perfidy

Apparently, the president elect of Iran is this fuckhead:

The fuckhead on the right is Mahmood Ahmadinejad. The man on the left is an American hostage. The picture is from the American embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Representative of the religion of peace Ahmadinejad said,

"The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world... Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world," Ahmadinejad was quoted by the official Iranian news agency as saying. "The era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end."

The best way to ensure that in Iran would be for dear Mahmood and his cronies to immediately remove themselves from power, and for good measure, this life.

Besides participating in the the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Teheran, Ahmadinejad's other credentials include serving as Teheran's mayor, as a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, responsible for the nation's missile and nuclear weapons programs, and has been identified as a suspect in the killing of Kurdish dissidents in Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As an unsurprising bonus, he has long been regarded as the most anti-Western of Iran's presidential candidates.

Give peace a chance!

The Buckethead Clan will be departing the DC area at an undetermined time this evening, heading toward an undisclosed location somewhere in Ohio. I am concealing this information from you and my wife for the eminently simple reason that I have no fricken clue. But sooner or later, probably later, we will load up the bucketmobile with fireworks, small children and dogs; and newly equipped with iPod, we will drive off into the sunset with (at last count) as much as 2.4 days worth of music to listen to.

This patriotic journey to the heartland to celebrate (two days late) the signing of the Declaration of Independence will leave me far, far from my computer. While I may have occasional access, I doubt I'll be feeling much like posting, seeing as we have relatives to visit, picnics and fireworks to attend, a wedding to go to, (and wedding gifts to buy) and who knows what else.

I hope everyone has a explosion and fire-filled Independence Day, consumes vast quantities of cheap hot dogs and cheaper beer, and takes at least a minute to reflect on the liberty we enjoy.

Via today's Best of the Web, we find the travails of Bethany Hauf, of Victorville CA, in a story entitled Term paper about 'God' earns student failing grade.

He told me you might as well write about the Easter Bunny. He wanted to censor the word God.

The horror!

Hauf's teacher approved her term paper topic — Religion and its Place within the Government — on one condition: Don't use the word God. Instead of complying with VVCC adjunct instructor Michael Shefchik's condition Hauf wrote a 10-page report for her English 101 class entitled "In God We Trust."

"He said it would offend others in class," Hauf, a 34-year-old mother of four, said. "I didn't realize God was taboo."

So she wrote it anyway. Perhaps she should have dropped English 101 and taken a basic comprehension course instead. Either that or she was spoiling for a fight.

"I don't loose my First Amendment rights when I walk into that college," Hauf said. She is demanding an apology from the teacher and that the paper be re-graded.

Mmmm... o-kaaaay. Which of the words below were foreign to her, I wonder:

Shefchik wrote her back an e-mail approving her topic choice, but at the same time cautioning her to be objective in her reporting. "I have one limiting factor," Shefchik wrote, according to the ACLJ. "No mention of big 'G' gods, i.e., one, true god argumentation."

Being an utterly irreligious fellow, I can't get too jacked up by either Hauf's overt religiosity or her teacher's overt lack thereof - they're each entitled to their kinks. But several things jumped out at me from the story.

First, the author or editor of the story needs to reread the style guide for the Daily Press, assuming they have one. It probably contains a maxim such as "Q: What is hard to lose but can sometimes become loose? A: Your bowels". And if it doesn't have a style guide, it should. Failing an editorial lapse, maybe Hauf actually said "loose", in which case she should be immediately demoted to a remedial spoken English course. And failing that, of course I'm just being too picky, but only because I'm perfect in every way.

Second, even giving credit for the teacher's apparent antipathy toward things religious, Hauf received a valid assignment for an English class, and a challenging one, given her choice of topic. Rather like the lipogram by Ernest Vincent Wright called Gadsby, only a whole lot shorter and easier.

Finally, who is this ACLJ, and why do we need yet another set of harpies to advance the cause of feigned infringement on our basic rights as human beings? Even if we did need such an additional advocacy organization (and I'm not saying we do, by a long shot), at what point in time did the First Amendment become stretched to cover fulfillment of class assignments, as distinct from simple expression of opinion? I don't think one loses one's rights to free speech when entering a classroom, but there's a time and place for expression of opinion, and it's the part of the class where, well, people are discussing opinions. In an expository paper, such as the one she was assigned, opinion has next to nothing to do with, and fulfilling the assignment has everything to do with one's grade. If she'd gotten a bad grade because of her views, I'd understand the umbrage, but she clearly got a bad grade because she explicitly failed to fulfill the assigned task.

And hollering about repression isn't a substitute for just doing the damned assignment.

Commenter Bram offered Roe v Wade as an example of judicial activism. Is it? I think it is not, and here's my reasoning.

Roe v Wade is a decision that is often discussed, but rarely read. I just went and read it, and I think you should too. There's a lot of historical ground that the decision covers. This is not a matter of "inventing" a right to abortion; nothing of the sort took place.

Very specific constitutional grounds were specified in Roe's appeal -- privacy and liberty. Roe did not argue she had a "right" to an abortion; she argued that she had the liberty to do as she pleased. Your liberty and privacy are guaranteed by the constitution, and as such preempt state law. So the question before the court was, can a state impose in liberty and privacy in this manner?

You gotta read the whole thing, but the thinking is something like this:

By no means did the court confer an arbitrary right to an abortion. Rather, the court struck a careful balance between personal liberty/privacy, guaranteed by the constitution, and states' interests. It drew the line at the boundary between religion and science.

I really don't want to provoke an abortion war, but I think it's worthwhile to note that the tenor of this decision follows the pattern I've noted: A difficult issue, subject to considerable subjective analysis, but still requiring a decision to be made. This is not a simple issue of states' rights. States may not make laws that violate the constitution, and Roe raised a serious and substantive constitutional challenge.

In an editorial from today's WSJ, Peggy Noonan asks the question:

What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No. 1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?

As an admittedly devoted fan of Ms. Noonan's prose, of course I'll tell you to read the entire thing. Among other items, covering the range of the political classes, she has a go at Barack Obama's unfortunate-but-inevitable first public attempt at foot-ingestion, as well as Bill Frist's latest.

Sadly, she's doesn't attempt to answer it, but it's still a pertinent question.

My sense is that the answer has its roots in that whole "power corrupts" leitmotif. It's certainly not that they're somehow, by nature, more special than the rest of us. But perhaps they don't know that?

Via ace, we find that the ever useful Forbes magazine runs the numbers for how much aspiring crime fighters will need to throw down to become a Batclone. Short answer, a lot. 3,365,449 samoleans, to be exact. And that’s the bargain basement price, for those without access to a billion dollar inheritance. (According to the Forbes ranking of the richest fictional individuals, Bruce Wayne comes in at number seven just after Willy Wonka. If the Bruce were real, Forbes believes he’d eb a notch below Rupert Murdoch.) So how do you become Batman? Let’s take a look.

For the bat-fu, Forbes suggests Shaolin training:

A good place to start would be an internship at the birthplace of kung fu, the Shaolin Temple in Henan, China. One month of training at the prestigious Tagou school costs about $740, including a private room and training with a personal coach. It'll take a while to get good enough to stop the Joker's worst thugs, though, so count on spending at least three years and about 30 grand for the trip.

I had no idea that Shaolin training was that cheap. If I had known that ten years ago, I would now be the baddest technical writer in world history. But I don’t think Mrs. Buckethead would approve of me going off to China for several years at this point.

Where do you stash your gear between missions? Seeing as the underlying geology of New York is not conducive to cave formation, Forbes recommends another alternative:

So what's a budget-minded vigilante to do? We recommend you find yourself a nice out-of-the-way warehouse. In the outer boroughs of New York City, a decent-sized ground-floor commercial space can be leased for as low as $2,000 a month, particularly in isolated, questionably safe neighborhoods, exactly the kind of place the Bat would fly.

That’s not a bad deal. Certainly cheaper than what my friend Drew is paying for his condo in Battery Park.

This is the kind of hard hitting, informative investigative reporting we need to see more of.

There are two publications whose obituaries I always read. The Economist, which does a single obituary as a full page item to close each issue, always provides interesting facts about important, though sometimes little-known, people of our time.

And then, there's the Telegraph, which does the same, but with taglines such as this:

William Donaldson

Wykehamist pimp, crack fiend and adulterer who created Henry Root and produced Beyond the Fringe.
27 Jun 2005

How, I ask myself, could I not read such a death notice?

Garfield Ridge has a great post up on one of Baseball's true greats: Dock Ellis.

Thirty-five years ago, on June 12, 1970, Pittsburgh Pirate and future Texas Rangers pitcher Dock Ellis found himself in the Los Angeles home of a childhood friend named Al Rambo. Two days earlier, he'd flown with the Pirates to San Diego for a four-game series with the Padres. He immediately rented a car and drove to L.A. to see Rambo and his girlfriend Mitzi. The next 12 hours were a fog of conversation, screwdrivers, marijuana, and, for Ellis, amphetamines. He went to sleep in the early morning, woke up sometime after noon and immediately took a dose of Purple Haze acid.

A bit later, how long exactly he can't recall, he came across Mitzi flipping through a newspaper. She scanned for a moment, then noticed something.

"Dock," she said. "You're supposed to pitch today."

Ellis focused his mind. No. Friday. He wasn't pitching until Friday. He was sure.

"Baby," she replied. "It is Friday. You slept through Thursday."

Dock went on to pitch a no-hitter.

Maybe Buckethead doesn't like it when uncomfortable comparisons emerge.

Rather than pluck words, let's look at it.

The apology came a week after Durbin, the Senate minority whip, quoted from an FBI agent's report describing detainees at the Naval base in a U.S.-controlled portion of Cuba as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others — that had no concern for human beings," the senator said June 14.

If I read or heard about prisoners "chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures" I too would assume that it referred to prisoners of some repressive regime.

If I read your comments correctly, you all are telling me that you would not make this assumption, and that you acknowledge such activities occurring in US prisons. You then neatly "cover your asses" with finger-wagging about how you don't approve of such measures, but comparing us to really bad guys just isn't fair.

All the guy said is that these are practices that Joe Average, who believes that we're the good guys, would attribute to some of the repressive regimes that are commonly known. That sounds pretty damn fair to me.

But you want to generalize the statement, and to achieve that generalization you invoke logic that can be used to stifle, eliminate, and declare treasonous any criticism. This has distressing parallels to the politics of the moment.

