Infinite Monkeys
"...a sparkly blog..." - James Lileks"Read them only with extreme caution."- Hugh Hewitt
Infinite Monkeys[Book club starts here]
This is just a few pages, but it is the presupposition upon which the whole book is based. Key quotes:
"You just have to be awake to the fact that the United States is, really and truly, in a war."
"...a real, genuine, fight-to-the-death war with an enemy that numbers in the millions, though its armies are in the tens of thousands..."
Never mind that it's an undeclared war and that the enemy are almost unknowable.
I won't recap my "we are at war" skepticism here, I will simply link to this entry from our recent Monkey Fight.
Hewitt believes it should be obvious that we are at war, so instead of defending his premise for a chapter or so, he just sinks to condescending statements like, "If you are living in a different world from this one, then read science fiction. This book isn't for you. It is for serious people intent upon the duties of serious citizens." Very convincing.
I killed the other monkeys.
And ate them.
Monkey flesh does not taste like bananas. Lesson learned.
Creating your own postage stamps with murderers, spies, and stained dresses: priceless
The Daily Show's rebroadcast of the John Kerry interview aired tonight, and I had a completely different impression from last time. Oh, I still thought Jon Stewart's softballs were shameful in their sycophancy, but what impressed me even more was Kerry's total ineptitude in responding to these softballs. For example:
JS: [toungue in cheek] "Sir, I'm sorry, were you or were you not in Cambodia on Christmas Eve? They said, you said five miles, they said three."
And Kerry totally fumbles the ball. Stewart gives him a completely supportive environment in which to answer the question, and he absolutely refuses to deal with it. Didn't his staff prepare him with a "great answer" to the inevitable question? What if he'd been posed this question by Sean Hannity? Kerry just sat there and chuckled.
JK: "I'm gonna stay, laser beam focus - today I gave a speech in New York talking about the real choices. Uh, you know if you talk to - I mean, John Edwards and I have been all over this country - incidentally, I watched his announcement on your show and uh [gestures with hand]."
What in the FUCK are you talking about? Laser beam focus on WHAT?
JS: Alright, so I gotta, I gotta run through this list. Because, uh, you know, I am, uh, as any good fake journalist should do, I watch only the 24-hour cable news. This is what I learn about you through the cable news. Please refute, if you will. Are you the number one most liberal Senator in the Senate?
JK: No.
JS: Okay.
JK: You happy with that?
JS: Yeah, I'm pretty happy with that.
Alright, so Stewart once again gives him an environment where ANY answer will be accepted, and his answer is ... "No." Did he even TELL his campaign staff that he was going on the show?
JS: Are you, or have you ever, flip-flopped?
JK: I've flip-flopped, flap-flipped, done a little...
WHAT????
At this point, Stewart realizes that his man isn't stepping up to the plate, and starts just handing him answers.
The Democrats have to be even more disappointed that this aired in the same week as their uber-candidate, Bill Clinton, also appeared on The Daily Show. Talk about a contrast. These guys deserve to lose. President Bush is weak in so many areas, and the Democrats field THIS guy?
Dude, if that post title brought you here via a BFL headline feed, consider this a warning sign.
Only in the South does something like this happen.
(hat tip: Amy from work, an embarrassed Georgian)
Evangelical Outpost is answering Baptists' questions in the mailbag this week. Like Joe, I now attend a wonderful PCA church and am a recovering baptist.
The letters talk about alcohol and other fun Baptist rules, and reminded me of these two classics:
Q: Why can't Baptists have sex standing up?
A: It leads to dancing.
Q: Why should you always invite two Baptists when you go fishing?
A; Because if you only invite one, he'll drink all of your beer.
I think there's one glaring oversight in Joe's post, though: The first writer should back-burner his concern about alcohol and deal with the glaring sin of watching and rooting for the Dallas Cowboys. [shudder]
Well, I just finished Hugh Hewitt's new book, which I read with pen in hand. As I have time over the next several weeks, I'm going to blog my impressions, one chapter at a time. I am not going to quote the book profusely (you'll have to get your own copy), but I will attempt to give page numbers so others can follow along and offer their own commentary.
Let's all chat about the book, shall we? Make sure you use Trackback for each chapter so everyone will be able to find your comments. If you're not using Moveable Type, send us an e-mail and we'll post your URL in our comments section.
Before I start my chapter-by-chapter rantings, I'll give a brief review of the book as a whole:
On the one hand, the book is infuriating, because it reinforces everything I hate about contemporary politics, particularly the two-party stranglehold on real debate. However, it is also an excellent (and candid) primer on exactly how the parties think about and manipulate the electorate. For Hewitt (and virtually all politicians), job one is winning and expanding the power of the party. The sooner we all realize that, the better - neither party cares about our well being, except as a means to the expansion of its own power.
