: the appalling ignorance of our political class, and why they don't seem to get it.

WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, Boehner’s series of answers regarding his reading habits and the insight we’ve received regarding other members’ reading habits (or lack thereof) can help us make sense of a lot of things.

One thing most every reader of conservative blogs comprehends is the existential stakes of the current war. People who read blogs are high end gatherers of news. They’re outliers, but in a very good way. They’re people like my friend, Dr. (of medicine, i.e. a real doctor) Andy Bostom who reacted to 9/11 by learning everything he could about Islam. The product of his research was the thorough and seminal book, “The Legacy of Jihad.”

[...]

Now imagine if you didn’t read blogs and didn’t read books. Picture all the things that you know now that you wouldn’t know if you left your news gathering to the tender mercies of the mainstream media’s editorial decisions. You’d probably be unaware of the ghastly fate that awaits 200 French automobiles each evening at the hands of rampaging “youths.” You’d definitely be unaware of the youths’ affiliation with certain religious practices.

If all your news came from newspapers, you wouldn’t understand how numerous, determined and flat-out crazy our enemies are. You wouldn’t know how widespread the phenomenon of Radical Islam is because the New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal don’t report it. Every now and then you would stumble over an editorial or op-ed piece highlighting a particularly pathological incident, but you would have no concept of how massive the problem is.

AND THIS IS WHERE WE CLOSE THE LOOP. I’ve long wondered how our leaders can be so unserious about the fight we’re in given the existential stakes. Now I get it – they just don’t understand the stakes. The newspapers haven’t told them that we’re in a fight for our lives. Lord knows the intelligence agencies don’t get it. And now we know the congressmen themselves take either no or precious little initiative to educate themselves.

[...]

So what to do? If our congressmen have no interest in educating themselves, we must take it upon ourselves to do it for them. For too long our congressmen have been victims of the soft bigotry of low expectations. We’ve allowed them to skate by kissing babies and appearing on Hannity & Colmes without insisting that they actually bring themselves up to speed on the most pressing issue of our day.

So I’m thinking of creating a Congressional-level version of Oprah’s book club. Think of it as Deano’s Book Club. I would like to get a list of three books that absolutely every congressman must read, or at the very least have a staffer read and then explain it to him.

[...]

My vital three books are:

“The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright

“Future Jihad” by Walid Phares; and

“America Alone” by Mark Steyn

Barnett's got it right. If you've got friends and family like mine, who never go online to get their information, those three books might be a good place to start.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 19, 2006

Rules make us rulebreakers

Drachten traffic circle.jpg


According to Der Spiegel, the Dutch town of Drachten has gotten rid of 16 traffic lights and converted the other two to roundabouts (traffic circles).

Leave it to the Germans Dutch to discover that in chaos there is order.

A project implemented by the European Union is currently seeing seven cities and regions clear-cutting their forest of traffic signs. Ejby, in Denmark, is participating in the experiment, as are Ipswich in England and the Belgian town of Ostende.

The utopia has already become a reality in Makkinga, in the Dutch province of Western Frisia. A sign by the entrance to the small town (population 1,000) reads "Verkeersbordvrij" -- "free of traffic signs." Cars bumble unhurriedly over precision-trimmed granite cobblestones. Stop signs and direction signs are nowhere to be seen. There are neither parking meters nor stopping restrictions. There aren't even any lines painted on the streets.

Of course, I wonder how many motorists have been killed trying to sound out "Verkeersborvrij" on the sign as they drove into Makkinga?

There's some interesting psychology at work here, according the the English version of the article from Der Spiegel (which is not the German version of the Spiegel Catalog -- it's so confusing!).

"The many rules strip us of the most important thing: the ability to be considerate. We're losing our capacity for socially responsible behavior," says Dutch traffic guru Hans Monderman, one of the project's co-founders. "The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people's sense of personal responsibility dwindles."

Sounds like the "traffic guru" has been spending too much time in Amsterdam's famed hash bars.

Monderman could be on to something. [Or on something -- Mike] Germany has 648 valid traffic symbols. The inner cities are crowded with a colorful thicket of metal signs. Don't park over here, watch out for passing deer over there, make sure you don't skid. The forest of signs is growing ever denser. Some 20 million traffic signs have already been set up all over the country.

Psychologists have long revealed the senselessness of such exaggerated regulation. About 70 percent of traffic signs are ignored by drivers. What's more, the glut of prohibitions is tantamount to treating the driver like a child and it also foments resentment. He may stop in front of the crosswalk, but that only makes him feel justified in preventing pedestrians from crossing the street on every other occasion. Every traffic light baits him with the promise of making it over the crossing while the light is still yellow.

The result is that drivers find themselves enclosed by a corset of prescriptions, so that they develop a kind of tunnel vision: They're constantly in search of their own advantage, and their good manners go out the window.

The new traffic model's advocates believe the only way out of this vicious circle is to give drivers more liberty and encourage them to take responsibility for themselves. They demand streets like those during the Middle Ages, when horse-drawn chariots, handcarts and people scurried about in a completely unregulated fashion. The new model's proponents envision today's drivers and pedestrians blending into a colorful and peaceful traffic stream.

It may sound like chaos, but it's only the lesson drawn from one of the insights of traffic psychology: Drivers will force the accelerator down ruthlessly only in situations where everything has been fully regulated. Where the situation is unclear, they're forced to drive more carefully and cautiously.

Why do I suspect that the moment all traffic rules are suspended in Germany, traffic will grind to a panic-stricken halt?

I also have a hard time believing that it's the signage that unleashes the inner traffic id; the silent motion pictures of Manhattan street life from the earliest days of the 20th Century reveal that the crazed New York-style of aggressive driving existed when Model Ts and horse and buggies shared Gotham's relatively unregulated cobblestone streets.

It also marks a return to one of the earliest innovations in trafic control: the traffic circle. Before the days of traffic lights, engineers used the round roadways to blend traffic from different directions, cars joining the whirling mass, circling until they found an opening through which a motorist could move onto his intended route.

They're much more common on the East Coast of the United States, where urban planning was more urgent in the early days of the auto. When I got my licence in New Jersey, I had a grand time navigating some white-knuckle traffic circles down Trenton way.

In recent years, more and more of the traffic circles have been eliminated, replaced by computer-controlled and timed traffic lights, but apparently it's back to the future in the old country.

I'm interested in how the experiment turns out, so long as they try it first.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I'll take a pass on Bobby

I've been hearing that the new film, Bobby, is sure to garner a host of Oscar nominations; the flick got a standing ovation at a screening at Cannes, which means something, I'm sure.

The film is about the people who were standing around the night presidential candidate (and presumed nominee) Robert Kennedy was assassinated.

John Podhoretz has a few observations on the film's failure to see the trees for the forest -- a weird take on the event guaranteed to keep folks like me from wasting our shekels on tickets.

