Theo Spark: Slain Washington Officers Identified

Theo Spark: Slain Washington Officers Identified


If you are in uniform you are always a target and always must remain on guard. When in groups someone can stay in alert mode so others can relax.
If more than 5 are present then two should remain focused on the outside.

The bottom lines are:
1) Never assume you are safe
2) Never stop fighting.

Architecture by Lawyers

(fm the BC thread "Homogenized, sterilized and pasteurized")

Doug,
Dime will get you a donut that a lawyer invents the “Swiss Minaret.” It looks just like a regular Minaret only it has a watch attached to the outside. Presto!, it becomes an Islamic Clock Tower.

Comment on The Belmont Club, "Homogenized, sterilized and pasteurized"

Once again Yes Minister has proven to be way ahead of all of us. Clearly Sir Humphrey would be very disappointed in the leadership at the CRU. He would probably pack them all off to the War Graves Commission or Vehicle Licensing Centre Swansea.

From the episode "The Skeleton in the Closet," which aired November 25th, 1982.

This file contains the complete set of available papers except for:

(a)    a small number of secret documents

(b)    a few documents which are part of

        still active files

(c)    some correspondence lost in the floods

        of 1967

(d)    some records which went astray in the

        move to London

(e)    other records which went astray when the

        War Office was incorporated into the

        Ministry of Defence

(f)    the normal withdrawal of papers whose

        publication could give grounds for an

        action for libel or breach of confidence

        or cause embarrassment to friendly governments.

Comment on The Belmont Club, "A Blast from the Past"

"We are all going to die"

Advice to those of an excitable nature, offered as a template.
Why yes we are. Is that news to you? Now stop thrashing about in the water and do something useful. Ideally create wealth so that we can use some of it for nice things like cleaning up and improving education, to a quality level we had 70 years ago. The correct answer is never to display poverty, ignorance, and bad teeth as a badge of honor. To do so is Onanism.

Is CO₂ a poison? Everything is really. The reason that living organisms developed elegant and sophisticated systems for oxidizing iron and transporting the bound oxygen for exchange with CO₂ is that the O₂ is a deadly poison. Many of the processes of life on Earth can be looked at as efforts to survive the corrosive effects of a high Oxygen environment. If the Earth had less free Oxygen and instead the atmosphere was a Nitrogen and Methane mix then organic compounds would be very stable. So stable that they would not need to devote scarce energy to Redox operations and the transportation and elimination of subsequent wastes. Fortunately our distance from the Sun provided the optimal amount of energy to sustain these reactions. More and the compounds would have become unstable and less and the complex chains never react.

Comment on The Belmont Club, "More AGW controversy"

Once upon a time the ideological circus pitched its tent, or their armies massed for battle, in the great capitals of Western Civilization. Those were London, Berlin, Paris, Milan and New York. The Bolshevik putsch in Petrograd and subsequent move to Moscow shifted the physical confrontation to Europe's periphery. While the physical confrontation was largely on the margins of civilization, except spectacularly when the Nazis and Fascists took power in the very heart of Europe, the intellectual contest remained in the key upper middle class salons and universities of the West.

Those outside of these centers were largely sheltered. This was particularly true in the English speaking world. While the heritage of the Anglo-saxon Dominions was more feudal and Statist than the American model and concepts like Fabian Socialism were spread widely, the broad tolerant moderation of a culture that respected privacy in thought and property and expected high standards of probity from those respected as scholars, clergy and politicians generally held.

The Eurocentric view of the struggle was increasingly outdated as the left turned to anti-imperialist theory to spread their message. This successfully grafted itself onto anti-colonial movements so that the movement against a dominating Statist Center that had been ruled by an arbitrary aristocracy did not follow the American model but instead was co-opted to advance another dominating Statist model that while in theory more meritocratic was in truth ruled by an equally arbitrary, and often distant, elite. For those English speaking communities not swept up by the great ethnic based revolutionary movements of the 20th century, Canada, New Zealand, the English (not Afrikaans) minority in South Africa and most of America these intellectual disputes did nothing to shake their faith in institutions or elites. They were like the hobbits in sheltered backwaters.

Now we see that the anti-morality that produces situational ethics and views even scientific inquiry as ripe for manipulation to attain a political end has spread to the Antipodes. For a totalitarian ideologue this is a win-win situation. If the people of New Zealand swallow the lie then a new regime of control and exploitation is established. If they see the fraud and reject it though their faith in key institutions is wounded. Without that basic faith in the honesty and loyalty of scholars, clergy, politicians and other leaders of society individuals become isolated and rootless. Then they become ripe for mobilization by a totalitarian movement.

Comment on The Belmont Club, "So sue me"

1. This is the same Eric Holder who ordered the New Black Panthers, who had plead guilty, to walk after the most blatant case of recorded voter intimidation in 40 years.

2. This is the same Eric Holder that ordered KSM to stand trial in NY, along with 4 other senior terrorists who had already offered to plead guilty before a military tribunal.

3. The consequence of these charges will be that prisoners will not be taken. If any are taken they can not be subject to battlefield interrogation before being mirandized and turned over to the civilian system.

4. The loss of intelligence information will result in Americans being killed.

5. Junior Officers will have to either attempt to carry out the orders of Senior Officers or will cover up for enlisted members who choose not to take prisoners. The result either way will be a breakdown in discipline. That will also cost lives. If the JO confronts his troops he will do so at considerable peril. If he sides with his troops then the integrity of the Chain of Command is destroyed.

It is almost as if the HuffPo conspiracy fantasists of the extreme Left were disappointed to discover that the US military, especially the Special Forces community, really are a disciplined group of professionals who were highly apolitical in their conduct and devoted to upholding civilian authority. Frustrated at not meeting the fascist cabal they had expected they now are proceeding to provoke the troops so as to justify subjecting them to the radical reforms they anticipated enacting. I wonder if they are getting advice from Chavez on how to do this?

Judging Character

(fm the BC thread "Wild, wild east")

presbypoet,
my 20 year old cat Ninja has just died

My sympathy on the passing of your friend the honest carnivore. While my four footed friend does not share my appreciation I believe that cats are better judges of character than dogs are. On occasion I have advised young ladies that if their cat hisses at a gentleman caller (and yes I talk that way) then they should get him out the door as fast as possible. A dog licking someone's hand may just mean they recently handled bacon.

Wishing all a good Turkey Day. We have so many turkeys these days to give thanks for.

Comment on The Belmont Club, "Wild, wild east"

Today, or should I say yesterday, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and saw the special exhibit, The Art of the Samurai. Over 20 years ago I had been to the National Museum in Ueno and seen some of the swords honored as National Treasures but as the Met exhibit made clear there is no place else, not even in Japan, that one can go to and see a collection of this significance. These swords are venerated as religious objects. Some were used in combat. These were violent people. I believe that it was mentioned regarding one blade that Nobunaga was insulted by a server dressed as a priest during a tea ceremony and he killed the man by driving the sword through the table the man was hiding under. And yet despite that capacity for violence the Japanese create and maintain a highly effective and organized government. The two qualities or impulses, the creative and the destructive, are not mutually exclusive. The same men who wielded those blades studied Buddhism and wrote poetry. They were not, and their descendants are not, effete. The same applies for the British and the Americans. The thugs and bullies exist. Sometimes a society manages to control them and sometimes it manages to suppress them and sometimes it falls victim to them. There is no reason that I can think of for the Philippines as a country to be less effective as an expression of the Philippine nation than Britain has been of her nations or America or Japan or Israel has been. The only difference I am aware of is the annual rainfall.

Comments on The Belmont Club, "The Big Green Machine"

These AGW regulation and tax policies are devices to transfer power and wealth from the American taxpayer to EU (former Common Market) bureaucrats. In less PC times Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister described these people. Yes Minister on the EEC, from season 1, episode 12.

The typical Common Market official is said to have the organizing capacity of the Italians, the flexibility of the Germans and the modesty of the French. He tops all that up with the imagination of the Belgians, the generosity of the Dutch, and the intelligence of the Irish.

They had in episode 5 explained why the web of regulations has been allowed to grow in Europe until Kudzu like it now threatens to choke off everything in its home and spread across the planet.

The Germans will love it, the French will ignore it, and the Italians and Irish will be to chaotic to enforce it. Only the British will resent it.

The only change is that the British are largely defanged now and only the Americans are expected to comply with these restrictions and fees while the rest of the world laughs.

-------
batman,
Definition of European Heaven: The engineers are German, the police are British, the cooks are French, the administrators are Swiss, and the lovers are Italian.

Definition of European Hell: The engineers are French, the police are German, the cooks are British, the administrators are Italian, and the lovers are Swiss.

There are more candidates for life in Hell.
Swedish comedians.
Spanish soldiers.
Russian Diplomats.

My father once described someone as having, "the nerve of a burglar." The people tied to the AGW scheme, and all associated schemes or other efforts to seize power based on dubious or manipulated statistics, including a financial crisis they created, are now facing down the audience and saying, "Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?" Their replies to being challenged now boil down to a declaration that they don't give a damn and they think they have your children anyway. They just want anyone who knows how to question them to hurry up and die. The historical example of someone making the same claim for the inevitable triumph of their vision and authority based on control over the education system and the culture invokes Godwin's Law.

-------
jwillie,
Whatever they pass can be repealed

I have made the point before that the Republicans should declare Rollback their policy. Everyone should be put on notice that the acts of this administration are viewed as unconstitutional and illegitimate. Nothing signed by these people should be considered binding. Anyone who signs a contract with GM that assumes the permanence or legality of the seizure of the equity in that company by the government and its transfer to the UAW should have no more expectation that they will have that contract honored than if they were a receiver of any stolen goods. Anybody who signs a contract to transfer wealth from the United States in fulfillment of a contract under a carbon offsets scheme such as profits Al Gore can expect the validity of those contracts to be repudiated in American law. Make these people untouchable and their partners will wither.

Also you are correct that -15 in the Rasmussen Daily Poll is significant. It is a new low and a possible breakthrough. If he goes to -20, with strong negatives reaching 45% and strong positives near 25% then something will have to happen. His core support will never go below 25 and probably not much below 28 IMHO. Still if he ever has 45 to 48% strongly opposed, and I think he is headed that way this next 90 days, and the middle are breaking 2 to 1 against him, then the Democrats may want to ease him out before the mid-terms elections. Remember the real bad news will happen in late Summer to late Fall, they may not be able to kick it past the election and may panic at the prospect.

Good News

(fm the BC thread "Odds against tomorrow")


The good news is that a Reset Button will probably work.
Economies are based on three (you can count on me) factors, otherwise called Capital Assets.
1) Physical Capital, that is plants, equipment, and transportation and communications lines.
2) Natural Resource Capital, oil, minerals, water, seaports, fertile soil and climate.
3) Human Capital, the training and the culture of the people.

Finance Capital is a poor and distant component of what determines countries long term wealth.
While there has been some neglect and investment is always needed the United States still has the best infrastructure for a country of it's size. The second category is also one in which the US has no peer competitor. For the third, and really the most critical factor of Human Capital while many hear bemoan the fecklessness of 20% to 30% of the population the fact is that on average the American worker is skilled and productive and has the accumulated capital of a culture that encourages productivity and self reliance to guide them.

Germany and Japan bounced back from the devastation of WW-II within 10 years of when their economies were unchained. What is needed is an American Ludwig Erhard to spark another Wirtschaftswunder. Note the Wiki mendaciously ascribes post war growth to the benefits of nationalization.

Comments on The Belmont Club, "Odds against tomorrow"

Josh
Finance is charging for the time value of money

Yes but there are risk variables that have to be considered. Why is money due in the future or money lent to Mr Sketchy worth more than money in the till or lent to the Widow Murgatroyd? If the money is in your possession then it is at less risk then if you are expecting it later and Mr Sketchy has to pay more than Mrs M because he showed up last Thursday and his promise is backed by the expectation that some greater fool is going to do business with him later while Mrs. M has never broken her word in her life and has always done the same thing at the same place. Geithner and Obama are personally a pair of Mr Sketchys. They have debased the reliability of the United States. The Treasury was Mrs Murgatroyde and now looks like an aging Tart.

To parse out the connections here we have politicians and political appointees who personally lie and fail to pay their taxes or take items of value, like Obama's back yard, from criminals. They improperly take additional value, such as campaign money, from foreigners. They also promoted policies that created the conditions in which financial institutions took on risky loans and transferred those toxic assets to other institutions. They then created a mechanism to transfer taxpayer wealth to foreigners who may be linked to those who made the illegal donations or who otherwise may profit from America's relative decline. At the same time they push other initiatives that weaken the United States and increase the relative power of foreigners and reward the relative economic standing of private businesses, GE and Goldman-Sachs, whose executives gave them money or who they have hired to formulate and execute policy.

Given these conditions the interest rates would have to rise as the US is seen as no longer a safe haven for value. In addition the need to pay for the massive debt that has been generated will induce both crippling taxes and regulations, which will increase risk and raise costs as the economy shrinks, and which will also generate monetary (meaning supply as opposed to risk based) inflation.

The Democrats may hope that between now and the 2010 election the inflationary bubble may produce a "wealth effect" that will tamp down unemployment over the Summer and save some of their seats. Today they were advertising that an Economists report claims that there will be recovery with modest growth next year. This I suspect will be a Suckers Rally.

To sum up, two sources of inflation are coming. 1) Monetary based Inflation from Treasury debt service, 2) Risk based Inflation from the loss of confidence as Geithner & Obama exposed as frauds. A network of corrupt corporate and hostile foreign interests are profiting from this.

-------
The obligations that were being traded in the expectation that the underlaying loans would possibly pay off were a form of Derivative. The first thing I learned about such instruments when I studied for a Series 7 license is that an Uncovered Call entails "Infinite Risk." The instructor repeated that slowly to make sure that we all got it. If the value goes down then you can lose the principle invested but if it goes up and you are forced to buy the asset then there is no end to how much it might cost you. He also pointed out that by definition a "sophisticated investor" who is anybody worth over $1 million, is allowed to self destruct but poor widows and orphans are protected. The banks and governments here were not poor orphans. By paying off the foreign banks at 100% on the dollar Geithner effectively paid off their assumption of enormous risk. In effect the banks were granted a Put by the US government that they did not have to pay for.

Simple Messages

Channeling Groucho
Any mail for me while I was gone?


The response of the Left to the exposure of the AGW fraud is forming and it seems to be to double down and brazen it out.

We need to be constantly communicating a set of interlocking and mutually reinforcing messages on multiple levels. We must seize control of the debate on the high end of scholarship. We must seize control of the debate on the middle ground of practical politics. We must seize control of the debate on the low ground of popular perception.

On the high end that will mean an unashamed and relentless turning back to core principles in response to every question and an affirmative and vocal campaign linking the practical wisdom that applies from prior knowledge, by referencing the Bible and Aristotle and Washington and other Dead White Males. Be proud of them and use them as scholarly tools and denigrate the arguments of those who can not justify their positions by the standards of the Canon. Scholars must retake the high ground and prove that our side stands for something.

On the mid level of practical politics that means a simple ideologically consistent message tied to a defined set of policy alternatives, similar to Reagan's precepts or Gingrich's Contract With America. It is the art of politicians to take the water of wisdom from the well of scholarship that is prepared by Scholars and deliver it to three (you can count on me) audiences. First the general public, who are prepared by polemicists and others to receive the message. Second are other mostly foreign elites, who must be made aware of our intentions and capabilities to either inspire their support or deter their interference. Third will be their fellow politicians who, being the most cynical and self interested of people, may hear of a plan for national renewal and choose to hop on the bandwagon.

On the low end of popular propaganda we need clear in your face messages on basic themes. We need to convince the majority that we do not stand for what the Left will accuse us of. They charge us with hate, fear, pollution, impoverishment, lawlessness and censorship. We need to respond on every level with very simple and focused messages that constantly reinforce that the record proves that every negative thing we are accused of we did not do but in fact the Left delivers. On the popular level simple not defensive messages, they said we would do "x" the facts are we did not and they did "x." Photos and quotes on each topic. Here are some more messages:

1, It is your money, not theirs. They can't order you to buy insurance to live.
2. The Constitution says they can build roads, not run hospitals.
3. Obama stole GM and gave it to cronies for money, they're all thieves.
4. Obama took money from foreigners, that is a criminal act.
5. Obama is a liar with something to hide.
6. Obama is surrounded by crooks, thugs, cheats, bigots and liars, and
     always has been.
7. You don't owe money to a mobster. We don't owe money to countries
     who bought politicians.
8. America can be rich free and strong. Triple the Armed Forces.
9. Anybody goes to war with America, anyplace or anytime, we fight to win.
10. Victory is our policy.
11. Global Warming is a fraud and a scam to make money for GE,
      Goldman-Sachs and Al Gore.
12. Look at who our enemies are and choose to be on the side of Freedom.

These are all billboard and T-shirt ready. We need to get the messages out and dare them to sue us. I want copyright and residuals.

Burning Down the House

On the Belmont Club buddy larsen demolishes the moonbat Poor Citizen.

First the Troll:
204. Poor Citizen:
I really believe that the pollution of our world and the ways in which we decide to start to clean it up, must be global and beyond politics. Also, there must be some sacrafice involved by our citizens and within our worldwide industry goals. Remember, our future quality of life is at stake here. We have spent hundreds of years destroying our planet. It will take hundreds of years to repair it. Its that simple. Thanks for the article.

Nov 22, 2009 - 2:50 am

Now the reply:
206. buddy larsen:

PC/204; We have spent hundreds of years destroying our planet
I know exactly what you mean. The planet (”plan it!”) is like a house with a family living in it. Every meal time the family destroys the clean kitchen. At night they go to bed and destroy the clean sheets. They use the bathroom and destroy the sanitation –the previous cleanup and the sanitary condition it had created.

