Themistocles' Shade

Leonard Pinth-Garnell presents exquisitely bad moments in National Anthem History:

2012-01-23T16:41:00.002-05:00

Anyway, back to the subject of the post:

Over-exposed long-ago-shark jumper edition-

Steven Tyler:

Uh-Oh edition -

Carl Lewis

"Utter disgrace" edition -

Roseanne Barr

Etta James RIP

2012-01-20T16:05:00.000-05:00

Heck of a talent, troubled life.

My favorite Etta:

This one ain't to shabby either!

Thank you Ms. James.

Herodotus’ “Histories” of the Persian Wars (very liberally ‘translaparaphrased’): Book I sections 53 -58

2012-01-20T14:08:00.004-05:00

Wherein, after a long delay, the Hallicarnassus Historian and King of all story mongers is back, providing us with a few more sections of his history of the Persian War, and the World as he knew it, while indulging in a speculative pre-history of the Athenians and Spartans, this all being in prelude to detailed histories of both, before he departs on a detailed history of Persia, and every other part of the known world before finally arriving at his subject, the Persian Wars!

But that's all for later. Now, some prehistory of the Sparties and the Athenians, followed by a little recent history of the same (in soon-to-come posts):

53 (Remember, King Croesus the Lydian is thinking of making war on Cyrus, King of the Medes. He's been oracle mongering to see if it's really such a good idea. Herodotus has been giving us a damn catalog of all the bling Croesus has been tendering the Oracles at Delphi and Amphiaraus, the two he thinks are genuine bona fide seers.)

As I was saying, the Lydians who were tasked with the delivery of these gifts to the temples were instructed to ask the oracles if Croesus should campaign against the Persians, and if he should also form alliances for the purpose. So, in each case, upon the messengers’ arrival, they first offered the gifts, using appropriate ceremonials and then put Croesus’s question thusly: ‘Croesus, leader of the Lydians as well as other nations, believes that yours is among the true oracles of the world. He has given gifts that are proper for such accomplished diviners. So, now he begs to ask of you whether he should march against the Persian, and if it would be wise to seek alliances for that campaign.’

Both oracles answered similarly. They replied with the prediction that Croesus would destroy a great empire if he were to move against the Persians. On the matter of alliance, they advised that he seek out the greatest of the Greek city-states, and come to an understanding with it.

54

Croesus was elated when he heard report of these replies, and became fully confident he was going to be able to defeat Cyrus. To fully express his satisfaction he sent a further gift to Delphi, giving two gold staters for every man. In fact, he took pains to ask the Delphians to give a count of the adult male population for this very purpose. In thanks for the gesture, they in turn granted all Lydians, in perpetuity, the right to claim full Delphic citizenship if they desired to claim it. Additionally, such Lydians as would take the offer were to be exempted from taxes, given front seats, and priority in oracular access.

55.

When Croesus had given Delphi these further presents, he consulted a third time. Acquisition of one true answer to a question had made him eager for more. This time he asked if his reign as King would last a long time. The Pythia’s response:

When the day comes that a mule shall sit upon the throne of the Mede

Then, tender-footed Lydian, by the pebbly river Hermus

Run, and delay not, nor trouble yourself with shame at being a coward.

56

This reply was immensely satisfying and confirmed Croesus in his confidence. For, he could not foresee how it was even remotely possible that a mule become King of the Medes. He took it as a sure indicator that he and his progeny would retain power forever.

He then turned to the task of determining which Greek city-state was the most powerful, and forming an alliance with it. It quickly became apparent, through his investigations that the Lacedaemonians were pre-eminent among the Dorian cities, and the Athenians were uppermost amongst the Ionians. These two, one originally Pelasgian, the other Hellenic, were generally considered the two most powerful among the Greeks.

The Ionians are indigenous to the peninsula, where the Dorians, on the other hand, have always been on the move. During the reign of Deucalion, Phthiotis was home. In the reign of Dorus, son of Hellen, it was the country known as Histiaeotis situated in the neighborhood of Ossa and Olympus. They were driven from that locale by the Cadmeians and settled in Pindus. There they were known as Macednons. From there they migrated to Dryopis, and finally settled in the Peloponnese, where they acquired their present name of Dorians.

57

Of the Pelasgian language I cannot speak with authority, but that its origins were not Greek, we can reasonably infer from the features of the language of those now resident in Creston, just above the Tyrrhenians, who were neighbors of those now denominated Dorians, when these latter resided in the country we call Thessaliotis. We can also glean this from the language of the Pelasgians that settled at Placia and Scylace on the Hellespont and were fellow countrymen of the Athenians. Lastly, similar cases can be made about other Pelasgian towns that have changed their names over time.

Granted then, that we can infer these are a fair sampling of the Pelasgians, we can infer that the Athenians, themselves originally Pelasgian, changed language when they were first absorbed into the Greek nations, long ago.

In Creston and Placia the same language is spoken. It is a different language from those of the surrounding country. This clearly indicates that these people, when the relocated to the region, did not change their language.

58

I am of the opinion that the Greeks have always spoken the same language, but were small and culturally weak upon branching from the Pelasgians in ancient times. They have grown to their present stature by the addition of several foreign elements, amongst which eventually were included the Pelasgians themselves. I don’t think the Pelasgians, originally non-Greek, ever became numerous or powerful.

Memo to the YouTube Five – It’s the visuals stupid:

2012-01-13T16:17:00.004-05:00

Re: Some things you should have known.

1. You nullify ten plus years of hard work, and success (such as it is) in gaining trust of the indigenous population/government. For, every ‘knuckle-head corporal’ episode like this, there are probably 50 episodes of ‘strategic corporal’ Americans-being-Americans, doing great laudable things like helping locals with infrastructure, schools, water supply, giving free medical and surgical services, soccer balls to the kids, & etc., that usually fly under the world- media radar, unreported for whatever reason.

So, the ripple effect of these significant, ongoing and positive efforts undertaken in Afghanistan (when it comes to the impact on the greater Muslim world) is considerably less than the ripple effect from far less frequent but big-splash media fed-negative events, like the one you went out of your way to produce.

2. The fact that you not only went to the trouble to video yourselves, but apparently shared this with others, leading ultimately to the You Tube posting, not only shows you are strategic knuckleheads, and had no clue you were feeding a well established media fire by pouring gas on it yourself, but it just as obviously fuels the anti-American conspiratorial mindset we contend with in that part of the world. In Afghanistan, it fuels the Taliban inspired propaganda that Americans have little respect for Afghans and Muslims. It is bleeding obvious to everyone, except you and piles of bricks, that such gasoline as you created fuels the sort of propaganda rampant in the media outlets of the ME.

3. Your act amounts to handing these despicable people the proverbial pistol with which to shoot your comrades in arms, The efforts you took in creating and sharing your video presents exploitable and plain visual evidence that your gang was particularly interested in going out of its way to desecrate and dehumanize Muslims, this enabling the propagandists to offer evidence in support of the contention that Americans generally don’t think of Afghans or Muslims as human. It doesn’t matter if this was not in your mind at all. It doesn’t matter if you did not intend for it to find its way to You Tube. You should have known it might find its way onto the web and that the the act would be portrayed that way. This will recruit more fighters, and harden those already in the field. It is more likely now, that more American blood will be shed than would otherwise have been. Like I said: Piles of bricks and yourselves seem to be the only entities on Earth unable to fathom that possibility.

In short: ‘It’s the visuals stupid.’

4. You were violating UCMJ and Geneva conventions.

5. Desecrating Taliban grunts works counter to winning over such lower level combatants, something we have always tried to do, and something that stood a better chance of happening before now (as compared to the probability of winning over Mullah Omar and his ilk, higher up the food chain in the Taliban crime family). You think negotiating with the higher ups is stupid, and likely to fail. You’re right about that. But, this thing you did is just as stupid, if not more so.

6. For the balance of our time in Afghanistan, you’ve made it harder to gain cooperation of local noncombatants for teams such as yours. Nice work.

7. It just doesn’t matter that the Taliban are barbarians. Yes we know they behead, kill and disfigure women, use terror against innocents as a means of first resort & etc. So what? Two wrongs don’t make a right.

8. (This one is aimed at a blog post I can no longer find, but which was supposed to defend your actions by comparing them with another famous warrior/pisser.)

No, Patton did not do anything comparable to this. Sorry , but pissing in the Rhine as you cross into Germany is quite different than pissing on dead enemy combatants and then proudly broadcasting the fact, ultimately leading to its appearance on to the world stage via the world’s most popular internet video posting site. Patton wouldn’t have done that. So, quit trying to excuse stupidity that way.

6. You think Karzai is borderline delusional now? Just give this episode time to sink in.

7. This’ll play well in Pakistan, not that they needed any help, but you sure as hell gave it to them.

Jack Benny show about a month post Pearl Harbor

2012-01-12T16:37:00.000-05:00

1-11-42 From March Field

Interesting intro from 'Buck Benny.' Jack Benny was the entertainer who

Move over Jeremy Bentham, here comes Li'l Kim in a box

2012-01-12T13:33:00.005-05:00

The NoKo's are going to preserve and display dear leader.

North Korea said Thursday it will enshrine "eternal leader" Kim Jong Il's preserved body in the palace housing the body of his father, national founder Kim Il Sung..

On Thursday, the North said Kim Jong Il's body will be displayed at Pyongyang's Kumsusan Memorial Palace, where the embalmed body of Kim Il Sung has been lying since 1995, a year after he died. Kim Il Sung is still known as North Korea's "eternal president." It was unclear whether their bodies would be in the same room.

No doubt the crack team of embalmers will do a better job than the Bentham crew originally did. This is Bentham's real noggin. The one on Jeremy in a Box is a wax replacement.

I suspect Li'l Kim will end up looking like this:

What is it with communist regimes and display mummies anyway?

Is it fair for the FDA to fine me for not using unicorn-horn derived magic dust in my coffee creamer?

2012-01-11T16:00:00.001-05:00

‘Of course not,’ you say ‘there is no such thing.’

‘So what? Fork over that money.'

So sayeth another arm of the regulatory Leviathan, the EPA, if this story from NYT is accurate:

Sanka freeze-dried version, as a set of easy to follow directions (accompanied by occasional inserts from the story):

1. Write a regulation requiring fuel refiners/providers use of a certain amount of plant waste derived ‘bio-fuels’ in their fuel mixtures for cars and the like.

2. Be sure to do so when such bio-fuels are still in the research phase, or being produced at very low levels, if at all.

Michael J. McAdams, executive director of the Advanced Biofuels Association, said the state of the technology for turning biological material like wood chips or nonfood plants straight into hydrocarbons — instead of relying on conversion by nature over millions of years, which is how crude oil originates — was advancing but was not yet ready for commercial introduction.

And:

One possible early source is the energy company Poet, a large producer of ethanol from corn kernels. The company is doing early work now on a site in Emmetsburg, Iowa, that is supposed to produce up to 25 million gallons a year of fuel alcohol beginning in 2013 from corn cobs.

From the Department of Understatement:

Even advocates of renewable fuel acknowledge that the refiners are at least partly correct in complaining about the penalties.

“From a taxpayer/consumer standpoint, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense that we would require blenders to pay fines or fees or whatever for stuff that literally isn’t available,” said Dennis V. McGinn, a retired vice admiral who serves on the American Council on Renewable Energy.

Yeah. No kidding. And I’m sure from the provider’s standpoint it’s making about as much sense as one o’ them Jacks Derrida books in the English Dept.

3. Fine said fuel providers for not meeting the quota. Be sure to tailor the fines so that they are not too onerous so as to provoke legal response.

4. Judiciously increase the quota the next year, reap the increased revenue.

5. Deny the patent unfairness of the whole thing with some deflective, obscurantist pseudo-econ doublespeak.

But Cathy Milbourn, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said that her agency still believed that the 8.65-million-gallon quota for cellulosic ethanol for 2012 was “reasonably attainable.” By setting a quota, she added, “we avoid a situation where real cellulosic biofuel production exceeds the mandated volume,” which would weaken demand.

Huh?

6. Have your folks( or surrogates or critics) claim it’s for the good of Gaia and vital to National Security.

Mr. McGinn of the council on renewable energy, defends the overall energy statute. Even if the standards for 2011 and 2012 are not met, he said, “I am absolutely convinced from a national security perspective and an economic perspective that the renewable fuel standard, writ large, is the right thing to do.” With oil insecurity and climate change related to greenhouse gas emissions as worrisome as ever, advocates say, there is strong reason to press forward.

7.Rinse and repeat.

8. Hope the press doesn’t get wind of it. *Oops*

Further questions for pondering:

A. If these processes can actually take plant materials, and turn them into useable hydrocarbons, and these hydrocarbons are supposed to substitute for similar materials produced over millions of years by natural processes (oil and gas), how exactly is this supposed to allay the fears of those that believe burning hydrocarbons poses a climatic threat due to released carbon dioxide? Isn’t it the case that any and all burning hydrocarbons (regardless of origins, be it natural or artificial) release CO2? How’s this helping things?

B. When all is said and done, if we’re gonna be a-burnin hydrocarbons anyway, wouldn’t it be cheaper to use them sources in the U.S. and Canada that Big Oil has been a-belly-achin’ about? And we wouldn’t be a-waitin’ around so long for the end product.

Mr. Drevna of the refiners association argued that in contrast to 2007, when Congress passed the law, “all of a sudden we’re starting to find tremendous resources of our own, oil and natural gas, here in the United States, because of fracking,” referring to a drilling process that involves injecting chemicals and water into underground rock to release gas and oil.

What is more, the industry expects the 1,700-mile Keystone Pipeline, which would run from oil sands deposits in Canada to the Gulf Coast, to provide more fuel for refineries, he said.

Guess there isn’t lucre in movin' that-a-way, although we could write up some regs on fracking and pipelines....yeah. That's the ticket.

70s game desperately contending with 21st Century

2012-01-10T16:06:00.000-05:00

Blockbuster news: 70s Role playing cult mainstay "Dungeons and Dragons" is soliciting input from players in a bid to revamp the franchise, and appeal to today's gaming market.

This is obviously an attempt to compete with DaD successor World of Warcraft.

The obvious revamp. Go on-line. Looks more like they are tinkering with rules though. That won' t make a dent. Go on-line. That is obviously where most gaming already occurs.

Insert gratuitous Leeroy Jenkins video here:

Post Mortem on the Leos’ 2011 Season, and looking ahead to 2012:

2012-01-09T16:15:00.003-05:00

Sanka freeze-dried version:

1. All 10 victories were over 8-8 or worse teams.

2. The last two games highlighted obvious areas for personnel improvement:

A. Defense (all areas)
B. Running Game. (Add one decent (or better) running back to current core.)

Room for improvement in play (eternal-return-of-the-same edition)

A. Cut down on flags.

B. Learn to tackle. (See 2-A)

3. Lions were on the positive side of the luck lottery more often than usual this season, pulling off 4 improbable comebacks. They cannot rely on that happening again. Assuming two of those four didn’t go positive; Lions would have been 8-8.

Look ahead to 2012 season:

Schedule includes:

Home: Packers, Vikings, Bears, Rams, Seahawks, Texans, Colts, Falcons
Away: Packers, Vikings, Bears, Cardinals, 49ers, Jaguars, Titans, Eagles

8-8 or worse:

Home

Vikes, Bears, Rams, Hawks, Colts

Away

Cards, Jags, Eaglets

So, assume they win all the home games, that’s 4 wins.

Assume they win in Fla, as they tend to do, and at Az, but do not in Phillie, that’s 6 wins.

Now, looking at the rest of the schedule:

Assume they split the divisional games, losing away, winning home: that’s 9 wins.

Assume losses to Falcons, Texans, Niners and Titans, that’s 9-7.

So, 9-7 is a sort of baseline prediction, things could flex either way a game or two. Absent significant improvement in D, and/or running game, that will not be sufficient to win division. So, no home play-off game in 1st round. Another early exit if they make it through the tiebreaker bramble.

Assuming significant improvement in one or both of the areas, give them an extra win, perhaps on road against Bears. Still not sufficient to catch the Pack.
Another road game in wild card round, probable loss.

So, my prediction, 9-7: Probably miss playoffs on some tiebreaker.

Hope: I’m wrong.

Last Word: Congratulations for an exciting year, and turning the team into a more than respectable offensive powerhouse. The Leos exceeded my expectations by two games. If they were to successfully address their shortcomings, earn their two extra win exceeding-of-expectations again, they’d be 11-5, playing the NFC East winner, and might pull off that first round win. I’d be happy with that.

Oh. And one more thing. Over to you Opera Man Lions Fan:

"Pure Michigan" spots parodied

2012-01-04T16:31:00.000-05:00

With hilarious, and NSFW results.

You've probably seen the spots, voice over by Michigan's own Tim Allen. Here's a sample:

They are well and truly skewered at this site: NotSoPure Michigan which is now included on the blogroll.

While we are talking Michigan weather, this one is particularly funny. More accurately captures the attitude toward inclement weather.

Watch that language though!

and this one of course, was made a couple of years ago...the language!

What the heck is metaphysics?

2012-01-04T12:54:00.007-05:00

That’s the topic of this podcast from Philosophy Bytes, with the always entertaining Kit Fine, of NYU, a very Big Wig in philosophical circles.

Here’s an illustration of what this discussion illustrates, drawn from Fine himself: (See link below for the full paper)

Consider this little argument about a statue:

(1) The statue is badly made
(2) The piece of alloy is not badly made
(3) Therefore, by Leibniz’s Law, the statue and the piece of alloy are not the same.

What is L’s law? Simply stated, it is this. For any two things, A and B, if A is one and the same thing as B, then for any property or relation that A has, B will have it as well.

Applying that to the statue and to the lump of alloy, this argument attempts to prove to you that the statue is not one and the same thing as the lump o’ alloy. Now, usually, unless one is under the sway of nifty little arguments like this, one is not tempted, (or at least it does not occur to one) to consider the statue as being something different from the lump of metal from which it was fashioned. So, you have an interesting sort of quandary here, the sort of quandary that is a classical case of a philosophical problem. These sorts of problems are typically reflected in questions that are left-overs or residual questions once all the facts of a case or circumstance are discovered. What is more, no further fact finding will settle such questions. This particular left-over issue is one that is usually labeled ‘metaphysical’ in the literature. (There are other ‘left-overs’ most obviously, ethical issues, that occupy philosophers’ attention, but we’re dealing here with a metaphysical one.)

Consider our case: What more could we discover that would settle whether or not the statue is one and the same thing as the lump o’ metal? If I go run some metallurgical tests, that won’t allow me to answer the question this argument presupposes. If I determine the exact weight, that’s no help either, & etc.

So, creating an argument like the above seems to be the only way to even begin to attempt to settle the issue. That particular little argument advocates for settling in favor of the view that there are two distinct things in the same place at the same time; the statue and its material ‘stuff.’

Now, consider this similar argument:

(1)* The thing about which I speak when I say ‘the statue is badly made’ is badly made in so far as it functions as a statue.
(2)* The thing about which I speak when I say ‘the piece of alloy is not badly made’ is not badly made, insofar as it functions as a piece of alloy.
(3) Therefore, by Leibniz’s Law, the statue and the piece of alloy are not the same.

Statements 1* and 2* now more clearly indicate what I take the meanings of the two originals to be. But, parsed in this way, they do not support the conclusion, 3. This version of the argument’s two premises does not appear to get you to the same place as the first little argument. In fact, this revised argument supports this version of 3:

(3)* Therefore, by L’s law, the function ‘being a statue’ is not the same function as ‘being a piece of alloy.’

So, we see that functions, (more precisely, serving functions for human beings) are ‘thing’ that inanimate objects can ‘do’ so to speak. They are sorts of relationship that objects can enter into, thanks to the wants and needs and activities of human beings who make use of those objects. More to the point, one and the same physical object can serve more than one such function. So, the correct metaphysical view of the situation, according to this second argument is one according to which there are not two objects in the same place, at the same time, but one object serving two functions, in that one place at that time.

Which position makes more sense to you? That there are two things, that is; that there is (1) a statue and (2) a hunk o’ metal in the same place at the same time, or rather, that there is only one thing sitting there?

Notice, how you come down on this matter (pun not intended) is not going to come down to your having conducted some sort of fact finding mission, and found some key piece of empirical data, but, instead, it will depend on how comfortable you feel with the notion of a universe populated with these sorts of twins, related objects co-existing in space/time. It’s more a question of your comfort with logical consequences of the two ways of picturing things, or perhaps a question of aesthetic taste, or something like it.

These are the sorts of issues that metaphysics deals with.

More give and take on this particular argument HERE

Rod Serling was wrong about 12-24-2011? Maybe, unless you are a Lions Fan.

2011-12-27T10:14:00.006-05:00

Ok, it has been three days now, and no aliens! In 1975. Rod Serling and Alan Landsburg told us Christmas Eve 2011 was a crucial day in history. That's when the aliens were supposed to come back, and save us from ourselves, after having talked with Mayan priests via televisions or something..

And, you know it has to be something to take seriously when Leonard Nimoy also gave the Vulcan seal of approval:

SO, nothing happens. Of course, IT COULD BE THAT THE MAYAN PROPHETS SAW THE LIONS MAKING THE PLAYOFFS, AND PROGRESSING PAST THE FIRST ROUND. That DID HAPPEN (or begin to happen) on 12-24-2011. Hmm... If that were to happen, it would be a sure sign of the end of the world. We'll have to see about that one.

Here is the complete Serling narrated documentary "Outer Space Connection" about the impending return of our alien forefathers....Classic 70s pseudo-scientific docu-bullstuff. Has all the tropes: pyramid power, auras, & etc..

Disclose.tv - The Outer Space Connection (1975) pt.1/2 Video

Disclose.tv - The Outer Space Connection (1975) pt.2/2 Video

W.T. Sherman's Christmas Gift

2011-12-25T14:54:00.000-05:00

From the "This day in history" sidebar.

..Sherman's armies reached the outskirts of Savannah on December 10 but found that Hardee had entrenched 10,000 men in good positions, and his soldiers had flooded the surrounding rice fields, leaving only narrow causeways available to approach the city. Sherman was blocked from linking up with the U.S. Navy as he had planned, so he dispatched cavalry to Fort McAllister, guarding the Ogeechee River, in hopes of unblocking his route and obtaining supplies awaiting him on the Navy ships. On December 13, William B. Hazen's division of Howard's army stormed the fort in the Battle of Fort McAllister and captured it within 15 minutes. Some of the 134 Union casualties were caused by torpedoes, a name for crude land mines that were used only rarely in the war.

Now that Sherman had connected to the Navy fleet under Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, he was able to obtain the supplies and siege artillery he required to invest Savannah. On December 17, he sent a message to Hardee in the city:

I have already received guns that can cast heavy and destructive shot as far as the heart of your city; also, I have for some days held and controlled every avenue by which the people and garrison of Savannah can be supplied, and I am therefore justified in demanding the surrender of the city of Savannah, and its dependent forts, and shall wait a reasonable time for your answer, before opening with heavy ordnance. Should you entertain the proposition, I am prepared to grant liberal terms to the inhabitants and garrison; but should I be forced to resort to assault, or the slower and surer process of starvation, I shall then feel justified in resorting to the harshest measures, and shall make little effort to restrain my army—burning to avenge the national wrong which they attach to Savannah and other large cities which have been so prominent in dragging our country into civil war.

– William T. Sherman, Message to William J. Hardee, December 17, 1864, recorded in his Memoirs

Hardee decided not to surrender but to escape. On December 20, he led his men across the Savannah River on a pontoon bridge hastily constructed of rice flats. The next morning, Savannah mayor R. D. Arnold rode out to formally surrender, in exchange for General Geary's promise to protect the city's citizens and their property. Sherman's men, led by Geary's division of the XX Corps, occupied the city the same day.

Sherman telegraphed to President Lincoln,

"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."

On December 26, the president replied in a letter:

Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift—the capture of Savannah. When you were leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that 'nothing risked, nothing gained' I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honour is all yours; for I believe none of us went farther than to acquiesce. And taking the work of Gen. Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantage; but, in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole—Hood's army—it brings those who sat in darkness, to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave Gen. Grant and yourself to decide. Please make my grateful acknowledgements to your whole army—officers and men.

