perfidy

Ministry friend and loyal minion Murdoc is discussing a turn of phrase that he and, apparently, Norman Podhoretz find applicable: World War IV. Used to describe the current war on terror, it is a bit of language that has enough history that it can engender discussion for years. And surely will. But another term being used, not just in that discussion but across the media, is "bomb(ing) Iran."

People of every stripe will, and have, demonstrated against bombing Iran. Talking heads have advocated for or against bombing Iran. Breathy media outlets report on the "secret" Pentagon plans to bomb Iran, while pilots somewhere are surely training to bomb Iran.

Unfortunately, what is not widely understood is that the verb in this context is really just a shorthand for a planned and carefully executed operation. Without understanding that context and shorthand, the broader public allows "bomb Iran" to mean "terrorize from the air", ie, dropping ordnance indiscriminately amongst the orphanages, baby milk factories, nuns, and puppies liberally scattered across the Iranian landscape.

What is not well understood beyond the chain of command is that it is the mission that comes first, and the assets to achieve come after. Yes, capability influences the mission, but the thinking doesn't start with "This is what we have, what can we do with it?", but, "This is what we want to do- how can we achieve it?" Air power, in all its forms, is just another set of tools to apply toward getting the job done. And despite the kook fringe's acceptance that the President might conclude that muslims are responsible for water flouridation, scream "Cry Havoc!", and order the Air Force to kill them all, that's just not how strategy and the application of martial power work.

My point is that it's not a terrific idea to use this turn of phrase when you really mean "use of military force against Iran", against specific targets and for specific ends. I think it's ok to spell it out, especially when it becomes time to convince others of why you think it's a good idea.

[wik] Almost forgot- obligatory image of the aforementioned general below the fold:

Last Sunday, the Buckethead clan up and decided to take a roadtrip into the wilds of West Virginia. (The wilds of West Virginia being coterminous with the borders of West Virginia.) Our original destination was Spruce Knob, the highest point in WV aside from the pothead rock climbers at Seneca and over by the New River Gorge. On the way south, though, I happened to spy a sign for the Dolly Sods. Executing a 45mph ninety degree right turn, we drove up a mountain to see them.

Almost 23 years ago, I had visited this area, and it is a fascinating miniature ecosystem. The name “Dolly Sods” comes from a German immigrant family, Dahle, who once farmed in the area. They moved on, but the Americanized version of their name remained. The “Sods” appellation refers to the grassy areas that grew up in the burned out regions of the plateau. The Dolly Sods is the largest, highest plateau east of the Mississippi, and it was once a Spruce forest, though logging and subsequent fires reduced the area to a near desert. Since then, it has grown back – but the plants and animals there are more like what is generally found 1600 miles to the north in Canada – like the cold-adapted snowshoe hare.

Most of the trees have branches growing on only one side – away from the prevailing winds. Most of the ground cover is low, bushes and heath, huckleberries and blueberries. There are also huge bogs, watered by the 100 or more inches of snow that the area gets each winter. The bogs are filled with lichen and moss, and we had to warn the boy back from the edge, lest he become a permanent addition to the bog ecosystem.

The views from the edges of the plateau are incredible – there’s a hundred foot drop-off at one point, and lots of fun boulders to clamber around. There was another family there, who had a five year old daughter in tow, and Sir John-the-precocious-casanova was entranced:

John: She’s my girlfriend.
Me: Really?
John: Yes. She’s my girlfriend.
Me: Don’t you think you’re a little young to have a girlfriend?
John: Well, no
Me: Did you ask her if she wanted to be your girlfriend?
John: No. Why?
Me: You should always ask a girl before calling her your girlfriend.
John: Okay
Me: Do you know her name?
John: No, I can’t know that.

All in all, a fun and educational experience. And once we get the pictures developed, I’ll update this post. (I misplaced the cable for the digital camera, so it remains full of older pictures.

One amusing thing, and frankly the reason for the whole post, was the presence, in the middle of nowhere, a wonderful modern four lane highway that connected the Virginia border with Petersburg, WV. As we got on to the highway, and noted it’s many bridges over creeks, huge cuts through ridges, and impressive width, I said to Mrs. Buckethead, “This is one expensive road. Look how much earth they had to move to make that cut – that must have cost a shitload of money. And it connects one obscure corner of the middle of friggin’ nowhere to another even more obscure corner! I guarantee you this is the work of Robert C. Byrd.”

And as God and my wife will attest, not two minutes later we passed a discrete sign that informed us that we were traveling on the Robert C. Byrd Appalachian Highway System.

Surely the flags at work and the post office are not half mast for Jerry Falwell

I'm not one to dance on anyone's grave. But you can bet your bippy I'm going to have a good time steppin' out tonight. It's a capella music after all.

[wik] Nifty! I found out why flags are half-mast today. Try this link They will be half-mast around my office till Thursday dusk when flags should be taken down. But our maintenace staff doesn't seem to get it. Oddly the Quaker school I went to did. They ran it up every morning and pulled it down every afternoon. Makes me sad to see a flag moulder in the dark at night.