They track in dirt from outside and destroy the vacuuming job, the cleanliness of the carpet, and the lack of a sampling from outside, the recent neighborhood and commute-loop depositings of fresh dog, cat and bird droppings and other various & sundry small-animal excreta, plus human hair, viruses, bacteria, sneeze snot from flu-ridden seven year olds, human urinary tract dried effluvia and fecal matter from unwashed hands on doorknobs, countertops, and the dishes off which you ate lunch downtown.

It’s horrible alright –the family house has to be straightened up, quick-cleaned, spot-cleaned, more or less continuously as the members move through their activities inside, and then the must-do deeper, more general cleanups such as weekly or monthly vacuuming and mopping, toilet & kitchen prep area sanitizing and so forth.

Unless of course the family wants to live among hordes of bacteria and and possible pathogens and piles of dirty dishes, dirty laundry, expired insects and the odd dessicated hamster (and/or parakeet), the sloughed skin cells rammed like railroad spikes between the woven fibers of bathroom towels, mucous-glued multi-hued booger stalagtites dangling underneath the furniture wherever the youngsters (and at times perhaps an oldster or two) pick to hang out, and hair –oh good golly gobs and gobs of hair –everywhere.

Of course, if everyone would just go away, the sanitary empty house would stay oodles cleaner for oodles longer. There wouldn’t be anyone around to enjoy it though. That’s the conunumdrum rapt in a paired ox, inside an enema (to quote Churchill on Stalin or something).

No sooner than a consciousness notes the cleanliness, there goes the cleanliness again. The durn noticing-agent is almost certain to be a carbon critter –and sure to litter, backenforth twixt fridgenshitter, making mess he ain’t no quitter, lots to eat and time to fritter, love thy neighbor or die bitter

Nov 22, 2009 - 4:36 am

That could not be improved on.
However I gave Mr Larsen the opportunity to amend and extend his remarks for the record, all changes were minor.

Two critical links in explaining what the CRU emails revealed.
1. Powerline Blog, The Alarmist do "Science": A Case Study.
The summary given by John Hinderocker,

the conclusion an observer is likely to draw from the CRU archive is that the climate alarmists are making up the science as they go along and are fitting facts to reach a predetermined conclusion rather than objectively seeking after truth. What they are doing is politics, not science.

2. Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit, Mike's Nature Trick.

A Taxonomy of Creeps

(fm the BC thread "The CRU Hack")

buddy larsen,
Husbandry, according to KSA ... One doesn’t hear ... that sort of thinking in Russia

We can construct a Taxonomy of Creeps.

The Saudis are classic rent seekers. Their god has given them an asset and they live off of it. The rent they get is either consumed or used to purchase other assets. They produce almost nothing for export except murderous young men and clerics who teach others to be violent and uncreative.

The Russians are thugs. They explore the vulnerabilities in their neighbors and then get control over them by whatever means they can. It could be by manipulating energy supplies or drugs or internet traffic. They are willing to work, just not work for mutual advantage. Given how Russians see the correlation of forces, China rising and the West imploding, it is rational to them. Their biggest problem isn't the temporary nature of their hydrocarbon supplies but the shrinking pool of Russians.

So they are different. With luck if the US were to pull back from brink of auto-castration advocated by Obama through AGW self impoverishment, Health Care socialization, and unilateral disarmament, the Russians could respond by switching from being a junior partner to China in the SCO to being supporters of Western civilization. For the Saudis I see no path to a positive outcome.

~Paules,
(who notes the absence of trolls defending the AGW cause)
We are at the stage now when we have just uncovered one of their lairs. Let's see who panics and which rabbits start running in what directions.

Silent Power

(fm the BC thread "The CRU Hack")

Eggplant,
I am eager to see Fuel-Cell systems developed for silent submarine propulsion. Taiwan, Japan, Israel and the EU would all want in on that. The Navy nuke lobby has hurt security, blocking all alternative systems to their specialty.

Eggplant
The German Type 212 submarines already do that.

Eggzactly. So why aren't we in the fuel-cell powered submarine business? Specialization unions make a difference. The aviators and the missile shooters combined and got all the guns over 5", and most of the smaller guns, removed from the fleet. In fact we had Terrier missile shooters that we called cruisers that had no guns on them at all for anti surface ship or shore bombardment use. We are building amphibious assault ships that have only a couple of 40 mm guns for the suicide dinghy threat but nothing for the Marines. The reason is that aviators don't want the competition. Similarly the nuclear propulsion community has made sure the US builds no non-nuclear powered submarines.

If Israel had four Type 212 mods, each with 4 to 6 Polaris type MRBMs, so one could always be on station wherever, and another four as hunter-killers, so one could always be off Hormuz, it would not eliminate the threat from Iran but it would change it.

Unnatural Gas?

(fm the BC thread "The CRU Hack")

Tarnsman and Geeze Louise,
Conversion energy technologies like coal gasification have no natural political base in America from either side.

1) The Democrats have bought into the carbon emissions AGW story. Even if they do not understand it the simpler meme for them is Energy Companies Bad, Bush Cheney blood for oil, is impure US must not touch. No drill no dig no burn no industry. That they can wrap themselves around. But they want jobs for the working man, and working girl too when on a junket.

2) Republicans are caught up by one legacy from Reagan. He did manage to shut down the US Synthetic Fuels Corp. that was set up in 1980 under Jimmy Carter in response to the Arab oil embargo during the 1973 Mideast War. While much good work was done and the plant built still functions it was a typical wasteful government agency that laid itself open to the charge of boondoggle. Any government managed industrial enterprise probably will. The great exceptions, like the Manhattan Project, deserve study to determine what went right.

On balance I feel that if we had the right legal, tax and fiscal structures then private capital would flow to such projects, if they were worthy of development, without direct government administration.

Gilder Grantsmanship

(fm the BC thread "The CRU Hack")

The American Museum of Natural History in NY has started it's own PhD program in Bio-Diversity at the Richard Gilder Graduate School. Going over their web site I surfed over to the curriculum and noticed that in the 4 year program every student will take a 3 credit course during their first year on grant writing and proposals. From the catalog,

RGGS502 Grantsmanship, Ethics, and Communication
Credits: 3 This course will be offered in a workshop format and focused on how scientists operate within the broader range of society.
1
• Section 1—Grantsmanship: preparing grants, identifying granting agencies, developing and maintaining grant budgets, and practical development of a grant application (e.g., Predoctoral Fellowship or Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant).
• Section 2—Ethical issues in science, including scientific misconduct, interpersonal responsibilities, institutional responsibilities, mentoring, peer review of papers and grants, serving on panels and boards, and use of animals in research.
• Section 3—Communication: writing quality papers, targeting papers to particular journals, crafting press releases, dealing with the media, and giving high-quality presentations.

Now I have no doubt that this is a terrific school and the training will be top notch and these are serious and ethical people who care about getting things right. However about a year ago I saw an assemblage of eminent worthies on Charlie Rose to assure everyone the debate was over and a or the top person from the AMNH was among them.

Second while this is a very real part of every research scientists life it is sad that they have to devote a considerable chunk of their professional training to a course on how to get the money. Why isn't there a system within the academic culture for training senior faculty on the duties of how to take suction on donors and the Mentoring process, and training the juniors on how to write and the ethics involved, that would have covered these topics in a different setting? If there was it seems to have deteriorated. It is good that the last two topics in the syllabus are being addressed. What worries is that the first topic is conflated with them and will overwhelm the curriculum. In the military there is a separate officer field, the Medical Service Corps, that does the administration and paperwork for the Physicians. That is harder to do in academia where peer review is everything in ascertaining the merit of work done or proposed.

Comments on The Belmont Club, "The CRU Hack"

They took the server off line.
The poor innocent little server sits in a corner not sure of its fate. It is not the only one that will get scrubbed.

The basic precept was given by Monsieur l'President

“The aim of ecological fiscal policy is not to fill state coffers but to incite French people and companies to change their behaviour,” Mr Sarkozy said

Who in hell elects anyone in a Democracy to change their behavior? Isn't the whole idea of Democracy, of the Right to the Pursuit of Happiness, of the Rights of Man, that you employ a government so that you can safely and in private conduct your own behavior? Besides even if M. Sarkozy has only noble, if indeed aristocratically Noble and elitist, motives, we can see the slavering crowd behind him that have already budgeted for the use of these new taxes.

Now there are two groups at work. First are the sincere Goo-Goos.These are the people who really do believe that the world is threatened by electricity production, or flatulent cows, or trans fats, or ... just please think of the children.

Just because these people are ridiculous does not mean they are not dangerous. They are the ones who believe they are righteously entitled to take away everyone else's freedom for a good cause. Second are the upfront crooks. Most Americans like an honest thief who will take your last dollar and light a cigar with it.

We want to punish the crooks because they are stealing our money. We also just wish that there was some way to get them to work on our side.

One problem with the unchecked spread of con-men and sob sisters is that they corrupt institutions and put at risk our willingness to support idealists and voluntary associations that are essential for the success of a Toquevillian-Republic. Charitable foundations, research institutes and advocacy groups are important. Maybe they are founded by evil old monopolists and bigots, like Rockefeller and Ford or by people with a religious vision. Maybe their founders were wrong but they still must be allowed to explore new ideas and offer solutions. More often the original vision is worthy and the problem comes in later when Agents take over and pervert the course of the foundation. It is unlikely that Henry Ford would be pleased by how his legacy is now used. What will happen to the Gates Foundation when Bill and Melinda are no longer able to keep an eye on it?

-------
Re. my earlier point about the role of government in a Democracy and no one votes their own pain, If the idea is good why do you need gov't to change other people?

Geeze Louise,
portable nuclear power plants

Concur about that. This would be a great time to buy surplus merchant ships cheap. Get them retrofitted with a safe sealed mini-nuke plant and run them with a small crew. Anybody have an extra $50 million so we can get started?

Lawrence,
If you try to follow the West End Paisley Tax to closely you'll get a headache or a hangover. The good news is that India is fighting an effort to impose the Bleeding Madras Tax that could kill the IT industry. The truly good news would be that these European taxes just might save Wall Street as the hub of the Financial industry. The evil alternative theory would be that the strings are being pulled by China to cripple the industry in Europe so that they can move it to Shanghai.

steeple,
Isn't the plan to use off peak demand wind power to pump water uphill in reservoirs that would be emptied through turbines during high demand hours? In effect making the system a large battery?

Another problem with wind systems is that the tall turbine poles are themselves environmentally destructive. They destroy migrating birds like giant zappers get mosquitos.

Comment on The Belmont Club, "The PACmen"

The biggest puzzle for me was why did the Republicans hold back and not aggressively challenge Obama and his corruption? John McCain is a decent man. He wanted to be President. He sincerely asked people to work for him and spent years working for it. While I was a volunteer and driver for the campaign I met him several times and do not think he wanted to lose. He was personally decent and generous to me. Before the last debate the campaign brought me in to have a private photo with John and Cindy and Sarah and Todd. That was when the big donors were getting their photos taken. I got to exchange a few words with him and I told him to "Expend all ordnance." He looked exhausted and clearly kew that the polls said he was going to lose. He held back, he assured the public that Obama was decent and honorable and it would be OK if he became President. Why? The reason simply escapes me, unless McCain was convinced that he would lose and it was important for America to try and heal the wounds.

McCain should have stared Obama down and said, "Why are you so arrogant?" He should have said that he did not believe the birther line but that a decent respect for the public required releasing all your documents, including birth and educational records, before asking for the job. He should have forced the issue on national television about phone banks in Gaza and bundling of foreign money and the hypocrisy of the Democrats reneging on their pledge to use the public campaign finance system. Why did McCain hold back? If you fight a campaign, win. Obama used about 3/4 Billion dollars, half foreign and illegal. McCain had the chance to strike when the world was watching. It was the only way to break past the blanket media endorsement of Obama.

He held back and now are all stranded as the barbarians sweep around us. We are like the Byzantines after Manzikert.

Equality

(fm the BC thread "Green eggs and ham")

batman,
(A Medical School instructor whose class debated the Right to Health Care)

You could inform the students that by ancient right they all could bring a sheep to graze in the campus commons. The sheep provides both food and clothing, and for some companionship but we won't go there. Are those not basic necessities of life as much as health care? Who would dare to enclose the commons off and take away such a right? It would be a tragedy. Of course the real Tragedy of the Commons was the destruction caused by free access to what is proclaimed a public good.

Kurt Vonnegut touched on the same theme as L.P. Hartley of PC equality run amok. Why not weigh down thin attractive people with weights and fat suits? KV was a moonbat but he had that right.


Guessed,
Thank you for the technical overview. What would be needed to get 500 Doctors in white coats to go up to Capitol Hill and the White House with butterfly nets? It would do more for the public health than the Public Health Service.

BTW for you both I once knew a charming young lady who was in the PHS and slated to go to a reservation. Sorry I lost track of her.

-------
guessed,
Thank you, I endorse most of what you say, especially about having one price, or a free deductible waiver, for all customers for a given service performed. Later you seem to alter that position regarding the unemployed Bubba paying something but less rather than full price. No auto service shop can operate without displaying the initial charge to investigate the problem. There is extensive experience with the concept of pricing a fair estimate in many fields. It should always be possible for a Bubba to pay a portion of the full price if a charity separate from whoever owns the examining room or surgery makes up the difference to equal the standard price. I could see schemes to fund charity to Bubba by advertising a set fee and then encourage the full fare retail customer Mr Readycash to make a deductible contribution with some defined benefits. Those could be prettier nurses or access to preferred examination schedules. Maybe the less charitable would get the old hypodermics with the curved metal handles and the square needles.

Back when all doctor were in the AMA and fees were standardized, that is to say fixed, you chose your Dr based on the quality of their National Geographics.

Nov 20, 2009 - 9:01 pm

-------
guessed,
How long did it take to write either of the 2,000 page bills we have ready to cram down our throats?

I think the 2,000 pages just floated over the transom or appeared one morning next to the porcelain throne. I think it has less literary merit than a Mickey Spillane novel, that arguably took less time to write than to read. If you dropped it on someone it might qualify as a cheap alternative to the Gas Passer.

Nov 20, 2009 - 10:08 pm

Other than that Mrs Lincoln ...?

(fm the BC thread "Green eggs and ham")

wretchard,
"... you look damn near beaten!"
Pretty much feel that way too.

Be of good cheer. It may not be Reagan's "Morning in America" but it is Spring in Oz.

Multitasking is hard but I could do with more of it. Not only am I out of work, and concerned about my eyesight, but today the State Unemployment sent me a drop dead letter. They determined that the part time temporary political work I did for the Bloomberg campaign did not pay me enough over a long enough period to qualify me for benefits. If I had simply extended my prior unemployment rather than taken the work I would have received thousands of dollars more. Now they canceled my old claim, disallowed my new one, and leave me with nothing.
-------
Lord Acton,
(who compared the overreaching Democrats to Paulus' XVI Army)
Great Galloping Ghost of Godwin's Law! You are right of course.
The Greeks said it best, ὕβρις.

Charity

(fm the BC thread "Green eggs and ham")

There is an alternative to the regulated insurance based model. It is called doing what has worked. It relies on three (you can count on me) factors.
1. A healthy American economy that produces sufficient wealth to pay for
    services for the indigent.
2. An economic, legal and regulatory system that encourages private
    initiative, risk taking and the development of new procedures and
    products.
3. A culture rooted in the essential goodness of the American people and a
    legal system that does not discourage their natural generosity.

These three conditions produced a system that created vast wealth, raised living standards and encouraged charity sufficient to care for any who were unable to care for themselves. Americans are incredibly generous and take care of both their own and anyone in need. By comparison the Europeans we are being urged to emulate are cheap skinflints who would allow their own grandparents to die in an attic rather than interrupt a Summer vacation, and then complain that the government hadn't done something about it.

Charity works. The government is determined to destroy it.

Israel's Borders

(fm the BC thread "The devil you know")

Utopia Parkway,
Regarding the wording of UN resolution 242 the story is even more complicated than you might think. The problem is that legally there was no border between Israel and any other entity within former Mandatory Palestine. There were borders between Palestine (as established by the British in the 1920's) and other recognized international actors. Those were the French Mandates and their successor states of Syria and Lebanon to the North and Egypt to the South. There are minor disputes along the Syrian border, the Shaba'a Farms (that Hezbollah has tried to reassign to Lebanon to manufacture a casus belli and some question about the Galilee coastline but the fact that there is a true border that has standing in the law is not disputed. All other demarcations between assigned Jewish territories and other portions of the British Mandate were provisional and had no standing in International law. In 1948 Gaza was occupied by the Egyptian army and a Cease Fire was signed. The Jordanian army entered the West Bank and East Jerusalem and another Cease Fire was signed. Count Bernadotte also supervised agreements covering the North that closely followed the recognized borders. Those documents between the new State of Israel and Egypt or the KIngdom of Trans-jordan (as it was then known) did not create legal borders. That is why the territories are properly referred to as "Disputed" and not as "Occupied" by Israel. Egypt had no legal claim over Gaza as there is a proper border between the Strip and Sinai, which the Egyptians have always enforced. The Jordanians however themselves have a state within a portion of former British Palestine. The borders between two states within the Mandate can only be established by treaty. That happened when Israel signed a treaty with Jordan that fixed the Western border of Jordan at the river. That did not determine the status of territories between the river and Israel. There is not and never has been anything in International law that prevents Israel from annexing any or all of a stateless territory, as long as they deal properly with the inhabitants thereof. Israel would owe little to inhabitants of a territory that it determined not to include within it's borders.