Phil Harris & Alice Faye 1951-12-23 Stolen Christmas Presents

2011-12-25T09:15:00.002-05:00

From Buck Benny

Merry Christmas to all those serving in our Armed Forces

2011-12-25T08:48:00.002-05:00

This is simply awesome.

Honolulu Blue and Silver Santa delivers a playoff appearance

2011-12-25T07:14:00.006-05:00

The first since 1999, and, departing from SOP for this season, in dominating fashion, 38-10. No improbable comebacks, a basically penalty free four quarters, offense clicking, defense stifling. Defeating the talented San Diego Chargers, who were playing for postseason life as well. Only drama left, will the Leos claim the number 5 or 6 wild card spot?

5 is preferable, because that would set them against the NFC East winner. A road game they could take. First playoff win since 1991.

Over to you Opera Man Lions Fan:

and just for good measure, official Lions Fight Song Guy, Theo Spight, via the Silver Crush:

Dec. 12 -26 1944, A Christmas Story: Patton's weather prayer and the relief of Bastonge

2011-12-24T08:03:00.004-05:00

From Ladislas Farago's Patton: Ordeal and Triumph

"Chaplain," Patton told O'Neil, "I want you to pray for dry weather. I'm sick and tired of these soldiers having to fight mud and floods as well as the Germans. See if you can't get God to work on our side."

"Sir," the Chaplain replied, 'it's going to take a pretty thick rug for that kind of praying."

"I don't care if it takes a flying carpet," Patton said. "I want you to get up a prayer for good weather."

"Yes sir," Chaplain O'Neil said. "But, permit me to say, General, that it isn't the customary thing among men of my profession to pray for clear weather to kill our fellow men."

"Chaplain," Patton began to fume, "are you teaching me theology or are you the Chaplain of the Third Army? I want a prayer."

"Yes sir," Colonel O'Neil said. When he was outside he asked Harkins, "What do you think the Old Man wants?"

"The General wants a prayer," Harkins said crisply, because, as he put it, this whole transaction was perfectly clear to him. "He wants it right now, and he wants it published to the Command."

...The Lord was in no special hurry to answer the prayer. It was only on December
23rd that He and His inscrutable wisdom deemed it the right time to stop the rains and clear the weather. The timing was superb, because, as we shall see, Patton by then needed clear skies..

For, by then, Patton had been assigned a different task. He needed those clear skies to relieve the 101st Airborne, stubbornly holding on in Bastogne against heavy German attack..

"For the first time in weeks, the weather was actually fine. The clear skies were promptly filled with Allied aircraft - 7 groups of fighter-bombers, 11 groups of medium bombers, a division of the 8th Air Force, and a smattering of RAF planes.

Patton was jubilant. He called Colonel Harkins to his office at Luxembourg and received his Deputy Chief of Staff wearing a smile from ear to ear. "Goddamnit, Harkins," he exclaimed, "look at the weather! That O'Neil sure did some potent praying. Get him up here. I want to pin a medal on him."

Chaplain O'Neil was still in Nancy, but now he was rushed to Luxembourg on Patton's orders. The weather was still fine the next day when he walked into the General's office. Patton jumped to his feet and approached the embarrassed Colonel with hand outstretched. "Chaplain," he greeted him, "you're the most popular man in this Headquarters. You sure stand in good with the Lord and soldiers." Then he pinned the Bronze Star Medal on his chest.

"Everyone offered congratulations and thanks." Harkins recalled, "and we got back to the business of killing Germans."

And the famous 1970 film version of the prayer itself, as read by George C. Scott, accompanied by the incomparable Jerry Goldsmith's haunting score:

Sorry, that's the only version available on YouTube

Winston Churchill Christmas greeting to America - 1941

2011-12-24T07:55:00.004-05:00

Winston Churchill speaks on Christmas Eve, from the White House, 1941 Click to listen, right click to download.

SOP for Visit of General Santa, from Colonel Kringle's desk.

2011-12-24T07:25:00.003-05:00

Army Christmas Operations Order: 12-02-11

Subject: Christmas

1. An official visit by General Santa (NMI) Claus is expected at this headquarters 25 December 2011. The following instructions will be in effect and govern the activities of all personnel during the visit.

a. Not a creature will stir without official permission. This will include indigenous rodents. Special stirring permits for necessary administrative actions will be obtained through normal channels. Rodents stirring permits will be obtained through the Office of the Surgeon General, Veterinary Services.

b. Personnel will settle their brains for a long winter nap prior to 2200 hours, 24 December 2011. Uniform for the nap will be: Pajamas, cotton, light, drowsing, with kerchief, general purpose, camouflage; and Cap, camouflage w/ear flaps. Equipment will be drawn from CIF prior to 1900 hours, 24 December 2011.

c. Personnel will utilize standard field ration sugar plums for visions to dance through their heads. Artificially sweetened plums are authorized for those in their unit weight control program. Specifications for this item will be provided by the servicing dining facility.

d. Stockings, wool, cushion sole, will be hung by the chimney with care. Necessary safety precautions will be taken to avoid fire hazards caused by carelessly hung stockings. Unit Safety Officers will submit stocking hanging plans to this headquarters prior to 0800 hours, 20 December 2011, ATTN: G4, for approval.

e. At the first sign of clatter from the lawn, all troops will spring from their beds to evaluate noise and cause. Immediate action will be taken to tear open the shutters and throw open the window sashes. G4 Plan (Saint Nick), Reference LO No. 3, paragraph 6c, this headquarters, 2 February 2009, will be in effect to facilitate shutter tearing and sash throwing. Division chiefs will familiarize all personnel with procedures and are responsible for ensuring that no shutters are torn open or window sashes thrown open prior to start of official clatter.

f. Prior to 2400 hrs, 24 December 2011, all personnel will be assigned "Wondering Eye" stations (sectors of observation). After shutters are thrown open and sashes are torn, these stations will be manned. g. The G4 will assign one each Sleigh, miniature, M-66, and eight (8) deer, rein, tiny, for use of General Claus' driver who, IAW current directives and other applicable regulations, must have a valid SF 56 properly annotated by Driver Testing; be authorized rooftop parking and be able to shout "On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen, up Comet, up Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen".

2. General Claus will enter quarters through standard chimneys. All units without chimneys will draw Chimney Simulator, M-6, for use during ceremonies. Chimney simulator units will be requested on Engineer Job Order Request Form submitted to the Furniture Warehouse prior to 19 December 2011, and issued on DA Form 3161, Request for Issue or Turn-in.

3. Personnel will be rehearsed on shouting "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night." This shout will be given on termination ofGeneral Claus' visit. Uniformity of shouting is the responsibility ofdivision chiefs.

/x//CHRISTOPHER K. RINGLE
Colonel, USAOIC,
Special ServicesClassification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

From Arghhh!

Drone Wars: Old worries, new weapon.

2011-12-23T11:04:00.004-05:00

That is the pithy gist of Slouching Towards Columbia's response to this Atlantic piece on the subject: Most of the ethical objections raised have been raised in the past concerning innovations in killing at a distance, and, not surprisingly, none of them are dispositive. That is not to say that the ethical considerations should not, after all, be considerations.

Choice bits:

The first overused and under-scrutinized argument is the fear that drones make war “easier to wage” because “we can safely strike from longer distances.” Well, we’ve had that ability since the birth of air power and missile power, it just makes it a lot easier to hit certain kinds of targets at a certain tempo. After all, it’s only the pilots who are “far away,” the drones themselves still operate from bases with real, flesh-and-blood people who are potentially exposed to retaliation, and those bases are not necessarily any further away than bases for manned aircraft (in most cases they service both). It’s notable, actually, that the US actually requires significant international cooperation to maintain the bases it wants to launch drone strikes from, and only in Libya has the US ever used drones against a government it admitted to being at war with (as opposed to Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, where the US strikes non-state actors with some degree of compliance from the local government).

This does of course make war-making easier to some extent, but why we should find this alarming is unclear. Similar effects could be achieved with advances to manned aircraft, stand-off guided missiles, advanced naval weapons, and so on. Drones are an incremental advancement in technology, so far they have no prevented a major alteration in the offense-defense balance, they have merely made military operations we already preferred to fight – such as the US targeting of al Qaeda with air strikes in 1998 – more effective, but without the acquisition of bases capable of generating large volumes of combat sorties, a sustained war would not be “easy” by any means – and those bases would also increase manned-aircraft sortie generation. The loss-of-strength gradient still applies.

....we get to one of my favorite charges against new military technology, that it will embolden our enemies because they will think we are cowards (emphasis mine)...

...Does anyone think it matters that soldiers of counter-insurgent or counter-guerrilla forces, think insurgent tactics are dishonorable? Do you think Taliban or Badr Brigade members wrote missives to each other worrying if Dragunovs, L-shaped ambushes and IEDs with explosively formed penetrators were going to cause them to lose the respect of the American occupiers? War is not won with style points. It is conducted with the maximum amount of lethal force a country feels appropriate for the accomplishment of its political goals, and policymakers must intervene to ensure it does not exceed that. Now, yes, avoiding being hated by the civilian population does matter, but if you replace “robot patrols” with “tank patrols” or “white men with body armor and wraparound sunglasses,” you get a similar answer – the problem isn’t unique to drones, because people tend to have a basic and healthy distrust of armed foreigners anyway.

As for winning the enemy’s respect, we should remember, as Betty White once put it, “I’m going to attack you with this, and you use respect to defend yourself.” The enemy already thinks American soldiers are cowards with expensive machines, this is nothing new. Beyond the tanks, the over-the-horizon artillery barrages, and the enormous bases, there is air power. To the average terrified insurgent soldier, there is little moral difference whether it is a Harvest Hawk or a Reaper slinging Griffins at them. In either case, it is a nigh-invincible machine which the Americans can dispense death from. To a guy with an Kalashnikov or a DShK, that Harvest Hawk’s crew might as well be in Creech – they can’t be stopped. It’s not that we’re killing people with drones that drives terrorist recruitment, it’s that we’re killing people. If we just sent American fighting men and women into hostile villages wearing nothing but loincloths and swinging heavy sticks, people would still be very mad at you when you beat somebody to death.

The additional disrespect that weapons technology earns soldiers is generally more than outweighed by the casualties and incurs and fear it induces in the enemy. To the extent that it causes anger, it is through collateral damage and the death of compatriots, but drones are hardly unique in doing so. The way in which weapons – any weapons – are used in war generally far outweighs the weapons themselves in the overall psychological effect.

An additional misplaced concern the drone program is disproportionately saddled with is that of collateral damage...

...How on earth is this a new problem because of drones? This was a problem when we were using manned aircraft and it is a problem with naval missile and gunfire support and artillery as well. We’ve never had a magic ratio that resolved this debate and never will. This problem, again, precedes drone warfare and will outlive it. But the concern is particularly strange since drones actually allow us to reduce collateral damage significantly compared to many alternatives, since it is easier for a drone to loiter and strike with greater precision than it would be for the pilot of a jet aircraft.

I would add that for each of these ethical worries one could provide an ethical obverse, as it were, and ethical 'benefit' of the new technology. Taking each in turn:

First and last considerations: Drones make 'easier' the more precise and targeted killing of combatants, rendering it less likely there will be collateral damage. Definitly ethically superior to lobbing missiles or carpet bombing, right?

Second, on the issue of respect, whose respect counts here? Consider the enemy, who uses terror as a primary modus, regularly targets civilians. Contrast that with ourselves. We use the drones, very concerned with avoiding civilian casualties, the technology having in fact grown organically from out of that very soil. Do we really expect that he will respect us for doing so, and what would we reap from it if it appeared? And, why should we care that they respect us? We should be more concerned with respect from the civilians, and winning them over. Tall order indeed.

In both cases, a concerted effort at education would obviate the negative side of the ethical considerations coin, and highlight, as well as bring about the positives.

Jean Shepherd musings on Christmas, Football and other matters.

2011-12-23T09:19:00.005-05:00

Jean Shepherd, you know, the Christmas Story writer, Ralphie. Shep had a long running show in NYC, on WOR, in which he spent an hour in spontaneous story telling. He would also, from time to time, read from his published books, stories about life in the Northern Indiana during the depression, stories about 'the Old Man' the Bumpus Hounds, the Red Ryder B-B gun, etc.. The 1984 movie was culled from these writings. Shepherd was a truly gifted story-teller. Below, courtesy of the Internet Archive is a selection of his Christmas related radio ramblings. Click to listen, right click to download.:

Football, the Old Man and da Bears. 12-5-73

Gifts from Aunt Glen...pink bunny slippers. 12-20-73

Buying the Old Man a Christmas gift for a buck 12-23-74

Red Ryder Nails The Cleveland Street Kid 12-77(?)

Christmas Leave (or not) Shep in the Army Signal Corps 12-24-75

The Haqqani network is not a designated terrorist group?

2011-12-22T10:43:00.005-05:00

Counter-intuitive to say the least. But that's the gist of this piece at Foreign Affairs

Sanka Freeze dried version:

1. Even though the Haqs meet the three necessary conditions of being a group that has earned that designation (they're foreign, they use terrorism and they kill Americans) Sec State Clinton has up until now elected not to add them to the list, even though there is bipartisan pressure to do so.

2. The reasons for this reticence are pragmatic:

a. there is a long legal process that must be undertaken, so, why bother?

b. financial sanctions can be heaped upon them via executive order instead. So, why bother.

c. they don't have people here in the States, nor supporters, and no assets, so it wouldn't hit them particularly hard. So, why bother?

Why bother? Why, Besides giving official voice to a moral condemnation of use of terror, and official voice to those Americans killed, who cannot now speak? The balance of the piece gives further pragmatism in reply to this question:

d. The Haqs extort money from Afghan construction firms that the U.S. backs. So, ultimately, the money they use to kill Americans can be traced back to the USG. So, to avoid embarrassment apparently, we should not place them on the list.

e. They ain't goin' away, and will be involved in Afghan politics when we leave, so we'd better treat them with kid gloves, because they'll be involved in the peace settlement. Presumably, they'll be less civil negotiation partners if we've had the temerity to tick them off.

f. They have ties to our erstwhile friends the Paks, who also will be involved in a post U.S. Afghanistan. And we do not want to add the Paks to the list of state sponsors of terror (even though they are) because we are resigned to having to work with our erstwhile friends in fashioning post departure Afghanistan. Apparently, in order to do so, we have to turn a blind eye toward their anti-American activities.

So, in short, pragmatic considerations indicate we would not have much impact on things by adding this foreign terror group who kill Americans to the officially sanctioned list of such groups, so why bother?

The piece finishes with a suggestions as to a way forward in dealing with this group:

Designating the Haqqani network could have its benefits. For one, it would bring further U.S. attention to a network that is attacking and killing U.S. citizens. That would be a gratifying symbolic step. Unfortunately, however, the real policy impact of listing the network as an FTO would be too little, too late. Because of the Haqqani network's form and revenue sources, such designation would have minimal practical effect. The organization's robust criminal enterprises would be hard to touch, especially as the United States withdraws from Afghanistan. If the United States is really out for impact, it should remember the old 1979 state sponsors of terrorism list. Indeed, to get serious about terrorist sanctions, the country should reexamine its financial ties to Pakistan.

Precisely. Moral clarity demands that we not only add the Haqs to the USG list of officially sanctioned terror groups, but it also demands that we add Pakistan to the state sponsor list. Don't merely 're-examine'. Cut 'em off. Getting mired in the strategic/pragmatic weeds muddies the perceptions of moral demands.

OTR Christmas from "Suspense": A Korean Christmas Carol, 12-20-59

2011-12-22T06:57:00.000-05:00

An episode from the series "Suspense", particularly apropos today. Air date: December 20, 1959. CBS. "Korean Christmas Carol". the story of a strange G. I., his A. W. O. L. bag, and an act of courage during a Christmas day battle. The audio quality is not so hot, but the story is great.

Listen HERE

A Collection of Phil Harris/Alice Faye Christmas Shows 1947 - 1953

2011-12-22T06:49:00.000-05:00

1947-12-14 - Presents For Fitch Stockholders

1947-12-21 - Annual Christmas Show

1948-12-19 - Jack Benny as Santa(2)

1948-12-26 - The Christmas Present

1949-12-11 - A Dishwasher Or A Mink For Christmas

1949-12-18 - Getting a Christmas Tree in the Mountains

1952-12-21 - Alice Volunteers to Play Santa Claus

1953-12-25 - Hosting French Refugee Kids for Christmas

Laughable parsing excuses

2011-12-21T13:07:00.002-05:00

Ironically, from someone who supposedly is bravely standing up against the undue influence of Israel on U.S. foreign policy. Who? Joe Klein, a columist from Time magazine. He wrote this in a blogpost about the recent Repub debate:

“Iowa Republicans are not neoconservatives. Ron Paul has gained ground after a debate in which his refusal to join the Iran warhawks was front and center. Indeed, in my travels around the country, I don’t meet many neoconservatives outside of Washington and New York. It’s one thing to just adore Israel, as the evangelical Christians do; it’s another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel’s national security.”

Dig the emphasized bit folks. What is the straightforward reading of this snippet?

My Sanka version:

1. Hooray Rue Paul, for calling out the undue influence of the Israelis as they press for military action against Iran.

and

2. We have sent our boys to foreign wars more than once to fight for Israel's security.

Right? That is the natural read. So. Elliot Abrams takes to the e-pages of the Weekly Standard (noted viper's nest of neo-cons), and takes Klein to task:

Now, Klein has chosen his medium well: Time has a history of anti-Semitism, illustrated by its famous 1977 story about Israel’s prime minister that began “Menachem Begin (rhymes with Fagin).” But Klein’s thoughts are about as ugly as ever appear outside of Pat Buchanan’s publications. “There are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East-the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States,” Buchanan said in 1990.

How different is that from what Klein just wrote? After all, Klein is saying (1) neoconservatives are Jews, and Jews are neoconservatives; (2) Evangelicals like Israel but they are real Americans who put their own country first, unlike Jews; (3) and what those Jews/neoconservatives really want is to send American boys off to fight Israel’s wars, sparing Israeli kids and of course their own kids, who are apparently not “American kids” and anyway do not fight for their country.

Now, Abrams might be reading a bit into it, with that last bit about the neo-cons and Israelis consciously warmongering and making concurrent efforts at sparing their own kids. I'm willing to say Klein didn't intend to communicate that particular libel, but the balance of Abrams' reading of the passage seems to be a fair reading of Klein's intent.

Well, Klein received strong reactions to the original, from others for whom he holds more respect, one from his friend Jeff Goldberg. He also took note of the criticisms of Abrams, and in the process of defending himself and NYT columnist Tom ( the 'stache of understanding) Friedman from charges of being anti-Semitic and/or anti-Israeli, had this to say about the passage in that original column.

A few hours ago, I received an anguished email from my friend Jeff Goldberg, who was incensed that I’d written this sentence:

“It’s another thing entirely to send American kids off to war, yet again, to fight for Israel’s national security.” [emphasis his]

Jeff had jumped to a silly conclusion. I was concerned about sending American kids off to war yet again. I separated the phrase with commas in order to emphasize the too-many-times we’ve sent our troops overseas in the past decade. It might have been more accurate if I’d written “to send American kids off to war yet again–this time, to fight for Israel’s national security.” Which I believe is what the warmongering against Iran is all about. But the thought that we’d gone to war in the past, especially in Iraq, to fight for Israel’s national security was nowhere in my mind. Nowhere. I don’t believe we’ve ever gone to war to fight for Israel’s national security. Period.

Hmm. One wonders if a ride on the way back machine, and perusal of Klein's columns penned during the Bush years would bear out that claim. Hmm. Just a-wonderin'.

How exactly are we to take this?

In his State of the Union message, President Bush devoted only a single, lapidary sentence to the most nagging of all foreign policy dilemmas: "In the Middle East, we will continue to seek peace between a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine." This was both appropriate and misleading. It was appropriate because the Bush Administration hasn't done very much to bring about peace in the Middle East; in fact, it has allowed a bad situation to grow worse. And it was misleading because a stronger Israel is very much embedded in the rationale for war with Iraq. It is a part of the argument that dare not speak its name, a fantasy quietly cherished by the neo-conservative faction in the Bush Administration and by many leaders of the American Jewish community.

There's more in that column, but that's the lead in.

I'm sure there is some plausible concatenation of comma parsing that will explain away the straightforward reading of that one too... Yep. No doubt. Stay classy Klein.

Li'l Kim pushing up daisies

2011-12-19T06:34:00.002-05:00

And, if there is a hell, he's got a reserve box seat. Good riddance.

Ho Hum. Another day at the office for the Lions

2011-12-19T05:54:00.004-05:00

The 2011 MO. Play crappy ball for 3 4/5ths of game. Get behind by at least two scores, wake up, mount improbable come from behind in waning minutes. Darth Raider shocked.

This week: Excellent clock management during the last 5 minutes of the game allowed the Lions plenty of time to score two TDs to take the lead.

Janakowsi sets up for a 65 yard FG in last seconds, after the Lions had taken a one point lead thanks to extra point, first thing I think: 'Tom Dempsy redux. The Lions set the old record of 63 yards in 1970, a record now shared by Dempsy and Janakowski. J will set the new one. Hey. It's the Lions'

BUT no. 9-5, playoffs within reach.

Over to you Opera Man Lions fan:

More Hitchens: Hitch and Victor Davis Hanson take on WWII Revisionism

2011-12-16T14:42:00.001-05:00

Namely, Pat Buchanan's and Niall Ferguson's interpretations of that war.

Chris Hitchens will be missed.

2011-12-16T12:34:00.008-05:00

A principled man of the Left, and the West. Able debater, atheist, and man of letters. Let me reiterate and emphasise MAN OF THE WEST.

His defense of western liberalism was on par with Churchill's in rhetorical and rational force.

Some of his best:

Defense of the West:

Views on Religion:

and Intelligent Design:

Abortion:

On Israel:

On Ayn Rand:

The Tea Party:

On his Leftist critics:

On Micheal Moore:

On Iraq:

and Iran:

On his death:

It really should go without saying that you will not agree with him every time, on every topic, but his voice was well worth hearing. Well informed, and challenging. He will be sorely missed.

Where was this acerbic new-media savvy McCain in 2008?

2011-12-16T09:38:00.004-05:00

This is just wonderful. McCain and Putin are in a Twitter-War.

I score it a win for McCain. Pexflexin' Pootie seems to be in paranoid bunker mode.

Putin had delivered a 4 1/2 hour rant on Russian TV, answering questions during a call-in show, and touched on a whole host of topics: Among them were McCain..

Hey, at least when Pootie-poot delivers multi-hour harangues, he takes questions from the audience. Castro might try that.

So, what was his sage analysis of Sen. McCain?

“He has a lot of blood of peaceful civilians on his hands. He must relish and can’t live without the disgusting, repulsive scenes of the killing of Gadhafi,” Putin said of McCain, referring to the Arizona Republican’s role as a combat pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“Mr. McCain was captured in Vietnam and they kept him not just in prison, but in a pit for several years,” Putin added. “Anyone [in his place] would go nuts.”

McCain as baby killer sadist. Boy, that's original Vlad. What, did you confab with Jane Fonda before you lobbed that salvo?

So, of course McCain responds:

Sen. John McCain responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin calling him “nuts” Thursday with a simple tweet: “Dear Vlad, is it something I said?”

What set off the tirade from the shirtless bear wrestling wonder?

McCain had goaded Putin last week, declaring in another tweet: “Dear Vlad, The #ArabSpring is coming to a neighborhood near you.” He followed that post up with a speech on the Senate floor in which he expressed similar sentiments. In October, he had said Gadhafi’s killing should make “dictators” like Putin “nervous.”

In other Vlad news, Putin strains mightily at humor as he reacts to domestic protesters:

According to the Telegraph, he mocked the protesters and said he thought the white ribbons they had pinned to their clothing as a sign of peace were condoms.

“I decided that it was an anti-AIDS campaign…that they pinned on contraceptives, I beg your pardon, only folding them in a strange way,” he said.

Epic fail there Bizzaro World Prez Pooty-poot. Pretty soon we may be replacing the "Downfall" video rants with riffs on yours:

Wow.

Iowahawk at his best. Line by line parody.