We have some very solid knowledge in history present on this blog.

If those regimes were the wrong ones to compare these particular actions to, please tell us the right ones. Which governments or regimes chained up prisoners, denied them food or water, and subjected them to extreme temperatures?

Or would you prefer that we simply engaged in comparison-free dialog, arguing all of this from relativist positions, without reference points?

This court decision is a major blow to the citizens of this country. I am compelled to point out that in the last six years American citizens have had the character of their relationship with the government changed radically:

1. Takings: Any local government can now hand your private property to another private owner if any excuse for redevelopment is avialable. This is a clear invitation for corruption, and will inevitably result in a major upswing of same.

2. Trial by Jury: The current administration has reserved for itself the right to detain and permanently imprison any citizen, without trial or justification, under the guise of "fighting terror".

Let's recap. Any property you own is yours strictly subject to the whims of the government. Your freedom itself is also an illusion in the "conservative" world of George W Bush; it currently has no force under the law if some arbitrary member of the administration decides otherwise.

So what private right is Bush for, exactly? Well, he's strongly in favor of allowing property owners to pollute the hell out of that property, regardless of the effect on others. Apparently there's some sort of principal at work in that case. I struggle to understand how environmental concerns are less of a "public use" than protecting the profits of developers, but there it is.

These two things are pretty damn fundamental, and I'd say the average citizen of this country figures they're his birthright. They are, of course. But we are in exceptional times, times in which corruption and greed flow like electricity through the body politic, taking the path of least resistance. This administration is indistinguishable from its insider supporters, and its policies, while lacking any verifiable correlation between promised and actual effect, have inevitably benefited those same insiders.

‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing'

I was distressed to read that Phillip Carter, author of the Intel Dump blog, received reactivation orders last Thursday. Phil's taken the news with characteristic class; well-wishers abound in the comments, hoping for the best for Phil.

What no-one seems to be saying, and Phil is obviously unable to say himself, is this: Is this payback? I don't know, but I'll say it, and I'll say that this administration and this military leadership will breath easier in the information vacuum his forced activation creates.

Phillip Carter has been one of the more outspoken critics of the military and of the government since leaving the active service. He's written clear and precise articles as an intelligent man who's been there and done it. He advocates the draft, and calls'em like he sees'em.

He advocates very effectively for positions that are highly inconvenient to the administration and to the military.

We all know that very large numbers of recently departed active service members are being reactivated as the military struggles to keep the necessary forces in place. Recruitment has suffered hugely; forcing the recently active to serve additional tours is very much the only option at this point.

Last night, some folks got together to drink and play pool. Some took in dinner and a movie. Other people went to a ballgame, or had a clambake, or fought a couple guys before passing out, or dealt out a few hands of Texas Hold 'Em.

Last night my buddy Brendan came over and we all made flavored vodka. We decided to go the low road, utilizing a theory first promulgated by the website Oh My God It Burns! which posits that a home water filtration unit (such as a Brita filter pitcher) can remove the impurities from cut-rate vodka and render it the near-equal of top-shelf brands.

What we found was that filtering a bottle of cheap (plastic-bottle store-brand distilled with pride in Somerville, Massachusetts) grain vodka five times does in fact remove nearly all the nasty smell, aftertaste, and burn, making it almost but not quite as delicious as the magically smooth Luksosowa brand potato vodka we used as a control. Although a faint hint of the gluey flavor of cheap vodka remains, the newly enspiffened and filtered liquor is nevertheless the full equal of Skyy, Stoli, or Ketel One, and will work very nicely once infused. Brendan had already made some raspberry and lemon vodkas, both of which were delicious in lemonade.

We ended up making four different vodkas: pepper, orange, ginger, and cranberry. Think about it! Instant seabreezes with just soda water! Orange vodka in cream soda! Ginger vodka in ginger ale! And the by-now hackneyed spicy martini!

We expect the pepper and cranberry vodkas to be ready within a few days based on past experience. The orange zest can sit in the vodka for months, though we anticipate maximum flavor extraction to be achieved in a month or so, possibly sooner. The ginger vodka is a total toss-up, (just a little ginger flavor so far) and I expect I will end up adding another quarter cup or so of grated fresh ginger to the 500ml of vodka and quarter cup of sliced ginger already in the jar. For the pepper vodka we chose one lone poblano pepper. Both Brendan and I have tried making pepper vodka in the past, and have learned caution accordingly.

My first attempt at pepper vodka used 750ml of Luksosowa and three fresh cayenne peppers fresh from Chainsaw Mick's garden. Within three days the vodka had turned green and was spicy enough to kill a lesser man. I enjoyed every drop of that vodka in a succession of my own patented "filthy" martinis, the recipe for which follows, until I got to the dregs. It seems that capsaicin, the active heat ingredient in chili peppers, is both alcohol soluble and heavier than vodka. The last martini from that bottle nearly killed me, but through generous applications of ancillary oral analgesics (shots of Jim Beam) I managed to get through it. Brendan's prior experiences were similar, so for this new iteration we chose to employ the mild and flavorful poblano chile. If after 48 hours the vodka has not taken on any heat, I can always drop in a leftover cayenne for a little while to kick it up, but I expect I won't have to.

We also chose to try to make our vodkas extremely concentrated, so that when the infusions are ready we can dilute them down with freshly filtered cheapo liquor to a usable strength. We have future plans for combo infusions, say, ginger and lemongrass or orange and vanilla. I am hoping to try out more savory flavors as well like cinammon, clove, and cardamon. If anybody has any hott drink ideas, please send them along. Perhaps I could substitute dark rum for the vodka in the last instance and make insta-mulled cider when winter comes. Nummy-num-num-num.

So that was my Saturday night. Any of my friends living nearby can expect fancy-pants liquor for Festivus this year.

Filthy Martini

2 oz. ice-cold pepper vodka
dash chilled dry vermouth
2 tsp chilled green olive juice
1 Tbsp chilled kosher pickle juice (use fermented pickle juice with live cultures, not just vinegar pickles)
2 green olives

In a shaker, pour vermouth over ice and drain, leaving behind only a residue. Add vodka and olive and pickle juice, and shake or stir as desired. Strain into martini glass and garnish with olives.

This installment of my ongoing bread-blogging is about mediocrity. Although I sometimes forget it, it is entirely possible for a highly reputed artisan bakery to be nothing more mediocre.

I don't mean to say bad. Bad bread is another thing entirely, and usually comes as a gummy sliced loaf touted as "whole grain" but packed full of lethicin and additives to make the texture over as something akin to Wonder Bread. A loaf of oversweetened spongy whole wheat bread studded with toothbreaking seeds is as appetizing as cat vomit, especially for $4 a loaf for the Pepperidge Farm and Cape Cod offerings at my local Stop & Shop. No, my object today is mediocre bread.

This morning I took my weekly summer jaunt into the yuppie haven of Marblehead to hit the weekly farmers' market. While stocking up on six different kinds of greens, locally made cheeses and the first beets of the season, I picked up what looked like a beautiful baguette with which to enjoy the aforementioned cheese. I specifically chose this baguette because another vendor at the market recommended them as the "best bread in Boston."

I now know that this statement is not only a lie but also a calumny and an act of treachery.

A baguette is among the very simplest of doughs: nothing but water, flour, yeast, and salt gently kneaded together to form a fairly soft mass without a great deal of strength. True baguette dough is always made one of two ways: with a pate fermentee, which is basically yesterday's dough left overnight and incorporated into today's bake; or a poolish, which is a mix of equal weights flour and water with a tiny amount of commercial (or wild) yeast added and left to stand overnight to ripen. Either method results in a slow-rising dough that contains a surprising depth of flavor. Pate fermentee generally contributes a slightly sour note to the loaf, where poolish is slightly more sweet and wheaty tasting. Either way, you end up with a very flavorful loaf.

Like the best French recipes, making a baguette is simple but not easy. There is a highly refined set of techniques for rising, shaping, slashing, and baking that helps achieve desired result.

And what is that desired result? You want a caramel-brown and very crisp crust with well-defined flaps rising from where you slashed the loaf, a proper ratio of crust to crumb (the baguette must be neither to fat nor too skinny), and a crumb that is creamy yellow in color and rather springy and interspersed randomly with a lattice of holes ranging from smaller than your pinky tip to the size of a large marble. No holes or larger holes means you need to work on your shaping technique and possibly on your dough formula.

These simple ingredients, when handled according to the best techniques, add up to one of the culinary wonders of the world. I have bought French baguettes in Paris that rank among the very best things I have ever tasted, and despite the fact that baguettes made here in the USA can never quite replicate the fleeting and transcendent flavors of their French counterparts, they can come awfully close to equalling this perfection.

So what of the highly touted and expensive baguette I bought today? Well, eww. Up close, the crust proved to be a tawny gold color several shades short of brown and devoid of any of the crispness or delicious browned flavors that baguette crust promises; the loaf as a whole was nearly floppy. The thing had been made much too fat and a bit too short so there was far too much crumb for the amount of poor crust. The crumb itself was pillowy and nearly snowy white and the hole structure was more like that of Italian scala bread with its fine network of tiny holes than a true baguette. The flavor was insipid and lacked any of the depth and complexity that comes from pre-fermenting. It tasted more like a straight dough whipped up start to finish in about five hours. In short, everything that could possibly have gone wrong did, except for the slashing. The slashes on top were perfect, with the desired trademark "ears" that ideally allow one to pick up a baguette by one of these flaps. At least that was done right.

I can (and have) do better than this in my own kitchen, and I am not a master baker by any means, merely a dedicated amateur. The Bread & Butter Bakery in Jamaica Plain, Boston, MA should be ashamed to offer such half-assed product for sale anywhere, especially for better than $3 per loaf. If they cut the amount of dough per baguette by an ounce or so, increased the bake temperature and oven steam, and paid more attention to flavor, they could not only get a fair $3 for their baguette but would cut production costs as well. I can only hope that this was just an unlucky day for the baguettes; I dimly rememember being fairly happy though not impressed with their breads last year, including their epi, which are made with baguette dough.

People keep telling me I should open a bakery; if this is my competition, maybe I should think more seriously about it.

Saturday's Telegraph tells the tale of just where a good chunk of the world's aid dollars have gone, specifically focusing on Nigeria, Africa's largest, natural-resource-richest, and most populous country. $220 billion, down a rathole in the last 40 years, just in Nigeria.