Writer-director Emilio Estevez made a mystifying dramatic choice: To tell a story about the RFK assassination that's not about the RFK assassination, but rather about a bunch of extremely dull people who happened to be in the vicinity.

[...]

Kennedy is shown only in contemporary film clips (on two occasions, we are shown the back of Kennedy's head). There's a great deal of talk about how he is certain to be the next president of the United States, and about the great hope he has given to the poor and the meek and the struggling and the black and the white and the brown.

But what's interesting is that the clips we're shown, which are intended to display RFK as a secular saint, reveal only that he was exactly the same sort of politician we just saw in the hundreds across the country during the recent election season.

He's shown talking to children in awkward terms about the environment, using the "despair" of Americans in the industrial belt as a backdrop for a picturesque campaign appearance, expressing sorrow over the racial divide, and criticizing an unpopular war.

The only surprising element is that, speaking extemporaneously, it appears his grammar was poor enough to make George W. Bush seem like Strunk, or maybe even White.

Thus, if you don't come to the theater already disposed to believe Bobby Kennedy was destined to convert this troubled country into a utopia of egalitarian brotherhood, you may find it difficult to understand the reverential sentimentality with which the movie's characters discuss RFK.

Or why so many liberals have felt for the past 38 years that the killing of Robert F. Kennedy was the hinge moment in history that set America on the course to an evil conservative future.

It's not just the bad grammar that's Bush-like; every word out of Kennedy's mouth sounds like nothing so much as "compassionate conservatism."

[...]

The movie ends with a scene of the carnage in the kitchen of the Ambassador where Kennedy was shot, along with those five bystanders. (None of the characters shot in the movie is based on a real-life victim.) The only sound we hear is a gorgeously eloquent Kennedy speech bemoaning the violence in America and how terrible it is that we commit violence against each other. Kennedy, the movie is saying, was such a prophet that he prophesied his own death.

Only that's not the story of his death. Kennedy was not killed in a random act of American-on-American violence. Sirhan Sirhan is a Palestinian, and the assassination was an overtly political act -- Sirhan's own contemporaneous diary entries demonstrate he wanted Kennedy dead because he thought RFK was too friendly to Israel. The Kennedy assassination was the first act of Arab terrorism on American soil.

I find it fascinating that the martyred heroes of their political party, the Brothers Kennedy, have more in common with Pres. Bush than they do with the current leadership of the Dems. Whether its Bobby's garbled syntax or JFK's muscular foreign policy, it's hard to imagine either being easily distinguishable from the current occupant of the White House.

Although JFK did seem much more comfortable in his own skin, perhaps a result of the ministrations of his personal physician.

Perhaps the most telling part of Podhoretz's review is in the final paragraph. Americans of all political parties have long forgotten that an Arab killed the presidential frontrunner because he was too closely aligned with the Jews, too pro-Israel.

The aftermath of the Kennedy assassination ver. 1.2 was the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the quick disappearance of his Arab assassin down the memory hole. Why do I suspect Bobby Kennedy's not the last American pol to end up in the sights of a Middle-Eastern killer, and that the aftermath the next time 'round will be more ... dramatic?

Hollywood will be hard pressed to miss the terror angle again, but I'm sure they'll figure out a way to make it about the victim(s) and not the killer: Why do they hate us so? Why do they hate U.S. so?

Posted by Mike Lief at 04:06 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 18, 2006

Tributes to Western stupidity and self-loathing elites

Mark Steyn turns his poison pen to the latest examples of rot at the core of British -- and American -- politically correct, multi-culti mumbo-jumbo.

A year ago, London’s Mayor “Red Ken” Livingstone unveiled a new statue on the famous “empty plinth” in Trafalgar Square. Sharing the heart of the capital with King George IV, General Sir Charles Napier and Major General Sir Henry Havelock these days is Alison Lapper, an armless woman heavily pregnant.

At the unveiling, Miss Lapper said the new statue would force Britons to “confront their prejudices” about disability.

As my old editor, Charles Moore, pointed out, Trafalgar Square already has a monument to persons who’ve overcome disability: the one-eyed one-armed Admiral Lord Nelson standing on his column and no doubt bemused by the modish posturing below.

... So the point of the fourth plinth was to send a message that warmongering white males no longer had the Square to themselves: the statue of Miss Lapper is a monument not to disability so much as to the psychological self-crippling to which so many Britons are prone.

Another monument: the Arizona 9/11 Memorial. It is a remarkable sight. Five years after the slaughter of thousands of Americans, one had long ago given up all hope that the nation might rouse itself to erect, as James Lileks put it at National Review Online, “a classical memorial in the plaza with allegorical figures representing Sorrow and Resolve, and a fountain watched over by stern stone eagles”.

But, even so, the Arizona memorial is an almost parodic exercise in civilizational self-loathing, festooned in slogans that read like a brainstorming session for a Daily Kos publicity campaign:

“You don’t win battles of terrorism with more battles.”

“Foreign-born Americans afraid.”

“Erroneous US airstrike kills 46 Uruzgan civilians.”

And this is the official state memorial. Governor Napolitano called it “great” and “honorable”. It isn’t. It’s small and contemptible.

Assuming it survives, future generations will stand before it and marvel – either that the United States is still around or that such an obviously deranged country even needed an enemy to lose to.

It's astonishing that the men who saved the world from Hitler gave birth to the current generation of simpering we-are-the-world weak-willed sob sisters who are ashamed to accept the moral superiority of the West -- and would deny the importance of self-defense, the most universal of human rights, whether it be for an individual or a nation.

It is to laugh.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

India sounds like old-school America

Another dispatch from India, via Kim Du Toit.

Saw a billboard with a recruiting poster for the Indian Air Force the other day.

I have to hand it to them: none of this crap about being all you can be, and all that other touchy-feely nonsense.

I can’t find the actual picture, but here’s my impression, along with the actual payoff line:

Join The Air Force: Be a Warrior

It's funny how Americans have a distorted view of Indians: we think of them as dorky scientists, CPAs and engineers. But the reality is they have a strong martial culture, a long history of brave and successful warrior heroes, and they now appear to be the true inheritors of the once proud American and British tradition of lauding courage, bravery and military prowess.

From the comments to Kim's post:

That is why USMC recruiting is the most successful in the U.S. Their message is “we will kick the crap out of you continuously for 3 months, if you make it, you will have earned the right to join one of the most elite band of warriors in the world.” And, once you join the Fleet, we’ll send you to every ... corner of the Earth where people need to be killed.

No career skills BS or college benefits - [the] Corps give far less of that stuff than the other services.

It worked for me and the day I graduated from Parris Island was my proudest.

The Marines have always been the branch most resistant to putting lipstick on the pig and trying to obscure their reason for being: to break things and kill people.

Semper Fi, Mac!

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 15, 2006

Judge schools cops

Ninth Circus Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Kozinski delivers an uppercut to some Tacoma cops -- and a message to law enforcement reinforcing for the cop on the beat what the Fourth Amendment is all about.