-------
Utopia Parkway,
We are not disputing the important facts here. The original Mandates were assigned by dividing up the Ottoman territory ruled from Damascus between the French and British. Messrs Sykes and Picot divided up the districts within the Damascus Vilyat. The boundaries within the Ottoman Empire were not surveyed or promulgated with all the formality of a demarcation between two tax districts in Germany. For the sake of argument I agree that the initial line as approved by the League of Nations would have been in the water of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) and it was shortly after moved East of the lake shore by an agreement between France and the UK. That agreement was in effect a binding treaty between two sovereigns and could establish a border in international law. Therefor the legal border between Mandatory Palestine and Syria was where Israel claims and that remains the border between their successor states, unless those states change it by a subsequent treaty.

Now the Arabs may claim that the actions of the Colonial powers were unjust. They may cry that reason, logic and the unswerving determination of billions cry out to undo the legacy of the League of Nations sponsored mandates and the successor Israeli settler state. None of that should matter or have any bearing in law. The standing and rights of the Arabs who contest Israel's borders or presence are based in the same League of Nations, and earlier European initiated treaty, sponsored legal system that they would repudiate in this case. We could offer to return the French Mandated districts to the status quo ante 1880. That would entail giving entire region of the Levant back to the Turks, expelling most of the Shia from Lebanon West of the Bekaa valley, and dividing the remainder between the Druze and Christians and returning the descendants of the Sunni who migrated South. Somehow I do not think that is the deal they are looking for.

By the way one interesting point about the borders and occupation question happens in the case of Gaza. While for the Israelis the Gaza strip is a Disputed territory with no legal border between it and the State of Israel for the Egyptians it was an Occupied territory because they had to cross an international border to get there..

Comment on The Belmont Club, "Green eggs and ham"

As usual Yes Minister was ahead of us, "The Compassionate Society."

A couple of days ago I went down to the VA medical center. My eyes have been giving me some trouble and I fear it is getting worse. Some years ago I had Lasik and it worked great. A year ago, after the bullets did not hit the target at FLETC, I had the surgeon who did the job take a look and he said that physically everything was good. Since my focus seems to slip on occasion now I fear that I might have sustained an injury in training that is manifesting itself and could at worst case produce an aneurysm. Of course it could just be age and dog hair or a cold in my system.

At the VA in Manhattan I was seen remarkably fast by the intake nurse. After waiting less than half an hour she listened to me, took my BP and weight, gave me a flu shot, and asked me a series of questions that the VA mandates "Were you ever sexual assaulted on active duty?" That made me mention my last active duty CO's Fitness Report. "Do you have any thoughts of depression or suicide?" That got me to mention that I would rather give others reason to have such thoughts than have them myself. The nurse loved me. A nice young woman was the Dr who took a look and checked reflexes and then told me to go up to Opthalmology, where they would look at me and decide if I should go to Neuro. When I got upstairs the clerk at the desk, if you open the dictionary to GS-5 you will see his portrait, asked me my name. I spelled out my name for him and added my last 5 as he looked up the referral in the computer. His phone rang and he juggled a personal call and my records. He got it wrong and I repeated the process. He asked me my name again and I spelled it. He then said "No, your name is XXX isn't it? That is your name." This was clearly a bully who got his jollies in a very dull job by asserting authority over the Veterans who must come to him before they can see a physician. He said my record said "routine" and I would have to make an appointment. When I said the Dr had indicated that she expected me to be seen today he then said that there were two notations and he disappeared into the back and came out a minute later and said I was to come back for an appointment in December. Arguing the point would clearly only result in terrible things happening to my records. After making the appointment I went back downstairs and informed the nurse at intake and she promised to inform the referring Dr.

The system is stuffed with people like the clerk. The more that government gets to influence healthcare the more it will resemble the VA. Most of the people are in fact caring, the professional staff who are part of the NYU hospitals are excellent and caring. The problem is that adding government to the mix, at the top end with lawyers and at the bottom end with clerks, only makes things worse.

Obama's Slide Continues

Today's Rasmussen Reports, Daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that Obama's slide continues. In fairness we should ignore his poll numbers on first taking office or during his first month. It would be almost impossible for anyone not to suffer as a sold image is confronted by reality. It is his decline over the subsequent 8 months that demonstrates the public's realization of his inability to respond effectively to the challenges and opportunities that reality offered.

Since the end of February the percentage of likely voters rating him as Highly Favorable has declined by over 10 points, from nearly 40% to just above 25%. His Highly Unfavorable Rating has increased even more dramatically by over 15%, from less than 25% to nearly 40%. That means the two extremes have reversed position in a strong move away from Mr Obama. In addition the polls seem to indicate that those in the middle, undecideds or those moderately on side or the other, when they decide break almost 2 to 1 against the current administration.

We have been following these polls for months and blogged about them on August 17th , 19th and 22nd and September 10th and 17th. One day perturbations mean nothing here but a sustained trend is important. It looks like Obama gambled on a massive push in Congress and the Media to regain his momentum during early September, culminating with his speech to a joint session on Health Care. The evidence is that the effort failed. As I noted on Sept. 17th he did rise from -13 to only -3 following the speech. In the ten weeks since then the air has clearly gone out of his balloon. He is now at -14 and there is every reason, as I will go over below, to expect him to continue to drop. Despite the uptick mentioned above my predictions on August 17th seems pleasantly prescient.

Let us first consider the domestic policy related events that have happened since Obama's September effort that almost, but not quite, restored his standing in the polls. He has gotten a version of the Health Care Bill through the House by a vote of 220 to 215. That included the lone Republican defector and the possibly tainted vote from Owens, the declared winner of the NY 23rd district race where absentee ballots that could, but are unlikely to, change the outcome are still being counted. The unpleasant effects of the tactics used to get this bill through, including the insertion and probably subsequent deletion of the Stupak amendment on abortion as well as the probability that the Democrats will resort to reconciliation will cost. In addition reports now indicate that on domestic policy Obama's team, Geithner et al, misspent or wasted hundreds of billions of dollars from the TARP and Stimulus programs. The vaunted job creation claims have been shown to be a fraud with unemployment now higher than the Democrats said would happen if they were not put in charge. The links between senior members of the administration and executives (AIG) and financiers (Goldman-Sachs) that have profited from these programs would draw the attention of Grand Juries in normal circumstances. The ties between the 2008 campaign as well as Obama's earlier career and Acorn and associated radicals is less effectively repressed. Efforts to suppress media that do not conform to the desired view have become shrill and have even cost him support from the Left. Acorn itself is now publicly discredited and that story could not be kept out of the public view. The 2009 elections were largely a disaster for the White House with those they endorsed being almost uniformly repudiated. The public in the market place has rejected the Obama linked GM (Government Motors) whose market share has collapsed in favor of Ford.

In the area of National Security and Foreign Affairs the results have proven equally if not even more depressing for him or at least for his supporters who will face an election soon. The shooting at Fort Hood not only made the public fear the impact of Obama and his supporters on the military, the most trusted institution in America, but the response to it was bungled. Obama's initial reaction was the insensitive and indeed amateurish insertion of anodyne appropriate remarks into an event after a "Shout Out" to his supporters. The subsequent announcement by his Attorney General, a man whose law firm did volunteer work for terrorists, that the top five prisoners at Gitmo would receive a civilian trial in New York City was made on a Friday evening as the President was out of town. The public is learning that this happened after they had offered to plead guilty before the military commissions. This was condemned by people of all political backgrounds. At best the way it was done made the Chief Executive look insensitive or cowardly for leaving this decision and announcement to a subordinate. His failure to effectively craft and implement his own policy in Afghanistan, in theory the signature initiative he had claimed he was ready to implement over 6 months ago, reveals his treatment of the Armed Forces to be deceitful and callous or incompetent. His claims regarding Russian intentions that lead to his abandonment of our allies in Eastern Europe, and their millions of Democrat leaning relatives in America, were immediately made a mockery by Putin. The Iranians and their proxies treat his words and representatives with open contempt. The North Koreans have engaged in border skirmishes and search for new ways to issue challenges. Chavez mobilizes on the Columbian border.

In every way at every level both in domestic and international affairs the results for this administration have been a series of disasters. While certain corporate interests, GE and Goldman-Sachs, a core of left wing academics and media activists, and some Unions (UAW and SEIU) will continue to support him the base will continue to shrink. Elected officials hoping to survive will begin to run away from him. If his poll numbers get down to
-20 before the midterm elections the Blue Dogs might revolt en masse.

Comment on PJM, Ed Driscoll "The Torch Has Been Passed To A New Generation"

Ed Driscoll,
Are you Karl Rove's even more evil twin Skippy?
That could almost get me to crack open my wallet and air out a two dollar bill.
Should we try to flood Google with our blog posts about how we are really terrified of the prospect of a Senator Corzine?

Oh no Bre'r Fox don't please. Anything but don't send anyone else from Goldman Sachs to Washington, Please Sir.

Counter-Force or Counter-Value?

(fm the BC thread "The devil you know")

RWE,
para 2. we went for Counter Value – we would Launch Under Attack
          (the McNamara Doctrine.
para 3. Bush Doctrine essentially avowed a Launch On Warning
          Pre-Emptive Strike Counter-Force strategy
para 4. a successful or failed application of the Bush Doctrine
          that a Counter Value strategy will be used

Not quite following you here. After a successful Counter-Force First Strike you intend to follow up with Counter-Value? A little unclear how that works. If we intercept a jihadi plot would you then destroy the Aswan High Dam and kill several million Copts? Personally I am surprised the bad guys haven't done that themselves.

Part of the problem is in defining what the Force in their structure is for us to target. Is it only the personnel who swore a personal blood oath the Osama bin Laden? That would fir with a narrow legalist view of the struggle. Is it the membership of the network of affiliates like the Taliban, the TeL, the MILF? That appears to be current DoD doctrine. Does it include the personnel and weapons labs of regimes, such as Iran, Sudan and Syria, that construct a plausible deniability screen and act through proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah to attack US interests? That I think approximates the Bush Doctrine. Should we push it out another ring to include Russia and China or the Special Rapporteurs of the EU and the UN? Are the Saudi and Gulf bankers and arms merchants and their funded Mullahs who promote violence and teach hate not as much part of the Force, the actual weapons systems to be targeted as the guy digging a hole for a 155 shell by the side of a road? Is not the entire belief system that endures through a faith in the inviolability of the Kabaa and the invincibility of the Ummah part of the Force arrayed against us that must be broken or at least demonstrated to be inferior?

My point is that these distinctions are useful but they are constructs. If we hunt down every tool in the enemies arsenal there will be precious little Value for us to hit with a followup Counter-Value strike. If we reach the existential point of having to kick over the board, or call Four No Trump to end the game then we can all have a chuckle after at the concerns of the AGW crowd. Hopefully we can strip away the Forces at the enemies disposal on a steady basis. Kinetic encounters should deal with some threats and social and economic tools may over time attenuate others. All of our tools depend on the health and strength of our Forces and the Value base behind them.

Unfortunately any response strategy Counter-Force or Counter-Value depends on us have the tools to do the job. Obama is systematically stripping away our ability to respond effectively under any strategic doctrine. His diplomatic, economic and social policies are so crippling America that we will be unable to attract loyalty as a superior alternative through social and economic power. Oddly enough the advocates of "Soft Power" have made it less likely that such tools can be effective. His military initiatives, in particular his plan to radically reduce the size, robustness and flexibility of the United States strategic deterrent means that that the possibility of an overwhelming Counter-Value follow on to an enemy Counter-Force attack, the US Second Strike will be lost. This makes it more likely that we will face both increased terrorism at the low end and nuclear blackmail.

For those unclear what calling Four No Trump means.

Comments on the Belmont Club,"The devil you know"

One way to look at the problem is what can you measure? It is hard to determine what Iran is building in an underground plant. It is impossible to determine whether it is planning to launch an attack if it has a weapon. It was difficult to determine if the Soviets or Russians were on Alert status. It is impossible to know if they are telling the truth when they say the missiles have been retargeted. The reliability of information about intentions, a highly subjective subject, must be considered also.

On balance the policy of negotiating arms control agreements with the Russians, based upon a reasonable level of assurance that they were hostile but rational actors, can be defended but can also be disputed on specifics. The policy of treating the Iranians as an equivalent case is based entirely on wishful thinking. Since we have absolutely no reason to take their word on anything, including the targeting or intent to use pre-emptively any weapons they acquire, and since we have no way of verifying what they are building in concealed facilities, and since the very act of going to the expense of building shielded underground plants is more consistent with an aggressive weapons program than any peaceful project, we must stop them from conducting any activities that could contribute to hostile activities. That means that the burden must be on Iran to prove that it is not dangerous and the US and anyone else threatened should issue an Ultimatum and destroy the underground facilities and anything that would support the production of WMD unless they are made completely and unconditionally transparent within a period of no more than 72 hours.

If the Iranian regime went to all this expense and trouble to build underground aspirin factories and teddy bear storage in order to prove how bad the Americans and Zionists are by precipitating an attack that destroys Iran then the responsibility for the suffering caused will rest on them. It is the responsibility of the Iranian people to evaluate the risk and remove the regime that places them in danger by engaging in reckless provocation.

In Pakistan we can not take their word that the gun will not be pointed at us. In addition we have no reason to want the gun pointed at India, which is a better friend and a more useful trade partner now. Therefor our policy should also be focused there on identifying what we can measure, if there is a training camp at all, and not what we can't measure, who is in it and what they are going to attack. We should then focus on shutting down the camps and getting the Pakistanis to devote their resources to more worthwhile projects. Those would include building law, order, secular education, and infrastructure.

-------
Brock,
any plan BHO devises trying to Spell Out “if A, then B” ... completely irrational relationships between A and B,

We need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel. We had a doctrine that worked.
Here it is laid out by John Foster Dulles. The key phrase is

The way to deter aggression is for the free community to be willing and able to respond vigorously at places and with means of its own choosing.

This is completely at variance with the legalist model that Obama and Holder are devoted to.

On Religion and Ethics

(fm the BC thread "Forlorn hope")

GerryP,
Max Weber made the case for The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In fairness he might have overstated the influence of small nations with bad climates on the Northern periphery of Europe and understated the amount of scientific innovation and entrepreneurship that arose in Catholic regions of Germany and areas influenced by German culture, such as Northern Italy, France and Hungary.

The disproportionate influence of Scandinavians and Scots may have been due to their willingness to relocate and the significant contributions of the Northern Catholic regions may have been obscured by two factors. First they were contained between hostile Islamic and Protestant regions and relatively land locked. Second, and this relates to the first issue, their intellectuals and entrepreneurs were less likely to relocate. Northern Italians often identify more with Germanic Mitteleuropa to the North than with their co-nationals to the South. If the country ever broke in two I think the North would debate naming itself Ostrogothia, New Lombardy or South Switzerland.

The Protestant emphasis on individual salvation and moral responsibility is consciously modeled on the Jewish concept of Righteousness. Puritans would call each other a "Good Jew" as a compliment. That did not mean that they were not anti-Semitic if they ever encountered an actual "Hebrew." In Judaism there is a tension between two forces. First is the need for the collective, it takes ten to make a minyan. "God will meet with 10 street sweepers but not with 9 rabbis." Community and family are what makes us human. They are the manifestation of a divine blessing. The ultimate punishment that can befall a sinner is to be cut off and have no parents, wife or children. Second is the idea of individual responsibility. God only absolves sins against God and not harm done to another person. You have to clear your own debts.

It is possible though for the sins present in a community to result in harm to an innocent. The consequence of that increases the responsibility of the individual sinner within the group who failed to act to reduce the risk to the innocent. Each person in Sodom was responsible for the harm that befell any innocent trapped in the city when it was destroyed.

The Commandments are not policy instructions for a Leader acting on behalf of the collective but obligations on each person to conduct themselves ethically. Each is obligated to treat God's creation fairly, not to abuse or be wantonly cruel, as in the laws on diet or not yoking a mother and her calf together. Each is obligated not to abuse their family, as in the sexual prohibitions. Each is obligated to love the stranger.

While both Christian and Moslem advocates would argue that at heart their ethical messages are the same the differences are important. In Catholicism, and other traditions that rely on the absolution of sin through the Eucharist, individual responsibility is subsumed in a collective and God absolves you of responsibility for Sins committed by harming other people. In Protestantism the difference from Judaism may be more subtle. Judaism is not a proselytizing religion. The stranger is left alone to seek their own truth and leadership is shown by example. For Christians the obligation to Witness takes on a more positive nature. This can be shown in the desire to reform and change the world through Good Works or political action that secular Liberals who come out of the Protestant tradition, or Counter-Reformation Catholic movements, exhibit.

In Islam the concept of individual responsibility is overwhelmed by the ever present example of the conduct of Muhammad, the emphasis on ethics being the responsibility of a political ruler who acts and instructs on the communities behalf, and the need to submit to the judgements of experts on how to interpret a welter of conflicting precepts. The cost of error is so high that for any individual to take responsibility and act ethically against a popular but sinful pressure is almost impossible. For a Lot to face down a crowd to protect two strangers in an Islamic community would take a lot.

American Chaos

(fm the BC thread "Forlorn hope")

Konyok,
The great tragedy of the Mexican diaspora though is the absorbtion of American squalor.

RagnarD,
La Eme is a product of the CA prison system.

The Official Line in Latin America is that the US is exporting crime and corruption South. That is why Napolitano's initiative to inspect Southbound traffic, separate from the possible merits of the program, fits a larger narrative.