Of course, you may think expansion of major party power is a good thing, and if you do, this book gives very pragmatic advice on how to accomplish that goal. Hewitt honestly believes our lives depend on Republican victory, and for forty chapters (don't worry - the book's only 220 pages, not counting appendices) he explains numerous ways that victory can be secured. Of course, there's no reason to believe that the advice is not also quite useful to Democrats - the names of the issues change, but the strategies don't.
For Libertarians, Independents, Greens, and disillusioned former participants in the political system, this book can be useful as a wake-up call - not to embrace the tactics of the major parties, but to understand them so that we can expose them and reject them. More than half of the eligible voters in this country never bother to vote. Even if nobody from the majors defects, if only a healthy minority of the non-voters could be motivated to stand up and reject the status quo by voting for ANYBODY else, in this age of slim-margin elections and narrow pluralities, perhaps the important issues will get some discussion.
Or perhaps I'm too optimistic. In either case, buy (or borrow) the book and understand what you mean to the major parties.
A lot of the media elite act as if the Swift Boat issue is a sideline to the "real issues" of the campaign. They are following Kerry's lead in this, and I can't remember an election in my lifetime that didn't have a similar refrain from whichever candidate wanted to change the subject.
But if the "real issue" of the campaign is the litany we heard over and over again at the convention "stronger at home, respected in the world," isn't it reasonable to ask if we can trust someone who said that American soldiers had "randomly shot at civilians," "cut off limbs, blown up bodies," and "razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Ghengis Khan"?
Yes, that was a long time ago, but he hasn't repudiated it. Is this the sort of person who will raise our respect in the world, or who really cares about it?
Monkey Ben sez: "...I'd simply point out that the American Founders sought independence from Great Britian because they were denied their basic rights as citizens. The South seceded because it didn't like the results of a fair election."
In refutation, I offer this link to an article by Thomas DiLorenzo, where he quotes liberally from James McPherson's "What They Fought For: 1861-1865". Notable excerpts:
McPherson surveyed thousands of letters and diaries of U.S. and Confederate soldiers to discern what they believed they were fighting for, as expressed in letters home to family and friends. Confederate soldiers, he concluded, "fought for liberty and independence from what they regarded as a tyrannical government." The letters of the Confederate soldiers "bristled with the rhetoric of liberty and self-government," wrote McPherson, and they also expressed a fear of being "subjugated" and "enslaved" by a despotic central government.[Ad hominem attack on DiLorenzo and/or McPherson in 3...2...1...]Many Confederates thought of the war as a "Second War for American Independence."
...
This was recognized by opposing soldiers. "We are fighting for the Union . . . a high and noble sentiment," wrote an Illinois officer, but "They are fighting for independence and are animated by passion and hatred against invaders."
...in the 1860s the entire world knew that in his first inaugural address Abraham Lincoln pledged his support for a constitutional amendment that had just passed both the House and the Senate that would have forbidden the federal government from ever interfering in Southern slavery. The whole world also knew that in that same address he threatened a military invasion of any state that failed to collect the newly-doubled federal tariff. The states that seceded did not intend to collect the U.S. government’s tariff and send the money to Washington, D.C., so Honest Abe kept his word and waged total war on fellow citizens for four years, killing some 300,000 of them, including one of four men of military age and tens of thousands of civilians. Lincoln’s dreamy-eyed and a-historical talk about a perpetual union was all a smokescreen for his imperialistic war.
...
Had America ended slavery peacefully – as dozens of other countries, including the British, French, Spanish, Danish, and others did in the nineteenth century, none of this would have happened. The ex-slaves would have integrated into society much sooner and southern race relations would not have been poisoned for generations.
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!"
Yaaaaahhhh!
That is good. That is good.
I love The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but last night's love-fest with John Kerry was just nauseating. If you've swallowed poison, you may want to watch the video in order to induce vomiting.
Alice Cooper tells the Canadian press this about the rockers campaigning for Kerry:
To me, that's treason. I call it treason against rock 'n' roll because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics. When I was a kid and my parents started talking about politics, I'd run to my room and put on the Rolling Stones as loud as I could. So when I see all these rock stars up there talking politics, it makes me sick. If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal.Besides, when I read the list of people who are supporting Kerry, if I wasn't already a Bush supporter, I would have immediately switched. Linda Ronstadt? Don Henley? Geez, that's a good reason right there to vote for Bush.
There's something odd about the plane crashes in Russia. The press coverage is cautious, and something just doesn't feel, uh, "terrorismy" about it.