The judge grabs you from the first sentence, and by the time he ends that opening paragraph, you know that things are going to end badly for the Reno 911! wannabes.

The facts are remarkable.

Plaintiff, Susan Frunz, and her two guests were in Frunz’s home in Tacoma, Washington, when police surrounded the house, broke down the back door and entered.

The police had no warrant and had not announced their presence. Frunz first became aware of them when an officer accosted her in the kitchen and pointed his gun, bringing the barrel within two inches of her forehead.

The police ordered or slammed the occupants to the floor and cuffed their hands behind their backs—Frunz for about an hour, until she proved to their satisfaction that she owned the house, at which time they said “never mind” and left.

Koszinski is no ACLU sycophant, and the underlying case, wherein a jury awarded punitive damages for the cops violating the homeowner's civil rights, is outrageous.

The discussion in the Volokh Conspiracy's comment section shifts back and forth between backers of the supression of evidence as a means of discouraging police misconduct, and reformers who favor eliminating that remedy and replacing it with civil actions against the cops.

The best argument in favor of throwing the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine on the compost heap is that it punishes the public by freeing criminals who are guilty of the crimes, while doing little to discourage the police misconduct which it purports to target.

Let those who are innocent of crimes against society bring suit against the cops -- like the plaintiff in this case -- and we'll see justice served, without giving Joe Dirtbag a free get-out-of-jail pass.

The other thing that is noteworthy in the discussion arising from this decision is the obsession lawyers have with format, process, i.e., sweating the small stuff that doesn't matter.

There are at least a dozen comments focusing on the failure of Kozinski to underline the "v." in Frunz v. Tacoma, et. al., as well as complaints that the opinion is too unlawyerly -- too easy to read.

Seriously.

I tell jurors that they get to decide cases because, unlike the attorneys or the judge, they didn't have every last ounce of common sense beaten out of them during law school.

The debate over underlining highlights my point.

I'm with those who say that Kozinski was writing for a particular audience: city attorneys and cops. Word of this decision will quickly spread, and the sixteen-page opinion will be widely posted on bulletin boards in briefing rooms throughout the 9th Circuit.

And you won't have to be a lawyer to understand what the judge is saying.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Hillary Care may leave her candidacy DOA

Did you hear? Hillary Clinton thinks the time is ripe to tackle the pressing issue of the age: the U.S. has better health care than the rest of the world, where socialized medicine ensures that everyone receives equally crappy care.

She ... said Democrats would focus on improving the quality and affordability of health care - a touchy matter for the former first lady, who in 1993 led her husband's calamitous attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system. The failure of that effort helped Republicans win control of both the Senate and House the following year.

"Health care is coming back,'' Clinton warned, adding, "It may be a bad dream for some.''

Jane Galt casts a skeptical gaze on the specter of Hillary Care universal health care; it sounds like Clinton may be ready to fix what ain't broke -- and in the process ruin her shot at the White House.

There are some serious constraints that I think would have to be considered by anyone trying to design a national health care package:

1) It cannot provide less, or less rapid, coverage than the typical American policy does now. Over three quarters of Americans are happy as clams with their health care now; to the extent that they support national health care, it is because they fear losing what they have.

Nationalisers, therefore, cannot sell a programme by guaranteeing them that they will lose some of what they have now. Horror stories aside, most Americans, despite their copays, have much more lavish coverage than that available elsewhere, with unfettered access to their doctors, semiprivate hospital rooms, expensive machines around every corner, and so forth.

In what other country would my eighty-eight year old grandmother have had her hip replaced two weeks after the doctor decided it was time? That two weeks being the period needed for my mother to arrange her schedule so she could take care of Mom.

That is the baseline of care, not whatever is currently on offer in France, no matter how fond the French may be of their system. Countries with national systems set them up a long time ago, when the median voter had no insurance at all, so whatever crap the government gave you was an improvement.

[...]

3) It cannot ration end-of-life care. The AARP is the most powerful lobby in America.

Anyone who thinks that a nationalised system will ration all those dollars poured down the drain in the last few months of life is engaging in fantasy -- a particularly ludicrous and risible fantasy because we already have nationalised health care for end-of-life care RIGHT NOW and we're spending like eighty shrillion dollars on it.

4) It will not cover immigrants, at least not until they are citizens. That means at least 12 million people will remain uninsured. It also means that emergency room usage will remain high, since that is where illegal immigrants tend to get their health care. Not that this really matters.

It doesn't seem to me that emergency room care for routine ailments is actually more expensive to provide than clinical care; it's just that hospitals price it to cover the cost of dead, uninsured trauma patients and so forth.

I don't see how a triage nurse, a doctor, and a waiting room are more expensive to provide because they're on the first floor than they would be on the fifth. But perhaps I'm missing something there.

No, Jane, I don't think you're missing a thing. There's nothing wrong with our healthcare system that Clinton can't make worse.

The comments following her post are chock-full o' heated debate; jump in -- the water's hot.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 14, 2006

For want of a nail HurriQuake

product_75.jpg


Popular Science has released their list of the most significant technological developments of the year, and I'm impressed with the low-tech ingenuity of their grand-prize winner, designed to take on earthquakes and hurricanes -- and kick Mother Nature's butt.

Bostitch engineer Ed Sutt has dedicated his career to designing a better nail. The result is the HurriQuake, and it has the perfect combination of features to withstand nature’s darker moods.

The bottom section is circled with angled barbs that resist pulling out in wind gusts up to 170 mph. This “ring shank” stops halfway up to leave the middle of the nail, which endures the most punishment during an earthquake, at its maximum thickness and strength.

The blade-like facets of the nail’s twisted top—the spiral shank—keep planks from wobbling, which weakens a joint. And the HurriQuake’s head is 25 percent larger than average to better resist counter-sinking and pulling through.

The best part: It costs only about $15 more to build a house using HurriQuakes. $45 per 4,000.

I can't wait to see what they've got in store for for the mousetrap.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Going home

Neo-Neocon has written a moving account of her mother's desire to spend the end of her days with the dwindling number of people she knew in her hometown.

It's a deeply-felt meditation on the passage of time, the lost world that now exists only in our parents' memories, and the struggle to define what -- and where -- is home, for mother and daughter.

My mother's going home. What can "home" mean, at the age of nearly nine-three?

Not the home where she grew up as the only child surrounded by four adults, the large Victorian by the harbor with the rose garden that her grandfather lovingly tended. They dressed every evening for dinner there; he wore spats on his shoes and a carnation in his buttonhole.

Not the home she lived in for forty years while she raised her children and had parties where thirty sharply-dressed couples danced in the basement, and where she was widowed still young enough to be vigorous and healthy.

Not the apartment where she lived for eight happy years with my stepfather, whom she'd met when she was eighty and he eighty-five. He'd taken one look at her at a Florida get-together and said, "That's for me," and they were together till shortly before he died a few weeks after 9/11.