Traditional patriarchal cultures have the tools to control the pathologies, corruption and latent violence, we associate with them. The key word in my last sentence is "latent." In a small rural traditional community life is very organized and disciplined. Everyone knows their place. While there is the potential for young men to turn violent it rarely happens. Those impulses are either exported, into the military if kept socially redeemable or into criminal gangs that prey on outsiders but at a social cost or they are sublimated into religious and social rituals. That is why tourists can visit an authoritarian hell hole and remark on how peaceful and friendly everyone was. The price people pay for that level of control is ignorance and stagnation.

When I taught in the most dangerous school in New York City there were only two parts of the system that worked. By worked I mean maintained a functioning classroom atmosphere in which some level of education could take place.

First was the Special Ed program which is run as a separate world at vast cost in which there are usually two adults present with a very small number of students. The teacher is under little pressure to achieve results so any progress makes them look like a genius. In the very controlled conditions many emotionally disabled students do respond and I have known Special Ed teachers who love their work.

When the system insists on moving the identified Special Ed students into the general population, known as "Mainstreaming" chaos results. Remember that many of the regular students are not evaluated as belonging in a special program because there are pressures not to make the diagnoses due to the costs involved. Mainstreaming always comes with the promise of additional support resources and stirring PC affirmations of inclusion and exposure being a valuable teaching experience for all concerned. They lie about the resources, the idea is to cut costs, and the rhetoric reveals a typical elitist program that uses human beings as objects in an emotionally motivated experiment at the cost of real education and opportunity.

Second was the Bilingual program. Before I started teaching my prejudice was to object to a special program for Spanish speakers on political grounds, then I saw what happened. Note that the term Bilingual covers two formats, one in which students are mixed in with the general population with additional special services offered. That is similar to mainstreaming Special Ed students and leads to disaster. The other system that works is where Bilingual is really Monolingual and is run as a separate system with its own teachers and student body, in effect a school within a school. The closed Spanish language classrooms worked. They were an island of calm in a sea of chaos.

Picture the Social Studies department office, with three or four teachers hanging around on their off period. A student pokes his head around the door, "Hey Teach I needs (or my Teach needs, or Da Man needs) this copied." The response would be "Drop dead" or some variant thereof. A second student arrives and knocks on the door. "Who is it?" "Pardon Señor, Professor Salazar sent me. He would like to know if I could make some some copies please?" "For Professor Salazar? But of course. I shall make the copies for you." People stand up to help and smile at the student. Teachers would volunteer to cover "Professor" Salazar's class if he was not there.

Two students arrive in The Bronx on the same day. They both come from islands in the Caribbean. They both come from so far back in the hills that you have to pump in sunlight. They both show up their first day in crisp white shirts and dark pants and new shoes. Both are soft spoken and polite. One comes from an Island where the official language is English and the other from an island where the official language is Spanish. In point of fact neither is really fluent in a standard form of any language, they both might as well have come from the Moon. The Spanish speaker goes into the special program and the English speaker into the regular program. In 60 days the student placed in the regular program is trashed. His pants are falling off, his mouth is foul, his associates are criminals, his prospects are nil. The student placed in "Professor" Salazar's class has a fighting chance.

Breaking the 4th Wall

(fm the BC thread "Forlorn hope")

E. Nigma,
We are all on the road to Serfdom

I prefer Bob and Bing on The Road to Morocco.

Comment on PJM: Joseph Puder "ChristiansSuffer Under the Palestinian Authority"

The sad thing about the plight of Bethlehem is that it was an accident. In 1967 when Israel conquered the West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem they intended to include the neighboring Bethlehem district. Due to a clerical oversight it was left out of the document that was forwarded to the Knesset. Moshe Dayan was appalled but the critical moment passed. For a brief time it looked like King Hussein would negotiate a Peace Treaty to get Bethlehem and the tourist revenue back. Israel was willing to cut that deal, so it held back on pressing the issue. By the time Hussein acceded to the rejectionist camp that assigned the West Bank to the previously irrelevant PLO lines had hardened and the Americans would not support any further changes. To ride back in now and claim Bethlehem for Israel would be a bold move that might work. It would mean decisive action also to free the Christians of Lebanon from the threat of Hezbollah. After Israel's past experiences there they may not want to but as the Iranians push for existential confrontation a pushing of the Reset Button may be in order.

Comments on The Belmont Club,"Forlorn hope"

$230/week is not $23/ week. Mexico is not that bad off. If the legal system was reformed then it could become very wealthy. They have the natural resources to fund meaningful investments and, unlike most of the petroleum exporters, except pre-Khomenei Iran or pre-Chavez Venezuela, they have an educated middle class and a entrepreneurial base to build on. "Poverty" is a cheap excuse for offloading the problem. It is a mislabeling of Envy by Middle Class activist rent seekers and a few wealthy transnationals, the diplomats, who use the intellectual rent seekers as background noise to generate a cash flow from the West.

The needed order can come from either inside or outside. This is basic Weberian Sociology. For a healthy modern society the charisma that induces respect for the law should be institutionalized into the bureaucracy and the legal code. That results in Organic Solidarity, wherein the people support the rule of law because the Law is seen as an expression of their sovereignty. In Mexico they are still stuck in a Patron system of personalized charisma and authority. Efforts to institutionalize the rule of law after the 1911 revolution in theory transferred the authority from individuals to bureaucrats and the PRI. That is why it is the Party of the Institutionalized (permanent) Revolution. The model is straight Leninism but it was designed to combat Caudillismo. In doing so it attempted to institute the stable legal system without risking the passions and possible corruption associated with democracy.

Unfortunately that model, and its early variants in Europe, such as the Byzantine and Caliphate systems and the late Spanish KIngdom, and some other late 19th to early 20th century efforts, as well as modern post Mao China, end up with the worst of all systems. They get stagnating innovation, sclerotic bureaucracies, rampant corruption, and regional violence. Singapore has fared better but it was highly dependent on the charisma still being personalized in a founding Leader and that may not endure his departure.

If a society can not make the jump from primitive feudal Caudillo style justice to modernity what is to be done? From the 1950s until the 1990s the answer was to ignore them. We paid off our SOBs to keep a lid on and sent money to CARE and UNICEF once a year and considered an exotic vacation to a controlled resort, after retirement. 9-11 changed all that, we can't ignore these places any more even if they are 7,000 miles away. Mexico is 7 inches away and moving our way.

The alternative method of achieving social cohesion and respect for the law for those who have not reached Organic Solidarity is Mechanical Solidarity. That is to say you obey the rules not because they are your rules, or at least your communities accepted rules but because some really big ugly guy, preferably on a horse, is in your face making you obey. Everybody starts out there and we hope that they get past it. Most places are still ruled that way and find it very hard to make the transition.

For example in theory Islam provides for a high degree of consensus being needed to legitimate the rulings of a secular leader, who is bound by religious doctrine and a need to respect the members of the Ummah. Unfortunately that supposed Democratic or Organic element is vitiated by the rulers expectation to follow the example of Muhammad, who ruled as an arbitrary despot.

So if the society can not achieve a state of Organic Solidarity and lawlessness threatens to spill over to the global community how can we respond? First we can get a local to attempt to impose a state of Mechanical Solidarity. That is when we support a local warlord despite the screams of the Grauniad. When that fails, as it has in Somalia and may in many other places, the historical answer is to impose the Rule of Law from outside and engage in an intense period of tutelage that could enable the society to internalize the legal code. That demands sustained effort over time and at least initially the application of uncompromising force. What it would mean in a real sense is the resumption of a system of colonial administrations of dependent territories that incapable of self government.

Those who begin the process are only Forlorn if the effort is abandoned to soon. The truly brave souls are those within the occupied community who turn from the obvious, and often remunerative, path of violence and risk opprobrium by leaping into the breach to help their societies internalize the rule of law. Ramon Magsaysay and Jose Rizal did that in the Philippines and George Washington, the man who would not be King, did that in America.

-------
Habu,
in our southwest and with gangs such as MS-13

MS-13 are Salvadorans or other Mesoamericans. They are not Mexicans. They should IMHO be treated as an invading army. Their children should be denied US citizenship. The law already has a provision denying citizenship to a child of a camp follower of an invading army. If ICE was unshackled then they could begin to make a real difference in this problem. Of course that is the complete opposite of what is happening.

Hopeless cases like Somalia are easy. Mexico is bad but not hopeless. That is why it is a hard problem.

Doug,
(who linked to this list of the most (and least) corrupt countries)

In Chicago they take a list like that as a challenge.

-------
Josh
Under the Obamanation who knows

My seat of the pants prediction. Almost anyone with over 12 years in will try to stick it out to retirement. Anyone over 20, except for clinging dead wood that sees promotion opportunities or those who waited for their shot at a real command and can't say No, and almost everyone under 10 years in past their initial obligation, will get out. That will mean a real shortage at the O-3 and O-4, and some shortage at the O-5 levels, most O-5 and O-6 or O-7 will stick but we lose the best senior flag ranks O-8 through O-10. For the Army that means I think the Company Commanders (Captains) and Battalion Commanders (Lt Col) grades will get out as well as the Majors in between who are the heart of Middle Management and future Commanders. While Brigade Commanders (Colonels) and ambitious Brigadier Generals would likely stick around awhile if prospects look good, senior Generals are probably thinking about a book tour and a teaching or corporate job.

This is a disaster and it will take 15 years to rebuild from it. Training, the most important kind that comes from experience, will suffer. Good people will die.

wretchard
The Department of Deadwood

IBM in the old days ran that way. There were whole departments, buildings full of talented Engineers who had created legacy projects but who were not part of the newer technology trends. No one was fired. They showed up and had nothing to do.

49erDweet,
That is the idea behind the late 20th century House of Lords.
People got kicked upstairs.

-------
Regarding military retention, there will be a similar effect on enlisted time in service retention, Early out option 15 yr retirement could result in a total clean out, that takes decades to recover.

Crassus Out of the Bath

(fm the BC thread "High Society")
Correction from peterike appended below, with gratitude.

The problem with being a Patrician is that occasionally you have to act like one.
Cicero to Caesar I believe, was it in Spartacus?

Our genial host’s initial entry raised two topics. First, the AGW money pump. Second, the sad state of what passes for elites these days. Both are tangled forests where monsters lurk. Both rest on roots as solid as Birnam Forest that comes to Dunsinane.

Elites are natural and necessary for a species that supports a complex social organization. There are many privileges for members of the Elite. What is demanded of them in return?

Historically there were two routes to power over those who work. You could belong to those who fight or those who pray.
The potential cost for those who fight is obviously the risk of death in combat. Those who pray appear to have a better deal. Vows of chastity and poverty may have been invented to impose compensating costs. What we have now are elites who not only are useless and wrong headed, that to be fair is neither new nor intolerable, but who are unwilling to demonstrate even the slightest pretense of sacrifice for the greater good.

Can anybody envision Lord Finsbury leading the troops into battle? The Aztec Priest who ripped your heart out to feed the Sun was more useful.

-------
peterike:
One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you’re obliged to act like one.

Crassus, as played fabulously by Lawrence Olivier, to the character of Marcus Publius Glabrus, portrayed as something of a Roman doofus by John Dall. Glabrus has just told Crassus he will be leading six cohorts of troops to take on Spartacus. Glabus is summarily defeated and sent back to Rome in humiliation.

This occurs just after one of those great, witty moments in the script. When Crassus hears of the plan to pursue Spartacus, he shouts:

Great merciful bloodstained gods! Your pardon. I always address heaven in moments of triumph.

Ahhhh, you hadda be there.

Comment on The Hill "Hoffman 'unconcedes' in N.Y.-23 House race"

If it was the Democrat contesting then boxes of votes would magically appear in somebody's car trunk.It is highly unlikely that Hoffman will win because many of the absentee military voters probably cast votes for the ostensible Republican before they learned she was a stalking horse for the Democrat. The new Chairman of the State Republican Party Ed Cox will find a suitable candidate and recover the seat.

On A Breath of Hot Air

(fm the BC thread "High Society")

To repeat, while anyone should be welcome to add to the conversation and challenge prejudices with facts, we need to know when we are being played and stop cooperating. It was obvious by the 3rd iteration that we were being trolled. The false claim of conservatism, the reams of cut and paste references, the threatening demands for credentials, the concurrent claim of modest amateur standing, the ridiculing of opposing data while at the same time comparing it to other data that does not meet the standards demanded from Doubters. The effort to steer the conversation to a reliance on the most technical and abstruse equations and terminology, despite the inconsistency of such a position with the claimed amateur standing. The refusal to engage appropriate citations by other commentators of prior fraudulent abuses of science by alarmists seeking power. The determination to ignore any mention or concern about the corrupt background, dangerous totalitarian associations, and unethical business practices of those promoting this theory. All these were readily obvious and justified my observation that we should have told the polemicist, or shill if you will, to hire his own hall and post a link to it for any that care to consider his clippings.

The Peanut Bar

(fm the BC thread "In sickness and in health")

Darren,
When people have to pay cash up front, they show up when they are sick.

This is all true but it does not take into account one of the major distortions in the pricing system that we face. The cash prices assigned to people who do not assign their bills to a 3rd party are simply divorced from the actual value of the services rendered. A few months ago I shared with the Club how I went to a local ER for a cut finger, that turned out to look bad but only needed Bacitracin™ and a bandage. Unlike most people who walk in uninsured I honestly showed my ID. The result is a bill for $1,100 that may sit out there until I take a dirt nap.

If you walk into a restaurant and they don't show you a menu before you ask a cup of coffee but then hand you a bill for a thousand dollars people would say "No way." That doesn't happen anywhere in America anymore outside of a hospital. Even the hotel minibar has a price list warning you before you drink the bottled water. You hear stories like that from people who ate the peanuts in a bar in Japan.

The problem isn't with the physicians but with the regulated administrators. There should be standard costs for common services published by region and any deviation from those fees should be prominently advertised before any services are rendered. We need more daylight on the costs being charged. That is the opposite of a controlled government system that increases the distances between consumers, practitioners and payers.

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Darren,
an effort to collect because ... they can be prosecuted for Medicare fraud

If they had looked at me and said "We will charge you $200 to have an Intern (he may have been a Resident or a 4th year Med Student, one never knows) look at it, or you can go to the Municipal, which is it?" I would have said "Fine, go ahead" and paid for my folly. If I needed a stitch they could have looked at me and said, "A stitch will cost you $100. Do you want us to do it or will you go elsewhere? You'll live so either is medically OK." That would be OK also. By not giving up front pricing information and then quoting a price they knew they wouldn't collect they were making me a party to their perpetration of fraud against the Medicare system.

Comment on The Times (of London) "Italy's Foreign Minister says post-Lisbon EU needs a European Army "

Impossible one soldier can't possibly do all the work. Why the ceremonial duties in so many places call for an army of at least 30 or 40. So take that you reactionary Doubting Thomses!

Wait, I see you must mean an army that is single. Well as Islamist polygamy spreads something will have to be done with the spare single men. Of course they do tend to work for the other side but the Human Rights people have an answer. They'll all be encouraged to marry each other. That should make everyone peaceful and happy. What could possibly go wrong?

This is a joke because the purpose is not to build a powerful unified military that will serve the interests of the nations of Europe. The purpose is to defang the nations and centralize authority as far from local interests, passions, and voters, as possible.

They do want to demilitarize Europe and leave it with nothing but a harmless PC show army.
H/T Theo Sparks ("Italy calls for a single European Army ")

Comments on the Belmont Club "High Society"

If your nose runs and your feet smell then you are built upside down.
- Wisdom from the 2nd grade.

Voltaire was right about this. The greatest threat in the world is Enthusiasm.

Now if Finsbury can only convince everyone that he is convinced himself that he is a not only a gay, HIV positive socialist aristocrat but in his heart a Pakistani Islamist transgendered gay HIV positive aristocrat then he might take power in a coup as the next Queen of England.

The English call this Brass. Obama called this the Audacity of Hope. In New York we call it Chutzpah.

The logical results of a policy in which people are assigned consumption credits by head count and face confiscatory taxation for consumption of earned income above the authorized level will be threefold.
1. Artificially increasing the reported number of consumers per household.
    So what if Grandma is dead?
    Hide her in the attic and keep collecting that Social Security check and
    those Carbon Credits.
2. If you are poor breed like rabbits.
3. More income will be moved off the books, to impede taxation at that end,
    and consumption will also move into the inefficient cash or barter
    grey market to impede accounting at that end.

The predictable government response to fraud and evasion will be
    increased coercion from Revenue Agents, enforced contraception and
    abortion, and intrusive home "Health Care" to verify and deal with
    Granny.

The parts of the Obamist jig-saw puzzle fit together.

-------
Just because, Frank and Bing in High Society, Well Did You Evah?.


-------
I did a Google™ search on "follow al gore's travels track temperature."
No one site popped up, which surprised me, but there seems to be a cottage industry in tracing the Worldly One's (he is almost larger at the equator than the poles) movements and noting that snowstorms follow his path. Gore could make serious money as a Rain or at least a Snow Maker. We could send him to Libya and make the desert bloom.

Comments on the Belmont Club "In sickness and in health"

Resources will be increased by fiat. That is to say that either doctors will be provided by a European car company in alliance with a corrupt American union or the standards for entry into medical school and the rigors of the licensing boards will be adjusted until enough of the right people get admitted. Of course the pay will go down, the working conditions deteriorate, quality providers flee or retire, and the professional atmosphere corrode. Those admitted will complain about the cruel trick being perpetrated on them, until the next time the government rides to their rescue.