2011-12-15T10:11:00.005-05:00

The Atlantic has a longish piece written by Stephen G. Bloom, journalism prof at U. of Iowa (also visiting in Ann Arbor). It's one of those gorillas in the mist, quasi anthropological pieces you see, from time to time, written by someone from one of the Illuminated Coasts who has visited 'fly over country' or has landed a job in the great Midwest, had to relocate and is consequently deep in the throws of culture shock. At points it is unintentionally hilarious, at others condescending, yet others engaged in offensive stereotyping, and still others, just plain flat out silly. The flavor of the thing? Think Thorstein Veblen in 'Minnersoter' . It's one of those pieces.

What occasions the piece? Iowa's first in the nation status vis-a-vis Presidential primary politics of course. Bloom takes it upon himself to introduce the sophisticated Atlantic readership to a foreign benighted culture. Iowahawk mercilessly skewers the result. producing one of his best.

In order to appreciate the parody, you do have to read the original. Here are some choice cuts, Bloom, then Iowahawk's renditions:

Original:

On January 3, Iowans will trudge through snow, sleet, sludge, ice, gale-force blizzards -- whatever it takes -- to join their neighbors that evening in 1,784 living rooms, community halls, recreation centers, and public-school gymnasiums in a kind of bygone-era town-hall meeting at which they'll eat and debate, and then vote for presidential candidates along party lines. Chat 'n' Chews, they are called.

Iowahawk:

On January 3, Iowans will trudge through snow, sleet, sludge, mud, ice, corn, beans, pig feces, flaming lakes of ethanol, gale-force blizzards -- whatever it takes -- to join their neighbors that evening in 1,784 living rooms, barns, community halls, recreation barns, silos, wigwams, and public-school Corn God sacrifice altars in a kind of Norman Rockwell-meets-HR Geiger old timey bygone-era past-that-never-was town-hall folksy-regular-folks go-to-town-meeting at which they'll eat and debate, and then battle with corn hoes and pitchforks to choose their presidential candidates along party lines. The local tribal elders call this "Kaukkassqaatsi," the Iowa word for "run on sentences."

Original:

For almost 20 years I've lived in Iowa, where as a professor at the University of Iowa I've taught thousands of university students. I've written a couple of books on rural Iowa, traveling to all 99 counties, and have spent much of my time when not teaching, visiting with and interviewing Iowans from across the state. I haven't taken up hunting or fishing, the main hobbies of rural Iowans, but I'm a fan of University of Iowa Hawkeye football, so I'm a good third of the way to becoming an adopted Iowan. I even have a dog, born and bred in Iowa (more on that later).

Iowahawk:

For almost 20 years I've lived in Iowa, where as a professor at the University of Iowa I've taught thousands of university students. When I arrived I was mortified how few of them were prepared to write an impactful, 300-word, two-paragraph, fully-hyphenated sentence. After my initial shock subsided, I became curious about the strange culture that produced these fascinating young drunks. I overcame my agoraphobia and began walkabouts into Iowa's foreboding outback. I've written a couple of books on rural Iowa, traveling to all 99 counties, and have spent much of my time when not teaching or applying for safari supply grants, visiting with and interviewing Iowans from across the state of Iowa in Iowa. I haven't taken up hunting or fishing or methamphetamine, the main hobbies of rural Iowans, but I'm a fan of University of Iowa Hawkeye football, so I'm told I am a good third of the way to becoming an adopted Iowan. According to my students, the final two steps of my official Iowa adoption ritual involve challenging and defeating an Iowa State player in a bar fistfight. I even have a dog, born and bred in Iowa (more on that later) .

Original:

After winning the Iowa Caucuses three years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama didn't mince words about the lingering impact of the Farm Crisis.

Speaking at a San Francisco fundraiser, Obama said, "Like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."*

Obama got scalded for his comments. Those are tough sentiments to share with those caught in the middle. I imagine many in the rural Midwest must have said a variation of this -- "Whaddaya expect from a Harvard-educated, black city slicker who wouldn't know a John Deere tractor from an International Harvester combine?" And what better audience before which to piss on rural America than one filled with wealthy Bay Area Democrats, few of whom could pick out Iowa from Nebraska? If the audience wasn't primarily vegan, gluten-intolerant foodies, what came out of Obama's mouth was some of the most succulent red meat he could have tossed their way.

Coastal elites love to dump on Iowa the same way Manhattanites trash New Jersey. Iowa is the place East and West Coasters call "Fly-over Country." It didn't rate even a speck in Sol Steinberg's classic 1967 New Yorker cover. Obama's comments went over without a second thought, until they wafted back to the Heartland. What Average Joe in Iowa wants to admit he clings to anything -- except hunting, fishing, and the Hawkeyes? Guns, religion, xenophobia? Them's fightin' words.

Obama might have been wrong for telling the truth, which seldom happens in politics, but the future president was 100-percent accurate when he let slip his comments on the absolute and utter desperation in America's hollowed-out middle, in particular in the state where I live.

There's the idealized version of rural America, then there's the heartbreaking real version, the one Obama was talking about.

Take One: The fairytale rendering is pastoral and bucolic; sandy-haired children romping through fecund, shoulder-high corn with Lassie at their side. It's Field of Dreams meets Carousel with The Waltons thrown in for good measure. The ruddy, wooden Bridges of Madison County (where John Wayne was born) may be in the background as the camera pans wide.

Take Two: The nightmare reality is tens of thousands of laid-off rural factory workers, farmers who have lost their land to banks and agribusiness, legions of unemployed who have come to the realization that it makes no sense to look for work, since work pretty much no longer exists for them.

Iowahawk:

After winning the Iowa Caucuses three years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama didn't mince words about the lingering impact of the Farm Crisis.

Speaking at a San Francisco fundraiser, Obama said, "Like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Instead of the praise he should have got for that insightful burn, Obama got scalded for his comments. I imagine many in the rural Midwest must have said a variation of this -- "Whaddayewww them-thar expect from an dangity dagnab pointy-haided egghaid Harvard black boy city slicker wouldn't know him a John Deere corn-o-mometer from an International Harvester alfalfarizer?" Also I imagine them shooting guns in the air randomly, nude, except for bib overalls, with swastikas.

Coastal elites love to dump on Iowa the same way Manhattanites trash New Jersey. And why not? It didn't rate even a speck in Sol Steinberg's classic 1967 New Yorker cover. And if you don't merit a mention by the New Yorker, it's time to take the Greyhound back to Des Moines and live with the humiliation, Elmer. Obama's comments went over without a second thought, until they wafted back to the Heartland. What Average Joe in Iowa wants to admit he clings to anything -- except hunting, fishing, and the Hawkeyes? Guns, religion, xenophobia? Them's Fightin' Words, cuz I is too trajamickly durn darn dumb fer the self-awareniss that that pointyhaid Professer Bloom just cleverly pointed out them thar analogies betwixt guns=huntin', religion=fishin' and Hawkeyes = that thar Nazi zee-no-fobia.

Obama might have been wrong for telling this undeniable truth, which seldom happens in politics, but the future president was 100-percent accurate when he let slip his comments on the absolute and utter desperation in America's hollowed-out middle, in particular in the state where I live.

There's the idealized version of rural America, then there's the heartbreaking George Harrison '74 Concert for Bangladesh Double Live Album version Obama was talking about.

Take One: The fairytale rendering is pastoral and bucolic; sandy-haired children romping through fecund, shoulder-high corn with Lassie at their side. It's Field of Dreams meets Carousel with The Waltons thrown in for good measure. And also, State Fair, and The Music Man, with 76 trombones marching through sunny streets of Pleasantville with highstepping girls in pinafores and button shoes, do-si-doing with apple cheeked boys in knickers. In short, a fairytale utopian Never-ever-land where you don't have to pay women for sex.

Take Two: The nightmare reality is Children of the Corn sewn together with the Hills Have Eyes in a Human Corn Borer at Motel Hell. Tens of thousands of laid-off rural factory workers, farmers who have lost their land to banks and agribusiness, legions of female graduate students who continue to ignore your emails even though they honestly aren't that attractive, and a relationship with you could probably help their career.

Original:

Today, I still not quite sure what I'd gotten myself into. I've lived in many places, lots of them foreign countries, but none has been more foreign to me than Iowa.

They speak English in Iowa. You understand the words fine. (Broadcasters, in fact, covet the Iowa "accent," since it could come from anywhere, devoid of regional inflections.) But if you listen closely, though, it's a wholly different manner of speaking from what folks on either coast are accustomed to.

Indoor parking lots are ramps, soda is pop, lollipops are suckers, grocery bags are sacks, weeds are volunteers, miniature golf is putt-putt, supper is never to be confused with dinner, cellars and basements are totally different places, and boys under the age of 16 are commonly referred to as "Bud." Almost every Iowa house has a mudroom, so you don't track mud or pig shit into the kitchen or living room, even though the aroma of pig shit is absolutely venerated in Iowa: It's known to one and all here as "the smell of money."

Friday fish fries at the American Legion hall; grocery and clothing shopping at Wal-Mart; Christmas crèches with live donkeys, sheep and a neighborhood infant playing Baby Jesus; rifle-toting hunters stalking turkeys in the fall (better not go for a walk in the countryside in October or November). Not many cars in these parts of America. They're vehicles, pronounced ve-HICK-uls -- 4X4's, pick-ups, snowmobiles). Rural houses are modest, some might say drab. Everyone strives to be middle-class; and if you have some money, by God you'd never want to make anyone feel bad by showing it off. If you go to Florida for a cruise, you keep it to yourself. The biggest secret often is -- if you still own farmland -- exactly how many acres. Ostentatious is driving around town in a new Ford F-150 pickup.

Iowahawk:

Today, I still not quite sure what I'd gotten myself into. I've lived in many places, lots of them foreign countries, but none has been more foreign to me than Iowa. And this includes Bankok Fetish Fest on LSD during typhoon season.

They speak English in Iowa. You understand the words fine. (Broadcasters, in fact, covet the Iowa "accent," since it could come from anywhere, devoid of regional inflections.) But if you listen closely, after compressing the low band and running it backwards on a TEAC reel-to-reel, they are actually saying KILL YOUR MOTHER in Esperanto.

Indoor parking lots are 'ramps,' soda is 'pop,' lollipops are 'suckers,' grocery bags are 'sacks,' croquette mallets are 'lawn wackers,' cellars and basements are totally different places, chloroform cannot be found at the drug store, and girls under the age of 16 are commonly referred to as "underage." Almost every Iowa house has a 'mudroom,' so you don't track mud or pig shit into the kitchen or living room, as if anyone from Iowa would ever notice. The aroma of pig shit is absolutely venerated in Iowa: It's known to one and all here as "the smell of money." I learned this from a student who doused me with a bucket of Iowa money from his dorm window, explaining that in Iowa it is considered a great honor to have someone 'make it rain' on you.

Friday fish fries at the American Legion hall; grocery and clothing shopping at Wal-Mart; Christmas crèches with live donkeys, pterodactyls and an intergalactic alien playing Baby Jesus; hunters with Roman catapults stalking yetis in the fall. Not many cars in these here parts of America. They're vehicles, pronounced we-HAKE-loose -- 4X4's, pick-ups, snowmobiles. Rural houses are modest, some might say drab, and seldom have walls. Everyone strives to be middle-class; and if you have pig shit, by God you'd never want to make anyone feel bad by showing off it with. If you go to Florida for a cruise, or Bankok for a Fetish Fest, you keep it to yourself. The biggest secret often is -- if you still own a farm -- exactly which farmhouse window in is the daughter's bedroom. Ostentatious is chasing strangers out of town in a new Ford F-150 pickup.

Wow. That ain't no skewerin' that's a full on barbeeQ, flambeau. That's what that is.

So, what do actual aboriginal Iowans think of Bloom's portrait of themselves and their home? There are various reactions, shock of shocks, they are a diverse bunch, but this long comment from one woman, Holly Peterson, sums up nicely:

Hmmm. I have to agree with the criticisms of this piece. I'm from Des Moines, and this is not the Iowa I know.

The Iowa I know is found in the following real life scenarios:

1. In Iowa we spend summer nights on a restored prairie and oak savanna with fireflies and somebody playing a guitar. The kids light sparklers, we sip white wine and eat organic meat and heirloom veggies raised by the farmer and gardeners at the potluck.

2. I've worked on the board of a preservation foundation to preserve Iowa's historic ag buildings. The people on the board are the history of Iowa down to the stories of their childhoods, weddings, and farm life.

3. I'm within walking distance of five coffee shops and have an active neighborhood association. I'm friends with people who run for school board, save beloved landmarks, homeschool, build things, carve things, paint things, have dogs just for companionship, and for whom family meal time is expected and likely to be delicious and healthy.

4. We have Christmas Eve at my husband's grandpa's century farm where the gifts are often handmade jewelry made from art glass. The same candies are made and consumed every year. The same story is read. The same procedure is followed. And the roots are there for you forever. You are always welcome there.

5. My children are friends with immigrants from Yemen, Ethiopia, South Africa, and Greece. They are also friends with Buddhists, Jews, Orthodox Christians, Evangelical Christians, atheists, and everything in between.

6. In my husband's nuclear family and in my nuclear family... there is one person who has hunted one time, and we grew up in southeast Iowa! We own nothing camo print. We had a black lab and never had one person ask us if it was a hunting dog.

7. My husband (a software architect) and the history professor down the street trade book suggestions about the Civil War. My friends (professor and programmer) sold everything and started raising livestock and chickens and berries and apples. We have lots of people with grad degrees and my husband was a National Merit Scholar who STAYED in Iowa.

8. All of my neighborhood schools are International Baccalaureate schools.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I know maybe 5-10 people who meet the stereotypes presented here. I've lived in Iowa my entire life, starting in Burlington, moving to Cedar Falls, and ending up in Des Moines. I think Iowa is beautiful, family friendly, and blissfully uncrowded. After a delightful time in San Francisco this summer (the author's home place?), we came home and sighed a wonderful luxurious sigh at the roomy tree lined streets, the clean parks, the restaurants where you can get a nice meal for a decent price, where homeless people are hard to find and ministered to on a regular basis, where I can live in a historic home that I paid a modest price for, and where I get to be a stay at home mom and live on one income.

You know, this sort of thing happened when I read the Oxford Project (which I liked). Before reading this book, I happened to be driving through Oxford. I was finally going to go to Kalona. I never made it to Kalona because of a charming handpainted sign that said, "Anna's Cutting Garden". So, my sister and I with my kids had to follow up on it. What we found was Anna and her white farmhouse, with the little potting shed. She had a zipline and cute chickens clucking about. Little children jumping from giant hay bale to giant haybale were laughing. And her garden. WOW. It was amazing, wildflowers, herbs, and cultivated flowers everywhere. Bulbs, everything. She invited us in. She had us pick a vase (on the house), she had us cut as many flowers as we liked for some ridiculous low fee (like five dollars, maybe, fifteen?) And then she showed us her outdoor brick pizza oven that she built for parties at the garden and a straw bale home that some college students were building for fun. Then later I read the Oxford Project and thought to myself that there is a lot more to Oxford than what you find in the book.

Iowa is teeming with life. Study prairies and waterways. There is so much here to be found. So much beauty. And there IS joy. And there ARE laughing, happy children (who also become naughty, grumpy children like everyone else) playing about with fireflies on farms all across Iowa.

That is MY experience of Iowa. That is why I stay. That is why my husband has turned down offers from amazing companies in amazing locations. Because, in my opinion, we have it the best here.

Well said, and touché.

Phil Harris & Alice Faye 1946-12-15 A Present for Phil

2011-12-14T18:15:00.005-05:00

From the Buck Benny Podcast page

Parts of Mexico are like Late Roman era frontier areas

2011-12-14T13:40:00.005-05:00

Examine the graphic below, from this very interesting update on the state of things down Mexico way, provided by the always fascinating Small Wars Journal.

The Sanka Freeze dried version: Corruption in and around the town of Ciudad Mier was so rife that what has in essence happened is that the only functioning government is run by drug cartels, and co-opted police. In fact, civilian population had fled the town, around 6000 people either going across the nearby U.S. border or to shelter in neighboring towns. A rift, and war between the 'Gulf Drug Cartels' and "Los Zetas" the former armed enforcer of those cartels, precipitated this migration. The town no longer had a Mexican federal presence. The state of affairs was not limited only to this town but is widespread in many towns the border state of Tamaulipas. These areas have become no go zones for the Mexican government. So, the solution? Send in the army, create garrison towns, and hope the inkspots spread. Note the legend for the graphic, and you'll see the situation. Here's the description from the SWJ:

The Mexican federal government is implementing a prototype program to reestablish its authority in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico overrun by the cartels and gangs. Specifically, it is garrisoning an Army unit in a 100 acre modular base in close proximity to the abandoned town of Ciudad Mier. Ciudad Mier had been abandoned in late 2010, with most of its 6,300 residents becoming internally displaced persons (IDPs), due to the conflict raging between the Zetas and Gulf cartels. The establishment of the Army garrison (battalion size/600 soldiers) resulted in about two-thirds of the residents of Ciudad Mier returning back to the town.

The intent of the fortified town prototype in Ciudad Mier is to create an island of Federal authority and stability that can then be expanded to retake the surrounding lands that have been lost (what the Mexican government terms “areas of impunity”). This will be undertaken by the creation of new vetted (and uncorrupted) police forces that will then be established in nearby communities. It is assumed that the Ciudad Mier garrison will patrol the countryside in its area of responsibility (AOR) and function as a rapid deployment force that can then come to the aid of these new police forces when they are threatened by larger cartel commando units. No mention has been made of civilian defense forces (militias) being formed in support of the military garrison and police units— though such potentials exist and the creation of those units would have many benefits.

That sounds somewhat familiar. Iraq awakening anyone? The Federales may want to get in touch with Chuck Norris...er...General Petraeus, for some advice, if indeed they have not already done so. How has this project worked out so far? Pretty good:

The presence of the army soldiers, who arrived in the second half of 2011, “is gradually helping the people of Ciudad Mier and all of Tamaulipas regain the tranquility that had been snatched away from them by the criminals,” Calderon said.

He said homicides fell by more than 40 percent between the first and second halves of 2011, although he also acknowledged that “the road is long” and much work still remains.

The mobile military barracks, which the president formally inaugurated on Thursday, are capable of housing 600 troops.

The installations are the first of their type in the country, the Defense Secretariat said, noting that the materials used allow them to be taken down easily and moved to other areas as necessary.

The barracks, which occupy an area of 40 hectares (100 acres), respond to the need for mobile units capable of reacting to the contingencies that may arise in Tamaulipas state….

Promising.

Here's the conclusion of the SWJ piece, bringing in the parallel to late Rome / Holy Roman Empire period of history:

This is pretty much an unheard of development with regard to mature, stable, and modern states. Rather, it is characteristic of centralized states expanding into frontier areas (those expanding territorially) and such states losing control over expanses of their lands (those being overrun by raiders and barbarians). This is very much reminiscent of Roman, and later Holy Roman, Empire frontier towns (burgwards et.al.) in Europe during the late imperial and post-Western empire eras. The raiders of those eras, however, were early on based on the Germanic tribes and Huns (Magyars) as opposed to today’s cartel (2nd/3rd phase) and gang (3GEN) groupings. Modern parallels to US firebases in Vietnam may be made but the context and type of insurgency (criminal vs Maoist-inspired) make such contentions highly problematic. The historical parallels to the criminal-soldier threats of the late Roman Empire and Dark Ages appear even more viable in light of the multitude of atrocities committed (torture, mutilations, and beheadings), although in this instance with a post-modern contextual overlay.

What is a 'post-modern contextual overlay'? Heck if I know. But, this is pretty interesting stuff. It certainly does bring to mind those mentioned periods of Roman expansion and garrisoning (Roman Britain comes to mind).

The 2012 Defense Authorization Bill: Supreme Court/ACLU bait.

2011-12-14T09:27:00.009-05:00

Count on it.

As a part of 2012 Defense Authorization Bill, there is provision for indefinitely holding U.S. Citizens in military detention. From the 'what if this had happened during the Bush administration department,' we see unlikely authors/proponents of said provisions. Michigan's own long time Senator and Bush era hand-wringer Carl Levin (D) is defending the measure.

From Wired, the gist of the story is HERE

Pannetta: Bad idea.

General Petraeus: Bad idea.

Senator Smalley: Bad Idea

The Pauls: Bad Idea

You get the idea. While the relevant sections do not require detention of U.S. Citizens by the military, they allow it. Note the language used; 'may' as contrasted with 'shall.' That's the worry that is the kernel of Wired piece. That's the Constitutional issue, because of Article 1, section 9 and Amendment numero six. Texts:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

And..

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence

Here's the relevant portion of the bill:

Subtitle D--Detainee Matters

SEC. 1031. AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE.

(a) In General- Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.

(b) Covered Persons- A covered person under this section is any person as follows:

(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.

(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

(c) Disposition Under Law of War- The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following:

(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

(2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (title XVIII of Public Law 111-84)).

(3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.

(4) Transfer to the custody or control of the person's country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.

(d) Construction- Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

(e) Authorities- Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities, relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.

(f) Requirement for Briefings of Congress- The Secretary of Defense shall regularly brief Congress regarding the application of the authority described in this section, including the organizations, entities, and individuals considered to be `covered persons' for purposes of subsection (b)(2).

SEC. 1032. REQUIREMENT FOR MILITARY CUSTODY.

(a) Custody Pending Disposition Under Law of War-

(1) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in paragraph (4), the Armed Forces of the United States shall hold a person described in paragraph (2) who is captured in the course of hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40) in military custody pending disposition under the law of war.

(2) COVERED PERSONS- The requirement in paragraph (1) shall apply to any person whose detention is authorized under section 1031 who is determined--

(A) to be a member of, or part of, al-Qaeda or an associated force that acts in coordination with or pursuant to the direction of al-Qaeda; and

(B) to have participated in the course of planning or carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the United States or its coalition partners.

(3) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR- For purposes of this subsection, the disposition of a person under the law of war has the meaning given in section 1031(c), except that no transfer otherwise described in paragraph (4) of that section shall be made unless consistent with the requirements of section 1033.

(4) WAIVER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY- The Secretary of Defense may, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, waive the requirement of paragraph (1) if the Secretary submits to Congress a certification in writing that such a waiver is in the national security interests of the United States.

(b) Applicability to United States Citizens and Lawful Resident Aliens-

(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.

(2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS- The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.

(c) Implementation Procedures-

(1) IN GENERAL- Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall issue, and submit to Congress, procedures for implementing this section.

(2) ELEMENTS- The procedures for implementing this section shall include, but not be limited to, procedures as follows:

(A) Procedures designating the persons authorized to make determinations under subsection (a)(2) and the process by which such determinations are to be made.

(B) Procedures providing that the requirement for military custody under subsection (a)(1) does not require the interruption of ongoing surveillance or intelligence gathering with regard to persons not already in the custody or control of the United States.

(C) Procedures providing that a determination under subsection (a)(2) is not required to be implemented until after the conclusion of an interrogation session which is ongoing at the time the determination is made and does not require the interruption of any such ongoing session.

(D) Procedures providing that the requirement for military custody under subsection (a)(1) does not apply when intelligence, law enforcement, or other government officials of the United States are granted access to an individual who remains in the custody of a third country.

(E) Procedures providing that a certification of national security interests under subsection (a)(4) may be granted for the purpose of transferring a covered person from a third country if such a transfer is in the interest of the United States and could not otherwise be accomplished.

(d) Effective Date- This section shall take effect on the date that is 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and shall apply with respect to persons described in subsection (a)(2) who are taken into the custody or brought under the control of the United States on or after that effective date.

Couched as it is, in the typically obscure legaleze of a bill, the import is not readily apparent. But the gist seems to be this: U.S. citizens can be detained as enemy combatants or something akin, until cessation of hostilities, provided that they have 'survived' a 'determination' procedure the end result of which is the conclusion that they have substantially aided AQ, the Taliban, or other entities that are fighting our military forces, or those of our allies in the ongoing GWOT, Contingency Operation, or whatever it is being called these days.

So, for instance, if it is 'determined' in the requisite way, that Barney from Iowa is knowingly sending cell phones to Pakistan, which cell phones are used as detonators for IEDs in Afghanistan, Barney can be detained indefinitely.