Dept. Of Evil: 'All Of You Must Die'

WASHINGTON, DC-The department warned that all necks would feel the steely bite of its soul-thirsty axe as soon as funding is approved.

Dang. I can't find the best quote by Michael Bloomberg on his chances of being elected President of the United States. The gist of it is that he's a short, Jewish, divorced New Yorker. Words which he has used to describe himself. He's got the goods and the gumption to stir up the pot. Virtual biscuit to anyone who can find the original citation. Wikipedia doesn't have it anymore.

Personally, I've met him, talked to him about non-trivial issues, and he's a jackass. But a very smart and competent jackass. I'd vote for him. He's exactly the centrist-Republican that kept me registered as one in Pennsylvania through all my years of college. (Being a Democrat was political suicide where I came from, closed primaries and old-money Republican domination.)

Hat tip to Kingsland Report for the Washington Times article. (However, I think Rev Moon is crazy, so take their reporting with a grain of salt.)

Via Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings, I have found a site that appears to be nothing but the Sunday morning talking head shows translated into l33t$p3@|.

Ch-ch-check it:

Russert: dood teh American people think the Iraq war was a mistake

McCain: well you know the American people think failure is teh suck

Russert: well why not

McCain: yeah but teh people dont get teh consequences of failure

Russert: teh people hate u and yur policies

McCain: kurds, turks, Saudis will go to war and then we'll have to partition bedrooms in Iraq if we do that they'll follow us in to American bedrooms

Timmeh: wow

McCain: i luv shock and awe but its true bush is a terrible president and it was all mismanaged - for that i blame Donald Rumsfeld

Timmeh: but not Bush of course

McCain: at the time we went to war given what the British said we had to invade iraq

Timmeh: thats it?

MCcain: also the Oil-for-Food program was breaking down

Timmeh: yur joking right

McCain: hey if we had known we'd fail well sure you wouldn't invade

Timmy: sorry yur confusing me

McCain: Al Qaeda is in Baghdad but we're making progress - they're in other areas too

Timmeh: excellent but iraqi parliament wants us to leave

McCain: yeah but its in our interest to honor teh troops by not debating over and over and over again teh stooped boring Iraq war

Tim: huh?

McCain: fuck the Iraqi parliament

Tim: oh ok

McCain: those fuckers are just playing to their base I’ve had it with this fucking democracy i saw all this in vietnam

Tim: yeah like in Platoon and the Killing Fields

McCain: clearly the democracy in Iraq is undermining our effort to establish a democracy in Iraq

Tim: how the fuck long is it going to take

McCain: well we fought a bloody civil war 100 years after the Revolution in 1776 so you figure it out

That's about the tone of 'em, neh?

Predicting weather is a strong science in the 10 day window, with that being slowly pushed upwards by distributed supercomputing and better algorithms. It's being held back by the current stall in Moore's law, which may be with us for a little while.

Of course not all scientists say the same thing! But you have to look at the overall picture here, and do the tough thing -- place numbers on it. If only one out of every thousand scientists working in this area has a serious, contrary view supported by what they've written...

It's not about who's right and who's wrong, because science is what it is -- and nothing is certain. But we have to look at the probabilities involved here...and right now the probabilities are showing that climate change is happening and that the basis is human. The most recent report from a few months back significantly tightened up the causative network that underlies all the science.

So we have a river of probability running forward and the center path goes through very scary territory. At this point the science can't say _exactly_ what's happening, but the distribution curve on the likely events is fairly well known.

Engaging on this requires more than an assertion that there are contrary views. Bring them forward! The web is a beautiful thing. But watch out for the Heartland institute!

Bad things can happen when you treat "An Inconvenient Truth" as an authoritative documentary.

And no, of course the link has nothing to do with Algore's movie.

I hope this doesn't become commonplace, because it's already been done, to a tee, by Johnny Knoxville.

Brickmuppet, one of the legion of bloggers that I don't link often enough, has moved to new digs. He's out of the blogspot ghetto, and over into a sparkling gated community at mee.nu. I assume that mee.nu is related in some way to the munuvians. I wonder if the new group are going to be meenuvians? Anywho, go check out his new, perty blog here.

War, I say, War! I think this is quite an admirable trend, in general...corrupt members of a party aren't often watching their backs, and...ka-blam. We of the center (known as the left to everyone on the hard right) really ought to respond in kind, locate a "troubled" Democrat, and out the bastard. I'm sure there are plenty out there.

It does bring me to this simple way of thinking about partisanship. Rank the following in order of preference:

• Honest Republican
• Corrupt Republican
• Honest Democrat
• Corrupt Democrat

For the majority of us, I think the resulting list ends up having a certain shared characteristic...we would do well to keep that in mind as we look at our friendly neighborhood pols this time around.