I remember a great story about Chuck Yeager taking off from a small airport once, and having engine trouble and almost crashing. It turned out the young man who had refueled his plane had used the wrong kind of fuel for that plane type, and was devastated at almost killing the great Yeager.
Yeager, of course, insisted that he didn't want the kid fired, and in fact, wanted him to refuel his plane again--he knew that it was a mistake that would not be made again.
All this leads me around to this: was there some kind of screw-up at the Russian airport from which both of these planes departed?
For those of you who, like me, have been confused about various people wearing plastic yellow wristbands but nervous about asking because you thought you would be asked to join a cult, here's the scoop.
More proof that I am certifiably insane and not to be trusted:
I am on a major Panda Express kick. In the last week, I've probably eaten there five times. I can't really explain why, but I think I can go part way by saying this: My affection for Panda Express is like my affection for Jack in the Box tacos. It's not really Chinese food, but whatever it is, I like it.
And no, they're not a customer. I just like 'em. Despite the fact that I ate there for lunch, I'm getting ready to try to talk my family into eating there tonight.
When it comes to the blogosphere, I "don't get out much" - I have a limited list of weblogs that I visit fairly regularly, and I rarely branch out and explore new territory.
But thanks to the guys at Fraters Libertas, I have discovered a new gem: Vox Popoli.
Vox Day delivers thoughtful criticism of both Republicans and Democrats with good cheer and understanding of the difference between "opponents" and "enemies." He is now among my set of "Daily Blogs" tabs in Safari.
Art mavens around the world are reacting to this news with an ironic twist on "life imitating art."
Armed robbers held up a Norwegian museum yesterday and escaped with one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's "The Scream."Somewhere Macaulay Culkin is going into hiding.Two masked men dressed in black and brandishing guns ran into the foyer of the Munch museum in Oslo shortly after it opened and ordered terrified staff and visitors to lie on the floor.
Andrew at Pathetic Earthlings needs money, fast!. Might I suggest a mortgage re-fi from Roger Schlessinger?
As Monkey Robb noted, we had some technical difficulties. Evidently, David spilled a glass of wine (an excellent zinfandel from Sonoma, according to unconfirmed and possibly fictional reports) on the server, there was a small fire, and much wackiness ensued.
Here's some of what I would have posted on, given the chance:
Yes, I've gone out of order. The Elder distracted me, but I'm focused now. :-)
Here is my reply to David's most recent post:
I stand by my assertion that the chief goals (at least in the next 20 years or so) of the Islamofascists are to drive Israel into the sea and to get the West out of their business. The attacks in Europe are primarily oriented toward keeping the Europeans out of middle-eastern issues. I am quite confident that if we didn't have bases in Saudi Arabia and we weren't supporting Israel that there wouldn't be a gaping hole in lower Manhattan right now.
Would they like to colonize the world for Islam? Sure, but they're doing that the old fashioned way: By moving there and procreating like rabbits. If we want to deal with that problem, we need to get serious about procreation ourselves and beat them at their own game. Many homeschoolers know this, not because they're concerned about Islam, but because they're concerned about institutionalized secularism.
WW2 is a side issue, which I will defer until later. My only point was that we only know what happened, not what might have been, and our assumptions about the latter are based largely on the presuppositions that got us into the war and are intended to make us feel content about the result.
We already have "a police state within Fortress America", but we don't have any mechanism to prevent things from getting worse. If you brought back 110,000 troops from Iraq and stationed them along the border with authorization to shoot on sight, I guarantee you the number of folks who slip through will be smaller than it is now. I argue as a Republican here - I'm saying that if the goal is keeping us safe, then there is a more effective way to do it than by rooting around the globe looking for terrorists and tapping the phones of your citizens.
And remember, the travel and import restrictions are international only - there is no expectation that when you leave this country you will experience the same freedoms that you do inside its borders. Domestic restrictions can be relaxed significantly.
The "War on Terror", as we are now fighting it, is unwinnable. As we escalate the war, we do not defeat the enemy, we only defeat ourselves.
< /jimmy fallon >
Come on - admit that you missed us.
Anyhoo...our technical difficulties are over and we now return you to our regularly scheduled poo-fling.
Regarding my guest segments on the Hugh Hewitt show today, reader Dionne Z. listening on 690 KVOI Tucson, AZ writes Hugh and me to clarify:
Dear Hugh,Jack L. from Phoenix wrote in too, echoing the point.Enjoyed the nerd movie segment, but Brad is wrong. Revenge of the Nerds was filmed at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. I'm not suprised he
tried to claim it was ASU, Sundevils are jealous like that.