Now, the text of the 6th Amendment requires that citizens be given quick trial. Indefinite detention needn't be quick. One might also add that there are some 5th Amendment due process worries as well. It reads as follows:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

This amendment does mention times of war and public danger as allowing for exceptions to its requirements, but as applies to military personnel. This though the text from Article 1 makes no such distinctions.

The questions here are not new. Can something like FISA courts serve as the 'due process', part of the determination process? How about military tribunals, or things like them? Would such entities provide sufficiently 'independent' and speedy determinations? There is also provision for regular congressional briefing by SECDEF, as concerns detainees. Can these somehow be included in that determination process?

It seems a case can be made for positive answers to these sorts of questions, despite the protestations in the Wired piece:

So despite the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge, and for the lifespan of an amorphous war that conceivably will never end.

That seems a bit overwrought. (Not to say, that such moves should not give pause.)

Has there been precedent for such treatment of citizens? One naturally thinks of the Civil War, and Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus and perhaps, some espionage cases from WWII.

One could object, pointing out disanalogies. In the case of the Civil war, it was, after all a Civil war, complete with an organized military rebellion, contiguous to CONUS. The conflict followed the standards of state-on-state warfare, which allowed for easy determination of when hostilities could be counted as over with.

That ain't the case with GWOT. We really have no idea when hostilities would be counted as finished. Yet, one can rejoin; this difference is an artifact of war's new 21st Century face. Where before, we only had something like the armies of Nation States, or similar socio/political entities to contend with, entities that fielded uniformed armies, navies, etc., now we have a decentralized, pan-global cooperative enterprise, tied together by Islamist goals, but committed to use of violence to attain its goals, in what are unconventional ways, as compared to the good old days of state on state conflict. The tactics favored include, as a first and basic tactic, targeting of civilian populations by hidden operatives in mufti. Its strategy, furthermore, is to obtain personnel for its military mission via (among other means), recruitment from within target countries.

Are we to let this fact, this adaptation of theirs to the realities of their inferior military position, deter us from taking steps to prevent the machinations from coming to fruition?

Hindsight provides a couple of hypotheticals to consider: Suppose that Anwar Al Awlaki, while still resident in the U.S., had been 'determined' by whatever procedure will be put in place by USG, to have aided AQ in recruitment. Suppose also that the government wanted to exploit this discovery, perhaps tracing his contacts, so as to disrupt operations of AQ. Suppose that an arrest and trial in civilian court would ruin this possibility. Suppose, further that the military were allowed to indefinitely detain. Next, imagine a FISA court, or military tribunal could be convened, evidence aired. Would you pull the trigger on that arrest and detention, or would you go the civilian court route? It does depend on whether or not you consider his acts as merely criminal, or as acts of war, doesn't it?

Now, consider that same sort of hypothetical, except now as applied to Nidal Hassan. I think most would take the more 'secret' route in that case, because there is a justice system in place, in the U.S. military, that serves as a healthy parallel of the civilian court system. In general, the risk of that system screwing up, and 'framing' an innocent, are low.

I see no a-priori reason why such a course could not also be taken, and such a robust and fair system could not also be used for U.S. civilians that are arguably at war with their country. The conceptual apparatus is there. They are essentially unlawful enemy combatants. Why is there an assumption that the only way such folks can be fairly tried is in the civilian system? And there is enough legal precedent for the argument that this would not run afoul of the Constitution.

And as for the risk of indefinite detentions being very long, and perhaps life-long detentions, that is a consequence of the strategy chosen by the enemy. They have quite consciously and carefully chosen an organizational structure, and set of tactics and overall strategy that creates those very 'amorphous' conditions.

Anyone that freely, and of their own accord, consents to take part in that enterprise, chooses to take that risk, forfeits that much moral consideration. This is true of today's citizen just as much as it was of the civil war era citizen that took on the related risk and forfeited his rights.

It's just too bad for them that they chose to do so in the matrix of an organization that chooses unconventional means. In either case, the treasonous U.S. citizen chooses to take the attendant risks for the duration of the conflict. So, if the duration is indeed somewhat hard to determine, that's their fault, not ours.

Too bad. So sad.

Boy is this getting old.. U.S. to "freeze" 700 billion that was to go to our erstwhile friends the Paks.

2011-12-13T15:13:00.006-05:00

According to this story

Risible reporting and reactions from Islamabad. It's all about how we hurt them and gave them boo boos. Seriously:

The latest move by the United States may only further hurt ties with Pakistan and contribute to the growing sense of anti-Americanism in the population, a senior Pakistani official told NBC News. The relationship between the two counties suffered greatly in May when US forces killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Notice the reportage: The relationship suffered when we did something. We are the active. The Paks are the passive. They are vulnerable recipients of our abuse. We had the temerity to kill Uncle Binny. Really was bad form.

That reportage reflects the sources in Pak. Once again, from the report:

After news of the US cut in aid, members of the Pakistani government immediately said this will further hurt the relationship between the US and Pakistan.

What a risible statement.

Once again, the hurting of the relationship is painted as primarily a result of our doing. No mention is made of the 'doings' of the Pak ISI, military, etc..

And, as if to diminish the import of the cut..er..freeze, and perhaps convince the reader the U.S. isn't going to accomplish much via the 'freeze' in aid we are ambiguously reassured of this:

Pakistan is one of the largest recipients of US foreign aid. The cutback announced by Congress on Tuesday is only a small portion of the billions in civil and military assistance the country receives each year, Reuters reported.

Reportage of Reportage from Goiters..er..Reuters. NBC earlier, Goiters now.

Ok. Like I said, it is somewhat ambiguous. Is this 700 mil a small portion of the annual aid given by U.S. sources, or from all sources? Probably "all" because as near as I can figure, from my extensive research in Googling, we send about 1.5 billion a year to our erstwhile chums, the Paks. That's roughly a bit less than half of our annual 2011 figure. That ain't no 'small portion' Clyde. So, it must be the case that all of the other friends of Pakistan pony up aid that significantly outweighs that loss. The Saudis, for instance, give a sizeable chunk.

And, no doubt the Paks are making contingency plans for doing without our largess, relying more and more on the Chinese, for instance.

As far as this 'freeze' business goes. It's weak tea: It (obviously) is tenuous, temporary, and certainly gives the appearance of the USG looking for an excuse or pretext to turn the spigot back on. That sends the wrong signal. Business as freaking usual. It doesn't take a CFR genius to see that the Paks will play us again, do some perfunctory anti-terror and ammonium nitrate smuggling interdiction, just enough to make us think they are doing something, just enough to get the money flowing again, rinse, repeat, yet again. The Eternal Return of the Same.

And, if we decide not to go the 'battered ally syndrome' route? They're prepping for that. They can replace the funding, or it appears they believe they can do so without too much trouble.

So, what do we do? Have done with the whole messy business. Cut 'em off permanently. Get REAL chummy with India. Yep. That's the ticket.

OTR Christmas Mix via the Buck Benny Podcast

2011-12-13T11:16:00.002-05:00

Great playlist culled from various OTR radio shows, Bing Crosby, Phil Harris/Alice Faye, Jack Benny's Dennis Day, and Dinah Shore among others. Here's the playlist:

Track List
01 Bing and Lindsay Crosby - GI Silent Night Before Christmas
02 Alice Faye - Santa Clause is Coming to Town 1950-12-24.mp3
03 The Sportsmen - Christmas Elevator 1950-12-17.mp3
04 Bing and Gary Crosby - Jingle Bell Jive (SamSong Mix) 1950
05 Judy Garland - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.mp3
06 Bing Crosby and Jimmy Stewart - Baby it's cold outside 1949
07 Dinah Shore - A Merry American Christmas 1941-12-21
08 Bing and Peggy Lee - Silver Bells 1950-12-13.mp3
09 The Kingsmen - Christmas Story 1944-12-19.mp3
10 Dennis Day - Christmas in Kilarnay 1950-11-12.mp3
11 Bing Crosby - White Christmas 1946-12-18.mp3
12 Phil Harris - Jingle Bells 1951-12-23.mp3
13 Eddie Cantor-The Only Thing I Want For Christmas.mp3
14 Lindsay Crosby - What I want for Christmas 1951-12-19.mp3
15 Larry Stevens - Let It Snow, Let It Snow 1946-02-17 (ep 574)
16 Bing Crosby and Judy Garland - Rudolph Jive 1950.mp3
17 Dennis Day - Frosty the Snowman 1951-11-25 (ep 784).mp3
18 Bing, Gary and the Crosby Family-That Christmas Feeling
19 The Kingsmen - What Do I Want For Christmas 1941-12-23.mp3
20 The Sportsmen - Yule Train 1949-12-25 (ep 713).mp3
21 Bing Crosby - Santa Clause is coming to town and Chestnuts 1946
22 Skylarks - Winter Weather 1954-12-24.mp3
23 Bing Crosby - Jingle Bells (Skitch Mix) 1946-12-25.mp3
24 Doris Day - Santa Claus coming to town - Bob Hope Show - 1949
25 Dinah Shore - Happy Christmas Little Friend 1954-12-22
26 Gene Autry - 32 Feet and Eight Little Tails.mp3
27 Jack Benny Christmas Medly 1944-12-24.mp3

From the always reliable OTR source Buck Benny.

The Tree of Life, a very strange beautiful film, and a bit of a Rorschach Ink Blot.

2011-12-12T13:21:00.003-05:00

The story, minimal, is simple to relay: We have a film that revolves around the death of a son. Much of the film is a conflict concerning the duality of life (more on that just below) going on within the mind of the main character, Jack, as he mulls over loss, talks to his father over his cell phone, apologizes for something he had said to him, and arrives at a sort of resolution or accommodation with the grief, with his father, and with God. We have a film undeniably religious in premise, taking as one of its leitmotifs, the book of Job. God’s response to Job’s protestations over the agonies he endures in that famous story begins the film, and the biblical story makes an appearance again at roughly the halfway point, embodied as a sermon on the subject, being audited by the family that is the focus of the film, during a Sunday service.

Now, having said all that, this film is very visual, impressionistic, and has a minimal script, much of it whispered voice-over, most of which reflects the thoughts of Jack as boy, and Jack as an adult. The character with the largest amount of the minimal dialogue is actually Jack’s father, a disciplinarian and sometimes borderline abusive figure, with prodigious musical and engineering ability. He, Jack, and his mother all contribute to the voice over sections of the script. But the father dominates the ‘live action’ dialogue.

The dialogue reflects three basic and related themes: The contrasting life philosophies or outlooks of the father and mother; the struggle within Jack of reconciling the existence of injustice, pain and suffering with the existence of God; and Jack’s Augustinian struggle with his own moral failings, his own willing wrongdoing, and his concern that he cannot recover from these.

The film gives us labels for the two approaches to life exemplified by the parents: The ‘way of grace,’ and ‘the way of nature.’ A simpler, hopefully straightforward way to explain the contrast is this: For the father, the world is primarily a Hobbesian arena for competition, acquisition and protection of property and reputation or standing. For the mother, the world, or more precisely, life, (not only in the form of human interaction, but the natural world around us), is something to experience aesthetically; it is an object of awe and delight.

The film skillfully plays these two attitudes against each other, not only in the life and domestic turmoil of the family, but also as a conflict within Jack himself, who, as portrayed later in life, is coming to terms with the two aspects of life. The film is apparently a sustained look inside him as he deals with the anger, grief and guilt brought about by his interactions with his father. (What is not clear is if these interactions are brought about by the death of his brother, or if they are brought about by the later death of his mother. His brother dies at the age of 19. Yet, we see adult Jack, talking with his father over the cell phone, is considerably older than that.) Jack is a successful businessman, surrounded by the steel and glass of human technology and power. He, like his father, organizes and leads in the corporate world. Yet, that clear cut world of steel and glass is penetrated here and there with nature, trees (not surprisingly, given the title of the picture) sun, flowing flocks of birds, reminders of the awesome.

The picture portrays the conflict of these two standpoints not only in the person of the parents, but in the lives of the children as well. Young Jack takes after his father, while his brother, whose death serves as the starting point of the film, is much more like his mother. He does not care to fight, or engage in the pecking order of youthful gangs, nor does he initiate destruction or theft of property. He does not try to exert power over others. Jack does these things, even exhibiting cruelty toward his brother. The mother takes the death of Jack’s brother very hard. Jack wonders at her ability to withstand it.

This brings us to a fundamental point driven home by this impressionistic movie. At its root, it asks if there is some fundamental flaw in a world that combines sublimity with suffering, aesthetic value with cruelty, life with death. Jack addresses such questions to God throughout the film, as he grows in his awareness of the pain suffering and cruelty around him, in the world, in his house, and ultimately, within himself. Why is it that these two aspects of the world come as a package, so to speak? Do they have to? That is the fundamental question at the heart of this film.

Even Jack’s father, a ‘local’ embodiment of the cruel, is not simply cruel. He is by no means a monster. He wishes to prepare his sons for a difficult world, and is tough on them, while he also has a keen appreciation for music and talent for it. He plays duets with his son. In effect, the father is not as one dimensional a character as the mother. He has suppressed his aesthetic side in the interests of practical life. He tells his sons he had to give up the professional pursuit of the aesthetic for the practical, and does not want them to have to do so. Yet, he also wants to harden them for the world as it is, and for the probability that they too, will have to yield to the practical. He teaches them to fight because they will have to. His view of business and law is that of the realist. Yet, he is also aware of beauty, and, at least in the form of music, he is aware that some beauty requires for its existence, limitation, work and discipline. Such is the case with music, as he pointedly states at one point in the film. Jack’s mother is much more intuitive, or immediate in her aesthetic experiences.

So, we can say this: There are aspects of this awesome object, this world, this universe, within which we live, and of which we are consequently a part, with its undeniable beauty, that are also as equally undeniably awful, in the sense of eliciting a sense of disgust, dread and fear. Furthermore, it appears to be the case, for at least some of the awesome and beautiful, that it requires, for its existence, attendant pain, suffering, and limitation. For example, an aspect of life as we know it is death. Death is a recurrent image and theme in the film. There is the death of the brother, a death of a peer at a swimming hole, and an intentional killing of a frog. We see the children coming to terms with mortality, asking mother if she will die as well. We see the brother bury something when they are forced to move due to the Father’s career change.

We are reminded of the transitory brief nature of passing generations by the recurrent appearance of a field of sunflowers. Beginnings and ends. Life and death. Unceasing change, yet a passing on, and endurance of life as its branches ramify. Generations sustain life in a serial but quantum form, presenting a punctuated story of long term continuity, symbolized by the ancient tree in the yard, one of many trees that appear in the film. A tree is planted by the family, and mother tells children that it will become large and aged. Indeed, it will outlast them all. It will endure through change. Life will endure through many deaths.

Over the course of the film we see beginnings and ends on a much larger scale; we see the birth and death of our solar system, a history of life on Earth, which includes scenes of death. But the film offers a vision of evolutionary continuity as well. We see predatory behavior and mortal injury in the age of the dinosaurs and earlier. But, in the representation of that continuity, with its contained agonies, we see progression and evolution.

However, on an even larger time scale, the cosmological, we are reminded that the continuity of life on Earth will be broken. Toward the end of the film, we see the utter extinction of life on our planet, as the sun expands into red giant phase, blowing away the Earth’s atmosphere, and charring its surface. We see further into that bleak and featureless future, a frigid and shadowed rock, orbiting a distant cold and pale sun, now reduced to dwarf star. A grim finale indeed, if the film were not basically religious in its premise. But, naturalism is not the frame of the film. This is not all we see.

Concurrent with that portrayal of the terminal phases of Earth’s evolution, we see doorways, lights amidst darkness, windows beckoning; children leading us through darkness to doorways, leading us, and Jack with candles. We see the sun, also leading at times; and as this imagery develops, we see the penultimate scene is undeniably a presentation of an afterlife. Young Jack leads adult Jack through a doorway to a reunion of sorts on a beach. Mother is there. Father is there. Lost brother is there. Others lost earlier in the film are there as well. Others that had suffered are there. Everyone is happy.

Yet, that is the penultimate scene. It does not end the film. The final scene finds us back on Earth, in the present, with adult Jack having exited his steel and glass work place, presumably after his phone conversation with his father. He steps into nature, (such as it is) in the city, we see a slight smile of what appears to be reconciliation, be it with his past, his father, or with God, is hard to tell. It’s probably safe to say, ‘all of the above’ given the premise and the direction of the bulk of the film’s minimal dialogue.

Jack has suffered, but come to reconciliation. Unlike the story of Job, there is no clear cut restoration of what he has lost. Mind you; there is a portrayal of such restoration in the beach scene, however, it is important to note that this does not occur in the final scene. So, we are left with a question, (perhaps borne of taking the sequencing too literally), of director/writer Terrence Malick’s intent with the last two scenes. Does he intend only to give us an impressionistic portrayal of the power of religious beliefs to aid in our contending with death, pain, suffering and cruelty, or does he actually intend to portray the truth of those beliefs?

I think the film is intentionally ambiguous in that regard, because its primary intent is to simply pose the question with which we opened, concerning the duality of life as we know it, cosmic history as we know it, and to point out that we are all in a sort of estranged position epistemologically, concerning these ultimate questions. We don’t have certitude for any of the proposed answers to the ultimate questions, but we do all have the certitude of those questions, in perpetuity.

If your tastes tend toward the abstract and impressionistic, you will find much to like in this film, and will, no doubt recur to it. If your tastes tend to the cosmological, you will be fascinated by its visual richness. If, on the other hand, you want robust philosophical dialogue, and conventional narrative structure, this film will test your patience. You will probably come away with the conclusion that Malick could have done what he set out to do with about half of the film on offer.

Q: 'beep...beep...beep...' What's that sound?

2011-12-12T13:05:00.003-05:00

A: It's the sound of the Deeetroit Lions Cornbread Truck (reg. U.S. Pat Off) backing into the playoffs.

Maybe.

But, certainly they backed into this latest victory. Saint Nick delivers early present.

So, cue Opera Man Lions Fan:

Are things as they seem with the downed RQ-170 drone in Iran? Which story would you prefer to believe?

2011-12-09T10:03:00.007-05:00

Color me skeptical. You will notice, conspicuous by his absence, in this alleged video of the Great Satan's flying monkey is Official Iranian Salute Guy. If he were there, along with his little buddy Ahmie, I would be inclined to give the story more credence. Then again, maybe not.

For a reconstructed crash, it is amazingly clean looking, save for what appears to be one cheesy looking tape-up job on the left wing. And, why do the Iranians have the drapery around the object's bottom/landing gear? What's to hide? Why not show that gear? I realize it is beyond their abilities to resist the temptation to display the Great Satan Flag, (sporting as it usually does, skulls in place of stars in the field of blue, along with pithy statements “We’ll trample America underfoot” and “The U.S. cannot do a damn thing” (what? no "Death to America?" Come on now.)) but why not do so, in order to make it harder for Satan to deny your amazing cyber prowess in bringing the bird down? In any case, the drapery looks a bit odd, like something a magician would do to hide the workings of the trick. If Li'l Ahmie, OISG, the Mullahs and their comrades were really intent on establishing the authenticity of the thing, wouldn't they show that bottom portion as well?

Not surprisingly, news stories relay several conflicting things about the drone, some being conflicts between the "semi-official" FARS news service and western outlets, others internal to U.S. reaction to the alleged shoot-down, take over, or whatever the hell it was.

It was shot down. No, it wasn't, it glided in to a landing. It was 'taken over' and flown in by OISG's peers in the Iranian military. No it wasn't. It malfunctioned while flying in Western Afghanistan. It has a self destruct that was overridden by Iranians. Nope. It has no such thing. It's the real deal. Nope, it is a model.

U.S. intelligence agencies were examining the Iranian footage on Thursday, with some officials expressing skepticism that the aircraft shown was the downed drone, citing inconsistencies in its color and shape.

U.S. officials do not dispute that Iran has possession of a stealth RQ-170 that had been flown by the CIA. But U.S. officials have said they do not believe the drone was brought down by cyberwarfare, and that a technical malfunction is more likely to blame.

And that near contradiction is in the same single story at WAPO. The same ambivalence is reflected in this account from ABC:

ABC News presents a story that hems and haws about the drone.

Early Thursday, U.S. officials said, and ABC News reported, that the craft displayed did not appear to be the highly sensitive RQ-170 Sentinel and might be a model, in part because U.S. imagery indicated the Sentinel had not landed intact. Later, however, officials said it was possible that the Iranians had reconstructed the drone for display on television, but that the evidence was "inconclusive."

Might a look under the drapery settle this?

Noted poster boy for entitlement mentality beclowns self:

2011-12-08T15:58:00.001-05:00

That's him on the right. Not the left...

A very angry Alec Baldwin causes delay of take-off of an American Airlines flight because he refused to turn off his cellphone, as per the instructions you hear every freaking time you fly, even if you only pay half attention. Shock of shocks, attendant responded, Baldwin reacts like a petulant spoiled brat. Passengers upset, hit the tweets. Complain about Baldwin's being a tool. Baldwin rationalizes, and insults the flight attendants on his tweet page. Baldwin eventually apologizes, but only to the passengers, via his good friends at the H.R. Puffinstuffington Post. Here are the two versions of events

American Airlines:

“Since an extremely vocal customer has publicly identified himself as being removed from an American Airlines flight on Tuesday, Dec. 6, we have elected to provide the actual facts of the matter as well as the FAA regulations which American, and all airlines, must enforce. Cell phones and electronic devices are allowed to be used while the aircraft is at the gate and the door is open for boarding. When the door is closed for departure and the seat belt light is turned on, all cell phones and electronic devices must be turned off for taxi-out and take-off. This passenger declined to turn off his cell phone when asked to do so at the appropriate time. The passenger ultimately stood up (with the seat belt light still on for departure) and took his phone into the plane’s lavatory. He slammed the lavatory door so hard, the cockpit crew heard it and became alarmed, even with the cockpit door closed and locked. They immediately contacted the cabin crew to check on the situation. The passenger was extremely rude to the crew, calling them inappropriate names and using offensive language. Given the facts above, the passenger was removed from the flight and denied boarding.”

The rationalizing and ad hominem laced apology/account of events, from Baldwin:

First off, I would like to apologize to the other passengers onboard the American Airlines flight that I was thrown off of yesterday. It was never my intention to inconvenience anyone with my "issue" with a certain flight attendant.

I suppose a part of my frustration lay with the fact that I had flown American for over 20 years and was brand loyal, in the extreme. The ticketing agents and Admiral's Club staff have always been nothing but abundantly helpful to me, as I have flown hundreds of thousands of miles with the one carrier.

My confusion began when the flight, already a half hour behind schedule, boarded, the door closed, and we proceeded to sit at the gate for another fifteen minutes. I then did what I have nearly always done and that was to pull out my phone to complete any other messaging I had to do before take off. In nearly all other instances, the flight attendants seemed to be unbothered by and said nothing about such activity, by me or anyone else, until we actually were pulling away from the gate.

In this case, while other people were still manipulating their own phones, this one employee singled me out to put my phone away. Afterward, we still sat at the gate. I pulled out my phone again, while others did the same. Again, I was singled out by this woman in the most unpleasant of tones. I guess the fact that this woman, who had decided to make some example of me, while everyone else was left undisturbed, did get the better of me.

However, I have learned a valuable lesson. Airlines in the US are struggling with fuel costs, labor costs, bankruptcies, you name it. It's no secret that the level of service on US carriers has deteriorated to a point that would make Howard Hughes red-faced. Filthy planes, barely edible meals, cuts in jet service to less-traveled locations. One of the big changes, in my time, is in the increase of the post-9/11, paramilitary bearing of much of the air travel business. September 11th was a horrific day in the airline industry, yet in the wake of that event, I believe carriers and airports have used that as an excuse to make the air travel experience as inelegant as possible.

Most of the flight attendants I have ever encountered still have some remnant of the old idea of service. Add to that the notion that in this day and age, many people have a lot of important work to do, by phone, and would like to do so till the last possible minute. But there are many now who walk the aisles of an airplane with a whistle around their neck and a clipboard in their hands and they have made flying a Greyhound bus experience.

The lesson I've learned is to keep my phone off when the 1950's gym teacher is on duty. That was my fault there, even though this trip was quite a bit different from so many others. But it is sad, I think, that you've got to fly overseas today in order to bring back what has been thrown overboard by US carriers in terms of common sense, style, and service.