A taste:

The stolen fortune tallies almost exactly with the £220 billion of western aid given to Africa between 1960 and 1997. That amounted to six times the American help given to post-war Europe under the Marshall Plan.

British aid for Africa totalled £720 million last year. If that sum was spent annually for the next three centuries, it would cover the cost of Nigeria's looting.

They've got 35 billion barrels of proven reserves there, and I'd suggest they get to work digging them up, because more money from other peoples' pockets doesn't look like it's ever solved a problem in Nigeria.

Sani Abacha was one of the worst, as detailed in this add-on story, but his kleptocracy was unique only in its absolute size, and would have been far larger if he hadn't died of a heart attack under the ministrations of three Indian prostitutes after only 5 years in office. You see, even at the high end of his estimated thievery, he was responsible for only 1.5% of the total aid money wasted in Nigeria. And Nigeria wasn't the only failed experiment in assuagement of white guilt - it was just one part of the roughly 100% failure rate among African nations who've received aid.

Sometimes, a rational guilty white man just has to say "If at first you don't succeed, try, try... aw @#!?% it!". And perhaps, in some small way, some Nigerians might agree:

Mr Obasanjo will travel to the G8 summit to press the case for debt relief. Nigeria is Africa's biggest debtor, with loans of almost £20 billion, because previous rulers not only looted the country but also borrowed heavily against future oil revenues.

The G8 has refused to cancel Nigeria's loans, despite writing off the debts of 14 other African countries this month.

Prof Pat Utomi, of Lagos Business School, said that was the right decision. "Who is to say you won't see the same behaviour again if it is all written off?" he said.

I'm thinking "Nobody", that's who.

[wik] For other views, not all at odds, see the first three letters to the editor in the June 25, 2005 Houston Chronicle.

The top 100 movie quotes of all time (according to the AFI) have been released.

The top dozen:

1. "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," "Gone With the Wind," 1939.
2. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse," "The Godfather," 1972.
3. "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could've been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am," "On the Waterfront," 1954.
4. "Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.
5. "Here's looking at you, kid," "Casablanca," 1942.
6. "Go ahead, make my day," "Sudden Impact," 1983.
7. "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," "Sunset Blvd.," 1950.
8. "May the Force be with you," "Star Wars," 1977.
9. "Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night," "All About Eve," 1950.
10. "You talking to me?" "Taxi Driver," 1976.
11. "What we've got here is failure to communicate," "Cool Hand Luke," 1967.
12. "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," "Apocalypse Now," 1979.

I can't believe that the ending line from Casablanca doesn't make it higher than 20. Travesty! Also, they should have included the whole quote from Apocalypse Now! - "It smells like... Victory."

Although I am partially appeased by the inclusion of #77. "Soylent Green is people!"; my biggest problem... no Ash quotes.

Insensitive. Bastards.

Kristol thinks that O'Connor will be the first to go.

If such "economic development" takings are for a "public use," any taking is, and the Court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution, as Justice O’Connor powerfully argues in dissent. Ante, at 1—2, 8—13. I do not believe that this Court can eliminate liberties expressly enumerated in the Constitution and therefore join her dissenting opinion. Regrettably, however, the Court’s error runs deeper than this. Today’s decision is simply the latest in a string of our cases construing the Public Use Clause to be a virtual nullity, without the slightest nod to its original meaning. In my view, the Public Use Clause, originally understood, is a meaningful limit on the government’s eminent domain power. Our cases have strayed from the Clause’s original meaning, and I would reconsider them.

So says Clarence Thomas, regarding the second elimination of a clearly stated constitutional limitation in as many weeks. This particular travesty has been a long time coming. The courts have been drifting in this direction for decades. Earlier cases, notably in Pittsburgh and Portland, saw home and business owners kicked to the curb to satisfy the "public good" of large corporations and rich developers.

Now, I am not one to rail against capitalism and corporations as a matter of habit. When business entities and rich individuals are made to play by the same rules and on the same field as everyone else, the harm that they can do is limited, and what harm that is done can be remedied in law. This ruling changes that altogether. Now ownership of property is subject to the whim of whoever last arranged for a city councilmen to get a blowjob, or who wrote the most recent check to the mayor’s reelection fund. Property rights are no longer absolute. Whoever has connections can have property rights reassigned, and the whole of government enforcement powers will be enlisted to point a gun at the head of the poor schmuck who wants to keep his home.

The rule of law is a cool thing. Five of our Supreme Court Justices have a pretty hazy conception of what that means. Property rights are in many respects the true basis of liberty. (Not freedom. Freedom means having nothing else to lose.) Autonomy depends on having a sanctuary from which to exercise it. A man’s home must be his castle. Over the last century, but especially over the last couple decades, the Constitution has ceased to be what it originally was – the final arbiter of what is permissible for government. So many provisions and amendments have been twisted beyond recognition as to be entirely negated. Just in the last ten years we have seen serious inroads into the

Slippery slope arguments are always dangerous, but things like this really tickle my paranoia. Like Johno, I immediately thought of Ruby Ridge. But I also thought of this:

America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.

How do you go about arresting these trends? The list of bad things is long: the drug war, RICO laws, sneak ‘n’ peak searches, the militarization of law enforcement, Waco, Ruby Ridge, restrictive gun laws, increased surveillance, certain provisions of the Patriot Act, campaign finance reform, ad infinitum. And hand in hand with the creepy illogic and clear unconstitutionality of the bad laws is the creepy incompetence of those enforcing the laws. Ruby Ridge and Waco are classic examples, but the fumbling of the BATFE, TSA, Border Patrol and numerous others are just as bad.

I don’t know where this is all going. But on days like yesterday, I have a feeling we might be in a handbasket.

[wik] Some other good links: Justice Thomas’ complete dissent, Professor Bainbridge’s essay at TCS, and The Opinion Journal’s take on the matter.

[alsø wik]Zach Wendling has a sort of funny, kind of scary idea about the only likely defense against developers paying off local officials to take your house.

Yesterday I left work early so the grunting men could move my office, came home, and got savagely depressed on half a glass of cheap wine and a private screening of The Big Lebowski.

A man's home is his castle, and yesterday the Supreme Court named them all Ruby Ridge. The Truth Laid Bear (linked) has aggregated a number of reactions to the Kelo case. Here's mine: The very notion that anyone's home - anyone's - is now up for grabs as long as a state or muncipal government thinks there might possibly be some potential gain in tax earnings to be had by tearing that home down, makes me want to puke. This session of the Supreme Court has really beefed a couple in a row here; between Raich and Kelo, I figure my best bet is to buy my own island and build a house there. That, or come up with a few billion dollars and move to a kleptocracy.

Eugene Volokh has argued (presumably rightly, he's a smart dude) that Kelo merely articulates or sums up recent trends in property law and therefore isn't anything new. True. But as Glenn Reynolds has observed, sometimes it takes an incident like this to open people's eyes to how deranged a situation has become. Take the aforementioned Ruby Ridge - before that awful standoff and Waco not long after, Americans who weren't already survivalist types had no idea that the US government could operate that way. Now every American above a certain age remembers what happened and knows somewhere deep inside in that place where you get nervous at traffic stops not to trust the guys in bad suits and aviator shades.

How can Kelo end well for anyone? The Republicans need to work pretty hard to distance themselves from this opinEyion, in which three out of five Justices in the majority were appointed by Republican presidents. Anyone that Bush nominates for the Court will (hopefully) have to distance themselves from the body's recent statist excesses. In the short term, it's possible that the housing market might come in for a shock as people realize that the deed to their house no longer counts for much. In the long term, I think we will probably see a few emboldened and outraged neighborhoods in standoffs with authorities. Either way, not good to say the least. Our liberty is a shockingly fragile thing when you stop to think about it, and days like yesterday make it seem like we're close to the edge.

Come for my house, and they'll have to call the 5 o'clock news and the National Guard. That's a g-d d-mn promise. All the dude ever wanted was his rug back, and all most people ever want is to be left the hell alone. In their house.

From Rocket Jones, via Simon, by way of Mr. Brown and through rx78ntx, we find real life Dilbertisms:

A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert quotes" contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life dilbert-type managers.

Here are the top ten finalists:

1. "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks." (This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WA)
2. "What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter." (Lykes Lines Shipping)
3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business." (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)
4. "This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it." (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)
5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule." (Plant manager, Delco Corporation)
6. "No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them." (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)
7. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say." (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)
8. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me." (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)
9. "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees." (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)
10. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!" (Hallmark Cards Executive)

In today's Washington Post, one can find the story Into the Mix: A Ban on Flag Desecration. It begins:

With the public image of Congress in the tank, House Republicans have vowed to focus on legislation that affects people's everyday lives, especially energy, tax and highway bills. But today the House will take up more red meat for the red states -- a bill "proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States authorizing the Congress to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

House Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio) chuckled when asked if that was a conflict and suggested that anyone who sees one is looking at the world through blue-colored glasses. "You know, this is probably as relevant to people's lives now as any other time," she said, "because of what's going on with Democrats putting everybody in the world before our soldiers and the American safety. They're so worried about what's going on at Guantanamo Bay. And the flag has a place in that debate."

As a "red state" resident, and fully realizing my views are nobody's but mine, my first thought was "Huh? WTF?" With all due respect to Deborah Pryce who, back in my Ohio days I thought was an acceptable representative, the only part of her comment I can agree with is "...this is probably as relevant to people's lives now as at any other time." You know.

And there, the agreement ends. Because, you know, Deborah fails to realize that perhaps it's also as relevant to people's lives as is the color of shoes Paris Hilton chose to wear today. There are a lot of things it could be as relevant as, since the universe of things with zero relevance is enormous.

Heck, it's about as relevant as how many Korans it takes to stop up a Cuban prison toilet.

At least it is to me.

[wik] Well, the House has passed the amendment bill (for something like the fifth time), 286-130. A New York representative had this to say:

"If the flag needs protection at all, it needs protection from members of Congress who value the symbol more than the freedoms that the flag represents." said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., whose district includes the site of the former World Trade Center.

He's not my representative, but that doesn't make the reason for his position any weaker, methinks.

Senator Dick Durbin (Dick-Ill) has tearfully not really apologized for the ridiculously offensive statements he made the other day.

Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line," the Illinois Democrat said. "To them I extend my heartfelt apologies." His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks. "They're the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them," he said.