Monkey David adds:
Dionne's right, you know.All of the Monkey mail gets routed through David and he remarked on the flood of UofA alumns I've "fired up":
Man, those Wildcats are such nerds that they even know the addresses.I must have been thinking of Rodney Dangerfield's "Back to School." No, wait! It was Campus Man. That's the one that was actually filming while I was living in the dorms at ASU. But still, some friends of mine really were extras in a crowd scene in Revenge of the Nerds.
As a child of divorce, I'm just uncomfortable with this whole Monkey Fight thing going on below.
I will respond to Chad's message out of order:
And what is your idea of a "defensive war" fought by the United States?Presuppositions mean a lot. I could have written the above lines, but I would have been trying to make the exact opposite point. I agree that the War of 1812 was likely our only defensive war. But I would argue that this is a horrible stain on our history. Who can really look back proudly on the Mexican-American War? The Filipinos still remember the 250,000+ of their people that we slaughtered trying to pacify that country after the Spanish-American War (another whopper). I think it is worth re-examining the dogma that engaging in the two World Wars was unquestionably the right thing to do.World War II? Most certainly not.
World War I? Hardly.
With the exception of the War of 1812, in the history of the United States there are no conflicts that I would classify as a "defensive war".
What about the North's efforts to preserve the Union in the Civil War? If Lincoln had elected to dig in and merely defend the North, the cession of the South would have been successful and the course of history very different.Don't get me started on That Tyrant Lincoln and the Civil War. Lincoln would not have had to "dig in" and "merely defend" the North, because the North was not invaded by the South. Quite the opposite - Lincoln assembled an army to murder his own countrymen because they exercised their right to secede so clearly articulated in the Declaration of Independence. The South wanted to be left alone - many of the states didn't even secede until they were invaded. "Preserve the Union" my ass. Lincoln cracked the Constitution over the head with a lead pipe, leaving it to twitch and quiver until FDR finally put it out of its misery. Lincoln destroyed the "America" he was trying to preserve.
I have to concur with David on the your absurd suggestions. Sometimes it's appealing to fantasize that we could pull back from the world, curl up in the fetal position, and hide in a protective cocoon, safe and secure from the dangers out there. Unfortunately, we are not children anymore and must face reality. It's a global economy with global markets and an increasingly interconnected global trade. Your suggestions would seriously restrict free and open trade, resulting in a downturn of the US economy as well as the rest of the world's to say nothing of the economic consequences of the world-wide destabilization that would result. What do you think the price of oil would be if your little scenario played out? It is an illusion to believe that if we only drilled in Anwar or got more oil from the Canadian oil sands our energy problems would be solved.Are we at war or not? Do we want to be safe and victorious or comfortable and wealthy in our self-imposed prison?
No, I don't think that drilling alone will solve our energy problems, but a combination of drilling (in ANWR as well as off the coast of California, etc.) along with the construction of several nuclear power plants will help dramatically. Also, a sharp upturn in fuel prices will probably influence (without ham-fisted government regulation) the development of alternate fuel scenarios.
P.S. I believe that Gingrich was talking about restricting civil liberties in the event of a future attack. Can you please cite specific civil liberties that you and your grandchildren are being denied today?1. I am not free to engage in a telephone or e-mail conversation without the possibility of government monitoring.
I could go on and on. Many of these liberties were gone before the INGSOC-inspired "Patriot Act", of course, but our current administration seems bent on expanding these government powers, asking us to "trust them" that they won't abuse them. We remember how that worked out with RICO, don't we?
The Elder sides with the Monkey Majority, offering this criticism of my posts:
Robb-
I have to concur with David on the your absurd suggestions. Sometimes it's appealing to fantasize that we could pull back from the world, curl up in the fetal position, and hide in a protective cocoon, safe and secure from the dangers out there. Unfortunately, we are not children anymore and must face reality. It's a global economy with global markets and an increasingly interconnected global trade. Your suggestions would seriously restrict free and open trade, resulting in a downturn of the US economy as well as the rest of the world's to say nothing of the economic consequences of the world-wide destabilization that would result. What do you think the price of oil would be if your little scenario played out? It is an illusion to believe that if we only drilled in Anwar or got more oil from the Canadian oil sands our energy problems would be solved.
And what is your idea of a "defensive war" fought by the United States?
World War II? Most certainly not.
World War I? Hardly.
What about the North's efforts to preserve the Union in the Civil War? If Lincoln had elected to dig in and merely defend the North, the cession of the South would have been successful and the course of history very different.
With the exception of the War of 1812, in the history of the United States there are no conflicts that I would classify as a "defensive war".
Regards,
Chad
P.S. I believe that Gingrich was talking about restricting civil liberties in the event of a future attack. Can you please cite specific civil liberties that you and your grandchildren are being denied today?