Nor is it the home she's lived in for the last five years, an independent living facility for the elderly in this northern New England town where I reside. It's far away from the New York City borough where her family settled a hundred and sixty years ago, and where she'd lived her whole life prior to coming here. No, this place has never been--could never be--home to her, despite its familiarity and elegant comfort.

This town isn't even home to me, although I thought it might become one when I moved here six years ago during one of those "times of transition" (translated: upheaval and heartbreak) in life. I thought it would most likely be a resting place for some small time before I'd move on. But instead my stepfather died, my mother couldn't live alone, and there was no place that suited her needs close to home.

[...]

And I? It may be time for me to move on, as well. If she hadn't been here, tying me to this place, I might have moved years ago. Probably to a larger city, one with more action and more choices--or the illusion of more action and more choices. Soon I'll be writing more about this, and maybe have some sort of contest, with a list of desired characteristics: choose the perfect city for neo.

But that's another post for another time. Right now I'm thinking about my mother, hoping she finds what she's looking for in her new place--if she doesn't, I imagine I'll hear about it soon enough.

But in one way she's blessed: she knows where home is. How many of us can say that, any more?

In the comments, one of Neo's readers thinks he knows where she'd feel at home:

The stars at night,

are big and bright,

CLAP-CLAP-CLAP-CLAP

Deeeeep in the heart,

Of Texas!

I was paraphrasing. Here's what he had to say.

As a former Michiganian (a native of the liberal haven of Ann Arbor) in my fifties, let me make a recommendation about relocation. If you are unafraid of driving, come to Texas. It is a marvelous place for people unafraid to work.

You can have your choices of lifestyles, too -- from the business oriented (Dallas), blue-collar (the Upper Gulf Coast); rural (Piney Woods), hippy-dippy artiste (Austin), or Tex-Mex (San Antonio).

You can't beat the seafood on the Gulf Coast, and you will find it a hoot being more liberal than your neighbors, rather than the only conservative on your block.

And, btw -- despite what you hear in the Northeast, Texans are probably the most laid-back people in the world about lifestyles. As long as you don't shove it in their faces, they are live and let live.

Sounds good to me. I wouldn't mind leaving the Left Coast behind for the friendlier environs of the Lonestar State.

Don't forget to read the rest of her post.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

American heroes don't deserve coverage

Jason Dunham 2.jpg


At least not in the opinion of editors and writers at the nation's most prestigious newspaper.

I noted that Pres. Bush had paid tribute to a Marine who threw himself on a grenade, saving his comrades in Iraq; Cpl. Jason Dunham was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Dunham, a resident of New York, has received scant notice in the newspaper; heroism isn't what the MSM is pushing at the most prestigious broadsheet in the U.S.

But the New York Post has put the wood to the paper of record, slamming the New York Times for it's reluctance to note the sacrifice -- and heroism -- of a local son.

The nation's highest honor for combat valor was awarded posthumously to a U.S. Marine from upstate New York on Friday - and The New York Times didn't notice.

It was a shameful act of neglect, though not surprising in the least.

"As long as we have Marines like Cpl. [Jason] Dunham, America will never fear for her liberty," a clearly moved President Bush said at the dedication of the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Va.

It was only the second MOH awarded in the Iraq war, and it was major news everywhere - especially in New York.

But . . . not a word in the Times.

In April 2004, Dunham saved the lives of several fellow Marines - at the cost of his own - when he threw first his helmet, and then his body, over a live hand grenade tossed by a terrorist.
Dunham died of his wounds eight days later, at age 22.

This was Dunham's second tour in Iraq. After the first hitch, he could have left the corps and returned to Scio, some 80 miles from Buffalo. Instead, he chose to re-up, saying he wanted to "make sure everyone comes home alive."

The Times wasn't completely unaware of Dunham's self-sacrifice. In August 2005, it ran a brief review of "The Gift of Valor," by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael M. Phillips, which chronicled the heroism of Dunham and his battalion; the article called his sacrifice "extraordinary."

So why not acknowledge that heroism when the entire nation - led by its commander-in-chief - paid tribute to Dunham and the Marine Corps?

The Times wasn't talking yesterday, so let us hazard a guess.

Perhaps, to the Times, Jason Dunham was just another dead Marine - a victim, a statistic, another young life "wasted" in the battle for Iraq.

Or perhaps a heroic Marine doesn't fit in with the paper's notion of U.S. soldiers in Iraq? Selfless sacrifice is ennobling, and taking notice of it might lend nobility to the larger enterprise - and that certainly wouldn't be fit to print.

From the beginning, in fact, virtually nothing positive about the Iraq war has found its way into the Times - but, again, why take it out on the troops?

Ignoring the nation's tribute to Jason Dunham was a profound insult to those gallant men and women who daily risk their lives in America's service.

Cpl. Dunham deserved better.

The Marine Corps deserves better.

America deserves better.

For shame.

The problem is, the America-haters at the Times are shameless, have no honor, and cannot pay tribute to heroes who fight and die for us.

When it comes to the editors and reporters at the New York Times, stories about "heroes" like Cindy Sheehan and Rachel Corrie are the only news that's fit to print.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 13, 2006

Queen of the Moonbats update

An eyewitness reports on Cindy Sheehan's embryonic superpowers, as well as her latest contribution to the moonbat lexicon.

Cindy said that she not only wants to see George Bush impeached but she wants to see him tried for Crimes Against Humanity.

She states [she] is so determined to see this done she says she will live for 1000 years. She went further by saying that even if she were involved in a fiery plane crash she would walk out alive just to see this done.

Kristinn yelled out to her as she was leaving the stage that the Iraqis have a memorial to the victims of terrorism saying that Freedom Isn’t Free. Cindy got back on the stage to say of course freedom is free, if it wasn’t it would be called expensivedom.

Words fail me.

Okay, they don't. Sheehan has apparently picked her favorite superhero from the NBC series Heroes; she's the Cheerleader.

Put down the pom-poms and for the love of Pete, stop highkicking in that short skirt, will ya lady?

Via Little Green Footballs.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

India will kill us -- economically, that is

Kim Du Toit has left Texas and is blogging as he makes his way 'round the world. Today he follows up on a previous dispatch from the exotic East, with a report on the nation that is truly an economic tiger, although most Americans think of it as being a rancid, festering sore of poverty-stricken would-be handout recipients.

India’s GDP is set to reach, and maintain, about 8% per annum. If Bangalore is in any way representative of the country (and it may not be), that goal is laughably modest.

This is a city which works—and I don’t mean in terms of its infrastructure, on which I’ve passed scathing comment earlier. The city works despite its infrastructure. The sheer amount of industry, in the human sense of the word, is awe-inspiring. Just outside the city limits, for example, we passed what looked like a five-acre area of open mud pits, with about a hundred guys swarming around in the mud. My rough guess is that they produce, by hand, enough clay to make about a thousand bricks a day. Ten bricks per man. Bricks are unbelievably cheap. Somehow, that ten bricks per man-day still produces enough income for a man to feed himself and his family.