Aside from bicyclists riding in the road four feet from a paved and well maintained fricken bike path, there is little in this world that pisses me off more than these pretend apologies. Not just from senators, but from anyone.

"I'm sorry you felt bad that I did that." Bullshit. Either say you're sorry for what you did - and admit that it was wrong, or stfu. These sort-of apologies place the blame on others. "Some people are offended, and I'm sorry they feel that way." What Durbin said was not only wrong on the politeness/civic amity/professionalism spectrum, it was historically/factually wrong. And the whole tears thing is so patently fake. There is no excuse for what he said, and his tear-stained apology should read more like this:

My remarks crossed the line. What I said was factually incorrect, and morally reprehensible. I was wrong. I apologize to the people of the United States, and especially to the United States Military, the guards at Guantanamo, my constituents and my family. In my unhealthy desire to make a political point, I offended you all, and for that I am deeply sorry.

Something like that would be a real apology. It also pisses me off that no one in the media is willing to parse a sentence, and comment on what he's actually saying. Fah.

Preparations are in full swing for this year's Sportsman's Club Testicle Festival.

Plan accordingly.

Over at Ace, we discover that there is an effort to provide homes for Chinese blogs. Given the censorship and controls employed by the Communist government (backed of course by the threat of police violence) it behooves us in the free world to help out where we can.

Adoptablog is a project to match Chinese blogs (or, in fact, blogs from anywhere where there is totalitarian speech suppression) with hosts in the US. After consulting the oracles, finger bones, and a few tea leaves, I have determined that we can easily spare room here for a Chinese blog. If you are a blogger in need of hosting, email {encode="adoptablog@perfidy.org" title="Perfidy Adoptablog"} and we'll figure out how to get you set up. (Perfidy is running on expression engine software, but we can be flexible should that be necessary.)

Today, I had lunch at a local chinese restaurant. As is traditional, I received a fortune cookie at the end of my (quite tasty) buffet. Unlike most fortune cookies, this one left me wondering:

Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today

Okay, today I will avoid elephant smooching today. Should I not buss an elephant tomorrow? What if I did so in the past - will I have bad luck? If I do run into a pachyderm after midnight, should I seek out some lip hockey?

And if I do run into an elephant today, am I doomed if I kiss an elephant somewhere other than on the lips? It only mentions lips! What will I do if I run into an amorous elephant? I could just tell the elephant I have a canker sore, but I don't think I'd have much choice if the elephant really wants a kiss. Wouldn't the trunk get in the way of kissing anyway...

Drudge is reporting DNC Chairman Howard Dean has decided to forego the evenhanded rhetoric, amity and collegiality, bend-over for the ruling party methods that he has heretofore exhibited. Now he's going to get mad, and you wouldn't like him when he's mad. This comes as a bit of a shock to those of us who thought that the good doctor was already a little bit around the bend, what with all the "Republicans are evil," "I hate Republicans and all they stand for," "They're the white Christian party," and other assorted bon mots.

While I have not been one to believe that Karl Rove is the all-powerful puppetmaster/machiavel/satanic schemer that some in the dirtier, smellier parts of the left imagine him to be. But I doubt myself... Did Karl Rove somehow replace the real former Governor Dean with an android? Because Dean is a gift beyond price to the Republicans. Fundraising is down, the fringe is pushed to ever greater heights of offputting frenzy, and Republican speechwriters and admakers have a database of money quotes they will be decades in exhausting.

And Dean seems to be dragging the party leadership with him. Every day, some Democrat gets sucked past the event horizon of Deanite mania, to a place where the laws of physics and history are strangely warped and unintelligible. Senator Dick Durbin confusing past totalitarianism with current American Military practice is only the most recent victim. I have heard people of the left say that Dean's behavior is no different than that of Rush Limbaugh. While this is certainly true, there is a significant difference in their positions. Limbaugh is not the RNC Chair.

M. Simon had a post the other day (found via Murdoc) which lays out the problem for the Democrats:

So far the Democratic Party hates white Christian Republicans according to Dean. The Military according to Durbin and Jews according to a forum organized by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan.

So let us do a Venn diagram to see what is left of the Democrat party.

Here is the list:

Whites
Christians
Republicans
The military
Jews

Now of course there is overlap but that list must include 70% to 80% of all Americans. I must say, short of Nixon's resignation, this is one of the most amazing weeks I have ever witnessed in American politics. The Democrat Party is shrinking faster than the Wicked Witch of the West.

The Democrats are building a permanent Republican majority by the simple and expedient method of self-destruction.

How they imagine that they can reclaim the levers of power in 2008 is utterly beyond my comprehension. After alienating everyone who isn't already ideologically committed to the party, they will no doubt nominate the most polarizing figure in American politics in the last quarter century. Hillary is smart, and canny; but she's going to have a smaller base to work from. And there is no guarantee that the Republicans will nominate as weak a candidate as GWB next time around, or that the war on terror will have blown up in our faces. (I mean, really, the last two elections were "Clash of the Midgets.") If a Republican with broad appeal to the middle - someone like McCain, if not actually McCain - goes up for the big game, the Democrats are going to be toast.

Space.com has an interesting article on terraforming called, "Terraforming: Human Destiny or Hubris?" It's a little pessimistic, I think. Not that I'm saying that in the next ten years, we could start making any large-scale alterations to any planetary environment, save the one we're already on. However, the one thing that will make it possible is replicating assemblers. Not necessarily nanotech, though that would make it easier. Once we have devices that can be sent as a seed into space, there to grow into automated factories for producing solar power plants and large engines for moving things, truly anything will be possible. And the way computer technology is going, it won't be long before that could happen. (Moore's law says that computer power will be approaching the lower bounds of human thought in a less than thirty years or so.)

Murdoc tagged me with this meme over the weekend. Why the hell not?

1. Total Number of Books I Own: Somewhere north of 2500. In my life, I have probably owned another 1000 or more books that I either lost, sold, or gave away. I imagine I have read all but a few of those books.

2. The Last Book I Bought: I bought David Reynold’s new biography of John Brown (he of “nits make lice” fame) because neither Borders nor Barnes and Noble had Bennett’s Anglosphere Challenge. Haven’t started it yet, because I’m reading a free online book.

3. The Last Book I Read: Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban. I’m rereading the series, backwards, in preparation for the release of book six sometime next month. I liked it better than the first time. (I liked book five a lot better the second time. First time I read it, I was rather disappointed.)

4. Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me: These aren’t in any particular order. While any number of non-fiction books have greatly increased my knowledge, or even changed my opinions dramatically; none have had the effect that fiction has had. Fiction, at its best, really gets me where I live.

1. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read this when I was young, maybe eleven years old. Tolkien created such an extraordinarily dense mythology, it was easy to get lost (in a good way) in the story. Heroism, good v. evil, magical landscapes and creatures, and the feel of ancient wonder. The books felt old in a way that no other thing I have read ever have, even stories written hundreds of years earlier.
2. The Illuminatus Trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson. This book meant a quite a lot to me fifteen years ago. Blew my mind when I read it. I tried to reread it a few months ago and couldn’t get more than thirty pages in. This book, and the Shroedinger’s Cat trilogy, made a huge impact on my habits of thinking. Wilson would no doubt be disappointed that his books did not arrest my slide into conservatism, but they certainly affected the kind of conservative I became. The thing that stuck with me most from this book was not that reality is relative, but that everyone does have their own perception of it. And everyone is the hero in their own personal narrative.
3. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert A. Heinlein. I think this is Heinlein’s greatest novel. Where the politics of Illuminatus didn’t quite take hold, it was probably because this book had already made firm claim to essential mindshare. (And to a lesser extent, Starship Troopers and most of the juveniles.) Rationalism, liberty, guns. It’s all there, plus a computer throwing rocks.
4. Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner. The first book I ever read that made future shock real, and then went on to show how it could be a good thing. Science fiction is in large an antidote to future shock – my typical response to innovation is, “About frickin’ time!” The horizon for “worrying” technological development is, for me, very far in the future.
5. The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester; and The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert. Okay, so I’m cheating a little. These two books, read just after I gradumatated from high school, reaffirmed my sense of wonder. In completely different ways, they had a similar effect on my consciousness. The idea that you can improve your consciousness, your self in ways vastly different and better than the pabulum offered by mindless self-help books lingered a long time… Science fiction here less concerened with spaceships and rayguns, but with the mind.

Maybe it’s the way my mind is wired, but non-sf fiction doesn’t grab me the way sf does. It doesn’t effect me in any deep sense. I have read a fair amount of the canonical literature, and enjoyed it. Been amazed, in fact, at its quality, its insight into the human condition. None of it hit me like these books, though. Maybe if the list was ten or fifteen, we’d start seeing Shakespeare and other writers that a literature professor would recognize. In a world so profoundly altered by technology, a literature that explores more than mere alienation is the only thing that can explain our world to ourselves.

At this point, I’m supposed to invite others to join in the madness. In the interest of being incestuous, I tag all my cobloggers. But in keeping with the precedents set before me, I nominate: The Maximum Leader, if he reads; Ken The Oldsmoblogger, ‘cause he’s from Cleveland; Phil Dennison, ‘cause he’s from Cleveland; John Hudock of Commonsense and Wonder ‘cause he should be from Cleveland and I feel real bad about not linking him in ages; and finally Dave at Garfield Ridge, ‘cause he’s new to the blogroll. Like Murdoc said, “If you don't want to, let me know so that I can badger you about it. If you've already played this game, let me know so I can badger someone else.”

For the first time ever, the Ministry has broken into the ranks of mammals on TTLB's blog ecosystem. We are now adorable little rodents. Thirty or so more links, and we'll be marauding marsupials. So link us.

MommaBear, of On The Third Hand, is mourning the loss of her beloved PoppaBear. My condolences for your loss, and you will be in my thoughts and prayers. On behalf of the Ministry, we wish you strength and hope in your time of need.

No, that's not the second in command of the Decepticons. It's the little icon that appears in the top left corner of the browser, and in the address bar, and on bookmark links. Loyal reader #0018, Paul from the Empire State displayed admirable gumption, initiative and pluck yesterday when he determined that there was something lacking in the Ministry's website and didn't, like thousands of others, merely bitch and moan about it.