The Laws of Economics may not have all the testable rigor of the Laws of Physics but they are not mere literary constructs that can be altered by the will of a narrow elite. That doesn't work even in a true collectivist dictatorship, where the General Will, or content of the set of general utilities as expressed in "Utiles," is highly responsive to central control. They certainly are not subject in a modern complex liberal (meaning free) society to significant short term change from pressure by a narrow political movement reliant on highly perishable propaganda forces. Costs to some consumers may appear to decline and revenues to many suppliers will decline. The results will be increased demand and decreased supply.

As the economy shrinks under the pressures that these and other policies inflict on it living standards will decline. That will make people less healthy, although I expect to see an article touting the popular and healthy rise of the low meat diet. A less healthy and poorer population will be more susceptible to the vices associated with poverty and concurrent health effects. That will further increase demand. Iterate as needed. Dr Jekyll's drug is addictive and eventually he withers away as Mr Hyde grows.

-------
Norm,
We should explore additional legal resources ... besides the vote.
Recall elections come to mind.

Welcome to the Club,
California had a recall provision. I do not know who else does. NY does not. It would be on the dream list for Constitutional reform. Should not be easy to do but should be feasible to get done when needed. The other alternative is to shorten the term of office. Governors used to be elected for two year terms and the State Legislature was often elected annually. Keeping the leash shorter might help.

RWE,
Another reason to move to a country less infested with legal leeches.

Is it Andorra that has a law against lawyers? Maybe that was just a line in Heinlein.

Three Generals

(fm the BC thread "Kilcullen vs Sullivan")


(images fm Wiki)

Dave,
One of life's ironies is that as the Secession crisis came to a head Sherman was an employee of the State of Louisiana as head of the Military Academy. He could not offer his services to the Union until after he had resigned his position. In fact he knew the South well having been stationed there in earlier years.

The mirror of that situation was Robert E. Lee being at the same time the commanding officer of a Union post in Texas and determined to honorably carry out his duties and defend his command. In fact after the surrender of the Union establishment to the seceding State of Texas Lee travelled to Washington and accepted an appointment as a Colonel signed by Abraham Lincoln and served until Virginia left the Union, departing only when his resignation was accepted.

George McClellan did good work. He built the army that Grant fought with. Some are best at training, some at logistics, some at strategy, and some at tactics. Few are good at all. Sherman was a better strategist than tactician. McClellan was better at logistics and training and administration. That does not make him unworthy or traitorous, just human.

-------
I am leaning over to be fair to McClellan, criticize that as you wish. He publicly disputed the Democratic platform and declared his intention to preserve the Union. Given who he was fronting for his election would probably have lead to disunion followed by an authoritarian crisis. It was a very near thing and I am glad that Lincoln won. Nevertheless I do think that "Little Mac," who did care for his troops, was not a traitor. We all want to talk about the dashing cavalry hero but the fact is that the military is a bureaucracy and the great administrators in history may not get any movies of their lives or girls dreaming of them but they build the machine that achieves victory.

Of M.I.C.E. and Moles

(fm the BC thread "Kilcullen vs Sullivan")

Habu,
(listing KGB recruitment target identifiers)
M.I.C.E. Money, Ideology, Compromise or Coercion (depending on source), and Ego”. Did Billl fit..dah
Regarding Clinton, how do you blackmail someone who is shameless? He might be rented but could he be bought? Is there evidence he really has ideological fire inside? Does he believe in anything or is the biggest difference between him and Obama the fact that Bubba is smarter, more flexible, and better able to work with others? Maybe that is why he exploded with anger during the campaign. Maybe he is in fact less ideological than Obama. Agreed he sold out to China and has been collecting from everyone ever since but I suspect that while he knows the Socialist tropes and can recite theme to applause he sees through them better than most. Reports are that he has contempt for believers and frauds like Gore.

Re Hillary it is the other extreme. The factors fit to well to work. She is like Angela Lansbury in the Manchurian Candidate. Her ego is to big to control.

-------
With Clinton my technical question always was; Bought or rented? With Obama the question is; Owned by who?

twobyfour,
(who noted prosecutor Preet Bharara comes from Schumer's office)
"He has never lost an election, and has never held a job outside of politics," the wiki on Chuck Schumer.

When he first ran for the Senate I heard that he walked into Wall Street board rooms and said, "Cough it up." Another gift to America from the Harvard Law School, along with Obama and Eliot Spitzer, his single minded ambition and ruthlessness either triggered or enabled the subprime crisis.

Rudy Giuliani is clear minded, plain spoken and correct, about why the civilian trial in New York is a bad idea.

Comment on Ace of Spades HQ "Obama Bows to Royalty, But Won't Put His Hand On His Heart for the National Anthem"

His hosts must be embarrassed. Old school aristocrats like the Japanese and English royals know exactly how everyone is supposed to behave and how to treat everyone so business can be conducted with minimum friction. That is the point of etiquette. That and keeping your sleeves out of the food. In fact true nobility are unaffected. Being completely secure in their own self esteem they treat everyone else with perfect equality and courtesy. A large part of that is not creating any unnecessary surprises.

Obama is a parvenue snob. He is a pretentious fraud trying to impress people with his studied displays designed to one up the genuine American aristocrat, Prescott Bush's grandson, that he replaced. He probably spent an hour before the mirror practicing his salute for the photo-op at Dover.

Comment on Ace of Spades HQ "Rudy Goes Off Over Decisionto Try KSM In Civilian Court In NYC"

Rudy would be good as Governor and Great in the Senate but we need him on the SCOTUS.


Mayor Bloomberg, who is not a lawyer, has to do business with Obama.
He will not challenge the administration.

Comments on Gateway Pundit "Here It Is… Team Obama Unveils Comprehensive Immigration Strategy"

The ultimate Gerrymander.
If you do not like the voters you have, get new voters.

-------
They are counting on Outrage Fatigue. They deliberately throw as many things as possible up at the same time.

These are true revolutionaries. They do not want to improve the system. They want to change it.
Most politiicians are very cautious, always thinking of future alliances and advancing one item at a time.
These people burn bridges and attack as widely as possible. They are in their own minds modern warriors eager and able to fight, anything that is but a war.
H/T joe buzz @ the BC.

Great Tweets in History

LATimestot
Fallon: Finally, Obama unveils his new Afghanistan strategy. Its called Dont Ask-Dont Tell latimes.com/ticket

MajoratWH
Obama: "The US does not seek to contain China, nor does a deeper relationship with China mean a weakening of our bilateral alliances."

MajoratWH
In Asia, "controlled economies have given way to open markets. Dictatorships have become democracies," Obama says

----
So why is he moving America in the other direction? Does he expect anyone to believe in his unicorns anymore? Does this just mean "Boys you're on your own?"

The Circling Dragon

If whiskey has an idée fixe about women then I plead guilty to having one about the strategic threat posed by China. That does not negate the fact that I like China, in fact I really like the women, but the government is a real and growing threat.

What can India do to break the iron circle being forged around it? What can Australia and Vietnam do? Should Israel accommodate the rising power and trust the SCO to hold a leash on their Iranian dog or should she forge an alliance with those threatened by the new hegemon and strike the first blow?

China is itself very unstable and vulnerable. Deeply corrupt with its growth based on the same financial shell games that exploded the American economy a year ago it shows that sometimes both sides can be in on a fraud. The social compact is unraveling. Corruption has destroyed the last vestiges of legitimacy for a regime that is now sustained solely by inertia. The divisions between regions, classes, and rural versus urban sectors is larger than ever seen before and cannot be sustained. In this situation a threatened elite either focuses on an explosive grab outwards or faces an implosion.

China is now facing the same choices that Japan faced almost 70 years ago. Unless the moves into the Indian Ocean are an enormous head fake they have made the same decision that Tojo did. They will forgo the easier Strike North against an underpopulated but resource rich Siberia in favor of a Strike South at the resources of Australasia the Middle East and Africa. The riches of Siberia will wait. They can be picked up later when there will be even fewer Russians to worry about. This has been a very long time in coming. Thirty five years ago when my brother visited Kenya the locals told him that Tanzania had been occupied by China during the building of the TanZam Railway.

Against Extremism

(fm the BC thread "Kilcullen vs Sullivan")

Kinuachdrach,
(who appears to endorse a military coup in America)

Not even in jest. That is the road to disaster. Do you really want to leave a door open to a Weasley Clark?

We do need some limited constitutional reforms, from the bottom up. We need to work on getting control over the process at the state level. That is where the heavy lifting is. If we can keep enough of a presence at the national level, even if we are not in the majority, to prevent the corruption of the Judiciary then that will suffice for a while. The real rot is down below at the state and local levels and in your community school board.

Insurgents and Imperialists

(fm the BC thread "Kilcullen vs Sullivan")

I am unaware of any insurgency since WWII that has lost to a foreign power.

Add to Don Rodrigo's excellent list; the NPA in the Philippines, and Latin American groups such as Sendoro Luminoso, Tupamoros, the Arbenz faction in Guatemala in 1954, and the Bolivian ELN of 1965-66. The last two involving Che Guevera. In all cases the revolutionaries themselves would claim that their defeats are attributable to the support given to government forces by the US. The IRA has arguably lost its effort to impose a Marxist dictatorship over either the Republic or the 9 counties controlled by the UK. Insurgencies in The Congo during the 1960s (another appearance by the sadistic medico Che Guevera) collapsed under foreign pressure. The Tibetan insurgency against invading chinese is looking a bit thin after 50 to 60 years. The last is anomalous being the one case of successful communist conquest as an invader, in the world's most isolated backwater. There however the marxist invaders have to resort to genocide.

The belief in successful native workers and peasants insurgencies against corrupt decadent Capitalist Imperialists and their stuffed shirt stooges is one of those hoary old chestnuts that is allowed to persist as a romantic trope because it has been made socially inconvenient to slap it down. The basic premise is a lie. The real Imperialists peddling alien philosophies and using co-opted elites to rule through disciplined hierarchical structures are the Communists and the Islamists.

British and Americans helped the Greeks. I heard Prof William McNeill mention having visited the Acropolis during the battle.

dan,
(who noted claims that the Soviets threatened to use nukes during Suez)
I don't know and if I did I would neither confirm nor deny but it sounds plausible to me.

-------
RagnarD at the BC pointed out I was sloppy, 6 of Ulster's 9 counties.

Comments on The Belmont Club "Kilcullen vs Sullivan"

My take is that people are making something simple complex. Obama wants out.

When he was campaigning the big war was in Iraq and AfPak was a sideshow. Obama only talked about AfPak as a distraction to make himself sound serious about a topic he knows nothing about. His knowledge base on the area comes from one Summer trip during college and old National Geographics he saw at the dentist's office. Bush and Petreaus won Iraq for him. That earns no gratitude but did spare him from withdrawing under fire.

The Russians, Iranians and Chinese may have preferred that the US had retreated in humiliating failure. Some may speculate that Obama is an agent of their interests but I could not possibly say so. Most Americans probably think that the Shanghai Cooperative Organization is a plot element from a Jackie Chan movie. Some like Obama get their news from The Nation, Huffpo and MSNBC.

If the military wanted to make Obama happy they would produce a report on "New Strategic Realities for the Asia-Pacific Region." If my worst instincts are right Obama, with his mentors Maurice Strong and Soros are paving the way for a shift to an American withdrawal in favor of China. What I expect to see from the Left is a series of attacks on India as unstable, provocative, racist, imperialist, and hostile to Gaia. China is already mobilizing along the Indian border and has bases in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. A China allied politician is seeking to subvert Thailand. This makes Japan an Asian Germany and puts The Philippines in the role of an Asian Poland. Australia may get to be the Eastern Israel. As for India and Vietnam, what choices do they have?

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buddy larsen,
Suez happened the same weekend the Soviets went into Hungary. The anti-American Little Englanders have been using it to beat on the US for over 50 years. That is why, with the exception of Thatcher, under Labour or Tory governments the gulf between the US and UK has kept spreading. Equally important was the nail it drove into the coffin of the 4th Republic in France. There too both the Left and the Right have no love for America. As we in the BC know to well.

-------
FC,
carried out in its usual clumsy, bullying and ignorant manner
... Afghanistan. Yet another example of American hubris.

For myself I was well aware that the Suez example empowered attitudes like yours and would probably stimulate an injection of your bile. Your main points are accurate to a point, your proportions are what is off. The focus was not driven by old fashioned anti-British politics of the Colonel McCormick Chicago Tribune school. That was part of the pre-war Isolationism of the Right that morphed into the anti-Colonialism of the Left. The problem was the Soviets and their invasion of Hungary.

Nov 14, 2009 - 3:29 am

More Signals

(fm the BC thread "The politics of detection")

buddy larsen,
(who wrote of the Luby's shooting in Texas)
When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
That is partly why I believe in universal military training after the 17th birthday. Widely distributed Homeland Security and Disaster Response training should be a primary task carried out through local armories and community colleges, which should all have a National Guard/militia affiliation. A well trained and armed citizenry should be the bedrock of our security.

Habu,
Someone had posted on The Club links about the sewer in Baltimore that Pelosi came from. She has property out on Long Island also. These people are like kudzu, they spread tendrils if you blink.

Speaking of which Theo Spark's spud farm has several references to Ms Two Heartbeats from the Presidency today. My favorite is this one.


Whitehall,
(who suggested carrying around Spengler's Decline of the West)
Go for the Star Trek market. Walk around carrying Cities in Flight by James Blish instead.

Darren,
(who worries about multiple attacks)
Because the construction industry is so dependent on illegal alien labor I am very concerned about a Beslan style attack happening here. The Chechens stored their weapons in spaces they built into the school while they worked on the building crew. The government should work with the unions to see to it that construction workers are screened and sites are inspected. Civil Libertarians will fight it and most fiscal conservatives are very leery of empowering the people who profit from Davis-Bacon. Oddly enough that law is named for two Republicans and was signed by Herbert Hoover.

Ernie G,
(who notes that no UCMJ Article is titled "Treason")
The troops are watching. When prosecuting an officer for misconduct it is important for the good order and discipline of the Service to throw the book at him.

Articles that I would charge Hasan with include:
Art. 81 Conspiracy (his contacts with al-Qaeada) *
Art. 82 Solicitation (his counseling sessions to troops)
Art. 90 Assaulting or willfully disobeying superior commissioned officer *
Art. 93 Cruelty and maltreatment (covers harm caused to subordinates)
Art. 94 Mutiny or sedition *
Art. 99 Misbehavior before the enemy *
Art. 104 Aiding the enemy (his contacts with al-Qaeda) *
Art. 106a Espionage (refers to treason at sub (c) (1)) *
Art. 116 Riot or breach of peace
Art. 118 Murder *
Art. 119a Death or injury of an unborn child
Art. 128 Assault
Art. 133 Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman
Art. 134 General article.

Those Articles marked with an asterisk (*) may carry the death penalty.

Sending Signals

(fm the BC thread "The politics of detection")

Republicans tend to walk around holding books to send signals. Bush did so with Natan Scharansky and Palin did with Mark Levin. People should now start reading and walking around with Bernard Lewis' The Crisis of Islam and Rebecca West's The New Meaning of Treason.

Democratic politicians don't have to since they get other people to read for them. Their role models are the Hollywood executives who scan a two page summary prepared by a kid from Harvard hoping to break into Conan O'Brien's staff. The pols agents in the press report that they commune with the Muses without regard to evidence that they can communicate unaided using two syllable words. Barack Obama is given credit for writing two books before there is any reason to believe that he had read one.

The reading is important as that is how the author speaks to you but it is the walking around holding the book that enables you to speak to others. While no one should reduce books to props, or think that they could get away with doing so, it is important that we act more aggressively in shaping the terms of public debate. This is one way that we can begin to do so.

-------
Konyok,
(who praised Bush 43 for the theme "Freedom", & Iran's resistance & wine)
Perhaps Presidents like Japanese Emperors should have three names.
1. Their birth name (George Washington or Prince Michi)
2. Their name in office (Mr President or Prince/Emperor Hirohito)
3. Their name for history (Father of His Country or Emperor Shōwa)

This could make for an interesting parlor game as we argue over how the POTUS should be remembered.

Iran needs a General Monck.
Does Georgia make slivovitz?

-------
blert,
we have an army of Shultz’s

Relax.
Think of the movie not the TV show. The bad guys have Sgt. Schulz.
We have a military full of guys like JJ Sefton.

Put your money on the Yanks.

Comment on The Belmont Club "The politics of detection"

wretchard,
It’s like a hobo riding the rails or a hitch hiker trying to get out of the Galaxy.

"So long and thanks for all the fish."

But in his better moments Douglas Adams could also be seen as channeling Hal Moore.
"Don't Panic" equates to the General's "Do one thing more."

Is Hoekstra probably attempting to leak an investigation in progress? Sure he is and given how the Democrats worked to destroy the Republicans they know how it works. Just ask Scooter Libby. The difference is that it is much harder for the Republicans to find anyone to leak to.

I would link this issue to the looming purge of the Civil Service I raised in my (preceding post here) #107 on the last thread. The Democrats are going for the kill ,chocking off opposition access to the Media the Courts and the Administration.

Purge on All Fronts

Follow this link from Instapundit.

It does look like the Democrats are moving to purge Republicans from the Civil Service by identifying former political appointees who converted to the Civil Service, preventing them from being promoted or transferred, and then once they are isolated and dead in their careers getting them scrubbed out of the system. They intend to identify former staffers going back 5 years. How very Alinskyite. Turnabout will be fair play.

The Republicans should announce that when they regain power all acts done under the Obama regime will be repudiated. That will destroy the market value of any assets corruptly aquiered by partisans of BHO. Specifically the theft of the auto companies will be reversed and anyone who climbed on for the ride with Government Motors will be left holding a bag.