[...]

Here’s the thing: everyone works really, really hard. Construction workers (more of whom later) start work at dawn, and will work until 10pm at night—no hard hats, no protective boots, no OSHA—and move materials which would tax a crane, nonstop. Even the old ladies work. See those flower garlands?

Those are everywhere: people wear them around their necks, drape them over their cars and on the front of buses and trucks, hang them in their rooms and offices. They are all made of fresh flowers, threaded by hand each day by tens of thousands of old ladies. Cost: 7 rupees (about 16 cents).

Somehow, in that 16-cent item, there is enough profit for the growers, the merchandisers who bring them into the city each day, the old ladies who turn the flowers into garlands, and the merchants who sell the garlands from their stalls. And on this particular street, there must have been fifty stalls selling garlands.

Ditto fruits and vegetables, which are everywhere ... and which are brought to market by a sophisticated delivery system: Yeah, that’s a handcart—pushed by a 17-year-old boy each day from the warehouse to the stall.

The industry, therefore, is of an ant-like nature: millions of people moving grains of sand around in some kind of Brownian motion, until everyone gets fed, flowered or whatever.

And it seems to work. There is no way that a Wal-Mart delivery truck would make it through Bangalore’s traffic, which is likewise ant-like (millions of taxi-scooters, mopeds, motorcycles, cars and buses):

The kind of large-scale logistics system which is so common in America just won’t work in India—and frankly, I’m not sure it’s needed.

Because here’s the big, dark secret: in a land where labor is cheap (no minimum wage), plentiful and willing (more on that, another time), there’s not only no need for labor-saving devices and systems, but such devices and systems would be counterproductive in that millions of people would be denied the opportunity to make a living—even though, by Western standards, the pittance earned would not be called a “living wage”.

And this strange, backward society is going to take us by the throat and kill us. In my next piece in the series, we’ll examine why we’ve told the kids never to become software programmers or get involved in any knowledge-based activity.

[...]

Forget NAFTA—it’s as dead as a dodo. If I had the choice of choosing a cheap Mexican workforce and a cheap Indian one, well, there is no competition.

[...]

This is the future: the U.S. market and know-how coupled with India’s vast labor pool and growing technical expertise.

The best part? They love us. And as long as we don’t screw it up, we have it made.

Du Toit's hit on the secret to economic success: a nation of hard working entrepreneurs who want to succeed, not ensure that all boats rise to the same level. Eight percent GDP!

The only thing standing between us and that kind of economic growth is layers of government regulation and tax policies acting as a brake.

Oh, well, yes, there is that bit about our sloth, but we are positively Bangalorian when compared to our Socialized, cradle-to-grave coddled European competitors.

So, it's all looking good. So long as the Islamic nutters don't nuke us all back to the 7th century.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:54 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 12, 2006

Quality is job #1 -- in Japan

For those fans of Detroit iron who keep urging guys like me to give the domestic automakers a second choice, Joe Sherlock has an effective response.

Still On The Wrong List: An article in the Detroit News proclaims that "American brands' reliability gradually closing in on Japan" but the Consumer Reports data cited indicate that the Most Reliable List includes 3 Acura models, 8 Hondas, 5 Lexi, 3 Subarus and 15 (!!) Toyota models. Overall, 39 of the 47 vehicles with the highest predicted reliability scores were Japanese.

On the Least Reliable List were 2 Cadillac models, 4 Chevrolets, 3 Fords, 3 Volkswagens and 7 (!!) Mercedes models.

It must be especially galling to the once vaunted German engineers that they're in such -- ahem -- esteemed company.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Why does KABC-7 have to be so annoying?

Why do local news affiliates feel like they have to sell themselves as the viewers' best friends?

KABC-7, the Los Angeles station, just ran an ad featuring the anchors, the sports guy and the weatherman all hanging out in a unsuspecting couple's house.

Everywhere the bewildered husband turns, he finds grinning, blow-dried, teleprompter-reading twinkies grinning at him with dazzling enamel-veneered smiles.

Gadzooks!

The only thing I want from my local news (on the rare occasions when I actually want to watch local news) is to get a quick rundown on the happenings in my neck of the woods in the least annoying manner possible.

KABC fails that test with this ad alone.

**UPDATE**

The wife tells me they're all the sportsguys.

Ahem.

Whatever.

Still annoying.

**FURTHER UPDATE**

I knew that "whatever" was going to cost me.

Sigh.

Posted by Mike Lief at 04:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Military ditching the new for the old

Strange news via Strategy Page about the which helicopter will take over ocean-going rescue duties

The U.S. Department of Defense selected the HH-47 as its new sea-air rescue helicopter, and will buy 145 of them. These will replace the current force of rescue helicopters (the HH-60G (a variant of the UH-60 Blackhawk.)

The HH-47 is basically an updated version of the 1960s era CH-47 transport helicopter. The HH-47 had an edge because SOCOM (Special Operations Command) already uses a CH-47 variant, the MH-47, for commando operations.

The 22 ton HH-47s will cost about $69 million each, be all weather and will have the long range needed to be able to fly itself to overseas assignments.

The Blackhawk-based choppers are twenty years newer than the CH-47 design, supposedly providing improved performance and reliability as a result of the advances made possible by more than two decades of R&D.

Even taking into account the upgrades made to the airframe and avionics of the older bird, it's hard to believe that the Blackhawks were still unable to equal the capabilities of their older sibling.

I wonder what's behind this change.

Posted by Mike Lief at 09:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 11, 2006

Companies that give a damn. Or not. Pt. 2

As I've mentioned before, some companies aren't ashamed to be owned, run by, or meant for Americans.

And some corporations apparently are proud of their citizen-of-the-world refusal to take sides.

I previously noted that on the fifth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Google -- the same firm that celebrates Earth Day, Halloween and St. Patrick's Day by adding cute cartoons to its logo -- did nothing to commemorate the day.

On the other hand, Dogpile and Ask.com, picked sides with lump-in-the-throat-worthy modification to their sites (you can see them here).

Well, things haven't changed.

Dogpile has chosen to remember the sacrifices made by military veterans in the unending struggle to preserve our freedoms.


Dogpile Vets Day.jpg


And what has Google done?


Google Vets Day.jpg


Sigh.

What a bunch of losers.

I leave you with a closer look at the Dogpile salute.



Posted by Mike Lief at 11:20 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Remembering the defenders of freedom

JDunham_Kuwait_e_225_150_100.jpg

Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham, who threw himself on a grenade to save his comrades' lives while serving in Iraq, is the first Marine to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor -- the nation's highest award for valor -- since the Vietnam War.


On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the guns fell silent, ending the greatest slaughter the world had ever known. For 21 years it was known as "The Great War" and "The War to End All Wars," until new tyrants forced us to begin numbering our global conflicts. Today, the second war might have been called The Great War Ver. 1.2, but our forefathers settled on World War II.