Rather then subject the Ministry's html code-chiseling Kobolds to further abuse he took it upon himself to create a perfidious favicon all by himself and email said icon to the Ministry's Bureau for Unsolicited Technical Thingys. After the web server gnomes scratched their heads, looked up to the sky in plaintive confusion, wrung their beards and tapped the sides of their computer monitors in a vaguely fetishistic manner, they went about installing the favicon in accordance with industry-standard best practices, as determined by a two minute google search.

They reported success, but initial reports from Ministry field officers are showing only mixed results. If you see a little perfidy icon, please inform the Ministry and let us know the make, model, color and trim package of your browser. Likewise if you do not see the delightful flames of perfidy, email and let us know what sort of pathetic browser you are using in a lame attempt to surf the interweb. All hail loyal reader Paul from the Empire State, who has earned the Ministry commendation of and for extraordinary usefullness.

[wik] Can anyone see the favicon in IE of any flavor?

Back in the dark times of late summer 2004, when it seemed that the Republicans were going to steal yet another election, a group of brave patriots gathered together to protest the Republican National Convention. Nearly a thousand groups (listed at the United for Peace and Justice website) gathered under the wise and benevolent leadership of Michael Moore, Danny Glover and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and sent at least a hundred thousand, but no more than 200,000, and certainly not 400,000 people, to NYC to demonstrate.

While the exact goal of the demonstration remains obscure (were they going to stop the Republicans from selecting a candidate? that'll put a spoke in their wheel!) it is clear that these earnest and concerned people were definitely against everything that was going on inside the convention. All that democracy and stuff. In my role as a serious commentator on politics and current events, I looked at the list of groups, and noted that some of the names were rather silly. And then I posted that thought, with some carefully chosen examples to buttress my argument. Names like these:

1% a peace army (MA)
Addicted to War (CA)
African Ancestral Lesbians United for Societal Change (NY)
Brooklyn Demilitarized Zone project -- BkDMZ (NY)
Chicago Anti-Bashing Network (IL)
Citizens of Planet Earth Academy (NC)
Committee to Free Pedro Pacheco
Disarm Education Fund (NY)
draftresistance.org (AK)
Emergency Committee To Defend Constitutional Welfare Rights, USA (NY)
Food Not Bombs - Muncie (IN)
House of The Goddess Center for Pagan Wombyn
John Denver Peace Cloth (WA)
Labone Branch of Ghana United Nations Association
Marxist Feminist Lesbian Jamican Radical Poets -- MFLJRP (NJ)
Not in Our Brains Campaign (NY)
PLURtopia & Enlightened Libra Creations
Quixote Center (DC)
Raging Grannies - Peninsula Chapter (CA)
Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane (CA)
Ruckus Society
Students Against Testing (NY)
Ukuleles For Sanity (CA)

But one group that I mentioned recently took offense at my light-hearted ribbing. Actually, not a group but a TV show.

Missing Kitten TV

In a post entitled, “Little Green Morons”, MKTV accused me of being [gasp…] a right-wing whackjob! Further, I am accused of shoddy, slipshod research. Agony!

you see, a while back, katharine and i decided to register our show as one of the member groups supporting the united for peace and justice movement. they published the list of all of those groups on their website. and ever since then, all types of right-wing whackjobs (including the new york post!) have taken a stab at at those of us with untraditional names. not a single one has ever taken the time to do any research, contact us, or even visit our website.

…you would *think* that one - just one! - of these little green footballs would be able to figure out that we are a TV show!!!

Well, damn. I didn’t think a whole lot of research into the history, aims, membership and favorite color of any of these groups was necessary for me to judge, all on my own, that some of them had silly names. Judging a book by its cover is perhaps unwise. But what if you are judging the book cover? Do you have to read the book then?

And “untraditional” is a, shall we say, generous description for some of these titles.

Since hypocrisy is the biggest sin for the left, let’s examine some of those statements. I am wrong for not reading Missing Kitten TV’s website, and for not contacting them to get the full picture before recklessly mentioning that they have a silly name. I wonder, did the well-intentioned and kind people from Missing Kitten TV bothered to look at this site before calling me (in a nice way) a right-wing whackjob? Do right-wing whackjobs share their personal space for communication and expression with two people who hold offensive and criminally stupid liberal viewpoints? Do right-wing whackjobs as a rule oppose the war on drugs, support gays in the military, women in combat, gay marriage (conditionally, I admit), oppose censorship of all kinds, and think that the patriot act was almost certainly a bad idea? Apparently I am a sufficiently open-minded enough right-wing whackjob to share my blog with two liberals and to hold any number of beliefs not perfectly congruent with the label, "right-wing whackjob." Or maybe I don’t hang out with the right sort of right-wing whackjobs.

Further, minimal research would have unearthed that I am neither little, nor green. I’ll give MKTV a flier on moron, but your mileage may vary.

In any event, I make a formal apology to MSTV for having the temerity to mention their name without first seeking their permission. I further abase myself and say that from this moment on, the phrase “right-wing whackjob” will appear in the list of cycling capsule biographies under my name as a constant (well, intermittent) badge of my shame. I will also endeavor to be less right, less wing, and less whack. I will retain my job however, because I am still a conservative. And finally, I will never again display the kind of breathtaking arrogance and condescension for which conservatives are so infamous:

again - he never did ANY research, or made ANY effort to contact us. and here in NYC, alls you gotta do is turn on a friggin' television set....

my sentiments exactly....

Clio, the muse of history, has left her scrolls and books at the foot of Mount Olympus. She has gotten her shots, filled out her will, donned her 3-color desert uniform and spiffy brassard, and humped her ruck into harm's way.

Clio is downrange with the 45th Military History Detachment.

Stars and Stripes discusses the efforts of Army historians in recording and cataloguing soldiers' accounts of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is not likely to be more detailed primary source material concerning the units, places, and people in either theater. Much of the collected information undoubtedly has immediate utility, as tactics are modified and doctrine re-written. Other material will be used to fuel papers at the War College and CGSC, likely sooner rather than later. The greatest value of this work though will not be appreciated for, perhaps, decades.

This is the raw stuff that our children will use when they write the history of this war.

I was shopping for ideas for a 4th anniversary present and came across this entirely unhelpful one.

If you want to avoid the hassle of shopping for a 5th anniversary present, consider $60 worth of pears for your 4th. Not only is it a stupid gift, it's a cheap one too; I don't know which tack would embarrass me more.

Nothing says, "I Love You" better than a hamper full of pears and cheese. Except, maybe, every other thing you could think of.

Transcribed by Mr. and Mrs. and Mrs. Zambesi

From The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Good evening. The last scene was interesting from the point of view of a professional logician because it contained a number of logical fallacies; that is, invalid propositional constructions and syllogistic forms, of the type so often committed by my wife.

'All wood burns,' states Sir Bedevere. 'Therefore,' he concludes, 'all that burns is wood.' This is, of course, pure bullshit. Universal affirmatives can only be partially converted: all of Alma Cogan is dead, but only some of the class of dead people are Alma Cogan. 'Oh yes,' one would think. However, my wife does not understand this necessary limitation of the conversion of a proposition; consequently, she does not understand me, for how can a woman expect to appreciate a professor of logic, if the simplest cloth-eared syllogism causes her to flounder?

For example, given the premise, 'all fish live underwater' and 'all mackerel are fish', my wife will conclude, not that 'all mackerel live underwater', but that 'if she buys kippers it will not rain', or that 'trout live in trees', or even that 'I do not love her any more.' This she calls 'using her intuition'. I call it 'crap', and it gets me very irritated because it is not logical. 'There will be no supper tonight,' she will sometimes cry upon my return home. 'Why not?' I will ask. 'Because I have been screwing the milkman all day,' she will say, quite oblivious of the howling error she has made. 'But,' I will wearily point out, 'even given that the activities of screwing the milkman and getting supper are mutually exclusive, now that the screwing is over, surely then, supper may now, logically, be got.' 'You don't love me any more,' she will now often postulate. 'If you did, you would give me one now and again, so that I would not have to rely on that rancid Pakistani for my orgasms.' 'I will give you one after you have got me my supper,' I now usually scream, 'but not before'-- as you understand, making her bang contingent on the arrival of my supper. 'God, you turn me on when you're angry, you ancient brute!' she now mysteriously deduces, forcing her sweetly throbbing tongue down my throat. 'Fuck supper!' I now invariably conclude, throwing logic somewhat joyously to the four winds, and so we thrash about on our milk-stained floor, transported by animal passion, until we sink back, exhausted, onto the cartons of yogurt.

I'm afraid I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original brief. But in a nutshell: sex is more fun than logic-- one cannot prove this, but it 'is' in the same sense that Mount Everest 'is', or that Alma Cogan 'isn't'.

Goodnight.

"Grist", in this case, used as in the third of the definitions from Merriam-Webster.

Interesting article by Mark Steyn, a writer I always enjoy reading, in (tomorrow's) Telegraph.

On close reading, particularly of the last half, a reasonable person could get the impression the Brits have gone barmy. It makes most of what you think you know about excessive political correctness seem rather quaint.

You'll know you've arrived when you see the bit about gay horses. Trust me.

My summary of the Michael Jackson verdict, dittoed from an email I just sent to a friend in PA who insisted that she had to know what I thought of the matter:

Well, I don't blame the jury; I think they did a fine job. The prosecutor screwed up by bringing a weak case, and then by trying it in the newspapers. He should be ashamed.

Richard Jeni, one of my favorite standup comedians, did a show in January or February on HBO (called "A Big Steaming Pile of Me"), in which his opening bit was about Michael Jackson. Sample bits (paraphrased): "Easiest job in the world? Michael Jackson's lawyer - think about it: you have to create reasonable doubt in the jury's mind. (Pretends to point toward Jackson) Ladies & gentlemen of the jury - there's your reasonable doubt. I mean, look at the guy!"

Another part was about needing a jury of your peers. His point was something like "You could troll the entire human gene pool, 24/7, for a month and not come up with one bit of whatever THAT is." So how did they find a jury of his peers, I wonder? They didn't, which is a relief, because he's utterly unique in a damp and clammy sort of way.

He's an easy target, and could well be innocent of all pedophilia. I don't doubt that he was innocent of this pedophilia, primarily because his accusers were so skeezy, even while I have my questions about his proclivities in that area.

And he's a total wack-job, which reinforces the "easy target". But good for him - he got off, and if he could just take a couple years to get his feces together, maybe we'll never have to see or hear from him again.