Mickey Kaus, reluctant Kerry supporter, is finally on the Christmas in Cambodia story, and doing a great job of hitting the major points.
I have to admit that while I support Bush on the war (and little else, I also must confess, because I find him to be the sort of big-government central-control Republican that I dislike), I didn't really have a strong negative reaction to Kerry. He just was relentlessly boring (as I've said before, that's why my blogging has been less frequent). But this Cambodia story, and everything with it, really does resonate with me. He's strange, and scary, and I don't trust him to be President at all, especially on the central issue of the war (see posts below for more on that).
I also have to admit that part of my discomfort with Bush is that he's the kind of smirking frat boy I've never liked, but could tolerate. Now it's clear that Kerry is the kind of conniving, dishonest, resume-padding Student Council slimeball that I've never liked or tolerated.
[Scroll down for the background, or click "continue reading" at the bottom of the post for links.]
First, I want to point out that how depressing it is that this debate is the most important one our country faces today, but unfortunately the candidates are unwilling (and unable, truthfully, in the current media climate) to engage in it.
Second, I understand Robb’s frustration as a paleo-con/libertarian hybrid in making sense of this war. A desire to “protect borders” while avoiding a “police state” inside those borders is the sort of contradiction that occurs when ideological philosophies collide in the absence of realism.
This is a new type of war, and it requires new thinking about how to face the enemy. Understanding that enemy is critical, and Robb is wrong that U.S. involvement in the Middle East is the cause. The goal of this enemy is conquest; the long-dreamed of extension of Islam throughout the Western world. Evidence of this is terrorism in France, Spain and Germany, and the very words of the Al Qaeda leadership about not repeating the mistakes of Andalusia (that is, tolerance of other religions which resulted ultimately in Muslims being largely driven out of Europe in the late 15th century). Make no mistake about the goals.
I don’t even know how to respond to the comment that “Similarly, we don't really know how things would have turned out if Stalin and Hitler had spent another 10-15 years killing each other. Eventually you run out of money and soldiers.” That’s obviously false, as plenty of people in the Middle East, Ireland and Africa will tell you, and there is no question that whatever resulted would not have been free, and would not have been good for the United States.
The truth is that the option Robb suggests would require the creation of a police state within Fortress America, to find and stop every single terrorist who slips through the miles of borders of this country. That, and the travel and import restrictions he suggests, should be violently repellent to any libertarian or freedom-loving person.
The only answer is to go out and break apart the terrorist organizations where they exist, aggressively and without pity.
[MonkeyFight begins with these posts: 1 2 3]
Do I believe that we are at war? Yes and no. We are not "at war" in the way even remotely analogous to the way we were in WW2, or even the cold war. If you asked 50 different legislators who we are at war with, I believe you would get very different answers. This is not good, since Congress is the body constitutionally responsible for declaring and ultimately supervising war. Congress is not doing this - they have closed their eyes and told the Executive Branch to just "make us safer" without telling them who the "official" enemy is.
The Administration, because it has not been forced to clarify its specific goals, is waging war on anything that looks like it may threaten the power of the US, and they are doing it without taking a true "posture of war". Additionally, they are not being truthful about WHY we are being attacked and what our other options are for dealing with this problem.
We are NOT being attacked because we are free. We are being attacked because we support Israel and meddle in middle eastern affairs. This is important, and people don't seem to understand this.
Our handling of both the Iraq war and domestic terror risks indicates that we don't really have a clue who we're fighting or how to fight them. If, as Gingrich stated, we will not likely see a return to something resembling liberty within our borders during my KIDS lifetime, much less my own, then we are not doing this right.
If we REALLY are "at war", then we need to behave like we are. We must protect our borders above all else, and we must aggressively cut spending on all non-essential programs until the war is over. To continue to expand social services, foreign aid, the military, and the police state is utter foolishness. The government is saying, "trust us, we'll protect you." This is foolishness as well.
So, in a very real sense, we are NOT at war yet. Instead, we're involved in a very ambiguous global police action. When the only way a "democracy" can get the consent of the governed is to profoundly deceive the governed, we have sacrificed what we intended to protect.
Side note: There is no way to know what the result ultimately would have been, but there is a strong argument to be made that the "protect our allies" policy that led from a low-grade Balkan political assassination to the wholesale sacrifice of a whole generation of Europe's youth in WW1 directly led to the rise of Hitler. Similarly, we don't really know how things would have turned out if Stalin and Hitler had spent another 10-15 years killing each other. Eventually you run out of money and soldiers. But I suppose that's a discussion for another day.