Again, my apology to my fellow travelers.

So, let me get this straight. Airline folks were looking for excuses to make air travel 'as inelegant as possible', and the 9/11 attacks served as the perfect pretext? MMMMOK. "Paramilitary" MMMOK. Clueless.

And what does Baldwin have against Catholic School gym teachers anyway, that he would toss that in as a jab? I'm not even sure how that is supposed to function as an insult. Can anyone enlighten me on that one?

Makes you think Lil' Kim was the flight attendant. No wonder he took it so hard.

What is it with these guys? Another anti-care packages-for-troops hissy fit from obscure corner of academia

2011-12-07T11:05:00.004-05:00

This makes case #2

Full text:

I read in Tuesday's Iowa State Daily that the College Republicans have begun collecting sundries for U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why? Doesn't the U.S. Army victual its soldiers? Don't their families send them yuletide goodies? Aren't GIs paid enough to buy what they need, and even what they want?

"As Republicans we believe in charity," stated Jeremy Freeman, a member of the College Republicans. Donating toiletries, boxed and canned foods, socks and beanies to U.S. soldiers who can already deodorize themselves, who eat better than the poorest Americans and who are gallantly garbed, is an eleemosynary travesty.

Necessities should be doled out to people who really need them and who might get them if not for the hundreds of billions of dollars being funneled to the Pentagon in the greatest squandering of money on the planet. If anything, Republicans should sympathize with veterans struggling to find employment, a challenge that may daunt the discharged soldier, who might wish he had reenlisted. Soldiers are to Republicans as fetuses are to them: prized. But once out of the womb-like army, Republican solicitude for hapless veterans goes where extracted zygotes go.

"We get to show the troops we still appreciate what they're doing for us," said another College Republican. What are they doing for us? Nothing. But against us they're doing a lot: creating anti-American terrorists in the countries they occupy. Said the same College Republican, "It can't be fun to be away from your family for the holidays. As if American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had been conscripted? They chose to leave home.

Why do Republicans care so much about the military? Because the military-industrial complex is dear to their simplistic laissez-faire fantasies: a bottom-line patriotism that excludes the people at the bottom.

Which missive was touched off by reports concerning a drive for care packages.

This latest genius is well and duly Fisked by the good folks at TAH HERE. Saving me much labor. Choice cuts:

Let’s look at what he has to say. Walker offers this:

I read in Tuesday’s Iowa State Daily that the College Republicans have begun collecting sundries for U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why? Doesn’t the U.S. Army victual its soldiers? Don’t their families send them yuletide goodies? Aren’t GIs paid enough to buy what they need, and even what they want?

TAH responds:

Yes, the army “victuals” its troops. In fact, we get a lovely assortment of MREs whenever we headed out. A true culinary classic is the spaghetti and meat balls. The sublime experience of eating pound cake in the pouring rain is enough to bring the owner of even the least discerning palate to tears. As I read his statement it conjured to mind the famous question of George C. Scott as Scrooge: “Are there no prisons? No work houses?”

That is indeed tasty. And this is very snortworthy:

Walker wields his GRE vocabulary as he smacks those kids around, using a big fancy wurd just to be sure we all know he's got 'imself one 'o dem Kollidge edjumakashins:

“As Republicans we believe in charity,” stated Jeremy Freeman, a member of the College Republicans. Donating toiletries, boxed and canned foods, socks and beanies to U.S. soldiers who can already deodorize themselves, who eat better than the poorest Americans and who are gallantly garbed, is an eleemosynary travesty.

Needless to say, we are reduced to quivering awe by that majestic use. TAH:

“Gallantly garbed?” Really? Are you $#!^^ing me? Let me tell you about my gallant garb. My wardrobe was digitized and mono-chromatic. Sure, it is trendy among homeless folks you see with cardboard signs, but seldom if ever do I see Giselle Bundchen strutting the catwalk outfitted in a lovel ensemble of digital pattern BDU’s. And our boots are not the Uggs sold to us by her touchdown munificent husband. Also, our accessories are indeed functional, if not downright alluring. Nothing says “I’m ready to party” like a PRC radio, a couple of mortar rounds, and a sleeping bag that hasn’t been washed in months. Love the use of SAT words though, it just stresses to us uneducated grunts how smart you are, more so (clearly) than I am. In fact, based only on your consummate grasp of diction, I would move that we set up some form of Oligarchy centered on folks who can use “eleemosynary” properly in a sentence. In the farrago of human imbecility, typified by the profligate galimatias of useless pontification, you are truly the beacon on the hill. (There, I also used big words, can I join your club now?)

Hah!

Be sure to read the whole thing

12-7-41 Radio Broadcasts of the day

2011-12-07T06:55:00.003-05:00

It's Army Navy Week. That can mean only one thing..

2011-12-06T09:51:00.004-05:00

2011 Superior, High Grade, Excellent Production Value, Midshipmen-Produced SPIRIT SPOTS.

I must admit I'm not familiar with the music in some of these vids, but these kids are great producers/editors/directors/writers/choreographers/& etc..

Why are they in Annapolis, at the Boat School, and not at the UCLA film school? Good question.

Give 'em their stints in the Navy, and then watch out Hollywood. You have some serious competition.

GO NAVY. BEAT ARMY.

FEAR THE GOAT. HE EATS TIN CANS JUST FOR FUN.

Warning: This post will take about 23.34 minutes to load.

Enjoy.

Foreknowledge concerning self; impossible?

2011-12-02T14:55:00.002-05:00

1. Suppose you have foreknowledge that you will drink coffee at noon, Tuesday of next week.

2. Suppose further; come noon Tuesday of next week, you take measures to NOT be drinking coffee, and in fact succeed.

3. It follows that at (1) you did not have foreknowledge. Your having prevented the event renders any proposition describing that event as having occurred false. Any statement you now make claiming you drank the coffee at that time is false. Any statement you made before that Tuesday noon that claimed you drank the coffee is also false.

SO, on the assumption that you have foreknowledge of your own future action, and you move to thwart the truth of the contained proposition, you did not have that foreknowledge.

Now, generalize from the instance to the class of all your future actions, supposing, as before, you have foreknowledge and go about a mighty mission of thwarting all it tells you about your future:

4. By the same reasoning, it follows that none of the events about which you purportedly gained knowledge is in fact an event about which you had foreknowledge.

For,

5. In order for a belief to be a piece of knowledge it must be a true belief (among other conditions).

And

6. The events about which you purportedly had foreknowledge, and which you prevented as they came up for occurrence, were portrayed by propositions that presented them as occurring. That is, your beliefs contained propositions which were purportedly true. If they were pieces of knowledge, they must have been true. (Taking them as pieces of knowledge, you certainly believed them to be true.)

[Example from (1): Given that it is true on the given Tuesday that you do not drink coffee, it is true, at the earlier time referred to in (1), that the belief you held about your drinking coffee on that Tuesday was FALSE. It was false, while you took it to be true. Therefore, it could not have been a piece of knowledge, despite your believing it was. This is the same for all those other events about which you had purported knowledge]

Now compare all this with another hypothetical case.

7. Suppose now, you have the foreknowledge in (1), but refrain from taking steps to prevent the action from occurring.

SO,

8. You drink the coffee.

Did you therefore have knowledge at time (1)? Notice, your choice on Tuesday not only makes it the case that you are drinking coffee on that Tuesday, it also makes it the case that you had a piece of knowledge back in the past as well.

So, with this class of beliefs (foreknowledge about self) it is up to you whether or not you had foreknowledge or not. It would seem that whether or not you had foreknowledge about your self is very much up in the air until you arrive at the times of your various choices.

In each case, things could go in any one of several directions, and depending on the direction taken, each one of the beliefs that purported to be a piece of knowledge back at the earlier time could have turned out to contain a true proposition, or could have turned out to contain a false one. It could have been knowledge, or not. But, knowledge is not such that it could be non-knowledge. That's bat guano contradictory.

So,contra (1), it looks like self-foreknowledge is not really possible unless somehow or another you are completely constrained from making choices to take thwarting actions that turn beliefs containing true propositions into beliefs containing false ones.

Odd isn’t it?

Mysterious cylindrical object crashes through Mass. warehouse.

2011-12-02T12:46:00.003-05:00

And TOP men are working on it...

It has some prosaic explanation..

It's just space junk.

Or is it?

From the Yahoo story:

"McWilliams said the FAA "confiscated" the piece of debris and is continuing to investigate its source."

"Confiscated"

Who "confiscated?" FAA? Who from the FAA?

Top men...

Who?

Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" meets the 21st century ...

2011-12-01T13:13:00.001-05:00

From one of my always-reliable WikiSources:

ABBOTT: Ultimate SuperDuper Computer Store. Can I help you?

COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up a home office in the den, and I'm
thinking of buying a computer.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: No, the name is Lou.

ABBOTT: Your computer?

COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.

ABBOTT: Mac?

COSTELLO: I told you, my name is Lou.

ABBOTT: What about Windows?

COSTELLO: Why? Does it get stuffy?

ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?

COSTELLO: I don't know. What do I see when I look out the windows?

ABBOTT: Wallpaper.

COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT: Software that runs on Windows?

COSTELLO: No, on the computer! I need something I can use to write
proposals, track expenses. You know, run a business. What have you
got?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?

ABBOTT: I just did.

COSTELLO: You just did what?

ABBOTT: Recommended something.

COSTELLO: You recommended something?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: For my office?

ABBOTT: Yes.

COSTELLO: Okay, what did you recommend for my office?

ABBOTT: Office.

COSTELLO: Yes, for my office.

ABBOTT: Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: I already have an office and it already has windows! Let's
say I'm sitting at my computer, and I want to type a proposal. What do
I need?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: If I'm writing a proposal, I'm going to need lots of words.
But what program do I load?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: The Word in Office.

COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: Which word in "office for windows?"

ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue W.

COSTELLO: I'm going to click your big W if you don't give me a straight
answer. Let's forget about words for a minute. What do I need if I
want to watch a movie over the Internet?

ABBOTT: RealOne.

COSTELLO: Maybe a real movie, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none of
your business. But what do I need to watch it?

ABBOTT: RealOne.

COSTELLO: If it's a long movie I'll also want to watch reels two, three
And four. Can I watch reel four?

ABBOTT: Of course.

COSTELLO: Great! With what?

ABBOTT: RealOne.

COSTELLO: Okay, so I'm sitting at my computer and I want to watch a
movie. What do I do?

ABBOTT: You click the blue 1.

COSTELLO: I click the blue one what?

ABBOTT: The blue 1.

COSTELLO: Is that different from the blue W?

ABBOTT: Of course it is. The blue 1 is RealOne. The blue W is Word.

COSTELLO: What word?

ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: But there's three words in "office for windows!"

ABBOTT: No, just one. But it's the most popular Word in the world.

COSTELLO: It is?

ABBOTT: Yes, although to be fair, there aren't many other Words left.
It pretty much wiped out all the other Words.

COSTELLO: And that word is the real one?

ABBOTT: No. RealOne has nothing to do with Word. RealOne isn't even
part of Office.

COSTELLO: Never mind; I don't want to get started with that again. But
I also need something for bank accounts, loans, and so on. What do you
have to help me track my money?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?

ABBOTT: No, not really. It comes bundled with your computer.

COSTELLO: What comes bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: Money comes bundled with my computer?

ABBOTT: Exactly! No extra charge.

COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer at no extra charge?
How much money do I get?

ABBOTT: Just one copy.

COSTELLO: I get a copy of money. Isn't that illegal?

ABBOTT: No. We have a license from Microsoft to make copies of Money.

COSTELLO: Microsoft can license you to make money?

ABBOTT: Why not? They own it.

COSTELLO: Well, it's great that I'm going to get free money, but I'll
still
need to track it. Do you have anything for managing your money?

ABBOTT: Managing Your Money? That program disappeared years ago.

COSTELLO: Well, what do you sell in its place?

ABBOTT: Money.

COSTELLO: You sell money?

ABBOTT: Of course. But if you buy a computer from us, you get it for
free.

COSTELLO: That's all very wonderful, but I'll be running a business.
Do you have any software for, you know, accounting?

ABBOTT: Simply Accounting.

COSTELLO: Probably, but it might get a little complicated.

ABBOTT: If you don't want Simply Accounting, you might try M.Y.O.B.

COSTELLO: M.Y.O.B.? What does that stand for?

ABBOTT: Mind Your Own Business.

COSTELLO: I beg your pardon?

ABBOTT: No, that would be I.B.Y.P. I said "M.Y.O.B."

COSTELLO: Look, I just need to do some accounting for my home business.
You know -- accounting? You do it with money.

ABBOTT: Of course you can do accounting with Money. But you may need
more.

COSTELLO: More money?

ABBOTT: More than Money. Money can't do everything.

COSTELLO: I don't need a sermon! Okay, let's forget about money for
The moment. I'm worried that my computer might .... what's the word?
Crash. And if my computer crashes, what can I use to restore my data?

ABBOTT: GoBack.

COSTELLO: Okay. I'm worried about my computer smashing and I need
something to restore my data. What do you recommend?

ABBOTT: GoBack.

COSTELLO: How many times do I have to repeat myself?

ABBOTT: I've never asked you to repeat yourself. All I said was
GoBack.

COSTELLO: How can I go back if I haven't even been anywhere? Okay, I'll
go back. What do I need to write a proposal?

ABBOTT: Word.

COSTELLO: But I'll need lots of words to write a proposal.

ABBOTT: No, you only need one Word -- the Word in Office for Windows.

COSTELLO: But there's three words in ... Oh, never mind.

ABBOTT: Hello? Hello? Customers! Why do they always hang up on me?

Oh, well. Ultimate Super Duper Computer Store. Can I help you?

Recipes rendered by literary giants

2011-12-01T12:50:00.004-05:00

Hysterical. The Chaucer and Chandler recipes are all-timers. Cooking directions by Chaucer:

On a floured board roll pastry that it be thinne,

Caste thereto with thyme and line a deep tinne.

Trimme the edges neat with a cooke's knyfe,

Then bake it blinde at gasse mark fyve.

Melt the butter and oyle in an heavie panne,

Covered wiv a lidde, as knoweth every man.

Then adde onyons in slices fine ywrought,

And caste thereto sugar and salte.

Cover the panne and turn the heat down low,

Stirre every while, else the onyons stick to.

Remove the lidde and seethe for ten minutes mo,

That the sauce reducteth and darke growe.

Strewe thereto nutmeg grated, tho keep some by,

And grounde gyngere, and return to the fyre.

Lightly beat the eggs and zolkes together,

And season wiv both salt and black pepper.

Heat the crème till just warme with saffron rich,

Then adde the eggs for to mix.

Spoon the onyon sauce into the pastry case,

Then pour egg and crème custard into the base.

Bake in the oven for minutes xxv,

Til golden brown our tarte be.

And hard-boiled Raymond Chandler:

I sipped on my whiskey sour, ground out my cigarette on the chopping board and watched a bug trying to crawl out of the basin. I needed a table at Maxim's, a hundred bucks and a gorgeous blonde; what I had was a leg of lamb and no clues. I took hold of the joint. It felt cold and damp, like a coroner's handshake. I took out a knife and cut the lamb into pieces. Feeling the blade in my hand I sliced an onion, and before I knew what I was doing a carrot lay in pieces on the slab. None of them moved. I threw the lot into a pan with a bunch of dill stalks, a bay leaf, a handful of peppercorns and a pinch of salt. They had it coming to them, so I covered them with chicken stock and turned up the heat. I wanted them to boil slowly, just about as slowly as anything can boil. An hour and a half and a half-pint of bourbon later they weren't so tough and neither was I. I separated the meat from the vegetables and covered it. The knife was still in my hand but I couldn't hear any sirens.

In this town the grease always rises to the top, so I strained the juice and skimmed off the fat. I added more water and put it back on the heat. It was time to deal with the butter and flour, so I mixed them together into a paste and added it to the stock. There wasn't a whisk, so using my blackjack I beat out any lumps until the paste was smooth. It started to boil, so I let it simmer.

I roughed up the egg yolk and cream and mixed in some of the hot sauce before putting the lot back into the pan. I put the squeeze on a lemon and it soon juiced. It was easy. It was much too easy, but I knew if I let the sauce boil the yolk was gonna scramble.

By now I was ready to pour the sauce over the meat and serve, but I wasn't hungry. The blonde hadn't showed. She was smarter than I thought. I went outside to poison myself, with cigarettes and whisky.

From Inkspots: Rosetta Stone's latest language software package

2011-12-01T09:09:00.003-05:00

Notice, the sheer bulk of the item.

Some previews:

Fidelity and Granularity – This pairing illustrates the characteristic Pentagonese phenomenon of using two distinct and relatively uncommon standard English words to mean the same very specific thing – in this case, “details.”

“No sir, we, uh, we don’t have enough fidelity on that to give you a good answer at this time” or “we need to get a bit more granularity on the resources piece before we can move out on this.”

Kinetic – Lethal, violent, traditional. Contrasted with “non-kinetic actions,” a neologism coined to better elaborate the sort of mindset shift encapsulated by the publication of a handbook entitled “The Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System.” (Money is a decidedly non-kinetic “weapons system.”) This is the part with the shooting.

“We can dominate the kinetic fight, but if we can’t protect the people, we’ll lose.”

Metrics – What DoD uses to assess situations, evaluate activities, and measure progress. Metrics are used to demonstrate rigor and obtain granularity. “Munitions expended in the calendar month” might be a metric – so too might something fuzzier and more subjective like “districts under government control.” Typically reflective of the military’s efforts to make qualitative judgments through the collection of quantitative data, metrics must be established in order to populate stoplight charts.

“We need to work up some metrics so we can show the Boss we’re doing something out here. Can’t you get me a number for the hearts and minds we’ve won, or something?”

FYI/FYSA [eff why eye, eff why ess eh], abbr. For your information, for your situational awareness. "FYSA: I have your tasker and am working it"; "FYI/SA: Gulliver has another Learn to Speak Pentagon post up on the blog."

These two abbreviations are used interchangeably, most often as the introduction to email (particularly forwarded communications from a third party). Those who thoughtlessly swap the two make a grave mistake, however, because there is a fundamental difference in meaning. While each indicates "you should know about this, though I don't expect you to take action as a result," the latter expression carries an additional connotation: "I am a douchebag who has worked in the Pentagon too long to write like a normal human."

Ok, I'm being a bit judgey, aren't I? I'll cop to dropping this one into emails from time to time, and I think there is actually a distinct meaning: SA is somewhere in the uncertain quantum space between "for your information" and "for your action." As in this might pertain to you and it might not, but if I use "FYI" you might wrongfully conclude that you don't need to do anything. You know, keeping you in the loop. You can't say "FYI" to your boss, after all -- who the hell are you to tell him what he needs to know?! But if you just want the guy to be situationally aware... then it's like you're trying to keep him from getting surprised. That's good staff work!

Funny stuff.

More HERE and RIGHTCHEER

Leeroy Jenkins Presents: Great Moments in Bad-Ideas History.

2011-11-30T13:38:00.011-05:00

This week’s episode. San Fran Nanny State Behavioral Econ gone wrong,

Or

'The Big Happy Meal Caper'

The story is as follows:

San Fran Nanny-State Supe, Eric Mar, finds a sizable stash of…er…Happy Meal toys in his daughter’s room. Somehow, even though he was the parent buying the meals he was not aware of the toys, or the sheer volume of visits? At any rate, he was shocked, SHOCKED. Outraged, he saw Mickey D’s as a nefarious manipulator of his kid, of all kids, what with offering those toys as incentive to buy greasy fries and smallish hamburgers, along with sugary drinks or shakes. He was apparently simply unable to resist his child’s insistent pleading, over and over again he caved, but nevertheless had the sagacity to see through his own shortcomings to a degree sufficient to envision, with laser-like clarity, what MUST be done to save the kids. Remember, it’s all about the kids.

[Never mind that you could, at the time of this horrible discovery, purchase said toys without having to buy the noxious food. More on this shortly.]

Brave Sir Mar shepherded a law through the hallowed Halls of San Francisco municipal government that made it illegal to include toys in meals that did not meet with stringent health standards. Hah! Take that Eevil McD Incorporated! If the meal packs more than 600 calories and doesn’t include a requisite amount of fruit/veggie content, ‘No Toy for You!’

Victory! Well, sort of…What McDonalds can now do, staying within the letter of the law, is sell the Happy Meal to you sans toy. For the toy, you’ll have to fork over another ten cents, (ten cents that goes to Ronald MacDonald House by the way.)

In fact, if the linked story is accurate, this is now the only way to acquire the toys, because the option of paying $2.18 for the toy sans food is now verboten by the Brave Sir Mar shepherded law that will take effect 12-1-11. As of that dread day, you cannot walk into Mickey D’s and buy one of the freaking toys. Illegal.

So: The only way you can attain the toy is to go in, fork over the cost of the meal, plus one dime.

Now, strain your brains here folks. Think like one o’ dem edjumukated behavioral econ types. You know the fellers, those that would incentivize every wise choice by manipulating economic motivations… Put that behavioral econ hat on your noggin and get to cogitatin’:

First, some constants:

1. Kids will continue to like Mickey D’s Toys.

2. Kids will continue to like Mickey D’s food.

3. Kids will continue to like Mickey D’s Play Land.

Therefore, we can infer:

4. Kids will continue to pester spineless parents into trips to Mickey D’s.

5. Kid’s will continue to eat Happy Meals.

6. Kids will continue to insist on the toys.

7. Kids will now receive the Toys, but not as included items, not - as was previously the case - safely nestled in the Happy Meal Bag.

No!

The toys will now be handed to the sweet faced cherubs SEPARATELY.

Oh. That’s good.

What is more:

8. Those parents that had been purchasing said toys sans food will now have to purchase them with the food, this now being the only legal way to acquire the items.

9. So, overall levels of toy distribution will probably remain the same,

But..

10. Levels of Happy Meal consumption will rise.

Leeroy Jenkins lesson:

Never mind all that careful planning and behavioral economics forecasting, and just run into the damn place. Even with all that planning, you’ll end up just where you started, or worse. So, Chumps, let’s do this! (runs into cave)

And, once you have implemented a plan, and it looks like things are not turning out as predicted, that is; once The Plan has faced Grim Recalcitrant Reality? We can even glean a lesson for that sorry circumstance from the Gospel of Leeroy itself. Sometimes, it is unwise to stick to the plan, no matter how logical and flawless it may seem. For it is written in the Book of Leeroy:

Player 1: Save him! Oh jeez, stick to the plan. Oh jeez, let’s go,
let’s go! [follows]
Player 1 [laughing]: Stick to the plan guys, stick to the plan!
Player 1: Oh jeez, oh f@3%.
[Indistinguishable]: Gimme a Divine Intervention, hurry up!

Divine intervention indeed. Sometimes that’s all you can hope for.

As for the kids, we have it on reliable sources that Brave Sir Mar’s daughter had this to say:

“At least I have chicken nuggets”

Joe Kapp extends olive branch; fight ensues.

2011-11-28T09:45:00.003-05:00

At a CFL reunion. Grudges hold on...

For those of us old enough to remember, Kapp was the Vikings QB pre and post Francis Asbury Tarkenton.

The origins of this fight reach back to his CFL days. In the 1963 Grey Cup, he refused to shake this guy's hand, believing he had inflicted a dirty hit on one of Kapp's fellow B.C. Lions.

Unfortunately for the Lions, they were forced to deal with injuries to both Sonny Homer and Ron Morris. Making matters worse was a questionable hit by Hamilton’s Angelo Mosca against B.C.’s Willie Fleming which knocked him out of the game with a concussion late in the first half. The Lions claimed Fleming was already down along the sidelines when Mosca made contact; the Ticats on the other hand believed it was a legal tackle. Either way, the Lions had to play the remainder of the game without their star offensive player.

the 1969 Vikes, and Kapp:

Winston Churchill - 1944-11-23: On America's Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T08:24:00.002-05:00

"God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

2011-11-23T16:24:00.003-05:00

Herodotus’ “Histories” of the Persian Wars (very liberally ‘translaparaphrased’): Book I sections 53-58

2011-11-23T11:12:00.004-05:00

[An excursus into the Dark Ages and reconstruction of the Pre-History of Sparta and Athens. A prelude to a detailed history of both]

53

The Lydians who were sent to deliver the gifts were also tasked to inquire of the Oracle whether Croesus should undertake a campaign against Persia, and whether it would be wise to forge alliances for the purpose.