I'd be OK with that.

Yup - that about sums it up for me, not that I care.

Oh, and happy Birthday, B - Do I get any retro-points for having edited the childish street profanity out of my continuation play to your only-peripherally-about-the-King-of-Pop post?

[wik] It could just be me, but does MJ's lawyer, Thomas Mesereau, look like he could be someone's grandma?

Something I've been looking forward to, perched on the edge of my seat, even. The jury in the Michael Jackson "Is he beyond a reasonable doubt a freaky child molestor" trial is due to announce its verdict in a few minutes after seven days of deliberation. Now, most people have always felt that he was a creepy child diddler. But now we'll know whether or not the justice system will consider him such.

But that's not the birthday present. This is:

It's always somehow heartening to know that there are people like this in the world.

As of 3:50 this morning, I am 36 years old. This is, I think, the last year I will reasonably be able to say that I am in my "mid thirties," so I suppose I should make the most of it or something. In many important material aspects, it won't be my birthday until wednesday, when I get my first real paycheck. Then I can go shopping.

So far, and I am keeping track, three members of my family have wished me a happy birthday. Aunt Diane gets bonus points for getting me a card that arrived on Saturday. My cousin Chris gets bonus points because I didn't expect an email from him. He turns 37 in a week, so he has one week left of his mid thirties. My mom, whom I love, gets half a point, because she wished me happy birthday when she replied to an email I sent her this morning.

Dad gets zero points. This is a composite score because he gets -1 point for not wishing me happy birthday when I called him this morning, and +1 point because that call was to decide where to meet for lunch, which he will pay for because it's my birthday.

The rest of my family gets zero points; as do friends and cobloggers, because while it would have been nice to have a happy birthday greeting, it's not like I went out of my way to let them know that I had a birthday coming up.

Mrs. Buckethead gets -1 point because she didn't wish me a happy birthday at all this morning. Should I still give her money to buy me a birthday present, or should I just buy a iPod?

[wik] My son gets +1 point because he's adorable, and has no fricken clue what a birthday is.

[alsø wik] My friend Trish gets +1 point for emailing me a happy birthday. And, she talks sf. Another 1/2 point.

[alsø alsø wik] Mrs. Buckethead gets another -1/2 point for calling about the air conditioning and the ants in the upstairs bathroom, and again failing to wish me a happy birthday.

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Lots of movement in the scores over lunch. Dad is up to +1 1/2 points for giving me a really funny Farside birthday card, and for cash. My stepmom is up a point for picking out that card, and for the cash. Mrs. Buckethead down another point for two more calls and still no happy birthday. And out of left field, Polly is up +10 points for calling on my birthday and offering me a higher paying job.

[see the løveli lakes...] Geeklethal and Murdoc are each +1 point for being snide. Especially Murdoc:

Sheesh. If Molly Ringwald was like Buckethead, the movie SIXTEEN CANDLES would have ended like the movie CARRIE…

[the wøndërful telephøne system...] My mom is lobbying for points:

Don't I get any credit for putting a card in the mail on Saturday, even if you get it late?

Sorry mom - no card, no points.

[and mäni interesting furry animals...] Mrs. Buckethead gets another -1 point for three more phone calls without a happy birthday. I hope that it is the heat affecting her higher brain functions. On that note, however, she gets +5 points for getting the air conditioning running again. When temperatures and humidity are both over 90, ac is definitely a good birthday present. And maybe when the house cools down, her brain will start working again.

[including the majestik møøse...] Another unexpected birthday call. The headhunters who got me my current yob called, and wished me a happy birthday. I was going to give them +1 point, but my coworker insisted that this deserves +2 points, seeing as it came from a nominally soulless corporation. +2 it is.

[a Møøse once bit my sister...] A summary of the standings so far, just as I get ready to leave work:

1. Polly the headhunter, +10
2. Nathan the headhunter, +2
3. Trish, Dad, +1 1/2 Also Mrs. Buckethead, even though she still hasn't wished me a happy birthday
4. Murdoc, Geeklethal, Aunt Diane, Cousin Chris, Stepmom, My son, +1 point
5. Mom, +1/2 point
6. The other six billion or so people, 0 points

What kind of scary world is it when two headhunters top your birthday list?

[No realli! She was Karving her initials øn the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law -an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink"...] Final update: Mom gets +1 point because her card was waiting for me when I got home, and then she called. Mark gets +2 points for wishing me a happy birthday even though he probably didn't know I existed a couple hours before he did so.

[Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...] Next year's birthday will be dynamite. Huge.

In a Monday morning Telegraph opinion piece, Dr. Bjørn Lomborg opines that environmental scientists might be going 'round the bend:

Last Tuesday, 11 of the world's leading academies of science, including the Royal Society, told us that we must take global warming seriously.

Their argument is that global warming is due to mankind's use of fossil fuels, that the consequences 100 years from now will be serious, and that we therefore should do something dramatic. We should make substantial and long-term reductions of greenhouse gases along the lines of the Kyoto Protocol.

This is perhaps the strongest indication that well-meaning scientists have gone beyond their area of expertise and are conducting unsubstantiated politicking ahead of next month's meeting of the G8.

Now, granted, he's a political scientist, not an environmental scientist, but he's got a reputation for clear thought, and I'd assert that clear thought might be more enlightening than the howling of doom-mongers.

Here's the thing - part of his current exposition of clear thought, embodied in the article linked above, revolves not around debating the correctness of the views of Kyoto Treaty proponents. He points out that, even if you accept them all at face value, they're missing something important. The pro-Kyoto arguments go into great detail about what "will" happen if Kyoto's not put in place, with facts, figures, pictures, and for all I know, hand-puppets. So they're clearly hip to using data to make their case for projections of a dire future.

The same scientific facility and diligence could be applied to a post-Kyoto world, too, wouldn't you think? Lomborg does. And he uses their own projections to reveal that which they "know" but don't share with us, namely that if Kyoto is put into force, the bad effects it's supposed to delay will only be delayed by six years. 6 - not 60 or 600, six.

Color me unimpressed.

He goes on to point out:

Moreover, they should also tell what they expect the cost of the Kyoto Protocol to be. That may not come easy to natural scientists, but there is plenty of literature on the subject, and the best guess is that the cost of doing a very little good for the third world 100 years from now would be $150 billion per year for the rest of this century.

Never mind - color me actively opposed. Unless they cease the pretense that this is anything but a way to hobble the developed world so that the third world can catch up, disdain for Kyoto proponents is all I can muster. Not for nothing did the US Senate vote unanimously in favor of a resolution calling the Kyoto Treaty a "bad thing" or words to that effect.

[wik] See also Robert Novak's latest, in which he reports:

"In reality, Kyoto was never about environmental policy," a White House aide told me. "It was designed as an elaborate, predatory trade strategy to level the American and European economies." The problem for Europeans has been that Bush refused to go along, ruining the desired leveling effect. The EU's industries have been devastated, while the U.S. has prospered.

Europeans' desire to bring U.S. prosperity down to their level is no conspiracy theory of American conservatives. Margot Wallstrom, the Swedish vice president of the European Commission, in 2001 (when she was commissioner for the environment) said the Kyoto Protocol was "not a simple environmental issue . . . this is about international relations, this is about economy -- about trying to create a level playing field."

They should be encouraged to intercourse themselves, sez me.
[/wik]

No wallflower, Lomborg, he finishes by pointing out what we perhaps might ought to be worrying about, including AIDS, malaria, malnutrition, free trade and clean drinking water; all things that perhaps we might be able to positively affect.

And, unspoken in Lomborg's article - the comparison between those challenges and the alleged challenge of global warming. Those maladies are inarguably bad, but global warming, and the shifts in global climate, have been occurring since the Earth initially cooled from whatever flaming rock it used to be, and I find it hard to credit arguments that there's some static configuration the climate on Earth is supposed to have. It certainly wasn't static before mankind and his evil SUVs started tooling around, and I question how reasonable it is to expect it to be so in the future.

(If you can get past the bad plot and the breathlessly overdone drama, I'd recommend Crichton's State of Fear for a decent bibliography of the failings of global warming activists' critical thought processes)

I saw on Rocket Jones that one of his compadres had put hatred for the Yankees into tangible form. Knowing of my dear mother's deep and abiding hatred for the Yankees, I dropped her the link in an email. Two hours and sixteen minutes later, I get this reply:

I ordered 6 of them for $5. Pick out a spot on the Xterra.

I love my mom.

Kimber reinvented the 1911 pattern semi-automatic when it introduced the Custom .45 ACP. Before Kimber, getting an accurate .45 meant spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars for the tuning and accessories necessary to create a first-rate .45. The Custom came with many of these features standard, and had out-of-the-box accuracy rivaling the best match grade pistols.

After I purchased my Custom II, I rushed over to my local shooting range. I loaded up my eight round magazine, grabbing ear protection and safety goggles, and picked a lane. I am not a marksman. I don’t have time to polish my skills. But you could cover my first eight shots at ten yards with a playing card. From a gun I had never fired before, of a type I was largely unfamiliar with.

The rangemaster walked over and asked, “Kimber?” Shit! They’ve got mind reading rangemasters!

“Right in one. How’d you know?” I asked.

“I heard you say it was a new gun. Only Kimber and an accurized Springfield are that tight fresh out of the box. And the Kimber’s a thousand bucks cheaper.”

That made me feel very happy with my new purchase.

From a distance, the Kimber looks like a standard issue M1911 pistol. But clever Kimber gunsmiths have added lots of goodies. Metal Injection Molding makes all the smaller parts stronger than earlier cast metal parts. The gun is constructed to extremely fine tolerances. The fit is tight but smooth – you can feel it when you operate the slide, and when you pull the trigger. It’s like the difference between the sound of a door closing on a Mercedes, and on a Yugo. You can just tell that one is made a lot better than the other.

The Special Forces are known to be fond of Kimbers. The LAPD SWAT team recently adopted stock Custom II’s as their standard sidearm. And I love mine. The 1911 is a big gun, over two pounds in weight. This, however, helps the shooter control the heavy recoil from the big .45ACP round. For me, the 1911 feels like an extension of my arm, and shooting is an utterly natural process. The big grip fits perfectly in my hand; and as I mentioned, the Kimber is a finely made piece of iron.