Robb's rant below made me sad. In the first place, Robb, do you believe that we are at war or not? Your scare quotes suggest you don't believe it, so everything else you say is meaningless. And if you don't believe it, then I'd say your best bet is to go outside and admire the green sky and purple grass, or whatever the world you live in looks like. Sorry, that was harsh. Let me be more real--I was in New York in October 2001, and I smelled the burning rubble. We're at war.
If you do believe it, then all you are proposing is the tired ideas of isolationists of the past; the obvious analogy is that had we listened to those isolationists before, Europe would be Nazi or Communist now, and the Japanese military would rule Asia. A bit less obvious: you are suggesting building a Maginot Line or Great Wall. Both of those failed.
The sentence "Free countries fight defensive wars. Empires crush their potential enemies in order to keep the world under their thumb." is absurd, of course. Empires try to preserve what they have, and that's why they failed to deal with the threats of the 20th century so badly, and it took the United States to save them.
There ARE ways to be more secure than we are now, while preserving more freedom than we currently enjoy. For example:
We claim to be "at war", but instead of taking a posture of actually protecting our borders and homeland in a real sense, we instead send our troops abroad and rely on inept law enforcement operations to try to police our homeland. Instead, why don't we:
1. Temporarily close the borders. We are "at war", after all. Six months of zero immigration and highly restricted international travel should be enough time to get the next couple of steps enacted.
2. Bring the troops home (all of them, not just the ones in Iraq) and redeploy them along our borders. Give them authority to shoot on sight any unauthorized border traffic.
3. We'll have a problem with the former supply of "undocumented" labor. Once the six months has expired, dramatically loosen restrictions on immigration, but force all immigrants to enter through authorized checkpoints and undergo background checks. Let anyone who passes a background check through, but only Mexican and Canadian nationals.
4. Start taking the steps necessary to reduce federal services available to non-citizens, so that the burden of the influx is not too severe.
5. Stop sending money to Israel, Egypt, and other middle-eastern countries. Stop sending troops, stop meddling in their affairs. We're "at war." We don't have the time or resources to deal with other people's problems right now.
6. Allow drilling in ANWR and other "restricted" oil sites for a period of 20 years. We're "at war", so we need to have a short-term moratorium on sensitive environmental concerns in order to become more "energy sovereign." Negotiate with the Canadians to begin work on extracting frozen oil deposits from the tundra.
7. Once the borders are secure, we can focus virtually all of our airport security measures on international flights, increasing security there while reducing the hassle for domestic flyers.
Before you tell me how "impractical" these measures are (did I mention we are "at war"?), you might think about how much LESS practical the idea of crawling through every cave and spider hole on the globe in search of "evil men" is, not to mention suspending the very liberties you claim to be protecting for 70+ years (nice one, Newt).
By the way, these measures will also grind the influx of foreign illegal drugs to a halt. We're "at war" with the drug trade too, right? Two birds with one stone.
Free countries fight defensive wars. Empires crush their potential enemies in order to keep the world under their thumb.
Hugh Hewitt has declared himself the center of the blogosphere, and he really is in many ways--he's certainly done a lot for this blog. But he wasn't actually much of a blogger himself: most of his posts were hastily written in the show-prep rush or during commercial breaks while he was on the air. All that has changed recently, maybe because he's energized by the election, or maybe just because he's really gotten the hang of how blog writing is different from column writing (for one thing, even though it's more likely to be skimmed--or because of that--you don't get to use the boilerplate that most columnists use to pad out the column inches). For example, from this post today:
The young lefty bloggers are in a snit: "This shouldn't matter! What I think matters ought to matter! How dare this matter!"Brilliant.I remember the feeling well. Bush's DUI ought not to have mattered on the last weekend of 2000, but it did. That was a story about which Bush had never lied, had never traded on, but it mattered. The collapse of Kerry's narrrative about Vietnam does matter because Kerry made it matter. In fact, Kerry needed it to matter because a focus on his votes over 20 years in the United States Senate could not be sold to the American public, especially not during an economic expansion, and especially not during a war.
If you haven't been reading his site closely, go catch up on the last few weeks.
I've spent my time in the fever swamp of hey, you got your security in my liberty. And I've seen the inside of the chicken coop of you got yer Constitution in my security. Having done more time in the former than most average folks are likely to, I feel that for now I'll sit back and leave the (seemingly) all-or-nothing fights to others and suffer the slings and arrows of the dogmatists as I acknowledge that they're two great tastes that taste great together.
(hat tip: badnarik.org)
This reminds me, by the way, of a bumper sticker from several years back:
Cthulhu for President. Why vote for a lesser evil?
"Michelle Malkin isn't fit to replace the color cartridge on Ann Coulter's inkjet."
Read the whole thing, twice.