On their arrival, they therefore followed custom and ceremony and afterward posed the question thusly: “The King of Lydia and other lands, Croesus, believes that you are among the only genuine oracles of the world, and therefore has rendered unto you these gifts, which are fitting of your powers of divination. He does this so that he may humbly ask if he should make war against the Persian, with such allies as he may procure.”

Both oracles answered similarly. They both predicted that Croesus, should he decide to move against the Persians, would indeed topple a great empire. Furthermore, in the matter of alliances, each of them advised him to seek out the greatest Greek state for coalition.

54

Croesus was elated when he received the reports, and became fully confident that he would destroy the power of Cyrus. So satisfied was he that he felt compelled to render unto Delphi a further gift. For each man of Delphi, he tendered two gold staters, having first taken pains to determine how many men were resident. The Delphians, in gratitude, returned the favor by granting the right of citizenship to Croesus and any Lydian that cared to acquire it, along with exemption from any taxation, and front seats at state functions. They also promised Lydians priority when consulting the Pythia.

55

After giving the Delphian men their gifts, Croesus consulted the oracle for a third time. One true answer had tantalized him, and strongly compelled him to seek more. He asked if he would enjoy a long reign. The Pythia answered:

When it happens that a mule shall sit upon the Throne Median
Then,
tender-footed Lydian, by pebbly Hermus run.

Do not tarry, and take no shame
in acting the coward.

56

The answer pleased Croesus, and confirmed him in his confidence, for he thought it ridiculous that an animal, a mule, should ever become King of Media. He inferred the meaning to be that he and his line would rule in perpetuity. He therefore set about following the earlier advice of the oracle; researching the most powerful Greek city, in order to form an alliance.

The consensus was that the Lacedaemonians were the most powerful of the Dorians, while of the Ionians, the Athenians were pre-eminent. These two peoples, one originally Pelasgian, the other Hellenic, were by this time the most powerful of the Greeks. The Ionians are indigenous to their land, the Dorians have always been on the move. Their home, in the ancient days of the reign of Deucalion, was Phthiotis, and in the time of Dorus, son of Hellen, they occupied the land called Histiaeotis, in the environs of Ossa and Olympus. They had been driven there by the Cadmeians. They settled in Pindus and were known as the Macednons. From there they moved yet again to Dryopis, and then finally settled in the Peloponnese, where they acquired their present name ofDorians.

57

Of the Pelasgian language I can say nothing authoritative, other than to say that it was not Greek. This can be inferred from the nature of the language now spoken by those of the Pelasgian race now living in Creston, above the Tyrrhenian race, who in earlier times were neighbors of those people now called Dorians when these latter resided in the place we call Thessaliotis. Further evidence is given by the language of the Pelasgian peoples that settled at Placia, Scylace at the Hellespont and were at one time fellow countrymen of the Athenians as well as other Pelasgian towns that have since changed their names. Assuming that this is a fair sampling of the Pelasgian race, one may safely conclude that the Athenians, themselves Pelasgian, changed their language once they had been absorbed by the Greek nations. In Creston and Placia one language is spoken, but that language is not that of the surrounding country. This clearly indicates that these people did not change language when they changed locale.

58

I believe that the Greeks have never changed their language. But, they were vulnerable after having separated from the Pelasgians. Since that branching, they have grown from a small group to their present standing by assimilating foreign elements, amongst which eventually were the ancestral Pelasgians themselves. I don’t think the non Greek Pelasgians ever became particularly numerous or powerful.

A very interesting meditation on the good, transcendence, society and eudaimonia/fulfillment/happiness.

2011-11-22T12:15:00.003-05:00

From TPM and John Cottingham, über Cartesian expert.

Sanka freeze dried version.

1. There are three conditions of human happiness, none of which is sufficient (that is; possession of any one alone does not guarantee you’ll be happy), but all of which are ultimately necessary.

He then treats each in turn, providing counterexamples to objections aimed at falsifying the non-sufficiency claims.

A. Opportunity (and exploitation of same) for achievement, exercise of human capacities.

He presents a fictional case, Don Giovanni, of someone who does exercise his human capacities to scheme, plan, and otherwise exercise his rationality, in the interests of getting what he wants, when he wants it, with little or no regard for others. One can, no doubt, multiply instances here, and need not resort to fictional cases, but the gist is that there is a fundamental level connectedness of persons, man is, to use the phrase, essentially a ‘social animal,’ and any fulfillment must include this social element, or otherwise, at some level he will suffer for it, most probably in some form of guilt, though it need not be only in that form. This brings Cottingham to his second thesis:

B. This achievement must be aimed toward furthering of the good. Otherwise dissolution of integrity and a nagging sense of lack of fulfillment will result. The good here not merely being one’s own good, but involving others.

However, there is a risk here of disillusionment; for real life is also replete with instances of failed attempts to serve the good, triumphs of monstrous evil. Human history seems to show no trend toward abatement of viciousness. So, one may fall into cynicism, if not despondency. Cottingham doubts that we can rest satisfied in Camus’ world where the futility is all there is, we cannot be content playing the absurdist hero Sisyphus, always taking up the burden yet again.

Yet, in suffering, and in this futility, is found fellowship and connection with vulnerable others as we attempt to deal with it, not in isolation, but in connection with those others.

C. The others, he surmises, but admits he may not be able to establish, also includes a transcendent other, as source of, anchor for the good, that thing we humans are uniquely able to grasp. This source brings us to his last necessary condition for fulfillment/happiness/eudaimonia; a search for transcendence, or meaning in life that allows one to endure its pains and sufferings, with no guarantees that it will turn out in any way we can describe or believe as being 'better in the end.'

One is reminded of Admiral Stockdale’s reading of Job when one reads this very penetrating piece on evil and the human condition by Cottingham.

2011-11-21T06:41:00.001-05:00

Detroit Lions MO this season: Get at least 17 points behind, looking pathetic. Cause long suffering fans to give up in disgust, turn off game, cursing Lions for sucking them in yet again. Then, mount come from behind victory eventually winning by at least 7 points.

End result: 7-3 heading into the T-Day tilt with the Packers. Injured Cutler and Bears in trouble? Wild Card berth within sight? Time for Opera Man Lions Fan!

Leonard Pinth-Garnell presents: Great Moments in Exquisitely Bad Holiday Television

2011-11-18T17:01:00.003-05:00

From 1978, The Star Wars Christmas Special.

"Monumentally ill-advised!"

As if any evidence was needed that OWS has jumped the shark

2011-11-17T10:43:00.004-05:00

Clearly, if the Daily Show is now mercilessly skewering its pretensions, it has gone the Fonzie route.

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Note to Marxist theorists: Please develop the nuanced distinction between personal property and private property.

USNA Glee Club tours the D

2011-11-17T10:11:00.002-05:00

Very talented bunch, and on top of a demanding schedule, they did a multi-stop lightning-round tour to boot!

No word yet on whether or not they will have the opportunity do a rendition of the Lions Fight Song "Gridiron Heroes".

Truly a force for good.

2011-11-17T09:30:00.002-05:00

From the fine blog of Rajiv Srinivasan, and Time Magazine.

What We're Thankful For.

No other fighting force in the history of the world has as fine a record of the sort of combination of professionalism and compassion as is evidenced in these stories from platoon level. Read the whole thing. Excerpts:

...this Veterans’ Day, I’d ask you to thank our soldier’s for something far more valuable and sacred that has truly saved more of our American lives than anything else: their compassion.

I remember one evening after a helicopter engagement that I ordered, two brutally injured Taliban fighters came to our gates. My medic, Specialist Mike Piegaro, a 21-year-old soldier from Florida, began to operate on the most critically wounded. I watched the Afghan’s eyes. He was about my age. He trembled and shivered on the operating table as cold wraps and iodine touched his skin. His gaze at the ceiling seemed to question of God, “How did I get myself into this? I want to go home.” As the fighter’s spasms increased with his anxiety, Specialist Piegaro stopped operating. He took off a glove, grabbed the Afghan’s hand and held tightly. He motioned the interpreter to his side. Mike looked into the Afghan’s eyes — a boy of similar age who just two hours ago had been trying to kill him — and in a calming voice, he said to him, “Relax, brother. Everything is going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” The young Talib responded more to Mike’s body language than the interpreter’s translation. He leaned his head back, lowered his shoulders and allowed himself to be healed...

...Two injured men were quickly wheeled into the tent-covered operating room. One was an American Marine, the other an Iraqi. Raj was asked to assist with the Iraqi, who was being treated for gunshot wound. As he handed scalpels and bags of saline to the surgeons, Raj watched as the doctors across the room frantically worked to save the Marine’s life. Much of the Marine’s leg had been decimated by a roadside bomb. Several hours into the effort, one of the surgeons called out to Raj, “Take a look at this bullet.” He handed Raj an M-16 round he had extracted from the Iraqi and then dropped a bombshell — the Iraqi they were working on was the trigger-man for the bomb that had blown off the Marine’s leg! While the Marine was eventually sent to Walter Reed for recuperation and the Iraqi to the penal system, during their time in the hospital, both equally received the finest medical care our nation could muster. No other fighting force in history has provided such a level of care for its enemies. I shudder to think of the outcome had the roles of fighter and captor been reversed.

As I returned from combat to read nothing but bad press on the failures of our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, a dire fear started to seep under my skin, a fear that our nation will regard both wars as a total loss with no positive impact. I feared that the daily courage of soldiers like Mike Piegaro would go unappreciated through history. Winning this war is about small daily victories, and a 24-hour news cycle fueled on sensationalism will never give credit where credit is due. Say what you will about the grand national strategy of our occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq, but at the end of the day, let us not remember these wars in a simple win-loss context. Let us appreciate the sacrifices shown through benevolence — and the bravery shown through compassion on battlefields and in the operating rooms. They are not gifts deserving of thanks nearly as they are models for how great America can be.

Indeed.

Faculty member ashamed of colleagues for wanting to collect for care packages for servicemen and women. Seriously.

2011-11-16T15:30:00.006-05:00

So, someone on faculty at Suffolk University thought it might be a good idea to send an email asking for donations of care package items for servicemen and women overseas, what with the holidays upon us, and with one person from Suffolk Law itself in uniform and serving overseas. Nice idea eh?

So, naturally, someone else on faculty gets the vapors, a National Lawyers Guild type, Michael Avery. Here’s his email response to that request, with fisking inserted early and often:

I think it is shameful that it is perceived as legitimate to solicit in an academic institution for support for men and women who have gone overseas to kill other human beings.

[Oh for Crimeny’s sake Clyde, you make it sound so simply wrong. Does your subtle legal mind not fathom that there might be shades of justifiability in killing other human beings? Consider two rarefied hypothetical examples, (hey, lawyers and philosophers deal with these all the time don’t they?): I hop on a boat for the Sceptered Isle, arrive, get off the boat, find some person walking in Piccadilly Circus, and kill him. That is BAD. No doubt. No Care Packages for me. Ok. Now the second scenario: Same trip to London, but there is a person walking in Piccadilly Circus who has inserted a ticking nuke time bomb in his body (will not divulge how) and has programmed it to detonate it at 1700. He’s otherwise armed to the teeth for defense, and will fight to the death. Dead or alive, the bomb will go. You’re working with MI5, and realize you must kill the guy, and then defuse the ticking time bomb.He will not be taken alive. It’s the only way to prevent the death of thousands. So, you kill the guy. Now, I suspect that a subtle legal mind would be able to see there is, at least arguably, more justification, indeed, *gasp* even an obligation to kill this guy. Right? Just arguably, mind you. I’ll even grant that it may only be prima facie, although I seriously doubt that. OK, anyway, back to our author.]

I understand that there is a residual

[as if the leftovers of some regrettable thing that we have evolved away from? A curious choice of modifier here “residual”]

sympathy for service members, perhaps

[maybe, might be…perhaps.. who knows? Those old bygone days when America was behind a war against tyranny, must really bug Avery.. ]

engendered by support for troops in World War II, or perhaps from when there was a draft and people with few resources to resist were involuntarily sent to battle.

[Obligatory Vietnam reference here complete with picture of Vietnam vet as helpless victim]

That sympathy is not particularly rational in today's world, however.

[Presumably because we have an all volunteer force, who are somehow morally culpable for taking part in the two wars consequent to 9/11]

The United States may well be the most war prone country in the history of civilization.

[Three things to note here.

1. As a matter of empirical fact, this statement is wrong. Think Rome dude. 2. To describe a country as “war prone” makes it sound like it is constantly looking for pretexts for war, (kind of like that playground bully we would have all liked to pound into the ground. You know the guy... If it wasn’t your high-water pants it was your glasses. You know, Scut Farcas)

That is quite a different sort of thing than a country ‘finding itself at war’ often. It is arguable that the latter phrase more accurately captures the majority of U.S. history (Chomsky readings not withstanding).

3. Humans are naturally bellicose. It should be no surprise that a country relied upon by other countries and regions of the world for maintaining sea lanes, stability and the like, would find itself at war more often than a country that does not bear that burden.]

We have been at war two years out of three since the Cold War ended.

[Pedantic first year English Composition alert: This sentence makes it sound like the cold war ceased 3 years ago, and we’ve been a fightin’ and a fussin’ two of those three years. Come on dude. I know it’s only an email, but…proofread]

We have 700 overseas military bases.

[Outposts of Oppression and Empire, or are they requested by the local powers?]

What other country has any?

[Perfidious Albion?]

In the last ten years we have squandered hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary foreign invasions. Those are dollars that could have been used for people who are losing their homes due to the economic collapse, for education, to repair our infrastructure, or for any of a thousand better purposes than making war.

[And suppose that was to have been the case. Suppose your sage rational advice had been taken, and in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and all the run-up attacks during the 80s and 90s, we undertook no ‘foreign invasions’. Suppose we did not go into Afghanistan. Suppose that, despite flouting of multiple UN resolutions, we sat back and allowed Bat-Guano-Crazy Saddam to go about his bloody business. Suppose all of that money went to your suggested list of purposes. Now, I know this may be hard to comprehend for someone as rational as thee, but there are elements in the world that would have read this inaction as a very weak response to the increasingly brazen and lethal series of attacks. I seem to remember a quote of Bin Laden’s about weak horses. Do you think there is a possibility that in the wake of such inaction, there might have been further attacks? Nahhh. That’s just neo-con fear mongering. Right?]

And of course those hundreds of billions of dollars have gone for death and destruction.

[…and medical care for the natives, food, infrastructure, pilot business programs, women’s schools, schools for girls, schools for boys, trades training for adults, as well as a general ramping up of representative governments, military and police as we try to leave behind more moral and humane and less corrupt governance for those two parts of the world. Seems this nation is somewhat ‘prone’ to humanitarianism. Or is that just all a cynical ploy by THEM. You know. THEM. The ones that REALLY control things.]

Perhaps some of my colleagues will consider this to be an inappropriate political statement. But of course the solicitation email was a political statement, although cast as support for student activities. The politics of that solicitation are that war is legitimate, perhaps inevitable, and that patriotic Americans should get behind our troops.

[This is just damned confusing. IF the original email was indeed political in intent, and if it is also true, as he seems to admit here, that his reply is also a political statement, AND if he seriously thinks the political intent of the original is as he describes, that is; to send the three part message that war is legitimate, unavoidable at least in some cases, and that patriotic Americans should ‘get behind the troops’, then it would follow by parity of reasoning that his own political statement, a contrary to the first, would have the following three parts: War is never legitimate, never a necessary evil, and there is no moral obligation for patriots to ‘get behind the troops.’

Taking the first two claims first: They just seem patently false. Even if world history has never presented a case of a war that was legitimate, and has never presented a case of a war that was a necessary evil because other options had been exhausted, it is simply false that such things could not occur. We can certainly cook up hypothetical cases that would fit the bill. Heard of War of the Worlds?

And, these two claims are confusing in another way. How exactly are these theses POLITICAL? They seem to be historical or sociological in content.

Lastly, the third claim makes an elementary confusion or equivocation: Support for troops is not the same thing as supporting the mission troops are undertaking. One can do either without doing the other. It’s also the case that, volunteer army or not, troops are, by virtue of being in the military, bound by oath to obey all legal orders. Similarly, individual policemen must, at times, make legal arrests with which they do not agree. As functionaries of the state, they have sworn to undertake these functions. So, speaking conceptually one can support the troops by sending them care packages, and thus be patriotic, without necessarily supporting the mission on which they have been sent. There can be room for patriots to support the troops, just as well as there can be room for patriots to refrain from doing so. Clearly Clyde here considers himself to exemplify the later possibility. His colleagues just as clearly instantiate the former.

We need to be more mindful of what message we are sending as a school. Since Sept. 11 we have had perhaps the largest flag in New England hanging in our atrium. This is not a politically neutral act. Excessive patriotic zeal is a hallmark of national security states.

[Wow, a 'politically non-neutral act' is suddenly and magically transformed into “excessive patriotic zeal” within the space of only a few words. And how, pray tell do you delineate ‘excessive’ patriotic zeal from non-excessive patriotic zeal?

Or is patriotism simply identical with excessive patriotic zeal? Patriotism, and a penchant for displaying big honking flags is a hallmark of many states that are not ‘national security states’ anyway. Pick your favorite European country, and you’ll find flags. Yep. And big ones to. Betchya there are even a few in their university atriums.

Hold on a minute…now that I'm a- cogitatin' on it, just what the hell is a ‘national security state’ anyway? Does this category do any actual sorting? Don’t all states concern themselves with national security?

Oh. I get it. Clyde has some grade school analogizing going on in his heated brow. Godwin’s law alert! The Nazi regime waved flags. You know, they had really large flags, hanging all over the place. They also were obsessed with national security.

Well, think about it folks. The parallels are all too clear, and all too ominous. WE have flags all over the place, and some of ‘em are big honkin’ ones too. And, we even put them in atriums. AND, get this, we are concerned with ‘national security.’

So, if we are concerned with it, we must be obsessed with it. All of this leads to the inescapable conclusion that we are deep in the grip of excessive patriotic zeal. Hence we are a national security state. Hence, we are morally on par with the Nazis, QED.]

It permits, indeed encourages, excesses in the name of national security, as we saw during the Bush administration, and which continue during the Obama administration.

[So, to recapitulate: Having a really large flag displayed on campus either is indicative of, or encouraging of ‘excessive patriotic zeal’, which in turn, brings on the police state, and horrible humanitarian abuses in the name of national security. It’s all Bush’s fault as well. And that guy in office right now. Well, he’s just Bush Lite.

Why do we continue to have this oversized flag in our lobby?

[Because we like ‘excessive patriotic zeal?]

Why are we sending support to the military instead of Americans who are losing their homes, malnourished, unable to get necessary medical care, and suffering from other consequences of poverty?

[Because they are in harm’s way, paid much less than they deserve (and much less than you are paid I am sure Brave Sir Avery), and they are our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, neighbors, students, friends, sons of friends, daughters of friends..& etc, you tool]

As a university community, we should debate these questions, not remain on automatic pilot in support of the war agenda.

[Completely and utterly unable to separate the political from the personal level. Debate all you want Clyde, but do not question the moral integrity and decency of those at your institution that want to send care packages to sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, neighbors, students, friends, sons of friends, daughters of friends, & etc.]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

2011-11-11T06:52:00.001-05:00

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 - 1918)

These go to 11-11-11

2011-11-11T06:44:00.001-05:00

Nigel Tufnel Day

History of Veteran's Day, this year, 11-11-11

2011-11-10T20:28:00.003-05:00

Remembrance or Armistice Day

And a darn good tribute from an 8th Grader:

And another one from our neighbors up north, and Terry Kelly

Ooh-Rah. Happy 236th USMC

2011-11-10T06:48:00.001-05:00

236 Years of Military Excellence:

Last year, special tribute to Korean War veterans.

and from two years ago..

Brief history from the USMC Press:

Tun Tavern: (excerpt from Warrior Culture of the U.S. Marines, copyright 2001 Marion F. Sturkey)

Ask any Marine. Just ask. He will tell you that the Marine Corps was born in Tun Tavern on 10 November 1775. But, beyond that the Marine's recollection for detail will probably get fuzzy. So, here is the straight scoop:

In the year 1685, Samuel Carpenter built a huge "brew house" in Philadelphia. He located this tavern on the waterfront at the corner of Water Street and Tun Alley. The old English word tun means a cask, barrel, or keg of beer. So, with his new beer tavern on Tun Alley, Carpenter elected to christen the new waterfront brewery with a logical name, Tun Tavern.

Tun Tavern quickly gained a reputation for serving fine beer. Beginning 47 years later in 1732, the first meetings of the St. John's No. 1 Lodge of the Grand Lodge of the Masonic Temple were held in the tavern. An American of note, Benjamin Franklin, was its third Grand Master. Even today the Masonic Temple of Philadelphia recognizes Tun Tavern as the birthplace of Masonic teachings in America.

Roughly ten years later in the early 1740s, the new proprietor expanded Tun Tavern and gave the addition a new name, "Peggy Mullan's Red Hot Beef Steak Club at Tun Tavern." The new restaurant became a smashing commercial success and was patronized by notable Americans. In 1747 the St. Andrews Society, a charitable group dedicated to assisting poor immigrants from Scotland, was founded in the tavern.

Nine years later, then Col. Benjamin Franklin organized the Pennsylvania Militia. He used Tun Tavern as a gathering place to recruit a regiment of soldiers to go into battle against the Indian uprisings that were plaguing the American colonies. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Continental Congress later met in Tun Tavern as the American colonies prepared for independence from the English Crown.

On November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress commissioned Samuel Nicholas to raise two Battalions of Marines. That very day, Nicholas set up shop in Tun Tavern. He appointed Robert Mullan, then the proprietor of the tavern, to the job of chief Marine Recruiter -- serving, of course, from his place of business at Tun Tavern. Prospective recruits flocked to the tavern, lured by (1) cold beer and (2) the opportunity to serve in the new Corps of Marines. So, yes, the U.S. Marine Corps was indeed born in Tun Tavern. Needless to say, both the Marine Corps and the tavern thrived during this new relationship.

Tun Tavern still lives today. And, Tun Tavern beer is still readily available throughout the Philadelphia area. Further, through magazines it is advertised to Marines throughout the world.

Another version:

During the American Revolution, many important political discussions took place in the inns and taverns of Philadelphia, including the founding of the Marine Corps.

A committee of the Continental Congress met at Tun Tavern to draft a resolution calling for two battalions of Marines able to fight for independence at sea and on shore.

The resolution was approved on November 10, 1775, officially forming the Continental Marines.

As the first order of business, Samuel Nicholas became Commandant of the newly formed Marines. Tun Tavern’s owner and popular patriot, Robert Mullan, became his first captain and recruiter. They began gathering support and were ready for action by early 1776.

Each year, the Marine Corps marks November 10th with a celebration of the brave spirit which compelled these men and thousands since to defend our country as United States Marines.

The Birthplace Memorial in honor of Tun Tavern

Tun Tavern is still alive and kicking! From their history page:

Historically, it is regarded as the "First Brew House" built in Philadelphia in 1685, and among the very first in the country. Carpenter's purpose in building the Tavern was to commence the development of the Philadelphia waterfront which he intended as a site for various businesses. The Tavern soon developed a reputation for fine beers in the City of Philadelphia and maintained that reputation for over a century. Its name is derived from the old English word "Tun" meaning measured cask, barrel, or keg of beer."

and..

On November 10, 1775, Robert Mullan, the proprietor of the Tavern and son of Peggy Mullan, was commissioned by an act of Congress to raise the first two battalions of Marines, under the leadership of Capt. Samuel Nicholas, the first appointed Commandant of the Continental Marines. Nicholas's grandfather was also a member of the Tun Tavern Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons and it is this relationship between Mullan, Nicholas and the Tavern which has resulted in Tun Tavern being acknowledged as the birthplace of the United States Marine Corps. There are an estimated three million active and retired U.S. Marines worldwide who have been exposed in their military training to the historical significance of Tun Tavern. Each year on November 10th, around the world Marines toast the Marine's birthplace on the most significant date in the history of the Corps.