From the shooting times article:

The 1911 continues to be cloned by dozens of companies both here and abroad. And getting what you pay for doesn't necessarily apply as one can easily spend twice as much for one pistol that won't perform as well as another. First and foremost on the performance list is reliability. The pistol simply must work every time all the time. The pistol must also be "combat accurate." While the definition of this somewhat elusive term varies, any pistol that works every time and can break four inches with five shots at 25 yards is combat accurate. It's a plus if it'll do better than that and reliability is not compromised. Following reliability and accuracy comes stopping power, and the .45 ACP cartridge pretty much takes care of that by itself. It goes without saying that the pistol must contain reliable safety devices, good sights, ergonomics, and a good trigger. In its search for a new 1911 pistol, the LAPD SWAT team selected test pistols from what it considered the five major manufacturers. As one would expect, the testing was rigorous. Every aspect of the pistols was tested, retested, and evaluated. One by one, the guns were eliminated until the final selection was made.

Kimber won by an impressive margin. Kimber makes more than a few 1911-type pistols, but if you're thinking the Kimber tested by LAPD SWAT was one of the top-of-the-line Kimber Custom Shop Target .45s, think again. The pistol the LAPD chose was Kimber's entry level 1911, the Kimber Custom II. A spartan pistol by Kimber standards, the Custom II comes with plenty of special features to qualify its name. These include fixed combat sights (dovetailed front sight), rounded (no-bite) speed hammer, stainless-steel throated barrel, polished feedramp, lowered/flared ejection port, four-pound trigger, extended thumb safety, beavertail grip safety, beveled magazine well, and black checkered rubber grips. Before Kimber most of these features were found only as aftermarket custom options. The Custom II is probably the most .45 ACP 1911 for the money--ever.

That’s why I decided to get one. A .45 is not the most concealable weapon. It would be rather bulky in a shoulder rig. Shooting .45ACP is not the cheapest way to go. But: the Kimber is a joy to shoot, and there are very few handguns better for when the zombies come.

The Kimber is a good zombie defense weapon. By combining accuracy with a big round, while remaining an easily portable handgun, you can’t have a better backup. If you’re shooting (as I will be) Federal Hydra-Shok rounds, you get an extra boost in lethality. These center-pin hollow points make very big holes on the way out. I tested a couple mags on some innocent watermelons, and each melon looked like it had been hit by a 24lb. sledge after only one shot. And you can do it repeatedly from outside the range of claws and teeth – if you’re a half-decent shot, you can get a head shot at respectable (for handgun) ranges. If the zombie come, and all you have is a handgun, I can confidently say that this is the one to have. Bigger guns have problems with accuracy, or even with finding ammo. .45 ACP is common, and you won't find a better combination of stopping power and accuracy.

Final stats and gun porn below the fold:

• Rate of Fire: 3 (you can rip off a full clip pretty quick, and you can reload faster than a typical wheelgun.)
• Magazine Capacity: 2 (8 rounds per mag.)
• Effective Range: 4 (I can get four out of five rounds in the head thingy on the target at 50’ regularly, and I am not an action movie star.)
• Humpability: 6 (for a handgun, it’s a big, albeit reassuring piece of iron.)
• Melee Combat: 3 (I don’t recommend pistol-whipping zombies. If you’re out of ammo, drop the gun and use a Louisville slugger.)
• Zombie Hole Size: 7, or an exit would the size of a cute little kitten. (Using the Federal Hydra-Shok rounds recommended by my friendly neighborhood gun nut. If they can blow the entire back two-thirds of a watermelon away, I think it would do a good job on a Zombie noggin. This would be 6 or even 5 with standard slugs.)

Zombie Incapacitation Potential: 4.6/10*

*Note, again, that in the event of a close-quarters head shot the Hydra-Shok will certainly pulp the zombie’s head. A slug would likely do the same.

[wik] Links fixed

As we go about our daily lives, we are often overwhelmed by the myriad choices he have to make in a day, from the mundane ("Can I make the light...?"), to the major ("What bill can I ignore this month so I can afford bourbon?"). As we make those choices, hundreds in a day, we draw upon our own experiences, our educations, the advice of friends and strangers, or our collective gut.

But one question that we Ministers are often faced with we have no help in answering. Whether it comes up over dinner at our Aspen retreat or privately, as we pass in normal society quietly awaiting the Ende Tyme, the question is always the same:

When the zombies come, how best to kill them?

After some thought (not much, some), we have decided to make an effort to answer our own question. We therefore declare a new feature, the Ministry Caliber Corner, where weaponry large and small will be fired, evaluated, and rated according to its projected capacity to kill the undead. Or re-kill. Whichever.

Your enthusiasm for this feature is, as always, expected.

The Smith & Wesson Model 686P is the latest incarnation of the stainless steel magnum. The test weapon is (nearly) literally off the production floor, and is the 6th generation of that design. The 686P differs from the standard 686 by incorporating an adjustable rear sight, red-ramp front sight, and 7-round cylinder to the design.

The weapon is chambered for either .38 Special or .357 Magnum, and is rated for hotter .38+P loads. It is available with a 6" barrel, 4", or, in the case of the test weapon, a 2 1/2" barrel.

At the first range visit, I put 50 rounds of .38 and 50 more of .357 Magnum downrange. Both were 158 grain loads. Groups with the .38s were fair at 7 yards, but a wee bit of a handful. The Magnums were too much- big bark and big bite to the firing hand. I really had to bear down on the grips and make extra effort to control the round. That in turn had consequences on accuracy, with shots scattered and entirely ineffective. It is also plausible that the short barrel couldn't throw those heavier rounds accurately. In subsequent testing, I put 100 rounds of 130 grain .38 Special through, with marked improvement all 'round: tighter groups, and with a final few tweaks to the rear sight I was hitting center-of-mass every time I cared to put rounds there.

Characteristic of Smith wheelguns, the action is silky and tight. Single action fire has no slop or play; if you think you’re going to take up the trigger slack like with your daddy’s old hunting rifle, think again- this piece is going off. Double action work is not at all ratchety but of course you get the resistance that comes with DA fire. The 2 1/2” is definitely muzzle-heavy, even with 7 in the cylinder. The weight is forward of the trigger, not on top of it as I anticipated. Plan acccordingly for a bit of a work out on your firing-side wrist.

The weapon comes solely with the stainless finish and hogue rubber grips. I found the grips getting a little slippery on a temperature-controlled (but clammy) indoor range. And I was reminded of the steel backstrap by the ache in the palm of my firing hand the rest of the day, although that was only with the heavier 158 grain loads.

My initial thought about adding adjustable sights (and therefore, cost) to a carry snubby was that it was not a terrific idea. It seemed that a weapon that compact, built and purchased for a personal defense, emergency weapon would not be the first choice to expect careful, measured fire that an adjustable sight can support. But in my situation, the majority of this weapon’s life will be lived on the range, where I can take as long as I please to concentrate on sight picture, breathing, trigger control, and other fundamentals. So I sprung for the spiffy rear sight, but would concede that it is not at all central to this model's mission.

As a carry weapon the 686P is superior. Even with the 7 round cylinder, the 686P does not bulge excessively and naturally the short barrel lends itself to concealment. The weight might be off-putting to some, and I can’t say I blame them. It’s an all-steel piece folks, and loaded it’s a tad heavy, coming in at about a lumpy 3 pounds. But my personal preference is for a heavier weapon. S&W’s alloy revolvers of titanium or scandium pack similar punch but are a fraction of the weight. Problem is I find them TOO light; I want to know it’s still there, not have to reach down and check it's still there.

OK, but what about the zombies?

This revolver is a respectable emergency anti-zombie weapon. As a revolver, there are no external safeties to consider, or magazine feed/ejection problems to clear in case of crisis. Capacity is limited, but this is not a primary offensive weapon. It is light enough to carry in a shoulder rig all day without strain, but puts a hefty round downrange. There is little doubt of either the .38 or .357 effectiveness against the cranium, whether that of the living or the re-animated. There is a fair chance of mobility kill with either round, given a lucky hit to the kneecap or tibia, but that level of accuracy is probably better left to rifles. If the zombies are even close enough in the first place that you need to pull your 686P, you're best option is to get the hell out of there and fast.

Final stats and gun porn below the fold:

Rate of Fire: 2 (basically, 7 rounds/minute; with training, and speedloaders, that could double but…)

Magazine Capacity: 2 (7 shots just ain’t much)

Effective Range: 3 (“Effective” the key word here- when I’m shooting it, beyond about 30 ft, the legions of the undead will be safe)

Humpability: 9 (Fits in generous pocket; can carry all day no sweat)

Melee Combat: 2 (heavy and chunky, but small- you’re only getting one hit with it before you’re devoured)

Zombie Hole Size: 4, or an exit would the size of a chubby shrew

Zombie Incapacitation Potential: 3.7/10*

*Note, again, that in the event of close-quarters head shots either round will likely pulp the zombie’s head.

Friday morning's Telegraph contains a story that brightened my day. Entitled "Speech by Mugabe 'proves he is losing his mind'", it informs that:

President Robert Mugabe was accused yesterday of displaying "senile dementia" when he boasted to Zimbabwe's parliament that "great strides" were being taken towards "economic recovery".

Absolutist that I sometimes am, the next paragraph talks about a slightly older issue (last week) that, to me, smacks of advanced syphilitic insanity on the old bastard's part:

The president hailed the march of progress in a capital where bulldozers have demolished thriving factories and township shacks alike, throwing tens of thousands on to the streets.

At the risk of (again) being accused of simplistic exaggeration, I think that half of what's wrong with the entire African continent would be resolved with the ascension of the MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai or, frankly, anyone outside ZANU-PF, to the presidency of the unfortunate country of Zimbabwe.

And when I've recently had occasion to rail, off-line, at the facile pleadings of Hollywood nobility for the US to belly up to the bar and double down on its African aid, most of my objection was that so much aid already has gone toward propping up tinhorn shitheads like Mugabe that Africa is almost better off without further such help.

If he goes 'round the bend, however, my railing will be reduced by a quarter. And if one of his army colonels speeds it up on behalf of his countrymen, and doesn't simply take over in his stead, well, I'd reduce my railing by fully half.

Via WSJ's sometimes annoying email news alerts, this headline:

After taking a string of scalps, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer suffered a high-profile loss today, taking some of the luster off his campaign against shady mutual-fund trading.