Today is the day we remember the Americans who sacrificed everything for us. It used to be called Armistice Day, to remember the end of the First World War, but somewhere along the way someone decided to go generic.

I like the old name better, because it reminds us of a specific conflict, and of the men who fought and died in one war. It's why I prefer Lincoln's Birthday and Washington's Birthday to the plainwrap Presidents' Day.

There's nothing wrong with having a generic Veterans' Day -- Hell, no! -- but let's not diminish the opportunity to remember each and every war, so that we may remind ourselves of the lessons to be learned from each conflict.

For those inclined to decorate their Volvos with "War Is Never the Answer" bumperstickers, a reminder: it is because of men far more worthy than you, buried in cemeteries from Normandy to Arlington, that you enjoy the right to be pathetic, ignorant cowards. Had your philosophy prevailed, the Confederacy would still exist (as would slavery); and Hitler's Reich would be celebrating it's seventy-third anniversary in a Jew-free empire.

I salute the fallen, and the men who answered the call, including my father,


Dad RTC sentry_1.jpg


Petty Officer Second Class Gerald Lief, who served at sea in the Korean War; his father,



Cpl. Harry Wiener Lief, Troop E, 3rd Cavalry, USA, who went to France and fought in the War to End All Wars; and my uncle,


Uncle Bern Korea.jpg


Sgt. Bernard Solomon, USMC, who fought at the Frozen Chosin and never forgot his pals who didn't come home. Semper Fi, Mac!

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 09, 2006

Get in line


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November 08, 2006

Gambling killed the GOP's hold on the Senate

A colleague e-mailed me this morning, asking if I was alive in the aftermath of the mid-term thumping.

I reassured him that I was fine, and we had a brief exchange about the election.

He focused on the GOP-sponsored ban on internet gaming, an act of legislative busybody-ism that drove him -- a dedicated high-roller -- into paroxysms of anger.

Although not much of a gambler myself (my idea of high stakes is trying the "Chef's Special" at the burrito stand down on the Avenue), I also thought the web-based ban on gambling was ill advised on many levels.

I've never understood why we think it's okay for the State to encourage gambling, via the lottery; to allow gambling on Indian reservations; but to criminalize the local betting pool on football games or shut down the virtual casinos.

Given that the GOP-controlled Congress accomplished little, that they decided to propose and pass this legislation despite no groundswell of support left me -- and many other conservatives -- aghast.

In a conversation with another colleague, I proposed that this bill alone might have meant the difference between the GOP holding the Senate and the Dems taking control. He expressed disbelief, finding it risible that such a trivial -- and in his opinion, necessary -- law could so enrage enough conservatives or libertarian voters that they'd abandon the GOP.

I suggested that for classical conservatives like me, the idea of blue-nosed busybodies prohibiting yet another victimless "crime" was more proof that the party of Reagan had lost its way.

As it turns out, I was more right than I knew. In the hours following the news that the Senate had shifted to the Dems following the loss of Montana and Virginia, came this from the folks at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Did anyone else notice that the Libertarian Party in Montana (Stan Jones, who received 3%) provided far more than the margin of victory between [Democrat] Tester and [Republican] Burns? Assuming that the LP candidate drew more from Burns than Tester, this means that the LP essentially played a kingmaker role in creating a Democratic Senate.

Do you think those libertarians might have voted for Burns if the Congress hadn't voted to ban behavior by consenting adults in the privacy of their homes? And if they had voted for the Republican candidate, the Senate would be 50-50, with Vice President Cheney the tie-breaking vote.

That was one expensive anti-gambling bill.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

And then depression set in


Posted by Mike Lief at 07:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 07, 2006

Praying on election day

IMG_8741aa.jpg


Bogie offered a prayer to the palindromatic dog god, promising to donate his favorite boney-bone to charity if only the Democrats failed to win control of Congress.

I've got no chew toys to offer up; all I can do is urge you to get off your keester and vote, dammit! It doesn't matter who the candidate is; a vote for a Donk is a vote for Pelosi, Kennedy, Kerry and Rangel leading Congress while our enemies redouble their efforts to destroy us.

And if that's not enough, Democratic control of the Senate means more federal judges finding new constitutional protections for terrorists.

Look, the GOP has been a disappointment in many respects, but when it comes to defending the nation from terrorists -- if not illegal aliens -- they're the only game in town.

Posted by Mike Lief at 12:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 06, 2006

Deconstructing the idiocy of the Left

Bill Whittle has returned to the keyboard, posting a terrific essay delving into all varieties of stupidity common amongst the ranks of the moonbats. He points out just how prevalent the logic deficit has become.

Today, it seems that legions of people – growing legions – are falling victims to ideas and beliefs that on the face of it are patently false … things that are so clearly and obviously nuts that you really have to wonder what deep, mighty engine of emotional need could possibly drive a brain so deep into a hole.

Seriously now, there are millions and millions of people on this planet who will torture logic and reason to mind-bending extremes in order to believe monumentally ridiculous “theories” … theories drawn from an emotional need so warped and debased that you are catapulted beyond anger and disbelief directly into pathos and the desire to call 911 before these people hurt themselves.

Isn't that well put? It gets better.

I particularly enjoyed his dissection of the bumpersticker set -- particularly the "George Bush is an idiot" variety. Whittle, a pilot, approaches this one by reminding us that Pres. Bush flew fighter jets for the military.

There were some minor aerodynamic problems with the F-102. For example, at certain power settings and angles of attack – like, say, take-off -- the jet compressor would stall and the aircraft would roll inverted.

It is no picnic, skill-wise, to fly a modern F-16 with advanced avionics and fly-by-wire flight control systems. The workload on the F-102 was far higher. The F-16 has an accident rate of 4.14 occurrences per 100,000 flight hours. The F-102’s accident rate was more than three times that: 13.69 per 100,000 hours. 875 F-102A interceptors were built; 259 – almost 30% -- were lost to accidents or enemy action while serving in Vietnam.

George W. Bush flew hundreds of hours in the F-102.

[...]

Now, picture yourself ... at 40,000 feet, traveling at one and a half times the speed of sound. Now imagine that someone has painted the windows white – you are flying on instruments. Now imagine that not only do you have to be able to fly blind, by referencing these instruments, but that you also have to stare into that orange jack-o-lantern of a radar, and interpret a squiggle that will lead you to your target.

Now imagine that in addition to not hitting the ground, or your wingman, and watching the squiggle, you also have to turn those switches on the right side panel to activate weapons systems, to overcome enemy countermeasures…without looking outside, as you hurtle through air at -40 degrees F, air so thin that should you lose pressure, you have about 4-6 seconds of consciousness before you black out and die.

I maintain that the instant George W. Bush closed that canopy and took off on the first of his many solo hours in an F-102, it is quite impossible that he was either an idiot or a coward.

[...]