And pull up the chair and pop the corn for a good old fashioned 1943 Hollywood treatment of Carlson's Raiders, of WWII "Gung Ho!"

Hoorah.

USG takes sides in the heated Artificial v Natural Christmas Tree debate. Sides with Charlie Brown

2011-11-09T11:08:00.013-05:00

Is this Crony Capitalism run amok? Will no one stop Big Natural Christmas Tree?

Do you remember these catchy ad campaign staples?

"Got Milk"
"Pork, the Other White Meat"

They all were the end result of what are euphemistically called "check off programs" No, these are not events having something to do with Walter Koenig, but what are essentially advertising/ PR programs run by USG via USDA, in which taxes (euphemistically called "assessments"), are collected from certain producers in an industry for the purposes of touting said industry in times of trouble (i.e., competition they deem unfair or threatening to the industry). Typically, what happens is reps from the troubled industry approach the FDA with proposals to set up a Chekov..er..Check off, a study occurs, carried out by reps from said industry, then it is voted on by some reps from said industry. If the vote succeeds a sort of pilot program is set up, after some term, it is evaluated by the reps of the industry who again vote for continuance.

Well, what can only be referred to as "Big Natural Xmas Tree" felt it needed this government help back around two-double-aught four, (2004) during the eevil Boosh administration, and began the process. Details helpfully provided at the blogspot blog by Big Natural Christmas Tree itself. Check Off Study

About this time four years ago, the U.S. Christmas Tree industry was in the midst of a downward spiral. Purchases of Real Christmas trees had dropped to 23.4 million – about two-thirds of what they had been a decade earlier. What’s worse, since the number of households in the U.S. had increased, market share was down even more.

It seemed that having a Real Tree was out of vogue – perhaps too messy and too much hassle for the average household. Even scarier was the fact that the new generation of prospective buyers was growing up without the tradition of having a Real Tree.

...The world is changing. Did anyone see or hear one of the thousands of ads TreeClassics.com ran this season? They were everywhere. Should we be surprised that consumers reported purchasing 87.1% more new fake trees this last season? And since fake tree users keep them an average of 6-9 years, those people aren’t going to be back in the market for a Real Tree any time soon.

Do you know what buyers of new fake trees think about the environmental benefits of Real Trees? For every one of them that said a Real Tree was better for the environment, 6.25 said a fake tree was better for the environment! Where do you suppose they got that idea? You betcha. The fake tree industry is telling them that fake trees are safer, cleaner, cheaper in the long run, and better for the environment, because they are re-used.

So, under pressure from BIG ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE, Big Natural Christmas Tree, the older industry standard, felt they had no alternative. They took the GM route, sort of. They needed to call in Big Government:

While the fake tree industry is investing dollars to vigorously promote their product, the Real Tree industry is pulling back and devoting fewer funds to public relations and marketing. More than 1,000 people donated more than $900,000 for 2004 promotion and marketing programs. By 2007, donations to the market expansion activities had dropped to about $400,000. The erosion of funding resulted in fewer projects aimed at positively impacting consumer attitudes about Real Trees limiting the ability of the industry to affect the sales of Real Trees in the marketplace.

Given this continued erosion of the market share of farm-grown Christmas Trees, an industry task force is being formed to study the possibility of a federal marketing order that could establish a nationwide checkoff designed to support expanded promotion, marketing and research projects.

The NCTA Board of Directors supports the industry task force study of a federal marketing order.

Even if the industry decides to pursue a nationwide checkoff, it takes at least a year for USDA to follow its “rule making procedures.” Thus, it is highly unlikely that a checkoff could start before 2010. In the interim, NCTA will engage in an aggressive promotion and protection program as funds allow.

That was the state of things in two-double-aught-and eight (2008). Three years later all of this came to fruition Nov 8, two-double-aught and eleven (2011), during the Obama administration, with the release of this unintentionally hilarious release from the GPO.

Please note the header, and page numbers in the Federal Register.

[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 216 (Tuesday, November 8, 2011)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 69094-69110]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-28798]

Pages sixty-nine thousand, and ninety-four through sixty-nine thousand, one-hundred and FREAKING ten?????? You've got to be kidding me. Some day thousands of years from now, archaeologists will find layers and layers of petrified paper deposits with fossilized bits of human skeletons here and there. The Papyrus Age. Holy Mackerel.

Anyway, some more gems from this document:

SUMMARY: This rule establishes an industry-funded promotion, research,
and information program for fresh cut Christmas trees. The Christmas
Tree Promotion, Research, and Information Order (Order) is authorized
under the Commodity Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1996
(1996 Act). The Order will establish a national Christmas Tree
Promotion Board (Board) comprised of 11 producers and one importer.
Under the Order, producers and importers of fresh cut Christmas trees
will pay an initial assessment of fifteen cents per Christmas tree.
Producers and importers that produce or import less than 500 Christmas
trees annually will be exempt from the assessment. A referendum will be
conducted, among producers and importers, three years after the
collection of assessments begin to determine if Christmas tree
producers and importers favor the continuation of this program.

The Order is authorized under the 1996 Act which authorizes USDA to
establish agricultural commodity research and promotion orders which
may include a combination of promotion, research, industry information,
and consumer information activities funded by mandatory assessments.
These programs are designed to maintain and expand markets and uses for
agricultural commodities. As defined under section 513(1)(D) of the
1996 Act, agricultural commodities include fresh cut Christmas trees.
The Order will provide for the development and financing of a
coordinated program of research, promotion, and information for
Christmas trees.

Hah. Try to compete with that Big Artificial Christmas Tree!

Competition

The fresh cut Christmas tree industry competes directly with the
artificial Christmas tree industry. Artificial Christmas tree companies
advertise heavily throughout the fall and Christmas seasons. According
to data

[[Page 69096]]<-(had to leave that in when I cut and paste- ed.)

supplied by the proponents artificial tree purchases have increased
from 9.8 million in 2003 to 17.4 million in 2007.

Imports

According to U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau,
Foreign Trade Statistics, imports of Christmas trees from 2006 through
2008 averaged about 1.9 million trees. During those years, imports from
Canada accounted for 99.72 percent of the total imports. Italy,
Columbia and Mali comprised about .28 million trees or less than one
percent. For the same period, these imports were valued at $27.427
million dollars.

And you too shall feel the wrath, Hoser competition from the Great White North!

We had no choice. A voluntary program failed, so we need Big Brother to step in with some helpful 'assessments' so that Big Natural Christmas Tree can compete in the market...

Need for a Program

A national research and promotion program for Christmas trees would
help the industry to address the many market problems it currently
faces. According to the Task Force, two main factors currently
affecting Christmas tree sales, both in the domestic market and abroad,
are increased competition and changing consumer habits.

According to additional data supplied by the Task Force, the market
share of fresh Christmas trees in the U.S. from 1965 to 2008 has
declined by 6 percent. In comparison, the market share of artificial
trees has increased 655 percent from 1965 to 2008.

According to the proponent data, sales of fresh cut Christmas trees
decreased by 15 million trees from 37 million trees sold in 1991 down
to 22 million trees sold in 2002. The industry saw an increase in sales
in 2003 through 2007 when the industry conducted a voluntary marketing
campaign which was lead by a small group of producers and retailers.
This voluntary marketing campaign saw sales rebound by 9 million
trees--from 22 million trees sold in 2002 to 31 million trees sold in
2007. Even with the strong sales response to the marketing efforts, the
voluntary marketing program suffered from a lack of funding.

The Christmas tree industry has tried three different times to
conduct promotional programs based on voluntary contributions. Each
time, after about three years, the revenue declined to a point where
the programs were ineffective. The decline in revenue is attributable
to the voluntary nature of these programs. Therefore, the proponents
have determined that they need a mechanism that would be sustainable
over time. They believe that a national Christmas tree research and
promotion program would accomplish this goal.

Which step is not without its drawbacks mind you, of course, with the government collection of "assessments" come all the reporting and other requirements. Dig this long extract to get a taste of these, along with the hoped for results of government inserting itself into the hurly burly of the Xmas Tree Market:

This rule establishes an industry-funded research, promotion, and
information program for fresh cut Christmas trees. The program will be
financed by an assessment on Christmas tree producers and importers and
will be administered by a board of industry members selected by the
Secretary. The initial assessment rate will be $0.15 per Christmas tree
cut and sold or imported to the United States and could be increased to
$0.20 per Christmas tree. Entities that cut and sell or import less
than 500 Christmas trees will be exempt. The purpose of the program
will be to strengthen the position of Christmas trees in the
marketplace, and maintain and expand markets for Christmas trees. A
referendum will be held among eligible producers and importers to
determine whether they favor implementation of the program three years
after the first assessments begin. The Order will continue if favored
by a majority of producers and importers voting in the referendum. The
program is authorized under the 1996 Act.

Regarding the economic impact of the Order on affected entities,
Christmas tree producers and importers will be required to pay
assessments to the Board. As previously mentioned, the initial
assessment rate will be $0.15 per Christmas tree cut and sold or
imported to the United States and could be increased to no more than
$0.20 per Christmas tree.

Regarding the impact on the industry as a whole, the Order is
expected to grow demand for fresh cut Christmas trees. The Christmas
tree industry hopes to achieve a stable funding base to promote
Christmas now and into the future.

Regarding alternatives, the Christmas tree industry has already
considered and implemented voluntary programs, but based on past
experiences, these programs only worked in the short term; until monies
were depleted.

This action will impose an additional reporting and recordkeeping
burden on producers and importers of fresh cut Christmas trees.
Producers and importers interested in serving on the Board may be asked
to submit a nomination form to the Board indicating their desire to
serve or nominating another industry member to serve on the Board.
Interested persons will also submit a background statement outlining
their qualifications to serve on the Board. Producers and importers
will have the opportunity to cast a ballot and vote for candidates to
serve on the Board. Producer and importer nominees to the Board will
have to submit a background form to the Secretary to ensure they are
qualified to serve on the Board.

Additionally, producers and importers who domestically produce or
import less than 500 Christmas trees annually could submit a request to
the Board for an exemption from paying assessments on this volume.
Producers and importers also will report regarding their sales/imports
that will accompany their assessments paid to the Board. Producers and
importers who will qualify as 100 percent organic under the NOP could
submit a request to the Board for an exemption from assessments.

Finally, producers and importer who wanted to participate in a
referendum to vote on whether the Order should continue will have to
complete a ballot for submission to the Secretary. These forms were
approved by OMB under OMB Control No. 0581-0267 and 0581-0268. Specific
burdens for the forms are detailed later in this document in the
section titled Paperwork Reduction Act. As with all Federal promotion
programs, reports and forms are periodically reviewed to reduce
information requirements and duplication by industry and public sector
agencies. Finally, USDA has not identified any relevant Federal rules
that duplicate, overlap, or conflict with this rule.

AMS is committed to complying with the E-Government Act, to promote
the use of the Internet and other information technologies to provide
increased opportunities for citizen access to Government information
and services, and for other purposes.

Regarding outreach efforts, as previously mentioned, the Task Force
conducted sessions throughout the United Sates in different States and
regions. These were held in conjunction with regional and state
organization meetings. Approximately 50 sessions were held across the
United States. Input regarding the proposed program was incorporated
into the Task Force's proposal.

Got that? Clear as mud. Big Artificial Christmas Tree has run effective ad campaigns and has taken a larger part of the market, thanks to lazy Americans that are sick and tired of cleaning up dried needles, and fire hazards. Big Natural Christmas Tree does not have the funds to compete with Big Artificial Xmas Tree. So, they go to the taxpayer for insulation from the effects of a nominally free market, through the auspices of Big Government as a PR firm.

Oh no they don't! No such thing occurs! you might say. The 15 to 20 cent tax is levied on the BNXT growers, not the consumer. The taxpayer isn't left paying for the PR. Big Natural Christmas Tree pays the bill.

Think again Clyde. Such taxes are passed on to the folks that buy the products are they not? So, ultimately, hapless Charlie Brown IS paying for it.More on this program: From the Right and From the Left

Bill Bennet on the ongoing Cain Circus

2011-11-08T10:19:00.004-05:00

Hits it exactly right:

Four women are not an insignificant number. One or two anonymous charges, perhaps. Three anonymous charges (where, as I understand the story, Cain knows of at least two of the women) plus one woman who went very public and opened herself up to all manner of investigation are a lot. It is no longer insignificant. Neither is it insignificant that the Cain campaign discounted the charges in the initial stories, saying they were based on anonymous sources, only to make a mockery by blaming other campaigns with less substantiation than the original stories.

If Herman Cain wants to be taken seriously as a public advocate for anything, never mind running for the chief executive and commander in chief of the most powerful and important and blessed country in the world, he needs to give a full press conference dedicated exclusively to this issue and these allegations.

I have watched long enough and held my tongue long enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but can no longer say this is a witch hunt, "a lynching" to use his word, or any other euphemism. There are allegations out there that matter and they have stacked up. For we who led the charge against Bill Clinton on a number of related issues to continue to blame the media or other campaigns or say it simply doesn't matter makes us the hypocrites as well.

As I say, all of this is bad for our politics and polity. If Herman Cain cannot stand up to these charges, if he refuses to, then he should step out of the race. A man big enough to run for president should be big enough to have a full and candid press conference on all of this -- he wants us to elect him president after all, he's asking us to trust our lives and the country's life to him. This could be one of his finest moments and it could be one of his worst. But either way, he must confront the moment candidly and manfully.

It's safe to say Cain has everything riding on how he handles the press conference later today. Things are not looking good. The count now is at 5 leveling accusations, one very public and very specific in nature. If he is in fact innocent he needs to establish that. This raises the question though; how would he prove this to a level sufficient to quash the doubts that have been planted in the Republican primary electorate? Should he offer to take a polygraph test?

And allow me to be the latest conservative leaning griper to grumble about the GOP field: Michigan/Massachusetts Mitt has been on every side of every issue, Newt has the smarts, and the ability to debate at length, but has very troubling personal baggage, Perry comes off as unsure, unable to communicate, Cain is prone to the gaffe, along with having the Clintonesque Cloud over his head, and the rest of the candidates don't have a snowballs chance. It makes me pine for the good old days.

Why doesn't Mr. Bennett run?

Thanksgiving audio from "Back Story with the American History Guys"

2011-11-07T15:21:00.004-05:00

Found this at the always fascinating Internet Archive. It covers a lot of ground about the history of this holiday, but starts where it should FOOTBALL. An interview with Roger the Dodger begins things, then there is a nice discussion of the long relationship that had already existed between the King of All Sports and Turkey Day, well before the NFL got in on it. Then it's on to the origins of that other great spectacle, the Thanksgiving Parade.

Old = Baghdad Bob. New = Islamabad Iqbal

2011-11-04T14:00:00.006-04:00

Or, more precisely the un-named ISI official in this section of a rather long Atlantic article on our erstwhile friends the Paks:

...The New Yorker reported that the order to kill Shahzad came from an
officer on General Kayani’s staff. Sources we spoke with say the order was
passed directly to General Pasha, the head of the ISI. According to one of the
sources, an official with knowledge of the intelligence, Pasha was told to “deal
with it” and “take care of the problem.” According to this source, Mullen was
horrified that his Pakistani interlocutors of many years had been involved in
orchestrating the killing of a journalist. “It struck a visceral chord with
him,” the source told The Atlantic, recalling that Mullen had slammed his desk
and said, “This is old school.”

The ISI has strenuously denied any involvement in the Shahzad
murder. “There will be no statements on these unsubstantiated matters,”
Commodore Zafar Iqbal, an ISI spokesman, said when asked for comment. Another
high-ranking official of the ISI said during an extended conversation in
Islamabad: “That is an absolutely false allegation. The government of Pakistan
had nothing to do with the unfortunate death.” Talking at length with this
senior ISI official provided a reporter with a sense of what life must be like
for American officials who work regularly with that organization. When asked
about the allegation that Lashkar-e-Taiba operates under the protection of the
ISI, he said, “We don’t have anything to do with that, not at all.” What about
the Mumbai attacks? “We had nothing to do with that. To say that the ISI was
involved in Mumbai is really unfair.” What about the Haqqani network and its
attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan? “The Haqqani network is something
completely separate from us.” When asked if the country’s various security
services were equal to the task of protecting civilians from Pakistan’s large
assortment of jihadist groups, he gave an enthusiastic yes.

The conversation took place in the restaurant of the Serena
Hotel in Islamabad. The Serena has become an armed fortress: cars are banned
from the hotel entrance; security guards and anti-terror police patrol the
perimeter of the hotel, which is surrounded by razor wire; and guests and
visitors must pass through three separate security checks before being allowed
into the lobby, which is itself watched by plainclothes ISI agents. These
various precautions would seem to suggest that Islamabad is itself not entirely
secure. It was noted that in neighboring Rawalpindi, one of Pakistan’s so-called
garrison cities (Abbottabad is another), the general headquarters of the
Pakistani army itself came under sustained attack by the Taliban in 2009.
Doesn’t all of this suggest that Pakistan is not a secure country?, the ISI
official was asked. “Nonsense,” he replied. “Americans are much too concerned
about the stability and safety of Pakistan.”

..Ok, maybe it ain't exactly Baghdad Bob behavior. After all, Bob was on CNN denying that Americans were in his country beating up on Saddam's finest, even as they were within virtual screenshot. This guy is denying that his organization has anything to do with terror organizations they have had long relations with, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So, maybe he's a bit more Capt. Louis Renault, or Sgt. Schulz?

The balance of the Atlantic piece is a frustrating read as it details continued U.S. reticence, in the face of logistical and other perceived difficulties, to take the one step that would really punish, and perhaps prod the Paks to behave differently. Mixed with the tougher talk from our people, such as Mullen and Panetta, is the belief that we cannot afford to cut them off from (fungible) funding. Also there is some inkling of a stubborn naivete with regard to our ability to change their behavior through a "tough love" approach (that arguably will not have the possibility of attaining toughness absent a cutting off of funding), from of all people, Chuck Norris...er...David Petraeus:

There is no escaping this vexed relationship—and little evidence to suggest that it will soon improve. But the American officials in closest contact with the Pakistanis—Admiral Mullen being the notable exception—still seem predisposed to optimism, apparently embracing the belief that Islamabad will change through tough love. A senior U.S. intelligence official told us that General David Petraeus, the new director of the CIA, says he believes he can rebuild relations with the ISI, because he has “a good personal relationship with these guys.”

Reviewing the history of this 'vexed relationship' as one can do in other portions of the Atlantic piece, one wonders exactly what evidence there is that repeating what is essentially the same game plan as has been utilized since the 70s will lead to any different result. Perhaps they want you to THINK you have a "good personal relationship" with them. You cannot trust these 'guys'. That is apparent.

A more likely reading of such happy talk is that it is born of a resigned pragmatism, a realization that the kabuki dance is necessary given the nuke worry, and the related belief that ISI half-assed-counter-terror cooperation is better than none at all in that part of the world. One wonders though. Would it really be that much worse to just to cut them off, and moving to rely on India and/or slouching-toward-erstwhile- friend-status Afghanistan? Despite all the pragatic calculus, it boils down to this. The record show a simple take-away: So long as we fund, they will continue to play their deeply anti-U.S. paranoid double game. We will in essence fund the killing of our own folks, and our true friends.

Brave Sir Julian Update from the Schadenfreude Brauhus

2011-11-02T11:02:00.007-04:00

Brave Sir Julian Asschapeau, the Knight of the Pallid Complexion and Multi-Hued Coif is one step closer to being extradited to the "Saudi Arabia of Feminism"...er...that would be Sweden.

Here is the story, as told by those-that-bite-the-hand-of-their-feeder..erstwhile feeder, that is, the NYT.

You can really tell they are biting that hand by the way they write up this allegedly straight news story. Not exactly as NEWS per se. They indulge in not-so-subtle editorial padification, as they have since the much covered break up of the couple. Hell hath no fury like that of a scorned NYT. Dig it:

As his legal battles spanned half a dozen court appearances, across three courthouses, Mr. Assange has given dozens of interviews with the rolling country estate as a backdrop. He has condemned Sweden’s strict sexual crimes laws, calling the country “the Saudi Arabia of feminism” and compared himself to the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.

Note, the slight digs. He sets up his press appearances against the manoral backdrops. They play up his laughable comparison of Sweden to Saudi, himself to MLK. Not that there is anything wrong with this padification of course. It just adds some distinctive hops to the brew for those of us who were never fans of this detestable little man in the first place. Some more NYT editorial padification for your edification:

Protesters, and celebrity supporters like the socialites Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger, and the journalist John Pilger, have often conflated the case with a battle for free speech. Mr. Assange himself has hinted darkly that government forces might be behind the allegations of sexual wrongdoing as a means of silencing him.

Back a few years ago, before their falling out with Brave Sir Julian, would the Times have considered describing the celebrity reaction to this case as a "conflation" with free speech "battles"? Would they have gone our of their way to point out the tin-foil hat Assange has been prominently donning?

Nope.

Scorn.

Hops.

Hops to the Schadenfreude Ale.

Can you imagine the treatment if he were a conservative?

Happy Halloween: War of the Worlds

2011-10-31T06:30:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween!

The complete broadcast from October 30 1938:

Some documentary video about that night in 1938:

BBC

NPR

Less well known are several copycat broadcasts, which, like Orson Welles's production, took extensive and interesting liberties with the H.G. Wells story. One of the better is from 1968, WKBW Buffalo New York. It actually caused a bit of a panic itself, as had the 1938 broadcast. Here is more from WKBW itself. The complete audio of the 1971 rebroadcast is at the bottom of the page..or,

HERE in Windows media format.

Once you get past the late 60s era disk jockeying and treacle top 40 music, and into the "news coverage" portion, it gets quite good. Dig the sound effect typewriters in the background, phones ringing, they are ever present, even to the end. Classic 60s - 70s era radio stock audio.

After a two week hiatus, Lions Occupy Win Column

2011-10-31T06:16:00.003-04:00

So, it's time for some call-and-respond human megaphoneage, led of course by Opera Man Lions Fan. Over to you OMLF:

Answered by the Occupy Ford Field Coalition:

And from the Occupy Cuteness Corner:

And

The latest from the Princeton Review SAT Analogies Division/

2011-10-24T15:24:00.003-04:00

Pop Culture and Politics Department/John Candy film oeuvre working group:

The Clown is to Uncle Buck as

Hahmid Karzai is (or should be) to the U.S.

"In the field of live home entertainment I'm a god!"

"Get in your mouse and get out of here."

Brave Sir Julian and Wikileaks - Cashstrapped.

2011-10-24T14:28:00.003-04:00

Aww. What a pity.

Looks like Asschapeau will have to get creative in his fundraising:

Assange argued that the financial boycott that began nearly 11 months ago was politically motivated and had left WikiLeaks surviving “almost entirely” on cash reserves.

Kristinn Hrafnsson, a spokesman for WikiLeaks, said that before the boycott began in late 2010, the average monthly donation to WikiLeaks exceeded 100,000 Euros. Since them. Hrafnsson said, monthly contributions have plummeted to between 6,000 and 7,000 Euros.

Friendly advice. If you want to raise serious bucks..er..Euros, you're going to have to do something a bit more attention grabbing than, say, the typical NPR/PBS pledge drive. Running Peter Paul and Mary concerts for the umpteenth time won't do it. You've got to tap into the hipster youth movement, or at the very least, the more mainstream entertainment milieu.

But, who do I think I am talking to? Brave Sir Julian needs no advice from me. He is the very embodiement of hipster pallid chic. He knows what to do....

Dance.

Mark my words. After Chaz Bono and the current crop of celebs flame out on Dancing with the Stars, Brave Sir Julian is next in line. He's primed.

And, Billy Idol called. He STILL wants his hair back Asschapeau.

It's a bit early, but this couldn't wait until Nov 10.

2011-10-19T13:17:00.002-04:00

From one of my always reliable Wiki-sources: The youngest Marine drill instructor. Stick with it to the end, he does a pretty darn good cadence.

Phil Harris & Alice Faye 1951-10-14 - Phils Eye Exam

2011-10-16T07:45:00.003-04:00

Phil needs an eye exam.

Bill Swerski Cardiac update: Da Leos beat Da Bears - 5-0. Over to you Opera Man Lions SuperFan over dare in da D.