Funny thing - I could be misremembering, but he hasn't actually taken many scalps in his tenure as New York Attorney General, though he has convinced a lot of people to scalp themselves and deliver the flesh and hair to him, gift wrapped.

Without expressing opinion on either his choice of targets or his reasons for seeming always to be trying to be newsworthy, there's a funny thing about this loss, encapsulated in the words of whatever sporting wit came up with the phrase "That's why they play the games".

Spitzer's ability to terrorize individuals and companies into admitting guilt may have advanced the cause of justice so far during his tenure. Heck, anything's possible. But every so often, at the very least, it's nice to see someone force him to get a case in front of a jury, to ensure both that remembers where the courthouse is located and that he's not simply an overreaching schmuck.

And I'm not saying he is. But a jury in New York State Supreme Court has given a hint that perhaps, in this case, he might have some attributes in common with such grandees.

[wik] Link to WSJ story replaced with one to a non-subscription report on the matter, at the Telegraph.

[alsø wik] Freely available, terse, and complete - WSJ editorial on the matter.

... and I'm out. See you in a week and a half, suckers. I'm off to drink heavily, eat pulled pork, party with family, and run on the beach until my knees pop out of my body.

By way of Rocket Jones, we learn of a modest proposal from a California state representative. State Senator Tom McClintock has some ideas for California schools:

Across California, children are bringing home notes warning of dire consequences if Gov. Schwarzenegger’s scorched earth budget is approved – a budget that slashes Proposition 98 public school spending from $42.2 billion this year all the way down to $44.7 billion next year. That should be proof enough that our math programs are suffering.

As a public school parent, I have given this crisis a great deal of thought and have a modest suggestion to help weather these dark days.

Maybe – as a temporary measure only – we should spend our school dollars on our schools. I realize that this is a radical departure from current practice, but desperate times require desperate measures.

The Governor proposed spending $10,084 per student from all sources. Devoting all of this money to the classroom would require turning tens of thousands of school bureaucrats, consultants, advisors and specialists onto the streets with no means of support or marketable job skills, something that no enlightened social democracy should allow.

So I will begin by excluding from this discussion the entire budget of the State Department of Education, as well as the pension system, debt service, special education, child care, nutrition programs and adult education. I also propose setting aside $3 billion to pay an additional 30,000 school bureaucrats $100,000-per-year (roughly the population of Monterey) with the proviso that they stay away from the classroom and pay their own hotel bills at conferences.

This leaves a mere $6,937 per student, which, for the duration of the funding crisis, I propose devoting to the classroom.

That's pretty snarky for a legislator. I hope that someone with a sense of humor can both stay in government and retain that humor. But that is just the prologue. Senator Tom has some interesting ideas for how exactly to spend that $6,937:

To illustrate how we might scrape by at this subsistence level, let’s use a hypothetical school of 180 students with only $1.2 million to get through the year.

We have all seen the pictures of filthy bathrooms, leaky roofs, peeling paint and crumbling plaster to which our children have been condemned. I propose that we rescue them from this squalor by leasing out luxury commercial office space. Our school will need 4,800 square feet for five classrooms (the sixth class is gym). At $33 per foot, an annual lease will cost $158,400.

This will provide executive washrooms, around-the-clock janitorial service, wall-to-wall carpeting, utilities and music in the elevators. We’ll also need new desks to preserve the professional ambiance.

Next, we’ll need to hire five teachers – but not just any teachers. I propose hiring only associate professors from the California State University at their level of pay. Since university professors generally assign more reading, we’ll need 12 of the latest edition, hardcover books for each student at an average $75 per book, plus an extra $5 to have the student’s name engraved in gold leaf on the cover.

Since our conventional gym classes haven’t stemmed the childhood obesity epidemic, I propose replacing them with an annual membership at a private health club for $39.95 per month. This would provide our children with a trained and courteous staff of nutrition and fitness counselors, aerobics classes and the latest in cardiovascular training technology.

Finally, we’ll hire an $80,000 administrator with a $40,000 secretary because – well, I don’t know exactly why, but we always have.

What's the damage for this profligate expense for luxurious digs and overqualified teachers? Just over a million dollars.

This budget leaves a razor-thin reserve of just $216,703 or $1,204 per pupil, which can pay for necessities like paper, pencils, personal computers and extra-curricular travel. After all, what’s the point of taking four years of French if you can’t see Paris in the spring?

The school I have just described is the school we’re paying for. Maybe it’s time to ask why it’s not the school we’re getting.

It's this kind of thinking that exposes the problems with equating money spent with performance. The educational bureaucracy eats away at the resources supposedly intended for students. And strangely enough, we have become so used to the problem that something like this seems radical, strange and wild-eyed.

Just pretend that the previous school infrastructure was eliminated in a series of freak accidents. Strangely selective tornados demolished all of the school buildings. The teachers all got on Survivor X, Sierra Leone. The superintendent was run over by a gas truck. The principals were all convicted of barratry and loitering. Nothing survived, and in two weeks, the dear little kiddies have to have a new school system. Think about it - if you were in charge with creating from scratch a school system, wouldn't you do something similar? You wouldn't even have to worry about providing sinecures for superfluous educrats. Just provide a safe and confortable place where learning could take place.

This is another situation where the existing system is so out of whack that pouring money on the problem won't accomplish a damn thing. Even structural reform is unlikely to be successful given the entrenched interests. And that is why so many people are home schooling - in the millions, now. And why inner city families want vouchers to send their kids to private schools. And why the teacher's unions are so desperate to prevent it.

[wik]And another thing. Last night, Mrs. Buckethead and I rented a movie. At the front of the movie was a preview for a new Samuel L. Jackson flick, where he plays a basketball coach in a troubled, inner-city school. From the preview, it looked like the movie is following the standard script for this type of feature: grizzled, curmudgeonly but wise teacher enters scary high school; wins respect from students through a combination of discipline, nicely judged and appropriate punishments and an unwavering demand that slacker youth meet his (seemingly impossibly) high standards of competence, achievement and excellence; said slacker students discover untapped reservoirs of decency, smarts, and hard work, and achieve their goal of winning the tournament/big game/learning to read/not killing people/not having children out of wedlock.

That this has become a standardized, almost rote exercise in film-making says something. To me it says, why the @#!?% don't we institute that sort of thing for all public schools?

Ladies and gentlemen, the governer of Texas!

FORT WORTH, TEXAS – Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry on Sunday insinuated the state’s lesbian, gay and bisexual war veterans should leave the state if they are unhappy with a recent anti-gay marriage amendment introduced there.

During a news conference held in a Fort Worth church, Perry was asked what he would tell Texas gay and lesbian war veterans returning home from war about the law. Governor Perry responded, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, by saying that “Texans made a decision about marriage and if there's a state that has more lenient views than Texas, then maybe that’s a better place for them to live.

Obsidian Wings has much, much more.

(n.b. this is not a drill, and this is not misrepresenting what he said. The governer, during a news conference about a photo op in which he signed -not a bill, but a resolution (which does not require his signature) in favor of a State-constitutional gay marriage in Texas - invited all gay veterans who are Texan to go be gay somewhere else. Because it's not enough that they fought for their country. They're queer, you see.)

What a douche.

[wik] Andrew Sullivan:" What do you call a gay man who risks his life to serve his country? A faggot."

The Washington Monthly has a running discussion on health care vouchers.

The real question here is, why are the insurance companies so terrified of competing with the government on an equal footing? Health care in Canada runs somewhere around 6 or 7% overhead -- almost all of every dollar goes straight into direct health care. Overhead in the US is several times higher than that.

I think it is entirely appropriate to have private insurance companies in the mix; it is equally important to have government supplying the service as well, subject to the same rules as the private sector. As a citizen, you can take your healthcare voucher to a government hospital or you can take it to a private hospital/insurance plan. If the private companies provide much better service, then that's where the dollars will go, and the government service shrinks accordingly. If the government service just delivers more for your dollar, then your dollars go there.

The fixation on competition in this country inexplicably excludes competition from government, and that competition would keep the private industries honest, as long as the government isn't allowed to cheat.

The oil change analogy is accurate here, too. These private medical organizations provide a service to society; they "change the oil". Why would we pass a law that makes it illegal for society to "change its own oil"? When the private companies can do it more cheaply and do a better job, then we take our money to them. But at a certain point, we might decide $100 for an oil change just isn't worth it, and we'll just do it ourselves, thank you very much.

Before I decamp later today for a ten-day bacchanalia of dissipation on the beaches of Tybee Island, GA (known to all as the Redneck Riviera), I thought I would bring an amusing contrast to the attention of Ministry readers. Massachusetts is one messed up place, no doubt. But for the most part the things we are famous for: traffic, rudeness, gay marriage, our senators, don't register at all here. Sure, we bitch about the traffic and the jerkhole who just cut us off, and that Joe & Clark just claimed the perfect spot and perfect weekend for our wedding before we got around to it, a place and time that is rightfully OURS, DAMMIT!, but it's no big deal.

But check out this study in contrasts.

Story the first: The Boston Archdiocese shuts down a Catholic school two days before graduation. The BAD claims they changed the locks overnight and called parents to tell them school was off today in order to head off the PR and logistical disaster of an ongoing occupation of the school by parents angry that the school is closing for good at the end of this school year. True, the BAD did turn down an offer by a group of parents to buy the school at fair market value, and true, it is now common in these parts for parishoners to occupy churches slated for closure long after the drop-dead date.

But in heading off that brutal and messy occupation, the Boston Archdiocese got this:

That's a picture of students crying and praying in the rain last night as parents and students rushed to gather outside the school in a highly visible, public, and photogenic protest. That's right: in order to stave off a long fight over school closures that would only lead to a PR disaster and money ill-spent for an archidocese that can hardly afford it, they handed Boston's deeply disgruntled Catholic laity a pearl of incomparable price. Later today the school's graduation for grades preschool through 6 will be held outside the gates, with diplomas provided by parents with laser printers and with a rush permit granted by mayor Tom "Mumbles" Menino.

Clearly, the Boston Archdiocese is fundamentally incapable of thinking of the children.

But wait!

Story the second: Boston's Attorney General is investigating charges that the longshoreman's union has been putting children as young as 2 on the payroll. That way, when they turn 18 and take a job they have sixteen years of seniority and pay increases built up. This comes as Boston's cargo trade declines, thanks, no doubt, in part to the monstrous costs of doing business in Boston.

Clearly, the longshoremen think too much of the children.