No surprise that the former Claremont McKenna professor and hate-crime faker was found guilty today of insurance fraud and filing a false police report. Local reaction has been muted... mostly because I'm holed up in my office and haven't had the time or the inclination to venture outside to solicit anybody's opinion. I weighed in on the story when it first broke in March here and here.
School starts tomorrow today. Our student body has grown so much that the elementary had to take a classroom away from the secondary. Which means... we had to build another classroom. Preparing for the school year has always been hard, but it's harder when you're climbing up on the roof during Parent/Student Orientation night to nail down the tar-paper that the incoming monsoon has blown loose from its staples. Roof went on today. Electrical's in. Drywall is up inside, but we still have some details to finish before class can start in there.
Everything's being built out underneath existing roof -- really just a tin top over old horse stables. It's less than glorious, but once it's finished out, no one would ever know. But this way we can put up classroom space quickly, without going through the whole permit / inspection process, as long as we build to code. Seems like some of the teachers have spent more prep time this summer with a paint brush, tools, and moving heavy items than with books and paper. (Thanks to our invaluable spouses for their inestimable assistance too!)
In addition to Latin, I'm teaching a new science curriculum – different than the one from the last two years. And I found out last Monday night that one of my new science students is the son of (get this) a rocket scientist. No pressure there. Naw.
Oh, and to top it all off, I've got Olympic Fever. I don't care what Michael Medved says, I can't help it.
Thanks for continuing to check in on us here at InfMonks.
Sales calls in Anaheim and Santa Monica today. Bleah. Took the bad taste out of my mouth by having great sushi with a friend/coworker. Fantastic!
My friend has learned to be quite the sushi connoisseur, and he took me to a place in Gardena called Tsukiji. For those who wish to try it, go to 1745 West Redondo Beach Boulevard.
I enjoy "wuss" sushi like rolls and "safe" nigiri like tuna, salmon, and yellowtail. But I wanted to get the full treatment and learn to eat like a pro, so we sat down at the sushi bar and hunkered down. The staff all welcomed him as a regular (even though he lives in New York City) and we were treated to a full multi-course sushi meal selected by the chef. I ate everything put in front of me - octopus, monkfish liver, eel, sea urchin, etc.
Although I can't say that every morsel was delightful, I can say that the experience was. Knowing that I would be eating "the good stuff" made a huge difference, and the element of surprise (and good conversation) added up to a fine evening that I won't soon forget.
Look, we all (we all? all of us...) can't be on top of this Kerry stuff. We aren't exactly the New York Times. Oh, wait... the Times isn't on top of it, either. Right. Well, we're not... uh, some other lame media site.
What's the point of this post? I'll tell you, brother: It's to have something dated August 16, 2004.
I'm not going to lie to you. This is C-minus material, as an old editor of mine would say. Sad, but true. The fact is, we monkeys aren't in it for the money. We don't have a tip jar, mostly because we're all independently wealthy. We aren't in it for the prestige, as such. No, we're in it for the chicks. But since all of us are either married or soon-to-be-married, we're really in it for the notoriety. As our traffic clearly demonstrates.
Joe's trying to get his mid-life crisis out of the way. I'd like to think the following quote is his subtle way of telling us we're swell:
"Random thought of the week: Monkeys are always funny. They are to comedy what Jerry Lewis is to the French."
Thanks, Joe! I think Pentecostal chicks are hot, too.
Vox Day excerpts an interesting interview about illegal immigration with Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik
A recent column by William F. Buckley includes the following quote:
"Kerry did not trouble to ponder what it is the Constitution was talking about when it said that only Congress could declare war. Never mind; we don't declare wars any more, we just fight."
It seems to me that Kerry is not the only one who fails to consider this question. Is it the President's job to initiate a policy of war? Or is it his job to carry out the war policies dictated by congress? Clearly, our cowardly "representatives" (both Democrat and Republican) would prefer that "blame" for a particular military endeavor rest with the term-limited occupant of the White House, rather than with a group of lifetime politicians who are always worrying about re-election.
Kerry's recent statements on the matter epitomize the cowardice on both sides of the aisle: The President should have the tools he needs to fulfill his role as commander-in-chief, therefore we write him a blank check after the thinnest of descriptions of how he will use it, and reserve the right to blame him for his mistakes later (and thus cover our own collective asses).
Are these the leaders we want? We supposedly live in a "Democratic Republic", but congress refuses to exercise their most fundamental Constitutional responsibilities in favor of giving King-like powers (with very modest oversight) to the Executive Branch. Should a responsible Congress not demand more accountability? And should they not withhold funding (regardless of the political outcome) until the President and his War Department give them the information they need to make a wise and just decision?