Congress can reset the size of the SCOTUS and pass rules for the Judiciary. If necessary they can play hardball and purge out the Democrats.

Under, Absent and Over Men

*fm the BC thread "A writing exercise")

Didn't we just go over repel borders (trolls) procedures?
Dime will get you a donut we have a visitor from LGF.

Fred Beloit,
#75 “What about Iran and North Korea?”

The President votes PRESENT.
Permit me to correct that for you.

The pResident votes ABSENT.

Re: Nietzche is peachy. He is like Wagner's music that Mark Twain pointed out was "better than it sounds." He wasn't as crazy as he is described, until he was. On the other hand wannabe Superdoopermenschen like Leopold and Loeb were nuts. Depression is an illness and suicide is a sin and a loss. Don't blame the writer for the folly of those who follow. He had some merit. Like the understated English Cleric said when asked if the odd smelling egg he was eating was any good, "Parts of it are excellent."

Hands Across the Water

(fm the BC thread "A writing exercise")

Subotai Bahadur,
The Atlantic is merely competing for the title of American Grauniad.
It is part of the Europeanization, really Lancastration, of America.
Next I predict Comprehensive Schools and a Trade Unions Council.

On Literature and Sin

(fm the BC thread "Above all gods")

It bemuses me to realize that I am old enough to have studied literature in my Humanities classes. For my freshman Common Core Introduction to the Humanities class at Chicago I had kindly old Professor Merlin Bowen go over Moby Dick with about 20 of us, and we dug in and found meaning in every word on every page. There was no time or reason for charting Conflicts or Schools. There was a text. That was 15 years after Susan Sontag had left campus to act out her shallow indulgences before the world. A friend gave me Postmodern Pooh, the sequel to The Pooh Perplex. You can't make this stuff up but people do and mean it seriously. What is more amazing is that they churn out this stuff for real, and get paid for it.

marymcl,
(who linked to Tolkein's Mythopoeia)
Thank you for the poem. I may not share your faith but it makes me want to chase any single women in your family.

twobyfour,
(Who rounded up 7 Deadly Sins that inspire the Left)
The way to study the list I recommend is with Stanley Donen's Bedazzled.

Comment on The Belmont Club "A writing exercise"

Reposted from four days ago:
Comment on The New Ledger:
"How the Fort Hood Shooter Will be Judged"

The precedent for covering the points I listed is Pericles Funeral Oration, whiskey may feel inspired by the next to last paragraph.

Here is an example of a better man responding to a tragedy.

"We don't keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public."

On balance while I agree with wretchard in that Justice and Deeds are essential, and missing from Obama's speech, excepting the line "and see to it that he pays for his crimes," the problem with the address given was not what was said but the man behind the words. There is no emotional connection between the man and the objects of his performance. He says that service in distant deserts and snowy mountains made us all safer here at home. Everything he has said and done up to this moment demonstrates that he does not believe that and labored to convince the electorate that the service of these people overseas made us more vulnerable to attack from enemies we create by our actions.

This was quoted before, forgive me for not having time to credit the BC commentator.
From John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
John Wayne as Captain Natan Brittles
Joanne Dru as Miss Dandridge

Olivia Dandridge:
[after the massacre at Sudrow's Wells] You don't have to say it, Captain.
I know all this is because of me; because I wanted to see the West;
because I wasn't - I wasn't "Army" enough to stay the winter.

Captain Brittles:
You're not quite "Army" yet, miss... or you'd know never to apologize...
it's a sign of weakness.

Olivia Dandridge:
Yes, but this was your last patrol and I'm to blame for it.

Captain Brittles:
Only the man who commands can be blamed. It rests on me... mission failure!

Comment on The Belmont Club "Above all gods"

Religion of the future? Woody Allen in Sleeper getting absolution from a sideshow gumball machine.

Without an external brake a man becomes his own god and then anything is possible. That is the theme behind Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Kurtz had, "No restraint. No restraint at all." He became a monster. The film based on HoD was Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now. The production of which was effected by the director, cast and much of the crew themselves acting out drug induced debaucheries in which they were each their own gods. A high level of technical expertise can be retained without any belief in the system that created the knowledge consumed. In the movie Kurtz, Willard and Kilgore are all equally lost. What does Kurtz then die for?

The real life model that Milius and Coppola claimed to base Kurtz on was MG Michael D. Healey. The film as such was a slander of a fine gentleman. General Healey is I am proud to say a friend of mine. His biography is here.

Hasan's slideshow was not badly done. The failure to respond to his central tenet, that muslims are very troubled by wars waged against other muslims, was an example of PC causing the can to be kicked down the road with tragic consequences. An honest response would be to say that every faith demands that you accept responsibility for the justice of your cause before you commit violence. Indeed under the Nuremberg precedent every member of the Armed Forces is held to that standard. So yes muslims are allowed to ask if it is for a good cause that we ask them to kill other muslims, in exactly the same way that christians or jews should be concerned before they kill muslims. In our system we have enabled sufficient clarity and reliance on the wisdom and mercy of the people, as expressed by our democratic values and republican system, that arbitrary and abusive use of force is unlikely. That supports good order and discipline. If Hasan or any muslim feels that they cannot be bound by the orders issued by an authority not controlled by muslims because the edicts of such are inherently unjust then indeed they cannot serve, in any capacity and not only in a conflict involving other muslims.

As a Physician Hasan appears to be a technically incompetent affirmative action baby. Asking how he got into Medical school edges uncomfortably close to unanswered questions about how Obama got into, well really everywhere. It is interesting how dramatically his presentation improved after two days to rehearse a script. The Left castigated Reagan as an actor who read his speeches. They refused to believe that he read voraciously and actually wrote much of his best work. The difference between RR and BHO goes deeper. Reagan was a good but not great actor, nevertheless he knew that over time the only way to carry off a role was to inhabit it. Reagan sounded good at Point du Hoc or speaking with only a short time to rehearse after the Challenger disaster because he believed in the words. Obama is at root the hustling charlatan that Ayers described in the "autobiography." His first public reaction was a disaster because unscripted he had nothing inside to draw upon. He has perfected a trick of feeding an audience what it wants to hear, pulling in cadences from black churches the same way that white musicians sold the patterns of R&B to a larger audience. Unlike the musicians or the true statesman there is no reason to believe that he understands or believes in the content behind the presentation.

-------
twobyfour,
There was more intellectual communication in the ancient world then our arrogant contemporary world understands. Why people even learned about people from other lands before there was an internet! Back in those primitive times two groups traveled around to help pollinate cultural content. The first were merchants, who usually would observe but not share because you don't give anything away and the customer doesn't want to hear your ideas while he is haggling over the price of dates. The second were soldiers, who did often travel with priests, artists and other intellectuals in tow and who were not the least bit shy about sharing their information, cultural or genetic, with those they met.

While I do not see the idea of God intending humans to deify I do see how the question of persistent personality as the soul returns to God could resonate with the concept of angels. Most people confuse the concepts of angels and saints. The alternative is the idea that even if the soul persists the identity is burned off in the presence of God. The Buddhist concept of soul transmigration and extinction through nirvana is not only rooted in vedic Hinduism, itself based on a core belief in a unifying divine force in the universe, Brahma but also in Hellenistic philosophical concepts that came with Alexander's army. The Greeks knew the Jews, even if they disagreed, the Jews knew the Persians, the Persians knew the Greeks, etc. So not only was Christianity molded by Jewish, Greek and Egyptian sources but all these currents were flowing between the Mediterranean and Central to South Asia. Indeed the odd character out in all this theological ferment was Islam. They seem to have come late, heard everything second hand and gotten the important parts wrong. Perhaps trade routes had shifted and made the Hejaz into a real backwater. For those of us who enjoy making references to Tolkien's ainur (vala or maia), elves and humans waiting in the Halls of Mandos this is a good time to plug in the links.

The god of Islam is like Calvin on steroids, arbitrary and angry. Only this time inconsistent, as Hasan noted capable of changing the perfect revelation to demonstrate the flawed perception and incompetence of humans. This is a god who discovers a "kangaroo straight" rule in the middle of a poker game, or boxes of ballots in the trunk of a car after an election.

-------
Habu,
(who linked to the Einstein-Freud correspondence)
Thank you for that excellent find that I intend to spend some time studying. These displaces the time I had set aside for Postmodern Pooh, really a friend gave me that. What Einstein, and maybe Freud, fail to consider at my first glance is the nature of the regimes that would constitute the prospective world government. How can a sum be any better than its' parts? The possible role of totalitarian regimes in the League, Soviet or Nazi was before them. The experience of Fascism was already ten years old but the example does not inform their discussion. Freud noted that Medieval christian nations would ally with muslim nations against other members of Christendom. He does not consider the possible effects of having the Qadis sitting in the Law Courts and the cities of Rotterdam, Milan and Manchester occupied by muslims.

Tea for Me

This evening I attended a Tea Party meeting in Dumbo, The location is a great bar at No. 1 Front Street that has a perfect upstairs room. The place is one block from the old Fulton ferry landing which is one of my favorite places in NY. Bargemusic is on the water, great ice-cream is on the landing, the River Cafe is there, Pete’s is across the parking lot from the RC, along with Grimaldi’s outrageously expensive pizza and a couple of other good places right there. Getting there via the People’s Urban Transit System (it’s the PUTS) means taking the A or C to High Street and walking along a busy but pedestrian unfriendly stretch along and under the BQE approach to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Dick Armey was just getting started when I arrived around 7:30. There was a good turnout, in the 50 to 60 range. Armey knows how to give a stump speech and pointed out that his current organization FreedomWorks is officially non-partisan. They just can’t seem to find any Democrats willing to agree with them but they’ll keep trying. He noted that he was an Economist by profession and added that he was a member of the Austrian school (named for Ludwig von Mises and F.A. van Hayek) so he knew what he was talking about, “unlike the Keynesians.” That made me think of Milton Friedman mentioning that an Economist is someone who knows that the government doesn’t help the overall economy but who can get the government to pay him to say it.

The crowd was worked up and eager to applaud at the mention of of the NY 23rd Congressional District race where the Conservative had a chance to win. Armey’s argument was that on many occasions the Republicans have come to the Conservatives and asked them to endorse the mainstream candidate for unity and to hold off a left wing challenge. In this case the official Republicans endorsed a closet Democrat and they should have returned the favor for prior support by endorsing the Republican.

Armey also said that he was often asked but there was no formal head of the conservative movement and we were all like Ronald Reagan’s “thousand points of light.” That made me think that the Left and their media allies are sticking close to the Alinsky playbook. The want to identify a titular head to their opposition so they can “personalize it, isolate it, and destroy it.” It frustrates them that they can not get Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Dick Armey to assume that role for them. The closest thing that I see most movement conservatives agreeing on for that role is the ghost of Ronald Reagan. While netroots movement leftists might want to run against Reagan the way earlier generations ran against the ghost of Herbert Hoover the professionals know that will not work without at least another 10 years of indoctrination to tarnish his image. This amorphous quality can be a source of protection for a minority subject to attack by students of Rules for Radicals but it has limits. It is an essentially defensive posture and lacks the staying power to roll back an opposing force or to maintain a focus on developing specific responses to anticipated challenges.

Hierarchical, formal and disciplined organizations can accomplish more, as any military veteran knows. The key is to have cadres so well trained and reliable that they have the flexibility to disperse and regroup. New technologies will give potential leaders of a movement like the Tea Parties the capacity to exchange ideas, formulate policy, and rally the troops on short notice. In theory the left pioneered this but the reality is that the independence of the netroots was always a sham. They have always proven to be a shell funded by and controlled by a tight inner core.

The next speaker was the newly installed head of the NY Republican Party, Ed Cox. He started out by declaring that the selection of Scozzafava happened before his watch, he opposed it and there would be a real Republican running to take the seat back in 2010. He then predicted that the party would gain 5 seats in NY. This warmed the crowd. He briefly reviewed the gains from last weeks election in Westchester, Nassau and upstate in Erie. He disputed the claim that it was just anti-incumbency by pointing out that a Conservative Republican won reelection in Rockland County, despite the edge Democrats had in voter registration. His next theme was that the Democrats had total control of the entire state government and this would prove a disaster for them. He described the sorry state of NY politics by saying that the Governor was a lame duck who had been undermined by the President of his own party and who therefor was unable to govern effectively. The Democratic head of the State Senate was mired in scandal, he used the word “corrupt” and had no influence or credibility. “Three men in a room has become one man in a room. Who voted for Sheldon Silver, a few thousand people in lower Manhattan across the bridge here? Who said that they get to run all of NY State?”

After Mr Cox there were a few brief words from Andrew Ian Dodge of the Main Tea Party who introduced a musical interlude and then a gentleman seeking support for the farmers of California’s Central Valley who have had their access to water cut off by environmental regulators seeking to protect a fish called the Delta Smelt. The cause merits investigation and their website is http://www.savingthevalley.org. My take is that this sounds like another set up from the Alinsky book. The Democratic Party is deeply tied to policies, like Cap and Trade, and ideological positions depending on acceptance of Global Climate Change as settled fact. The shaky basis of the science involved is papered over by bullying and appeals to authority. Billions of dollars are at stake for General Electric and other backers of the Democratic Party. A crises is being fomented to make the opponents of the party appear as unflattering as possible. It would not surprise me if someone like Rahm Emanuel sees the economic destruction of the traditionally conservative farm communities as positive outcome.

It was a pleasure meeting Mr Dodge, who regularly contributes to Theo Spark’s virtual spud farm. He pointed out to me that there are about 30 core bloggers on the right who have known each other for 7 to 10 years, an eternity in cyber time. He made me promise to write up the evening on my blog. Almost half the crowd was still there when I left after an hour and a half to see to my four footed friend. They were doing the sensible thing, socializing, networking and maybe even planning future meetings. It was a good crowd with friendly professionals including some charming ladies.

Remembrance

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
Never forget.
The Commonwealth countries call the day "Remembrance Day."
Veterans Day.
Tomorrow visit a VA home or cemetery.
Remember.
It is remembering that is what makes us human and alive.
My grandfather was wounded at Château-Thierry.
He died before my mother get married.
I never met him but I remember.
The Marines at Château-Thierry fought in the Belleau Wood.
The French gave them the sobriquet "Devil Dogs."
I served on the USS Belleau Wood.
No one crawls out from a rock and says that we owe them an apology for living in America.

More On Gödel and God

(fm the BC thread "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism")

Good work on this thread, especially marymcl.

Limpet6,
Very nice, one question though, was Aquinas asserting the limits of human perception or justifying claims of omnipotent authority buttressed by not only scripture but prior authority, in the form of Aristotle? My theory is moving towards the view that the Medieval to pre-Reformation Church responded to the threat of Islam in part by internalizing some of the enemies perceived strengths. These included a sense of certitude or even fatalism in the face of death and an inescapable authority for those empowered to interpret textual dogma. While we may now say that over time those qualities doomed Islam to fall behind the West in innovation and combative skill that was not so clear to those manning the walls of Constantinople, the Emperor begged his priests to rule that a soldier killed in battle was guaranteed Paradise and they refused, or battling both moslem corsairs, waves of barbarian invasions and successive outbreaks of heresy, such as the Cathars. The Reformation and the Enlightenment, despite subsequent Relativism, saved Western Civilization from that trap.

Mark,
Two Truths
Nice model. Leftists like John Edwards have refined that to "Two Nations" and ultimately Two Moralities.

Comments on The Belmont Club "Frame 2"

toad,
(who questioned the casting of Natalie Portman in "V")
'Cause she's hawt.

If one of our less theoretical friends walked into Chris Matthews studio and ... Best not to continue that hypothetical except to note that the most galling thing about him and similar enablers of weakness before the thugs and terrorists is also their greatest vulnerability before the public. They are hypocrites. They know that the $35,000/yr security guard will be there to protect them.

The simpler answer is that there are multiple levels of framing available. A citizen is allowed to shoot his mouth off with other citizens with impunity but cannot engage in planning an actual criminal act without facing liability. They must also be aware that if they associate with another person, giving aid and support, and then that person engages in a criminal act there is the possibility that they could face a conspiracy charge. The right of a citizen to contact a foreign national is significant but not absolute. Just as the passport is the property of the United States and the government has the right to restrict travel to Cuba or North Korea the government has the right to restrict communication with foreign persons.

For a member of the armed services and particularly for an officer there are additional restrictions. Contacting foreign persons or entities, particularly those designated as hostile or of concern to counter-intelligence, without prior notification to senior authority or designated offices may violate security regulations. That can lead to charges under the UCMJ. So yes Mr clueless Matthews calling al-Qaeda can be against the law. People like Chris Matthews should be publicly pilloried, challenged, harangued, denigrated, destroyed, discredited and unemployed. They are public trolls and cannot be simply ignored.

It is often said that the problem isn't that we need new laws but that we need to enforce the laws we have.

Anything that blurs the line between State and Non-State actors should be fought. In this our commentator HEPT seems to get it wrong. The problem isn't that Obama is pushing a failed Westphalian model but that he and the Left have been enabling the proxies and gangs that give the plausibility to plausible deniability. The problem with failed states like Somalia, and potentially Afghanistan and Pakistan. Is that they do not face the consequences that failure demands under the Westphalian model. They should be formally occupied and the population convinced that failure to abide by international norms has real and painful consequences, like having to be polite to overseas missionaries on pain of death. Even Iraq was restored to sovereignty to fast.

The British have to make the decision, are the Midlands Muslims a law enforcement problem or are they a rebellious army in league with a foreign power?

-------
We need James Jesus Angleton now more than ever.