2011-10-11T09:37:00.005-04:00

No, no! Not doze SuperFans. Dis is da one right here:

Move over Ditka..we have da Power of da Schwartz

What if CBS circa the 40s/50s covered Columbus's Voyage?

2011-10-10T13:26:00.004-04:00

They would use shortwave, that's for sure. This is from the Excellent "You are There" series of historical recreations.

Happy Columbus Day Columbians..er..Americans all.

Listen HERE (or download with a right click)

Bull Horn + Call and Respond Democracy (t) + Rep. John Lewis = Bizzaro World Levellers in Action

2011-10-10T08:47:00.005-04:00

Comedy gold.

And..wait a minute, Bull Horn + Call and Respond = Redundancy? Who manufactured that bullhorn anyway? No doubt, some small scale cottage industry collective of peasant farmer craftsmen around Hotlanta. Hey, at least the Levellers are 'continuing with their agenda' whatever that is.

Stars and Stripes Rumor Doctor: Uncle Billy was no terrorist.

2011-10-09T09:05:00.004-04:00

General Sherman is one of my hobby horses. Nice to see this brief piece sifting myth from fact.

Key bit:

Sherman's reputation for destroying everything in his path came in part from his own men, who liked to talk after the war about how tough they were, Dalessandro told The Doctor.

"The Confederates who fought them fell into this -- 'You guys were really tough; you guys were really bad' -- and it kind of played on each other," he said. "There was kind of elan that Sherman's guys were so bad and the Confederates were so overwhelmed that there was no stopping them, and around the reunion tables the legend of that really grew."

Such is Sherman's reputation in the South that towns nowhere near his march claim to have been swept up in the path of destruction.

Joe Glatthaar, a professor at the University of North Carolina, remembers an advisor in graduate school who was an expert on the Confederacy and told him, "Every town from Virginia to Texas swears that Sherman's army marched through it."

In reality, Sherman and his men targeted mostly military infrastructure while in Georgia and North Carolina.

"They would burn down a house, but only if they were fired upon from the house," Glatthaar said.

Most of the destruction during Sherman's march occurred in South Carolina, where the Civil War began when the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter. Sherman's men took revenge by torching about two dozen cities as they made their way through the state.

But for the most part, Sherman's troops weren't motivated by spite. They wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, said Richard J. Sommers, senior historian at the U.S. Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pa.

"One of Sherman's greatest strengths is that he understood the interrelationship between the home front and the fighting front and that if he could cripple the enemy on the home front, it would undercut both the morale and the logistical undergirding of the Confederate armies in the field," Sommers said.

In a letter to Atlanta's mayor in 1864 explaining why he ordered all civilians to leave the city, Sherman expressed his desire to end the war by defeating the Confederacy and bringing the South back into the Union, Sommers said.

"We must have peace, not only at Atlanta but in all America," Sherman wrote. "To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop the war, we must defeat the rebel armies that are arrayed against the laws and the Constitution, which all must respect and obey. To defeat these armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses."

However, in that same letter, Sherman shows he did not hate Southerners themselves by writing that when peace came, "You may call on me for anything, then will I share with you the last cracker and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter."

THE RUMOR DOCTOR'S DIAGNOSIS: Sherman was not the barbarian portrayed in "Gone with the Wind." He was a military man who understood that peace would only come with victory, which his march through Georgia and the Carolinas helped ensure.

Will this settle things? Hardly.

More on Uncle Billy from my neck of the intertubewoods:

Was Sherman a terrorist?

And one of the primary reasons I love this guy:

General Sherman hearts the civil war era press

And I tend to ask myself: "WWSD?" when thinking of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sherman shows up later on in this post on our erstwhile friends the Paks.

And he had an enviable gift for the pithy and understated message of import:

Billy Claus delivers a gift.

The Admiral of the Ocean Sea - The Annual Columbus Day Post

2011-10-08T07:58:00.003-04:00

Columbus Day media. First up; from the excellent OTR radio series "Cavalcade of America"

Chris gets some defense from Orson Welles

Listen here!

From the movie 1492, Vangelis's excellent score:

Was Columbus really Italian? Not according to these guys. He was Portuguese..

Unless, of course, he was Greek..

Which would be OK with Mr. Vangelis I'm sure

But, not everyone is so eager to be associated with Columbus. Here is someone who is evidently not the biggest fan of old Chris:

To be balanced with a cartoon from the wayback machine:

Ya see, he wasn't all bad kiddies.

And some balanced perspective from a Columbus fan (along with some nifty info on the mad navigational skeelz of the C-man):

http://www.columbusnavigation.com/

How we came to have Columbus Day as a holiday:

And, just to lighten up things a bit. Chris the Colombo Man Goes Disco! [Note: the blog does not necessarily approve of all images used in this video, and disclaims all responsibility for mental harms that may be caused by same]

Great time to be a Detroit sports fan

2011-10-07T14:05:00.002-04:00

Tigers move on to play the Rangers in the ALCS thanks to surviving the Evil Empire's comeback, thwarted by Papa Grande's unusual three up, three down, 9th inning, and masterful use of the pitching staff by Jim Leyland.

And the Lions are 4-0 heading into their first Monday Night tilt since 19 and 99.

Time to break out the fight songs.

First, the Tigers (from 1968)

And, hopefully NOT jinxing things before the fact, over to you Opera Man Lions Fan:

And, since the Wings start tonight. Over to you 70s pop song disco dude.

"Red Wings My Red Wings"

Make it a triple crown for the D guys!

Freitag funnies from the Occupy Wall Street and Washington proto-revolutions.

2011-10-07T10:01:00.017-04:00

Some nuggets.

First, aged and pining-for-the-world-revolution-since-the-60s Marxist Francis Fox Piven engages in some green hectoring, apparently. Can't be seen using those bullhorns or other devices concocted by the eeevil corporations, so we'll resort to 'call and response.'

Who are they calling out?

Wall Street. "The Center of the NeoLiberal cancer." Heck of a way to frame things there Lakoff..er.. Piven. Throw in the phrase 'neoliberal' so the conservative yahoos or those rubes in flyover country unaware of conservative Sith mind-control tricks think you are on their side. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Who is Piven? Well, a well known academic decidedly from the left. She believes we all should be given a living wage by the government, and the best way to get there is to overload extant welfare systems, by adding programs and adding to their rolls of recipients, which overload will create enough unrest that the pined for REVOLUTION will occur. Here's a good taste of her mode of thought; from back a few decades. She had bigger hair, and came up on the short side in this debate with Milton Friedman.

She's also not averse to using violence for progressive ends, because she sees the government today as being closely analogous to 60s era governments enforcing segregationist and racist policies. Because they are doing such things, at the behest of the eevil corporations, violent responses by contemporary progressives are as morally justifiable now as they were back then for black Americans. (At least that's what I can distill from this meandering and somewhat vague response to a question from the audience at some talk she did back in 2004, supplied via C-Span.)

She does not consider that the Deacons for Defense set up for defense after all, and never took to the offense. Then again, it's not altogether clear that she would draw a clear distinction between defense and offense. She seems prone to reading the mere existence of the government and our economic system as being somehow inherently an attack on the populace, and thus active and beligerent by nature and therefore just like the hose and baton wielding police in the 60s south. If so, then it's not clear that she would disapprove offensive operations against government buildings, people, etc, not to mention corporate interests. After all, it would simply be defending against their blows. Once again, hard to tell how far she would go, how far she thinks revolutionaries are permitted to go down the road of violence. This is a studied vagueness I believe.):

OK enough of the paleo-marxists. What about the youngins?

Dig this cat, someone with a vocabulary, and a resume akin to Piven's Chris Hedges. His basic thesis as stated in the video: There is a very small oligarchy that wants to reduce the middle class and poor to a state of having no rights and being peasants in a feudal society of which they are the lords.

(Oh. And Trader Joe's is in on that conspiracy. They rely on slaves to pick tomatoes.)

This interview is interminable, but you'll get the full aroma and flavor looking at the first bit. In short, Hedges is another marxist who sniffs (or hopes desperately) that the revolution is JUST AROUND THE CORNER and these massive and spontaneous ;-) protests are the proverbial linstock (or at least the latest would-be linstock), always being pined for be these true believers, that linstock that will finally set things off, and bring about the World Revolution (t):

I know, I know. This guys ain't all that young. He's not from Piven's generation, but still comfortably ensconced in his middle career, no doubt. He has quite the resume, and is probably raking in the book royalties. So, he's an anti-capitalist capitalist. They're a dime a dozen these days.

What about the real youngins; you know, those who have yet to launch the career (anti-capitalist capitalist or otherwise)?

Well (via CDR Salamander) by way of one of my always reliable WikiSources, here's a couple being interviewed by Adam Kokesh, who's political orientation seems to be some version of libertarianism. He's an anti-Iraq war vet, and he hangs out with noted attention addict (she's glad she's noted) and anti-war activist Medea Benjamin and her merry band of Code Pinkos. More on his somewhat checkered past is HERE Just to be clear. Because I post this guy's video does not mean that I endorse his whole corpus. Nor does all he says here pass the smell test. But, this is some pretty funny stuff:

The whispy-light-on-the-muttonchops kid in the ascot is gold, 24 carat.

But wait! There's more! Here are some of the proto-revolutionaries (young and old) in their own words, complete with some more call and respond. Guys, megaphones are green too ya know...

Pining away for that mass simultaneous World Revolution (t), just like Piven, just like Hedges.

And, of course, what would a proto-revolutionary protest be without the obligatory drop in by anti-capitalist capitalist celebrities? First up, Susan Sarandon:

which can only mean one thing. Tim Robbins ain't far behind, shedding antiseptic light upon the phony balony tea party movement, which is in fact a sinister astroturfing job by the nefarious Koch brothers..er.. I mean corporations. You know, THEM:

Oops. Wrong clip. I meant this one. Tea Party. NOT Team America..

and, Mikey the Hutt, via the medium of (you guessed it) call and respond, addresses the throngs:

How long will this go on? Until the weather turns.

Until then - comedy gold.

Just another ho hum day at the office for the Detroit Lions

2011-10-03T07:20:00.001-04:00

Another week, another 20 someodd point comeback, another 2 touchdown performance by Megatron, another road win.

This time in Dallas:

Over to you Opera Man Leos fan. The fight song please:

Yet another NYT profile of Brave Sir Julian Asschapeau holed up in the Manor

2011-09-26T09:47:00.005-04:00

I think this makes about a baker's dozen of these things doesn't it? And if you include profiles by the Guardian and Der Spiegel, about 235 or so.

Even though he considers the Times one of his (many many) enemies, the one-time partner still gives forth with one of those hilariously and unintentionally self-parodying stories about The Knight of the Multi-hued Coif and Pallid Complexion.

By turns flattering him with the 'international man of mystery' shtick, while also insinuating that he has 'gone 'round the bend' the Times in effect bites the hand that feeds (or fed). In the process they briefly profile the Brit, Vaughan Smith owner of Ellingham Hall, stately country manor, who is giving Brave Sir Julian shelter and sustenance. The story is, as I've already said, snort worthy.

Get a load of the opening paragraph:

The man in the rubber boots and a thick coat to protect against the evening chill walked purposefully about a farm here, scattering pheasants as he went. He could have been an English gentleman out for a bit of hunting, except he carried no gun.

You can almost see the pensiveness, the care-worn expression, can't you?

The story makes clear that Assange has been given shelter by a fellow maverick:

Mr. Smith is something of a libertarian in his political beliefs, and a bit of a renegade. As a freelance videographer, he obtained unauthorized footage of the Persian Gulf war by impersonating a British officer and bluffing his way into an active duty unit. He organized Frontline News TV as a press agency during the 1990s because he felt that video freelancers were not being credited for their work, much of it obtained at great personal risk.

And, Smith is bravely standing with the beleaguered, you see..

“I was taught from a very young age that you need to stand up for the weaker party,” Mr. Smith said. “If Julian had ended up at a flat in London, it would have just been another sort of prison because of the press coverage of the case.”

Can't have the peasantry besieging the good man can we? However, it seems that Mr. Smith didn't bank on a long haul for his house guest.

“None of us knew it would go on this long,” Mr. Smith said, “but I think that Julian deserves justice in the same way as anyone else, so we have found a way to make it work.”

It has not all been rural bliss. There have been times when as many of 20 people from WikiLeaks stayed at the house. “I’d open a cupboard and another one would fall out,” Mr. Smith said. And then there is the matter of the farm animals. “Julian messed with my pigs,” Mr. Smith said, smiling.

Ellingham Hall, 130 miles north of London, is a working farm, and Mr. Assange decided to use the pigs to make a film about the credit card companies that have denied him the means to raise donations. Mr. Smith said Mr. Assange induced the pigs to break through an electric fence and make themselves at home in a nearby berry patch, a bit of porcine anarchy that did not amuse the farm manager.

Standing near the pig pen at dusk, Mr. Assange said it was not his fault, pointing to two young males. “They hacked the fence,” he said, deploying the terminology that has made WikiLeaks and its founder household names.

Mr. Assange, who has become “Uncle Julian” to Mr. Smith’s young children, seems less international man of mystery than a person frozen in the odd circumstance of the moment. He wears an electronic bracelet, reports to the local police every day and, to the extent he can, continues to push the WikiLeaks agenda.

Even here he sees enemies everywhere, suggesting helicopters have swooped in for occasional reconnaissance, and at one point backing me out of a kind of war room near the kitchen. “You can’t be in here,” he said, closing the door with a wan smile.

Oh good God. Enough already. I suspect the BBC could resurrect an old series, with a few changes...

Leos win again, 3-0. Time for the venerable fight song

2011-09-26T06:40:00.004-04:00

Holy Mall of America. They just beat the Vikes in the Mall of Amer...er....the Metrodome, first time since '97.

and of course, Opera man, Lions fan must have the last word:

Nice to see the 20 pt. comeback, another road win, and silencing of that annoying whooping Viking horn sound effect over in the land of Stuart Smalley.

The last catch by CJ to set up the game winning Jason Hanson FG. was incredible. Megatronnnnnn! (At about the 3 minute mark in the vid below)

Dimension X - "The Universe"

2011-09-24T09:27:00.002-04:00

Great episode from the classic OTR Sci-Fi series

1951-08-02 Listen or download HERE

From OTR Classics

What would happen to the historical awareness of inhabitants of a moon sized space ship on a thousands of years intersteller voyage? What of the ship's origins? Its purposes? What tales would they spin?

DARPA is considering such things: 100 Year Starship Study

When is enough enough?

2011-09-23T14:57:00.007-04:00

When are we going to decide that the price for "help" from our erstwhile friends the Paks is too high for the miserable returns?

Hmm. Let's see. They allow Uncle Binnie to hold up in Hey Abbotabad for freaking YEARs. And, we know the ISI has been double dealing, using terror as an instrument of their foreign policy, playing chummy with us at the same time they are palling around with the Haqqani network, while issuing Captain Louis Renault denials, and now we have Admiral Mullen being more blunt public and straightforward about the ISI than is usual for careful diplomatic folks. Just carefully read the wording in this story, and let it sink in.

The Obama administration put its fragile alliance with Pakistan on the line Thursday, accusing the country's intelligence service of aiding a militant group considered responsible for a string of attacks, including last week's assault on the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan.

U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of having ties to the militant Haqqani network, responsible for the attack on the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan. The charge came during congressional testimony in which Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the militant Haqqani network "acts as a veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency," its main spy service.

Adm. Mullen has led previous U.S. efforts to improve U.S.-Pakistani relations, adding weight to his allegation that attacks such as the one at the U.S. Embassy and the nearby North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters were carried out "with ISI support."

Military officials said later there was no evidence that the ISI actually directed that attack, but that it has provided strategic support to the Haqqanis.

In addition to the embassy attack, Adm. Mullen said Haqqani operatives had planned a series of attacks with ISI support, including a truck bomb attack Sept. 11 in Wardak province and a June 28 assault on Kabul's Inter-Continental Hotel.

The Haqqani network was also one of the groups U.S. officials said was responsible for the 2009 attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan's Khost province that killed seven agency employees in one of the biggest losses of life in the agency's history.

"We simply cannot allow these kinds of terrorists to be able to go into Afghanistan, attack our forces, and then return to Pakistan for safe haven and not face any kind of pressure from the Pakistanis for that to stop," Mr. Panetta said.

Now one can quibble over strategic v tactical support, but the fact of the matter is, we have tolerated this because we think the counter-terror support we receive from Pakistan, such as it is, is sufficiently valuable to offset the (there is no other way to put this) egregious insult to U.S. honor that is the ISI aiding people who we and Pakistan are damn well aware are going to kill our people, and who have been doing so with basic impunity for years.

Adm. Mullen said support for extremist groups, including the Haqqani network and anti-Indian terror organization Lashkar-e-Taiba, was part of the Pakistani government's policy and served Islamabad's interests.

"The support of terrorism is part of their national strategy," Adm. Mullen said. "And that has to fundamentally shift."

Damn straight it does. And, also as obviously, if we continue to feed the beast, blithely continuing to give Pakistan aid, despite the obvious treachery and double dealing, NOTHING will change. They know that. We know that. Hell, even yellow dog knows it.

So, are we sending a clear signal as concerns the lucre? No. Not really.

The burgeoning dispute threatens to further divide the two governments. On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a measure that would tie $1 billion in military aid to Pakistan to Islamabad's cooperation on U.S. efforts against the Haqqanis.

Adm. Mullen, in his prepared testimony, said Pakistan itself could face sanctions over its support of the Haqqanis and other militant groups. The White House has already frozen more than $800 million in security assistance for Pakistan.

"Could" and "Would" doesn't equate to "will". The "tying" of aid to cooperation against the Haqqanis requires some sort of metric. Can there be any reliable metric? Can there be a metric that is a significant improvement over taking the Pakistani's word for it? Probably not. So, actual measures must be taken. We need to cut them off. They need something more than a gradual weening.

Possibilities ain't actualities. We need to move beyond would and could.

Enough already.

Friday Friedman Funnies: The 'stache of understanding comes in for more ribbing

2011-09-23T13:42:00.005-04:00

A hysterical review of Friedman's latest opus sophismos from Andrew Ferguson at WSJ.

Some of the juicy bits:

As a writer, Mr. Friedman is best known for his galloping assaults on Strunk and White's Rule No. 9: "Do Not Affect a Breezy Manner." "The World Is Flat" & Co. were cyclones of breeziness, mixing metaphors by the dozens and whipping up slang and clichés and jokey catchphrases of the author's own invention. (The flattened world was just the beginning.) The breeziness would accelerate into great gusts of rhetoric about "an America we could be . . . an America we once were . . . an America we can be again," as though the author were poking fun at a slightly drunk Ted Sorensen.

In "That Used to Be Us," the method has been slightly altered. It would be going too far to describe the writing as "subdued," but its relative readability marks a break with its predecessors. How to explain it? My guess is that we can thank Mr. Friedman's co-author, Michael Mandelbaum. A close friend of Mr. Friedman, he is the author of many normal, un-Friedmanlike books, including "The Meaning of Sports." ("Delightful"—Thomas L. Friedman, the New York Times.)

"Faced with era-defining challenges," he writes, "the country has responded with all the vigor and determination of a lollipop." One chapter is called "Homework x 2 = The American Dream." He advocates "empowering powerful breakthroughs" and notes that "the cloud . . . is driving the flattening further and faster." (Pointless alliteration + runaway metaphor = Friedmanism.) Certain phrases crop up so often that they must have been rejected book titles: "Average is over" is one of the new ones, if you want to give it a try. (You'll be hearing it on "Charlie Rose.")

Mr. Friedman can turn a phrase into cliché faster than any Madison Avenue jingle writer. He announces that "America declared war on math and physics." Three paragraphs later, we learn that we're "waging war on math and physics." Three sentences later: "We went to war against math and physics." And onto the next page: "We need a systemic response to both our math and physics challenges, not a war on both." Three sentences later: We must "reverse the damage we have done by making war on both math and physics," because, we learn two sentences later, soon the war on terror "won't seem nearly as important as the wars we waged against physics and math." He must think we're idiots.

Go on. Read the whole thing.

Some more Friedman fun:

From one of my most reliable Wiki Sources: "I moustache you a question. What would the world look like if people were wise enough to emulate the estimable Friedman?"

Answer: A terrible peak into what our pop-culture/Hollywood would look like if we all adapted the 'stache of understanding':

Ok. OK it's not Friedman. It's Selleck. I know. I know. But the message is clear. The moustache of understanding threatens to envelop us, becoming the world flattening McDonaldizing, Lexis driving influence that corporate America could only dream about. To quote Colonel Kurtz: "the horror...the horror..."

Some more parody fun:

From the excellent Egyptian blog "Inanities" "This is just the start and it never f&*^%$! ends"

Be sure to read the original 'stache' column he is parodying in order to savor the full flavor of the parody. Here's your lead in though. Priceless:

Future historians will long puzzle over how I was given an international platform to freely pontificate on the Arab people and be remunerated handsomely for it. It is true that I am not the only person in the world who formulates dubious theories based on scant or no evidence which I then harangue people with. Other people do it. They are called taxi drivers. But they are not as rich as me and haven’t been awarded three Pulitizer Prizes.

Since I’ve been here in Egypt I’ve been putting together a list of “the-absolutely-irrelevant forces” that have captured the captive Arab mind and ignited the simmering coals of the instant garden BBQ that is the Middle East. You might ask why, since I am in Egypt, I don’t ask an Egyptian – possibly two Egyptians – about what inspired them to completely ignore my theories on the Arab peoples and take to the streets. The answer is this: I am Thomas Friedman and I write a column in the New York Times.

I started my last extremely important column with an introduction in which I listed tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media as the “big causes”. Rather than just stop there, I did a Google “surprise me” search and chose five of the random results for my special “mix of forces” which inspired the Arab mass revolts. These included Barack Obama, Google Earth and the Beijing Olympics.

And, of course, this parody peaks as it features the 'stache talking about, well, his 'stache. It's one of those things that popped up with the Google 'surprise me'? Seems that would have been the first thing to enter Friedman's mind even before the notion of a 'surprise me' would have percolated to the top. Oh well. Never mind that. It is damn important. He knows it, and elaborates thusly:

MY MOUSTACHE – Americans have never really appreciated what a radical thing I did in growing a moustache, long the symbol of Arab male virility. I’m convinced that when Arab men catch a glimpse of my moustache as they bring me my breakfast in my hotel they are inspired and say to themselves: “Hmmm. Let’s see. He’s middle-aged. I’m middle-aged. He’s slightly tanned. I’m roughly the same colour. His name is Thomas. My name is Hussein. He is a prick. I sometimes act like a prick. He is not president of the United States. I am not president of the United States. Lincoln is the capital of Nebraska. Water boils at 100 degrees centigrade. He has a moustache. I have a moustache. Both our moustaches have no voice in my future”. I’d put that in my special mix of hallucinogenic drugs and ingest it.

Here's a repository from Friedman, or a great facsimile thereof, a blog appropriately titled "the moustache of understanding". Looks like it hasn't been updated recently, but still full o' fun.

And here's an oldie but goodie, probably the king of all Friedman parodies, dating all the way back to the year 2o double aught: "The Datsun and the Shoe Tree."

Tasty selection:

I was changing planes at the new airport in Jakarta the other day, on the way to Stockholm from Vladivostok. Three young Bangladeshi boys sat in the passenger lounge, watching The Power Rangers on satellite TV. Their mother--garbed in the traditional sari--talked to her cousin, a migrant worker who sold German-designed Walkman knockoffs in Hong Kong, on a shiny new Samsung cell phone. Sitting to one side of them was a young Chinese émigré on his way to Toronto to work for a software company, and on the other a business-suited Rastafarian making a connection to Bratislava. Meanwhile, a couple of Tuareg tribesmen sat cross-legged in front of the ticket counter, cooking yams over a flaming mound of ticket stubs.

What’s my point? I don’t actually have one--but opening my columns with strings of clichéd cultural juxtapositions really cuts down my workload. You see, since the Cold War ended, we’ve gone from superpowers to spreadsheets, Pershings to Pentiums, the Berlin Wall to suburban sprawl, olive trees to Lexuses. Are you ready? Because the whole world is changing. Unless you are one of the eight-tenths of humanity who at this moment are either hungry, illiterate, or field-stripping an AK-47, in which case I’ll get back to you in some future column.

Ok, all done now...