Heard in the RobbL Monkey house just before bedtime:
"Papa, I'm so happy I'm wiggling my toes while I pee."
Fast food epicurian and long-time Bush family supporter Michael Moore jams a broomstick into the nomination of Porter Goss for CIA director. Whoda thunkit? I guess it's hard to tell who your friends are these days.
I'm saddened by the death of Julia Child. She was an amazing woman, and my sadness is tempered by the knowledge that she led such an exciting life, and is now with her beloved husband.
Julia's "Way to Cook" is still the best cookbook ever written, and I had the good fortune to have it be the first I ever bought. I was in college, and tackling the complex recipes showed me that they weren't really complex after all, and that cooking could truly be a joy to be shared.
I'm sorry I never got to meet her--I always had the idea that I might run into her around Southern California, but never did. I would say I would miss her, but I knew her through her books and television, and so her life's work will endure.
My friend Julie Ponzi at No Left Turns alerts me to this coming attraction. Holy crap! Nic Cage is going to steal the Declaration of Independence! Because it has a treasure map on it! Treasure that America's Founders hid!
(Actually, the real treasure of the Declaration may be found in the principles embodied in it... but never mind that now. There is gunplay! Explosions! Christopher Plummer!)
I am so there on November 19. And I can hardly wait for the sequel.
Who ever would have thought that John Kerry would turn out to be weirder than Howard Dean?
Fellow Bearflagger Cobb reports that he plans to stay home on November 2. "Bush does not stand on the right side of the principles that I hold the Republican Party to [...] primary of which is fiscal responsibility and noblesse oblige. That's more of a problem with the Party than with the man, after all, the Republican controlled Congress co-signed all of this spending malarky," he writes. "But as the so-called leader of the Party, he should be held to account. My vote was for McCain in 2000 and the Party didn't deliver then either. It's tough being in the minority, but principles are principles."
Principles are important, no question about it. Then again, so is winning. But I know that he's not alone. Libertarians don't like Bush for his spendthrift ways, and, of course, they have problems with the war. Social conservatives suspect that, despite all of the president's happy talk about a nation of "heart changers," he's probably full of hooey. Whether they say it or not—you certainly don't see much substantive criticism of the Bush Administration in places like National Review or The Weekly Standard—the intellectual conservatives aren't excited about Bush. You can tell by what they're writing, and especially by what they're not writing (but that's a subject for another time). Most will vote for him, probably. But many will simply stay home, no matter how nifty the convention turns out to be. Just how many has got to be keeping Karl Rove up at night.
Well, I took a look at the Lew Rockwell weblog, and found this entry by Thomas Woods, which led me to this "test" of whether or not I am a "wageslave".
I scored 5.5 out of 7 and consider myself fairly fortunate. Here are some of the crackpot suggestions from the loons at distributism.com:
Any real estate or capital improvement that is not in immediate, active, and necessary use by any level of government shall be divided and sold [RobbL: hard to argue with this one up to this point], the proceeds going into a central 'scholarship' fund to assist impoverished potential owners.No man shall be allowed to own real estate in excess of a fixed number of acres (e.g. 160 rurally; 5, otherwise) or capital value. Any man found to possess real estate or capital improvements value in excess of this limit shall have the excess sold, the proceeds going into the aforesaid central fund.
Any property demonstrated to be either unused or seriously underused for any three of any consecutive seven years shall (if requested by any neighbor) be put up for auction, the price being determined by the highest bidder. Any amount in excess of the basis that the seller paid for the property (including improvements) shall go to the aforesaid central fund.
All 'means of production' that are too large to be owned by a single man and cannot be divided into smaller units, shall go into the shared possession of a guild, formed by the business owners that are dependent upon the 'means of production'.
Insurance corporations and policies shall be abolished. Owners that wish to gain such security against personal loss may partake in guild-administered relief funds. Said funds shall be non-profit, with all premiums (less a modest administrative fee) returned in some form to guild members, either as loss relief or dividends.
All government relief and pension services shall be abolished [RobbL: An ever-so-brief glimpse of sanity]. Only religious organizations and non-profit guilds may be given such trust, and these may only run programs in their own neighborhoods or villages and to their own members.
All trade and professional licensing and related policing powers shall be reserved to the guilds; the membership field of a guild may not exceed that of their neighborhood or village and the profession/trade.
Every man may designate only one bank and one account for the saving/distribution of monetary wealth. If a man is determined to have established more than one bank account, all monies in excess of that in the largest account shall be forfeit to the central fund.
A maximum figure shall be set for the amount of money owned by any single man. This figure may be increased, depending on the number of children he has.
No man may indefinitely own real estate, business, or equipment used by another man. Said property may only be lent or leased for finite periods of time.