We need to stop the Sulzbergers, the Immelts, the Moonveses, the Igers and the Pritzkers of America. They must be stripped of their last pennies and tossed onto the road.

What is wrong with these people? Can't they see how undermining the American system increases the danger of attack, weakens the rule of law, and increases the risk of bigoted backlash? Employing people like Chris Matthews now is like running into a crowded theater with a molotov cocktail and a match.

This has nothing to do with supporting liberal causes and voting to improve health care for some poor kids.

Prior Knowledge

(fm the BC thread "Twenty years after the End of History")

wws,
While the threat of a rogue nuke is real there are efforts to counter that, including the use of dosimeters by cargo inspectors both at the border and increasingly at the overseas point of embarkation. As this document indicates all CBP officers are walking alarms insofar as they wear dosimeters. In addition a search on cbp.gov for "radiation" will give more information on efforts to counter a known threat.

Do not neglect the very real threat that would be caused by less dramatic but still extremely disruptive attacks using simpler technology. The purpose of a terror attack is to induce terror and only secondarily to achieve the widespread physical damage caused by a nuclear blast.

A Dirty Bomb radiological device that is constructed from medical waste and ANFO (like the Oklahoma City bomb) could contaminate and more importantly shut down all economic activity in an effected area for weeks. Postal workers refused to work in a building that had handled the anthrax letters. The implications that targeting critical nodes could have on the economy are serious.

Some decades ago I believe that ABC TV had a special on a hypothetical terror attack using a refined petroleum (gasoline) tanker that entered NY harbor and emptied its cargo into the East River just below the Brooklyn Bridge. The result was a combustible slick in a confined space between a major population center and the financial district, then less populated than it is now. The ship itself would have been converted in the process of emptying its cargo into a more lethal trigger filled with a highly volatile gas vapor. In effect it would become a poor man's nuclear bomb.

For more on the concern that people had with the threat before 9-11 my advice is to read this, http://tinyurl.com/yfl9h9c. The 376 pages are worth your time and it is still useful. We knew the issues and were working the problem. The media and the Democrats working together to lull America back to sleep and give us Obama is all the more inexcusable.

More on "Twenty years after the End of History"

(fm the BC thread)

Alexis,
What should one do if one discovers that one or two of the heroes of early American history who are written of in worshipful tones in history texts just happen to have been cruel, unsavory, and bloodthirsty monsters?

You work very hard to be very credible and earn respect so that your work can be fairly received and the flaws of the messengers of the past are not conflated with the worth of the messages that are relied upon to build a society with more wealth, creativity, liberty, safety and justice than have ever existed for so many in all of human history.

Mr. X,
(who is a Kremlin apologist or agent)

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Your Masters may have over reached and "woken up a sleeping giant and filled it with a terrible resolve."

This Gives Me Hope

There is a spirit in America. Don't mess with the US. Don't mess with us.
The arrogant, self indulgent and destructive will be taken taken down.
Those that live by the Audacity of Hope to street hustle themselves past any consequences for their conduct and to justify taking what others have earned through honest labor will be humbled.

On Bottom Blow and Inspections

(fm the BC thread "Dissent is the highest form ...")

Old Salt,
wish we would have met. But – if you were an inspecting officer
Funny you mentioned that. When my less than stellar LPO brought the sailor in question to my stateroom he introduced him by saying "Mr Y wants to talk to you about something called Bottom Blow." Another candidate for the Boatswains Mate Diplomatic Service. Ah, Deck Division. All the stories are true. I was never the inspecting officer but was rather inspected when Reftra or the dreaded Quadrennial came to call. Senior officers talked about ADM Buckley of INSURV as "the little admiral who jumped on the lifelines" with awe, the same way my parents talked about Fiorello Laguardia, as if he might still show up at any moment.

My favorite inspection story is from my first ship. My Department Head explained that we would set up two tables. The closer one had piles of donuts and pots of coffee. The second one had all the paperwork for Combat Systems. With luck they would barely glance at table number two. Along with the world's worst missile system, the Rube Goldberg BPDSMS (pronounced Beepadeemus) that preceded Nato Sea Sparrow, I had a fan room just aft of the forward missile launcher below the bridge on the LHA. When the Admiral came to inspect I had my best Petty Officer waiting for him. My job was to stand there and shut up.
"Son is this your space?"
"Yes Admiral."
"Do you know what is wrong in here?"
"Uhh, yes Admiral."
"Am I going to find it?"
"NO Admiral."
"Good."

Comment on The Belmont Club "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"

Honesty always struck me as a good management policy. That often includes care not to blindside your boss, no one likes a surprise, and thorough documentation to cover your 6.

My biggest headache was a sailor who kept going over the hill, Unauthorized Absence (UA), but came back just before the book said we could call it Desertion. As someone once explained to me the rules are written so that if he is caught wearing black socks his lawyer can argue that he intended to return. He was making no money but his file was a mess. I called him into my "office" and explained to him that every time he ran away we had to tear up the old paperwork to get rid of him and start over. He said that no one had ever explained that to him before and then the following conversation happened.
"Do you want to get out of the Navy?"
"Yes"
"I have a secret for you. The Navy doesn't like you either. We want to get rid of you."
"You do?"
"In fact I can promise you that if you just sit tight and don't cause me any trouble I can get you out within a month."
"You can?"
"Is it a deal?"
"Yes Sir"

He stayed on the ship for the first leg of our deployment between San Diego and Pearl Harbor so I got to use him for a training exercise. We had the 3rd Class Midshipmen (College Freshmen from the Academy) on board for their Summer Cruise. My orders were "Make sure they don't get hurt." The 3rd Class get to play and dress like enlisted members and the 1st class get to dress and be treated like officers. The troops were told that they were all to be treated carefully and legally they rank between a Chief Warrant Officer (Tells God what to do in the Navy) and an Ensign.

What I did was have my Chief assemble them on the Fo'c'sle, up at the pointy end of the cruiser where we kept animals like the Wildcat, which I owned as the ship's First Lieutenant Afloat/Deck Division officer, and had my Leading Petty Officer, who was no good but I digress, fetch my soon to be discharged problem child. He introduced himself by saying "Hi I'm Seaman X and I'm what you call a dirtbag. Mr Y wanted me to tell you how to deal with a guy like me." He was absolutely honest with them and I had not a speck of trouble out of him after that until we could get him off the ship and out of the Service in a couple of weeks.

Darren,
Well said, I am surprised that Walter Reed did not inflate his file with more junkets and special classes to keep him out of their hair. That indicates to me that he was so bad that they were afraid to let anybody even see him. You always send all your stars off for special assignments. Evelyn Waugh has one officer say it was going to be a hell of a war when all the shit came back from special training with promotions.

Evanston2,
When I was on ACDUTRA in Munich I had to participate in a mandatory post Tailhook flagellation session. Your analysis is on target. There is no surprise in how we ended up here. Just to make whiskey feel better he can look up the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service (DACOWITS) process. My ship, the LHA not the CG, was used as a prop for an awards ceremony where we had to line up and smile as they gave an award to a female Personnel Support Detachment officer from Adak. Discipline held, barely.

Old Salt,
Did I ever inflict myself on your command? We hope that the core remains sound and The Service can get past this. The Surface Navy faced serious problems 20 years ago and now that it is half the size it was then there is less room to hide problems. Gresham's Law takes over and the bad drive out the good.

Comment on The Belmont Club "Twenty years after The end of history"

Sources matter. In politics as in police work you often have to deal with unsavory characters and sift their words. Granted that broken watches will be correct twice a day. Still it is important not to seek out the bank robber for advice when considering one's options on crafting an interest rate policy or the pederast when evaluating your options for a Summer camp for children. Seymour Hersh is no damn good. Everything that he says may be correct but I decline to allow him to bull his way into my intellectual life. Richard Perle was right, the man is "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist." Wretchard is there a bell I can ring so that a servant will come and haul him out of The Club?

On Gödel and God

(fm the BC thread "Frame")

Bob Murphy and Charles,
Gödel’s Theorem relates to my interest in the flawed nature of God as portrayed by Islam and how it differs from the Jewish concept. In Islam everything there is to know was comprehended by a human being and was set down as understood by him or was demonstrated by his example. Nothing more is to be learned and nothing can be changed. Full Stop. In Judaism, and Christianity and every other faith system that I know of, God is by definition beyond the comprehension of the bounded human system.

We can comprehend principles and rules for guiding our life but can never be so arrogant as to think that we can bind that which is greater. There may be other answers or future answers to be revealed to other people. In Judaism that is partly expressed in the belief that while Jews have a true revelation and an obligation to act ethically as witnesses before the nations they do not deny that God can speak to others each in their own way. That makes it reasonable that Jews are reluctant to proselytize. For even if others are by some standard in error they are also part of a greater plan, bringing part of infinite complexity and wisdom into the world. Who would be so arrogant as to tell God that he is doing it wrong?

War Movies

(from the BC thread "Frame")

The movie used when I was at Navy OCS to illustrate the ideal officer was 12 O'Clock High. Interestingly Gregory Peck was one of the few people on the set who was not himself a veteran.

First impressions are so important.


Dave and geoffgo,
When I was at Chicago there was a man working for the university's Plant Department (not Botany but the campus engineering) whose license plate read "IA DRANG." We talked once, he was a fine gentleman.


buddy larsen,
The Chief of the Zulus in the film was the actual Chief Buthelezi who is the head of the Inkatha Freedom Party and a rival to the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela.


What makes me want to weep is knowing that the great-great grandchildren of the men of Roark's Drift portrayed in Zulu, the great-grandchildren of the men who endured at the Somme, the grandchildren of the men who came back from Dunkirk, have it in them to triumph over any threat and won't. They are throwing it all away.

Karen Yvonne,
I grew up reading Three Came Home. Decency is a matter of both inner values and outer action.

Taqqiya House

(fm the BC thread "Frame")
Josh,
complaining and insult are cultural art forms ... not to mention outright lying
Just thought of a reality TV idea for a Middle East network. Taqqiya House. The contestants all compete to see who can tell the most creative, outlandish, abusive and successful lies to achieve fame fortune and power. They are followed on their adventures by hidden camera. The winner gets a graft ready job in the host countries Ministry for Industrial Development to the cheers of their entire clan.

Comment on Theo Spark: Now That's Rocket Science.......

Theo Spark: Now That's Rocket Science.......


1. You missed a spot.
2. = ?
3. ⇒ and then a miracle occurred ⇒
4. Here love I'll clean this up for you. slosh slosh
5. Excuse me Sir, do you know what's for lunch?

Comments on The Belmont Club "Frame"

The size of the frame should depend on the consequences of error. The Constitution specifies that congressional apportionment be based on the actual decennial census of persons present. The Fourteenth Amendment in part reads

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

The Left has tried for years to replace the actual head count with statistical sampling and failed. What they have noticed is that the text apportions according to persons and not citizens, only reducing the allotment for citizens unfairly denied the vote. So they are seeking to increase the representation of left leaning districts by increasing the presence of illegal immigrants and hiring fraud prone partisans to conduct the Census.

For a criminal legal case the bar should also be set high. To put someone's life and liberty at risk because of testimony that other persons in similar circumstances had carried a volume of drugs is very close to assigning collective guilt. That is not to say that I am opposed to circumstantial evidence. That is used with expert testimony all the time to get a conviction. Fingerprints are circumstantial evidence that someone was present. In the drug case an experienced investigator could testify that the mule had possessions that were consistent with carrying a volume of drugs. If they had carried internally then a physician might testify to the condition of their digestive organs regarding the probable volume carried. Still if the evidence is not there then the government should not just make it up. Sometimes you have to let the bad guy go and keep an eye on them.

For civil cases the standards are lower. The slippery slope of using statistical evidence to shape a legal case and subsequent public policy goes back to Brown v Board of Education. The argument that separate was not and could not be equal that was relied on by the Court to reverse Plessy v Ferguson depended on psychological studies such as the "doll test" that are subject to criticism.


The Halls of Montezuma could not stretch its frame beyond the experience of its crew and audience. What it shared with The Adventures of Robin Hood was a common culture shared by the audience that believed in the essential rightness of a system of liberty and law and the sovereign right of a free people to defend that. The film about the more mythical past could affirm the justice of fighting for the Rights of Englishmen, using Robin and King Richard as archetypes without considering their real characters.

To some extent that is always true and every portrayal of the past says more about the present. The Iliad tells us more about early Iron Age Hellenic Civilization then it does the Mykenaean warriors that sacked Troy. Yet it does carry the memory of Bronze Age individual combat into a tale told by Bards to an audience focused on the themes of Honor and Pride.
As the Editor said in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, "This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."


bogie wheel,
Concur with your analysis and Walt’s list.

Add:
In Which We Serve
They Were Expendable

She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
Das Boot


-------
Not a Leatherneck but I did drive the USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) so that should make me a Devil Dog.
Happy Birthday to all and theirs.

For those who want a good under noticed anti-war film I recommend Sidney Lumet's The Hill (1965), starring Sean Connery.


Both versions of Henry V are worth watching and Battleground was brilliant. When I was at OCS the Chaplain who gave us the lecture on their role specifically disavowed the idea that they would preside over services for another faith.

Our National Health

Some things are better listened to than watched. I have been following the Health Care debate on streaming audio. This is a Saturday Night Special. They want to Rahm this bill through while America isn't watching. The Health Care Bill, dishonestly advanced, is the US version of the European Union super government treaty & Regulators dream constitution.

-------
Stupak passed, it is a fig leaf on abortion so the Democrats can pass government control of Health Care. Any protection it offers will vanish later. Now they get to shut down the Republican alternative.

-------
This is like watching a great and noble beast die. The small and mean striking for crippling to kill America. Barbarians in marble halls.

Comment on The New Ledger "How the Fort Hood Shooter Will be Judged"

What would be appropriate for a POTUS to say without interfering
     with the trial?
1. He can praise the fallen, their honor and sacrifice and the ideals they
     died for.
2. He can praise the Constitution, the American system of law and justice
     that they swore to defend.
3. He can praise the healing nature and essential goodness of our culture
     as a source of hope for all.
4. He can quote sources of our culture, the Old and New Testaments and
     Pericles Funeral Oration.
5. He can cite other tough moments when our sense of justice was tested
     but triumphed.
6. He can assure all that justice will be done.

Prescott Bush's Grandson Does Right

We had class and we now have trash. Compare this to Mr Shout Out

Former President George W. Bush and his wife Laura secretly visited Fort Hood last night and spent "considerable time" consoling those who were wounded in Thursday's shooting spree, Fox News has learned.

The Bushes entered and departed the sprawling military facility in secret, having told the base commander they did not want press coverage of their visit, a source told Fox News.

The couple was described as "deeply concerned" about military families on Fort Hood after Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire on soldiers and civilians, killing 13 and wounding 38.

The Bushes, who have a 1,600-acre property known as Prairie Chapel Ranch less than 30 miles from Fort Hood in central Texas, spent between one and two hours visiting the wounded and their families.

BTW, everyone know that the "Medal of Honor" winner that was more important to Obama than the soldiers at Fort Hood, wasn't? Not only did the clueless wonder misname it as the Congressional Medal but in fact the object of the Shout Out was not even a MoH recipient.

Field Grade

(fm the BC thread "Physician heal thyself")

ipw533,
(who professed shock that Hasan was a Major)
Remember that physicians start as Captains (O-3) so making Major means one promotion after receiving his medical license. If as I believe he went through the Uniformed College of the Health Sciences to get his degree then his time at the O-1 and O-2 ranks of 2LT and 1LT were spent as a student. Bad as he was it is hard to miss those promotions.

At one time almost all doctors in America spent time as Residents in the military or VA systems and most had some prior contact with the military. That is no longer true and the armed services have to compete with other sources of scholarship funding for potential doctors. It is very hard for the DoD to get doctors, compare the income of a civilian Cardiologist with 10 years experience and an active duty LT Colonel (O-5), even with bonuses it is a hard sell. For the lower paid specialty of Psychiatrist it might be easier to recruit. The DoD wants more minority doctors, for legitimate or at least defensible reasons, and given the outside opportunities they find it very hard to recruit them. We should stop paying people to stay out of the military.

It is easy to understand how eager the system was to recruit Hasan and how hard it as to give up on him. My biggest surprise is that his record does not include more classes, junkets and ego stroking rewards for showing up. Still I would haul the person who signed his last promotion before a green table and ask some awkward questions.

"Thaksin on a mission to humiliate Thai government"

There is evidence for those who need it that the world does not stop while we navel gaze.

Britain, Germany and other countries have barred Thaksin, but there were no shortage of others willing to accept his investment offers and hand over new passports, including Nicaragua and Montenegro.

Thaksin posts photos of his travels on Facebook. Recent snapshots show him golfing in Brunei and Dubai, inspecting diamond mines in South Africa, sipping coffee in a private jet and meeting prime ministers or presidents on trips to Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives.

Investment in diamond and gold sectors have led Thaksin to Liberia, Uganda and Swaziland,

This could be serious, from the list of his sponsors and his present dealing with Hun Sen in Cambodia I suspect a Chinese connection. The thought of China getting control over Thailand and a choke hold on the sea lanes while America sleeps must be of grave concern to Japan.

Comments on The Belmont Club "Physician heal thyself"

Remember that you can now demand support to practice Satanism in the UK armed forces and ask for a symbol of Wicca on an American VA headstone. So the issue is not Islam or any single belief system. The point is that there is no evaluation system at all. Maybe the wicca are fine and loyal, maybe some muslims are and others are not. What has happened is that a screen has been arbitrarily drawn around some actions and motives if they are declared religious and they cannot be questioned. What makes this doubly unsustainable is not only does it not work but it is also arbitrary and hypocritical.