People like Michael Moore and Bill Maher and Keith Olberman would not be able to figure out how to close the canopy on an F-102. These people would be weeping with fear when those afterburners light up and you barrel down that runway hoping that engine doesn’t flame out and roll you inverted into the asphalt, or when you’re rocketing through the soup at 300mph watching two little needles chase each other, praying the next thing you see out the window is a runway and not a mountain goat.

George W. Bush is not stupid. It’s not possible to be a moron and fly a supersonic jet fighter, and everyone knows it.

What George W. Bush is, however, is inarticulate. English is his second language. From what I can see he does not have a first language. Abraham Lincoln spoke in simple frontier language in an age of rhetorical flourish. Like Bush, he was considered a bumpkin and an idiot, and like Bush, he realized that there were times when having people misunderestimate you repeatedly was a real advantage. That’s goal-oriented. That’s playing the deep game. That’s cunning.

It's a lengthy read, but chock-full of sound logic wrapped in good writing. Do your brain a favor and read the whole thing.

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Mission San Luis Obispo wedding

We attended the wedding of our good friends Katy and Howard this past weekend. The ceremony was in the old Mission San Luis Obispo, a church dating back to the 1770s, and it was a beautiful setting for such a joyous occasion.

It was my first visit to the Mission, and I enjoyed the cool, quiet feeling in the pews as I sat waiting for the other guests to arrive. I like old churches, how they strive to inspire, to uplift, with wood, stucco and stone, so different from the ironically soulless nature of modern architecture and the steel and glass monstrosities masquerading as houses of worship.

Anyhow, back to the wedding.


The bride and her father were silhouetted against the ancient oaks in the courtyard as they entered the church.



Katy was radiant, beaming, beautiful, as all brides should be, as she made her way down the aisle.



The service was quite brief, a surprise to me, as most Catholic services I've attended have been lengthy affairs. But it was both solemn and joy-filled, and the happiness of the couple was plain to see, writ large on their faces.



A kiss, and it's official. The newly-married couple left the church in her father's 1927 Rolls Royce, a stunningly classy ride, as they were chauffeured to the reception.



We stood and drank on the terrace while the bride and groom took pictures as sunset gracefully yielded to twilight.



Didja ever see such a happy bride? Katy stands about 6'2" in her heels, and she's the shortest of the children in her family. Her four brothers all range from 6'2" to about 6'5", and then there are her cousins, who top out at 6'7".

I'm 5'7", and the missus is 5' even, so, basically, we were hanging out with a basketball team.

I felt like a Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings.

A short, neurotic Jewish Hobbit.

Posted by Mike Lief at 05:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Would Blair kill Hitler?

I wonder if there's any crime, any depravity that would justify the death penalty in the eyes of Western liberals.

My curiosity is piqued by this report out of Britain.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday he opposed the death penalty for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein but that his trial had reminded the world of the deposed leader's brutality.

Asked about Saddam's sentence at his monthly press conference, Blair noted that Britain opposed the death penalty, "whether it's Saddam or anyone else." But he said the trial "gives us a chance to see again what the past in Iraq was, the brutality, the tyranny, the hundreds of thousands of people he killed, the wars."

Couple of things. First, note Blair's substitution of his opinion for that of his fellow Brits; in the finest tradition of monarchs, "l'etat, c'est moi!"

The article notes that, according to the prime minister, "Britain opposes the death penalty, 'whether it's Saddam or anyone else.' "

Really? Britain opposes the noose for Saddam and all other mass murderers? Would John Bull decry the execution of Adolf Hitler?

I have a hard time believing that the average Englishman "opposes the death penalty for Saddam or anyone else."

But setting aside for the moment Blair's egomaniacal tendencies, how can liberals be so doctrinaire when it comes to capital punishment? We're not talking about the hypothetical member of the underclass, led to the death chamber after a lifetime of oppression under the jackboot of the ruling class.

Nor are we discussing a man wrongfully accused, betrayed by a corrupt legal system.

The issue before us is the punishment of monsters most foul, of evil incarnate, of men who have killed and ordered others to kill countless innocents in pursuit of power, treasure, and conquest, usually with unimaginable cruelty.

These men inspire their followers to commit terrible crimes, even when imprisoned, and their baneful influence is dispelled only when they have been executed, their bones crushed, their ashes scattered in some anonymous location, denying their minions the benefit of a shrine at which they may worship.

But, in the pursuit of absolute consistency, men like Tony Blair refuse to moderate their opposition to capital punishment, deny the need for free nations to rid the world of genocidal dictators, and instead pride themselves on their staunch adherence to an internal moral compass unmoved by the Magnetic North of justice, a justice that demands that millions shall not rot in their graves whilst the killers continue to rant and rave, to inspire more madness, death and destruction while tenderly cared for by the wardens of the West, fed, clothed, medicated and counseled by the finest diseased minds the Left can provide them (Ramsey Clark, anyone?).

To answer my question, no, Tony Blair wouldn't kill Hitler, and that says something quite pitiful about the man, and his fellow travelers.

Posted by Mike Lief at 01:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 05, 2006

Saddam sentenced to years of legal appeals (and maybe an execution)

So, Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.

What a waste of time and money. I'm in favor of the same treatment Winston Churchill wanted for the Nazis: line them up and shoot them all as soon as possible. It was the Soviets, enamored of show trials, like the ones they used to murder thousands of their political enemies, who wanted a lengthy series of highly-publicized judicial proceedings.

And Americans, obsessed even then with the appearance of fairness and process, sided with Joe Stalin.

I'm with John Hinderaker at Powerline.

As I've written before, the whole idea of "trying" Saddam is foolish. His countless crimes are known to the Iraqi people, and the world, beyond the ability of any judicial proceeding to prove or disprove. The only potential question of fact is whether the man in the dock is the tyrant Saddam, and that fact is not disputed.

Saddam should have been shot years ago. A commission of inquiry, not a court, should have been established to interview witnesses and make an official record off Saddam's reign. Keeping Saddam alive, more or less forever, contributes to keeping the Sunni insurgency alive, more or less forever. At this point, dispensing with Saddam is far more important than treating the Iraqis to "numerous" additional prosecutions.

Like Captain Ed, I'm generally opposed to the death penalty, but when we're dealing with world-class tyrants like Stalin, Hitler and Mao, or would-be genocidal madmen like Hussein and Idid Amin, or even murderous thugs in backwaters like Romania's Ceaucescu, there's no need for trials.

We know what they've done, and there's no question of innocence. Let's just cut to the chase and get to the pictures, like those of Mussolini strung up like a pinata, the once-might laid low.

That's justice.

Posted by Mike Lief at 08:08 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 04, 2006

Bogie makes a new friend

We took a road trip to the San Francisco Bay area to visit my cousins, who recently relocated from Atlanta. Cousin Avi spent some quality time with Bogie, and it seems like they hit it off.

Posted by Mike Lief at 10:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 03, 2006

Things the Dog Whisperer forgot to mention

So I'm sitting at the counter, drinking my morning coffee in a nice big mug, reading the latest news on my laptop, when one of the cats, Squeaks, steps daintily through the pet door from the garage back into the house.