Every now and then the KKK and Neo-nazis crawl out and try to get recognized as just another faith group. They get reliably slapped down. The problem is that everyone knows that if they weren't a small group of losers, if they were instead a growing menace tied to wealthy overseas interests and had a reputation for effectively using violence (in the last 75 years, maybe Robert Byrd did defang them) then their pretensions would receive a more respectful hearing.

-------
Tcobb,
(who implied that muslims need to get ready for a Day of Reckoning)

To AZM Why is your problem my problem?
Because it is your problem and mine. Because we as a nation get to decide who is in it, and those rules need to get enforced, but we as individuals can only act to protect ourselves not to sequester and attack other citizens who have not done harm. If I encounter a jihadi committing violence then I will feel called upon to stop him. If I encounter someone attempting to commit violence on a child because of who that child's father is then I will feel called on to stop him. We can discuss what our immigration policies should be. We can discuss what our standards for background investigations and security checks should be. We can discuss how loyal members of the muslim community can do more to confront and expel threats from their community and prove themselves as valuable to the American nation, as citizens of Japanese and German heritage did in WW-II. We cannot reasonably discuss whether someone who is not a threat should face private violence.

-------
Loyalty must be made a virtue. You get what you pay for. Why are there scholarship programs that do not demand military service? Why is there only a 5 point bonus for some veterans for some Civil Service jobs? Why is anybody allowed to vote or serve on a jury who is not an honorably discharged veteran, or reservist, or an officer serving during war or for temporary training? Why does anybody get to vote for a branch of government that pays over half of their income? Why does anybody get to vote who is a financial dependent?

-------
Tcobb,
We are talking past each other I fear. My point was that as a private citizen you should be free to like or do business with whoever you please to but that your words had edged unfortunately close to a call for actions that may only be legitimate when considered by a sovereign government that represents the collective will of a free citizenry. The question of whether you can put a sign outside your house declaring it a "muslim free zone" or judenrein may be worth considering under the restriction on fighting words and verbal assaults but I would give you wide latitude to be an obnoxious curmudgeon if you so choose. Ideally if you discriminate against your innocent neighbors then others will think less of you and your business will suffer. I do not believe that the government should support any such discrimination but given that I do believe that the government should, except in cases of 2nd Amendment extremis, have a monopoly on the use of force it has the theoretical power to enact a policy of internment or deportation that no private person can attempt. We do not want a Bad Day at Black Rock.


I agree with marymcl that the muslim community has a heavy responsibility for the way that they are perceived. My words regarding every man's responsibility to defend the innocent, especially if things get critical, from private violence stand and I would think better of you if you supported them.

The Leisure to Politic

On the closed downstream thread "Fort Hood" wretchard noted that the unemployed do have the luxury of time while the employed are often limited to contributing a cheque. The argument for aristocratic government was that wisdom comes from having the time to contemplate a situation and the leisure to study subjects like history or theology. That is why Jefferson wanted a government ruled by a Whig ascendency of gentleman farmers supported by sturdy yeomen neighbors. Unemployment may make your time constraints more flexible but it does not fit the needs of conservative political action for, wait for it, three reasons.

1) Effective activity takes money, such as for travel etc.
2) Conservatives do not trust or support the unemployed. It feels like
     having a prostitute offer you counsel on Virtue.
3) Networking to get a job and to advance a cause conflict and more so
     for Conservatives than the Left.

If I had the money I would love to run for office. The fact is that most Republicans around here get 20-30% of the vote. To do it as a vanity project is wasteful. Most candidates are either very young resume builders or retirees with an axe to grind. They put their names out and pray but do not commit the time energy and resources needed to seriously compete. To run for City Council would mean starting now and devoting two years to getting to know every constituent, community group, church, synagogue or temple, with at best one chance in 3 of success if the resources expended are vast. To run for Congress would be even harder and more expensive, easily in the millions, with less probability of victory. And that is despite the fact that large numbers of individuals are repelled by the cynical fraud of the left and would love to hear an appeal to the image of America that they or their parents came to NY believing in.

Comment on Theo Spark: "A Shout Out"

Getting it wrong. The idiot does not even know that it is NOT the "Congressional" but simply the Medal of Honor.

There is something very unnatural about Barack Obama. Unfortunately one psychiatrist with the medical training and the cultural familiarity with Islamic education is not available at the moment to comment on this.

A Gathering Storm

(fm the BC thread "Fort Hood")

whiskey,
Regarding Sam Grant, "one of the most mild, “un-political” Presidents" seems a fair evaluation. What I remember from his memoirs was the lyrical beauty of his description of Mexico and his principled opposition to the Mexican war. Last year the NY Historical Society had a wonderful exhibition on Grant and Lee that included their student artwork from West Point.

We may avoid being eaten by demagogues. The next Sam Grant or Abe Lincoln, or to be fair to the Democrats Harry Truman or Jack Kennedy, possessed of both partisan zeal and love of country, awareness of larger threats in the world and respect for the individual citizen, a capacity to act and faith in the Constitution, may be with us in the Club.

wretchard,
how could the German people be so stupid as to elect Adolf Hitler?

One consequence of the coarsening of public discourse engaged in by extremists is that it lowers expectations. Everyone who fell under Hitler's spell stated that the first thing that struck them was how mild mannered and reasonable he was. By screaming that all conservatives beginning with the entertainer Rush Limbaugh are really knuckle dragging monsters with blood dripping from their teeth they leave the door open for a real revolutionary to slip by. They expended enough energy in their panic to demonize Sarah Palin and can fight off the efforts of a Huckabee to slip in conservatism under the cover of populism and religion, if only because of his odd name. The risk is that someone who is really extreme and not intending to defend individual liberties will use the formula, be female or religious or quasi socialist populist, to gather support. Mussolini started on the "Left" and changed his allies but not his goals. The threat to democracy may come from someone who starts on the Left and then gathers support for a populist nationalist crusade, uniting poor whites and blacks against "the other." Fortunately John Edwards imploded but the next smooth talking wannabe demagogue is out there.

-------
Given how thin Hasan's file was, he had stayed at Walter Reed for years during a war when everyone was getting shifted around and deployed and he had little advanced training on his record, and given his documented disciplining for unprofessional conduct, most unusual for an officer to have in his file, it is clear that he was not promotable and therefore was unlikely to last until he got a pension. It surprises me that he made it as far as Major (O-4.) The Army was clearly eager to get rid of him but his connection to the transition team shows that he had what law enforcement officers call a "Rabbi" (pun intended here) so my guess is instead of pressing him to resign "For the good of the service" they shifted him off to Texas, telling him it was a "Get well tour." It would be nice if the contents of his address book giving his contacts in DC and email records came to light but I suspect that they are being scrubbed.

Nov 6, 2009 - 1:12 pm

The Honduran Termite Bores

More bad news. Zelaya: US brokered pact for Honduras fails
The Chaveztista thug refused to submit his list of names for the unity cabinet and ran out the clock. Now his enablers will refuse to recognize the November 29th elections. He has been a uniter not a divider in that it appears that a broad spectrum from the right to the left within Honduras are lining up together in opposition to him and in defense of legality.

On Trolls

(fm the BC thread "Disruption")

Sarah Palin's email was hacked by the son of a State Senator. They exist.
There are two sides to the solution.
1. Protect the forum through social and technical robustness.
2. Pursue the trolls into their lair under the bridge, lift the rocks.

The First Amendment is a restraint on government, not on private actors. You do not have a Right to Privacy to speak about me or to damage my interests. The government has a monopoly on the use of violence to settle disputes, except in very narrow circumstances. There are laws against secondary boycotts, usually violated by the Left, and civil court systems for recovering damages but no expectation that the identity, employment or place in society of an offender will be protected. The only exception to that that I am aware of would be to protect a minor. In the case of harm done by a minor those responsible as parents should face exposure and retribution.

Comment on The Belmont Club "Fort Hood"

The problem is that Anything does not Go. If you are tolerant of the intolerant then there is no reason to believe that the intolerant will be tolerant of you. In Cole Porter's fantasia the chorus dances with the Navy secure in the knowledge that the military is there to protect them and that even if the Admiral is a bluenose the troops like a good time. I will recklessly hazard a guess that none of that applied to Major Hassan. He was not there to protect the dancing girls of America.

-------
When I was on active duty it occurred to me that most people have the completely wrong idea about military installations. To the public they are teeming with people who are armed to the teeth and hard wired to super secret information systems. The reality is that access to weapons is very tightly controlled. In fact I do remember thinking "If anything happens how long would it take to get a gun?" On a ship there are firearms in the armory with the Gunners Mates and the Supply Officer has a sidearm. In port the Petty Officer of the watch wears a pistol, almost certainly unloaded. As far as access to information goes, most people are chained to their jobs and only learn what is happening after everyone else in the world. During Desert I in 1993 we watched CNN at the Naval Intel Center Suitland MD to find out if any Iraqi missiles had landed.

Evidence of Insanity

(fm the BC thread "Disruption")

Konyak,
I’m not sure why, but my first thought about the Fort Hood shootings was the treachery of Afghan policemen – turning on both American and British troops in the last week.

Karadzic wasn't the only psychiatrist to turn murderous. There is something in the training process that promotes the objectification of people to a greater extent even than shown by surgeons, and most of surgeons I met during a student job at the hospitals struck me as egomaniacal jerks.

IIRC the Intifada began with Palestinian policemen turning the guns the Israelis had given them on the Israelis who they were on joint patrol with. The British and some Americans responded by insisting that what was needed was more training for the Fatah security services and more "cooperation" from Israel. Since that has worked so well I am sure the same people have plans to train and equip the "moderates of Hamas."

Comment on The Belmont Club "Disruption"

The ability of a troll to consume bandwidth, emotional space, time and space on a page is a real threat. We need to consider the nature of the threat, what their goals are, how we can respond to protect ourselves and at the same time preserve the forum. This is going to get worse. Link this thread and the last one. The Enemy or enemies want to preempt our defenses by getting us to abandon the field, to self censor ourselves and assure them that we will not contest the battlefield of ideas or communicate with each other. Personally I would rather spend an hour arguing the virtues of German Cheese with Marie Claude than watching a troll perform onanism. We do need to remember that we come here to learn and if we seal ourselves off from intelligent disagreement then we become an echo chamber and the forum dies. That would please those who are malicious.

-------
The simply Ignore the troll argument is necessary but insufficient because the troll does occupy physical space on the screen and bandwidth that can block access. We need a technical solution to identify and sequester and then refer for blocking.

It is going to get worse. The Internet, the crown jewel of technology and the foundation of the economy of the 21st century, was just given away by Obama to international regulators. Think of Unesco and the UN Human Rights Commission being given the keys to the First Amendment and whatever business is still around for you and yours to work in in 10 years. Giving away, correction stealing, GM was a straight Chicago style payoff to supporters and given that it was an old and declining industry that was reprehensible but survivable. The loss of the Internet, the turning it over to the tender administrations of people with the moral stature of Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA, is a far more serious blow. Consider who actually built this technical marvel and who will get to control it. The Internet is largely the work of Americans and Israelis with significant help from free Chinese, English, Italians, Dutch and some Hungarian exiles. Almost the same groups created the atomic age that sustained American power and an unprecedented expansion of global wealth, health and creativity. Now the enemies of all that are being given the power to shut it all down.

Horrible news from Ft Hood. Never doubt the efficacy of prayer.

Comment on The Belmont Club "Offensive defense"

The distinction between state and non-state actors is entirely pernicious. There is nothing gained by the indulging of the proliferation of non-state actors in the field of international relations and the coddling of a perception that a state or a population can escape responsibility for the actions of people who plan or conduct attacks from its territory. Nothing has proven superior to the Westphalian System in promoting lawful relations among people, regulating violence, and ensuring accountability.

The Red Cross serves a useful purpose. Technical organizations that largely predate the United Nations serve a useful purpose. Almost everything else that exists outside of the authority of the nation-state should be abolished in the international sphere.

If a state has a functional government, if it is competent and possesses the attributes of sovereignty, and if it wishes to retain good relations with the US then it will pursue those who threaten or commit acts of violence against either the United States or US persons. The later includes both human beings, citizens, nationals or lawful residents, and corporate bodies. Any territory that does not possess such a government should be placed under Trusteeship or a similar form of administration. If a nation is competent and refuses to cooperate then our argument is with that nation and not just with the offending party.

In 2001 we requested cooperation from the Taliban, who were the de facto government of Afghanistan. If they had cooperated then the War on Terror would have been a police action. The reasons to consider ourselves in a lawful state of war with Iraq before 2003 were even more numerous. We should recognize that since 1979 we have been in a state of war with regard to Iran.

The recent conceit that legal belligerency can only exist when authorized by the United Nations, which means when Russia and China agree, is a complete inversion of what the UN and the Security Council were meant to achieve. All that the UN Charter says is that when the Big Five Powers agree then that is a fact that no small powers can refute or resist. The UN has no binding legal presence separate from the combined will of the powers of the Security Council and every country has the right to defend itself.

We should yank Philip Alston's visa and make it clear that no agent of the UN has any standing to sit in judgement of the United States.

-------
When I was a child Halloween meant going door to door collecting for UNICEF. Don’t see that anymore. My idea after 9-11 was to move the UN HQ to Governor’s Island in NY harbor. That would put almost it right in the shadow of the WTC site. The security benefits would be considerable too.

Comment on PJM, Annie Jacobsen "Federal Air Marshal on Trial for Rape in UK"

It stresses my ability to accept the implications of what Annie Jacobsen implies about conduct of the accused Air Marshall that she also implies that it was misconduct on the part of the 4 officers who remained in the bar because they allowed the woman to be escorted to her room by two law enforcement officers. What more protection would Ms Jacobsen believe to be needed, an escort by the Brigade of Guards? Whether the officer who accompanied the young woman with the accused and then departed did anything wrong by not ensuring that his colleague did not return later is possible but unlikely. Certainly I would hope that proving such in the absence of any evidence that he was part of some conspiracy should be very hard.

When joined with the Italian judgement in the renditions case this could be seen as an act of lawfare against American efforts to defend itself in the War on Terror.

The Homeland Security Commissioned Officer Corps

(from the BC thread "Past and future")

Cannoneer no. 4,
The risk of untrained vigilantes from either the left or the right is real. The 2nd Amendment does not exist to enable such organizations but those who oppose it will use such groups as fodder to attack the right to bear arms. There is a need for trained militias and locally based Sheriff/Police Auxiliaries.

My hope was that Homeland Security would become the venue for community based training in civil defense and disaster survival through a widely distributed Armory and Community College system. If retired and reserve military were offered modest pay for part time work and the opportunity to accumulate additional retirement points there could be a cadre of professional veterans raised who would be subject to discipline and aware of the constitutional issues involved. A Homeland Security Commissioned Officer Corps could also serve as an Inspectorate providing oversight to DHS agents (ICE, CBP and TSA) of the Federal government who interact with local civilians.

Comment on The Belmont Club "Past and future"

OT
I take a week off and I find the Club feeding a troll?
Do Not Feed a Troll.
Please, thank you.

I will attempt to catch up, I was busy personally dragging Mike Bloomberg over the finish line, and anyone who objects, given the alternative, can meet me in a dark alley to talk it over. His strategy appeared to be that he bought rented the SEIU/Acorn, not to have them commit fraud on his behalf but just to neutralize them so they didn't go out and do the voodoo that they do so well for the Democrats.

Now we have to live with John Liu as Comptroller, gack.

Of course this means that I am unemployed again, so maybe I should envy the troll?

My hope for Iran is that they duplicate the English Restoration, a cultural swing to secularism, good theatrical comedy and music and a big party. Can young Pahlevi play Charles II? Is there a candidate for the role of George Monck?

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buddy larsen,
Restored to life I see. Thank you for the kind words.

what organization wouldn’t benefit from additional deep knowledge and clear thought?
MiniTrue, MiniLove, Education, NPR, Congress, the keep the trolls fed and quiet Management by Feeding the crocodiles club, etc. We could add to the list. In my experience there are organizations that will hire someone like me in a very low level and non-managerial capacity to get the actual work done when doing so is a necessity in extremis but both the unproductive staff and the agency problem managerial enablers of inefficiency both feel threatened by capable competition. If I was a real Boss then people would be more comfortable and feel less threatened but my presence as a worker bee or basic supervisor can be seen as a challenge.

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Sylvia,
Is it cheaper to buy ACORN/SEIU ahead of time the way Bloomberg did?

It was certainly a rational act for him to do as a candidate. As a matter of public policy I think that so many of NY's growing problems can be traced back to George Pataki's dealing with Dennis Rivera. It is a gordian knot that ties together health care, taxation, regulation, immigration, corruption and probably other issues.

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The alternative to Ignoring is a Registration and Blocking regime. The risk of that approach is illustrated by what happened to LGF. It is easy to say that the excesses that for many of us ruined that site are due to the personal failings of the site administrator but that elides the issue. A system should be designed to avoid enabling abuse as simply as possible. Relying on the virtues of the host to exercise the banning stick in a proactive basis without altering the character of the forum demands to much of him.

The other risk though that does demand some technical answer is that trolls can flood the thread with so much compost that it becomes impossible for others to use it. There is a real risk IMHO that we might see such attacks, a poor man's Denial of Service attack, by friends of Barack. There could be technical solutions to that problem if the WordPress template supports them. Giving each user an Ignore feature to filter out screen names or ideally IP addresses should be designable. Perhaps the engine could be given a feature that limits a single poster to 3 comments every 30 minutes.

Nov 5, 2009 - 4:05 am