I pay no attention until I begin hearing a series of URP-URP-URP noises coming from him. I glance up and see him crouched around the corner from the fireplace, lips drawn back in a rictus, drool pouring from his mouth until he delivers a steaming pile of his breakfast onto the tile floor.

I sit, mug halfway to my pursed lips, repulsed, thinking, "Well, at least it's on the tile; that's not too bad."

Then Squeaks walks four paces closer, looks at me and crouches low to the ground as I again hear the dreaded URP-URP-URP.

He draws his lips back again, only this time he sticks his tongue out.

As drool runs from his fangs, I think there's a distinct possibility I may vomit in my coffee.

With a convulsive thrust delivered all the way from the tip of his tail, the cat drops another steaming pile of Fancy Feast on the floor.

Then he runs into the bedroom.

Now, the last thing in the world I want is for the cat to spew on my bed, or on one of the few carpeted floors in the house, so I walk after him, calling, "C'mere Squeaks! Wanna go out?"

He glances contemputously over his shoulder as he disappears under the bed.

Super. I go back into the family room to clean up, only to hear Bogie's tags jingling merrily.

"Oh, no!" I think to myself. "Bogie, what are you doing?" He walks around the corner, grinning and licking his lips, making yummy lip-smacking noises, and I see there's one less pile of cat vomit then there had been a moment ago.

My lips draw back in a rictus and drool begins -- no, wait, that's the cat.

Sigh.

Truly, ignorance is bliss. I'll clean up the mess and we'll all forget this morning happened, okay?

Blech.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:18 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Getting my geek on, again

The folks at Galley Slaves say this video is like Chris Rock riffing on the difference between first-person-shooter videogames and the role-playing stuff on PlayStation.

Funny, but not safe for work.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 02, 2006

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe

In this detailed view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the so-called Cat's Eye Nebula looks like the penetrating eye of the disembodied sorcerer Sauron from the film adaptation of "Lord of the Rings."

The nebula, formally catalogued NGC 6543, is every bit as inscrutable as the J.R.R. Tolkien phantom character. Although the Cat's Eye Nebula was the first planetary nebula ever to be discovered, it is one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen in space. A planetary nebula forms when Sun-like stars gently eject their outer gaseous layers to form bright nebulae with amazing twisted shapes.

There are 99 other incredible images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope to gape at in slack-jawed wonder -- if you're a celestial voyager born a few centuries too soon, like your humble host.

When I gaze upon multi-colored nebulae blazing in distant galaxies like jewels in an incomprehensibly enormous crown, it reminds me of a line from one of my favorite movies, Blade Runner, spoken by the dying replicant Roy Batty at the end of the film, that seems appropriate.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

The glories that are hidden from view by the sun and atmosphere remind me of the stories I read in my youth of travel to distant stars, the adventures to be had off-world, thanks to the vivid imagination of Robert Heinlein.

If I have one regret in this life, it's that I'll not have a chance to see these sights with my own eyes, from the depths of interstellar space.

But a guy can dream, can't he?

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:08 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Meat is good

I've always wondered if there was a reliable way to find the best-tasting steaks. Was price the best indicator? Kobe beef is slap-me-silly expensive, but is it the tastiest? Is there some hidden system, some trick to discovering the holy grail of steak that must - get - in - my - belly?

I'd always heard that marbling -- the distribution of fat throughout the meat -- was necessary for high quality, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture uses it as one of their criteria when assigning grades to a particular cut.

Then there's the question of diet. It stands to reason that what the cows are fed would influence how they taste. But what do they eat, and which feed has the greatest effect on my food? What's better: corn, grain, barley, clover, grass?

Mark Schatzker asks these questions over at Slate, and in a blind taste-test provides some definitive answers. The bottom line? The least expensive steak with the least marbling, from cows fed on milk and all-natural pasture-grown grasses before they went to meet their reward, is to die for.

Apparently, happy, hippie cows are tasty cows.

The particulars -- with links to where you can get your steak fix -- are here.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:13 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 01, 2006

Judging the judges

Judges run for reelection every few years, and the public -- lacking any information about their job performance -- invariably returns them to the bench.

The people who generally know the most about a judge's performance are the lawyers, but they're generally loathe to offer any public criticism; it does a client no favors if you've slagged the black-robed jurist presiding over his case.

But every so often, thanks to a rare alignment of the stars, we get a perfect judicial storm. Combine a power-mad judge, a citizen willing to speak his mind, and some videotape and -- voila! -- the voters have everything they need to throw this bum out on her keester.

The video is simply unbelievable.

Wanna bet she wins reelection?

Posted by Mike Lief at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The man who would've been president


Posted by Mike Lief at 07:54 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Grading the GOP

Kim Du Toit has a message for the GOP.

Okay, you bastards, I held my nose and voted the straight Republican ticket. Don’t jump up and down for joy, because this—and I mean it sincerely—is your last chance.

Taxes: You’ve done okay on taxes (ie. lowered them), although a little more work towards a flat tax would have been appreciated.

Guns: No problem there—at least you held the line, and let the foul Assault Weapons nonsense expire. Now let’s start rolling back some of the more egregious anti-gun nonsense.

Immigration: Not too bad—although the rest of the nation would support even stronger measures to eliminate illegal immigration. At least the House whacked the Senate “amnesty” plan. Get tougher.

Foreign policy: Also not too bad. You supported Israel during the Hezbollah attacks (good) but punted the North Korea and Iran problems (bad).

War On Terror: The Military Commissions Act passed into law, as well it should have. Nice job.

Iraq: Unlike most, I don’t think you did too badly on this one. You tried being Mr. Nice Guy, and it didn’t work. Now start kicking butt. Or start making “partition” noises, to shut the Shi’ites and Sunnis up. Ignore the peaceniks.

All the rest: You guys suck. You suck so bad, it’s difficult to imagine how the Democrats could have been worse. It’s a good thing that my triggers are taxes, guns, illegal immigration and foreign policy—because you did okay on those.

But all the rest: spending, campaign finance reform, judicial appointments, whatever—it’s two years of ineffective blundering you should wipe from the slate, and start again.

Biggest suck job: Social Security. Despite all the bluster about “political capital”, you guys lost this one, and lost badly. So we’re going to saddle our kids and grandkids with the bill. How nice.

Like Kim, I'm extremely frustrated by the performance of the congressional GOP over the last few years, especially their free-spending, big-government ways. Honest government, and less government is what I want from the GOP, and that's been sadly lacking.

On the other hand, Kim's right: they haven't done too badly on most items, and there's no viable alternative (yet) on the political scene.

The Democrats? Please, it is to laugh.

As they used to say in the days of Mayor Daley's Democratic machine, "Vote early, and vote often."

Don't forget to vote, and remind your conservative friends and family to cast their ballots, too. It's important.

Posted by Mike Lief at 07:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack