The Country Pundit

U.S. Army 46, Fedayeen Saddam 0

Good news:

According to CNN, the official favorite cable news network of The Country Pundit, our boys in beige have laid the smack down on the Fedayeen Saddam, inflicting 46 KIA, 18 WIA, with an additional 8 POWs. Our people suffered no KIA and 5 WIA; 3 of the latter have been transported to hospitals with injuries that do not appear life-threatening.

The Baathist attacks were upon two different targets but were launched "simultaneously", according to CNN. In both instances, American convoys were targeted.

The Country Pundit's favorite part (other than the announced kill ratio):

Troops from the 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment and U.S. military police responded with a barrage of cannon fire from tanks and armored personnel carriers, [Master Sergeant Robert] Cargie said. When the attackers put up a makeshift barricade in an attempt to block one convoy, U.S. armor steamrolled over it, he said.

The Baathists provoked our 120mm and 25mm cannon fire with improvised explosive devices, rifles, mortars, and the by-now ubiquitous rocket-propelled grenades. Apparently the state of education in Saddam's Iraq was such that these guys were dumb enough to think that they'll get away with this one. Deliberate suicide attacks might be rather difficult to stop, but I bet these schmoes thought they were going to be getting the bling bling (or something) for spilling American blood. What they didn't get told was that the only bling bling in it for them was the approximate sound of American cartridge cases hitting concrete. Muahahaha.

Woo friggin' hoo. In the immortal words of video game hero Duke Nukem, "Come get some!"¹ I can only get a Calvinesque big evil grin on my face coupled with a guttural laugh of "Heh heh heh" when reading about this. It's just too perfect---I'm glad we're whipping up on these people.²

Message for the Fedayeen Saddam: Your beatings will continue until resistance ceases.

¹ I am aware of the fact that Bruce Campbell's Ash utters these words ahead of Duke in terms of a popular culture timeline, but Duke Nukem 3D was the first time I'd ever heard the phrase.

² Despite the obviously celebratory nature of this post, the Pundit is a Christian man and will remember the souls of the dead in his evening prayer, wishing that it didn't have to be this way---it doesn't; go home and build the new no-Saddam Iraq---but not wavering in his resolve to support seeing the mission through and getting our people out. Every time some third-world militia tries to kill our people, I usually cheer at their failure but then I'm also reminded of the words uttered at the 1898 Battle of Santiago Bay by the captain of USS Texas, John Woodward Philip, as his ship helped pound the Spanish Oquendo: "Don't cheer boys, the poor devils are dying." I hate war.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Dana at Note-It Posts, home of America's #1 Pin-Up Girl, for the notification.

Fish and Sharks in Egypt

This just in, from Rod Dreher at NRO's Corner:

Members of Egypt's persecuted Coptic Christian minority have been putting icthyus (fish) bumper stickers on their cars, announcing their Christian identities. Muslims have responded by putting hungry shark stickers on their bumpers.

The full story is available here from a source of unknown reliability, but there seem to be ties to the Associated Press and Media General, which does happen to have a significant presence in Virginia as a news-services company in television and print media.

Part of me is amused by this response. On the surface (no pun intended) this would be a cute little game of one-upsmanship between fans or something in another one of those ridiculous college rivalries held dear by so many booze-swilling alums. I can't help but chuckle when I think of it. If my undergraduate institution's enemies had a fish for a logo, I'd certainly think about a shark motif to show the Way Things Will Be.

On the other hand, being cognizant of the context in which this occurs makes me a little less likely to be charitable when Egypt comes crying for American dollars. One response that comes to mind is to think that there's something akin to Klansmen displaying a noose on their vehicles in response to a theoretical symbol of something (oh, say that distinctly colored cloth---kinte?---that is somehow tied to their history/heritage) on vehicles.

If you accept that the Coptic Christians of Egypt are indeed a persecuted minority¹ then these sharks are downright threatening. I don't like this, no sir, not one bit. It smacks of anti-Christian activity, or at the very least the deliberate creation of a hostile environment. I would be less certain of my finding if the Islamics had taken to displaying a crescent-and-star or something, but who in the world worships a shark? That doesn't have too many uses, and it does signal some sort of danger.

The historical parallel between Rome and Egypt is chilling---once again, people united by display of the second-most popular historical Christian symbol are under the boot of an oppressive government. This time, however, they're not alone, or so I would hope. Ideally, ol' Hosni Mubarak would get the proverbial horse head-in-the-bed or a pleasantly worded suggestion that it would be in his best interest to back off on policies that persecute these Coptic Christians.

I'm never happy when I see Christians under the boot of government and I very rarely excuse it. (Befuddled leftists who are more akin to apologists for Communism or the like, protesting American deployment of the Pershing II while the Soviets deploy the SS-20 generally fall within the latter class, if disapproval or arrest after illegal entry can be described as being 'under the boot'.)

Things like this will continue to happen, and I suppose that for the moment it can be excused, but if this erupts into open violence, I expect the bloody government over there to crack down. I wish I could follow that up with a threat of American intervention, but for a variety of reasons that threat could never be made, much less followed through on.

Ende.

¹ I'm not offering this for the truth of the matter but rather to show that the statement has been made. Evidence-law bloggers, descend and shred me on this, since the Federal rules of evidence are arcane to me.

The Joys of Blog 0001

N.Z. Bear's Ecosystem is a wonderful thing, even if it is manipulated by some to nefarious ends. Why do I say this?

Because, through the link lists at my results page (which showed a terrible dropping off recently), I found a blog that referenced me and which I would have otherwise never found. I say this because it seems that my earlier post about getting Donald Rumsfeld in the Bush Administration quiz has gotten a little bit of attention way outside my normal blogging rounds.

A fellow named Charles Stewart saw fit to link to me in his post of his results. He got President Bush, and mentioned your humble correspondent as one of the powers behind the throne. (We're doomed. --Ed.) Mr. Stewart's site is chock-full of highbrow musings on various things, some of which I can understand. The rest of it (i.e. the theoretizing on the Internet et cetera) pretty much goes over my head.

The site it's hosted on, advogato.org, is a resource for freeware developers, and is thus something I can regard as being akin to magic. ("Whaddya mean hit * to quit? What's *?") but it could be of use to some in the readership.

Thanks for the mention, Mr. Stewart!

Soviets Map Blogosphere

Thanks to Comrade Commissar and his Gulag of Fun, we've got something new to play with:

It's a clickable map of the Commonwealth of Blogosphere States! I must thank Comrade Commissar for this, because it appears that the Supreme Soviet (or whoever had the power to do this; I'm not a Kremlinologist) saw fit to name a town in Reynoldssia after your humble honest (Stop lying or there'll be Dean donation receipts drawn on your accounts in your Christmas stocking. --Ed.) correspondent.

Now I've got to find what's near Kountrypundsk, and annex it. Muahaha. All power to the Southern soviets! (I wish I was in the land of kotton; the proletariat there is not forgotten!) Sooner or later I'll figure out how to become the Kountrypundsk SSR, and then all the West will tremble (With laughter or amusement, I'm sure. --Ed.) at the might of the Soviet Blogosphere!

NOTE: This entry has been heavily revised in order to more accurately reflect the fact that the Commissar has done something nice. I originally had it grouped in with two other points that were mostly about this blog, and which had no relevance to the blogosphere map. Therefore, I decided to split the posts up. If this is a problem, yell at me and me alone.

The Country Pundit, Parade Critic

Since today's Thanksgiving, I've got zero original content other than to say that Macy's was a disappointment. I was almost reduced to a red-faced rage when Harvey Fierstein appeared in Herald Square.

Little children watch (or used to watch, in my case) the NBC telecast of the parade for the cute stuff like Big Bird balloons and so forth. We tolerated these annoying intrusions of mediocre pop stars and people that no one outside of Broadway knew. Who at ten years old cares about the cast of Cats or some far lesser show? (Not you; they didn't have warships or automatic weapons. --Ed.) So that's the background I brought to Macy's. I've also seen it live, back in the mid-1990s. Watch it on TV, unless you're at Herald Square or are willing, like me, to stand in freezing temperatures for hours to watch the balloons.

Instead of a pleasant homage to Thanksgiving and years gone by, we get Harvey frickin' Fierstein in drag. What the---?!? No! Lots of kids probably started crying and asking their parents why that woman was so fat, so ugly, and had such a voice. The answer? Son, I'm afraid that sometimes, men don't want to be men. They want to be women. That's one of 'em. Or something. Had the Country Pundit any children (And a wife, or even reasonable prospects in those areas. --Ed.), he would have explained that NBC's having technical difficulties and that they should really be refilling their cereal bowls or something---go help your mother or something.

I didn't pay close attention to the telecast, and didn't watch with stopwatch and statistical breakdown of the percentages of broadcast time allotted, so my next point can easily be shot down by anyone with the information. Nevertheless, Macy's seemed to go by a lot faster this year. Maybe they focused on that dreadful team of Couric & Lauer more, or something; the turkey came through earlier than I remember, and Santa Claus arrived pretty quickly. I do, however, remember Lauer making some snide crack about the Texas bunch that sang in the double-breasted button shirts, one that I figured couldn't have been extended (safely) to other parts of our wonderful rainbow patchwork quilt society without the Reverend Jesse Jackson of the First Self-Righteous Church getting angry.

Oh well. At least the midday meal was good. We had my grandmother over from her place, and that's always a major accomplishment due to her being 91 and fragile. Good food and all that, plus the obligatory reading (by me, !@#$) of a Thanksgiving poem about "Over The River and Through the Woods".

And of course, the Commander-in-Thief needlessly spent taxpayer dollars in lying to the American people about Iraq again.

I was impressed by the President's Baghdad detour; it was, at the least, sorta gutsy¹, and seems to have been well calculated. That is, at least until Henry Waxman and Company get into the books and declare that Bush squandered precious taxpayer resources and that the American people deserve reimbursement from the President for his meal.

New chant for the anti-war protestors: BUSH LIED, THE TURKEY DIED!

¹ Admittedly, I'd hate to have seen the sad sack who would have drawn straws to take a shot at Air Force One. Shooting at a defenseless DHL cargo plane is one thing. Shooting at the Leader of the Free World's airplane is another.

Addendum: Two purchases, one of X-Men 2: X-Men United and the Don Davis soundtrack to The Matrix: Revolutions. Commentary later.

Happy Birthday, HMS WARSPITE

Ninety years ago today, HMS Warspite, a fast battleship of the Queen Elizabeth-class was launched at Devonport Dockyard, Plymouth.

Warspite is arguably one of the Royal Navy's most famous battleships, and participated in both World Wars. While serving with the Fifth Battle Squadron at Jutland on May 31, 1916, her rudder jammed and she made two complete turns while exposed to Reinhard Scheer's High Seas Fleet. One source credits her with absorbing multiple hits of various caliber, and yet Warspite returned home to Scapa Flow.

She would be modernized between the wars, altering her appearance. For a variety of photographs, see this site.

During World War II, she fought in the European and Mediterranean areas, participating in the sinking of both Kriegsmarine and Regia Marina units. Her list of battle honors, as compiled in the authoritative work on her (HMS Warspite, by Stephen Roskill), are reproduced here:

Narvik 1940
Calabria 1940
Matapan 1941
Crete 1941
Libya 1942
North Africa 1943
Sicily 1943
Salerno 1943
Normandy 1944
Walcheren 1944

It was in combat with the latter at Calabria that Warspite established what appears to be the world record for naval gunnery, achieving a hit on the Italian battleship Guilio Cesare at over 26,000 yards. (Sources suggest either 26,400 or 26,600; the point is moot because the distance is fifteen miles either exactly or with a tenth of a mile on the side.)

Warspite also had the distinction of being one of the early targets for guided weapons, as she took a hit from the German Fritz-X/FX-1400 guided bomb. Fritz-X was, in the words of Emmanuel Gustin, "the first successful guided bomb. It consisted of a 1400kg armour-piercing bomb, fitted with four wings in a cruciform arrangement, and a tail ring with spoilers for control. It was usually carried by specially equipped Do 217 or He 177 bombers. In the launch aircraft, an operator steered the bomb to its target using a radio command link." Warspite survived this encounter with the Fritz-X, but was seriously damaged and was never fully repaired.

Her last service was as a fire support vessel, lending her 15" main battery to the landings at Normandy. At this point, one of her 15" turrets was out of service, and she had concrete patches (!?!) keeping her afloat. The FX-1400 had done with one shot what the might of the Germans in two wars and the Italians in one could not do. She also struck a mine on June 13, 1944, and added insult to injury. She saw action also at Walcheren but was otherwise essentially inactive throughout the remainder of the war period.

Sadly, she would not be preserved as was Admiral Lord Nelson's Victory. In March of 1946, the Admiralty handed down her death sentence in seven short words: Approved for HMS Warspite to be scrapped. Yet, the story of this defiant battleship wasn't over. On her way to the breakers in Faslane, Warspite ran aground at Prussin Cove, Mounts Bay, Cornwall on April 23, 1947. Her shattered hulk remained there for nine years as she was scrapped in place. See here for a picture of Warspite shot during this period.

I forgot to publish this after saving. Mea culpa.

The Path Ahead

To follow up with something I agreed with in my prior post about Orson Scott Card, a quick opinion on the conduct of the security operations in Iraq:

"What To Do"

Right now, we're in a fight for the hearts and minds of Iraqis. There are two basic paths to victory I think we need to be proceeding on:

1. Restoration of a civil state. This means fix the power grid, get running water restored, and establish basic governmental services. From what I understand, we're doing pretty good on that mark. This also means the creation of a pluralistic government which does something approaching Western concepts of a limited government, instead of using its subjects for mulch. This will take some time, and it isn't a fool-proof process.

2. Secure the Iraqi people. The model for here came to me in the context of gangsters. Moral arguments about using gangsters aside, it seems like a useful framework to proceed. Basically, what we've done is knock off the neighborhood thug, like opposing interests tried to do to Don Corleone in the early sequences of The Godfather. However, our Corleone, Saddam Hussein, still has his men running around trying to keep fragments of his power.

We must treat the situation over there as if we're the new guys muscling in, because that's exactly what we are. That means that we've got to be tough about the old guys, and we've got to win the loyalty of the people. How do you win loyalty? A simple exchange: You, the new boss, make it worth the people's while to be loyal to you. Essentially, it boils down to protection. We must protect the people of Iraq from Saddam's enforcers.

At some level, Baathist thugs are probably running around saying things like, "Saddam hears all! Saddam remembers your loyalty to him/disloyalty to him!" Well, fine. Let him hear everything---hopefully what he hears will be "Eff you" in Arabic. I read somewhere on the 'net that graffiti was being seen now that said, in a message to Iraqi children, "The hand that waves to Americans will be the hand that is cut off", approximately. This is utter barbarism, and we have seen it before, in the steaming jungles of Southeast Asia practiced by the Viet Cong. More on that later.

One thing that I keep hearing that the Iraqis are afraid of is the return of Saddam. Given the stakes, their fear is justified. What we do about that fear is demonstrate conclusively that the game is over and that Saddam Hussein is no Comeback Kid. No amounts of 'Hail Usay' passes are going to work.

Given what I see as the realities of the situation, the way to do the above is through a systematic application of two things: Protection, for the common people of Iraq, and annihilation for the soldiers of Saddam.¹

Protection and annihilation comes from one thing: Clearly and unequivocal establishment of the fact that any attempt to enforce the writ of Saddam leads to the rapid and inescapable death of his enforcers. How do we do this? By protecting the people.

The Iraqi people are roughly in the position of the undertaker who comes to Corleone and asks for things to be made right with respect to his, the undertaker's, daughter. How did Corleone respond? He said "Yes". The man was loyal after that, to the point of working on Sonny Corleone's body after his murder. This is our opportunity.

When the local Baathist thug decides that he's going to threaten a citizen, that citizen should be able to come to the nearest American (or the Iraqi Police) installation and ask for protection. When he asks, he will be told "yes", with the only questions being asked are the ones that get our troops in position. We ought to promise his protection in exchange for his loyalty.

When Saddam's thugs show up, the United States Army meets them at the door and instantly introduces the Baathists to the consequences of meddling with our people. Drag the bodies of the Baathists out in the street and announce loudly that anyone who tries to enforce Saddam's law will meet the same fate. Repeat this throughout the land, and I think you'll see a change for the better in Iraq.

Otherwise, we're leaving these poor people to suffer the fate of Vietnamese villagers who were brutalized into cooperation with the North Vietnamese. We'd come by and offer food, shelter, and things like that if the villagers would help. The Viet Cong came by and disemboweled, raped, tortured, and murdered whoever they suspected of being less than 100% in Uncle Ho's corner. That we didn't engage in systematic and similarly single-minded defense of these villagers is probably something we'll answer for some day. We have an opportunity in Iraq to erase a mistake of Vietnam in that respect, and I hope America takes it.

A two-fold message must be delivered: To the Iraqi people and the world at large, "Sic semper Baathists". To the Baathists themselves, "Your time is over, and you leave with nothing."

This is not a perfect strategy, and it's downright dangerous at some levels. I do, however, think that if America is willing to make things expensive for Saddam's thugs, the Baathists will find a curious shortage of men willing to go canvassing for terror. Hopefully, the intelligence deficit I hear our commanders suggesting as the big problem right now will dry up if we give it a reason to. Similarly, it is possible that the spectacle of American troops being mutilated after their deaths might not be repeated---citizens wholly loyal to us and the new government would not tolerate an act likely to anger their benefactors.

I don't suggest this because I'm particularly a fan of the mafia. I suggest it because I want our troops home and I want a stable, republican Iraq² to join the community of nations. The only way to those ends is through the roadblock we call 'Saddam Hussein'. I suggest we remove that roadblock with as much force as we can muster.

¹ By "soldiers of Saddam", I mean those fighting under his name now; I don't really care about the late Iraqi army in terms of this discussion.

² Admittedly, I heard an interesting proposal yesterday on National Public Radio, submitted by the chief foreign correspondent for the New York Times, one that suggested segmenting Iraq into three separate states, comprised primarily of Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis, respectively. I haven't read his article yet, but I'm generally fond of the idea of fixing the mistakes of partition made 75-odd years ago or more.

Ender Wiggin on the War

Orson Scott Card, of Ender's Game note, has written a column that discusses the war on Islamists. It's definitely worth a read, even if you haven't read his books or don't know who he is.

Several extracts:

To think that the war is "over" and we should be working on an "exit strategy" is as stupid as saying, after Allied troops drove the Germans out of North Africa, that it was time for our boys to come home -- with France and Eastern and Northern Europe still in chains.

. . . .

As for Saudi Arabia, well, it's not so much that we can't trust the government there, it's that they're barely holding on to power, and their most likely successors, if they fall, will be a group of fanatics who think Osama's a wimp.

If they ever get control of the Muslim holy places, then any action we took against such a government would serve to unite all the Muslim world against us. It would be a disaster of the worst order ... and yet it's hard to see how we can prevent it.

Our only hope is to have finished our job before the Saudi government falls. If fanatics take over Saudi Arabia, but they find themselves surrounded by powerful democratic Muslim nations that are firm enemies of terrorism, then America will not have to be involved in the struggle over control of Muslim holy places.

If we're very, very lucky, that's how it will play out.

. . . .

President Bush's consolation can be this: When Abraham Lincoln was conducting the Union side of the Civil War, he faced exactly the same kind of vicious stupidity -- and he had to do it without the benefit of competent generals to lead the troops. It took him years of trying incompetents like McLellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, and, yes, even Meade, before he got his winning team.

Mr. Card's entire essay is well worth reading. Part of it is triumphant, part of it is chilling, and part of it is ire-inspiring. Mr. Card also notes his belief that,

It is possible to be critical of real problems and raise real questions, while remaining loyal to our soldiers and to the mission of defending the United States (and the rest of the world) from Islamicist terrorism.

This I agree with. Now, my quasi-Nixonian mind clicks and spins for hours (not really) on How to Win, and my whole preference for "watch what we do, not what we say" so I tend to wind up deciding that the people in the current administration have the best operable plan at any given time. This is partly because I defer to those who have classified intelligence (since I do not and do not want it) and also because I have perhaps the naive belief that men and women find much of their ideology set aside when dealing with threats of this order to the Republic, and will act more or less in the interests of America. Our government is large, and it has good people serving in it---at some level, good people will, to steal a phrase from George C. Scott's George Patton, "know what to do".

That's not just some cockamanie theory I concocted to defend George W. Bush; I'm quite willing to extend it to any Administration until I'm convinced that they're not acting in our interests. Thus, I'm somewhat divided on Clinton---I thought DESERT FOX was a good idea, but I also wondered about the timing---but I'll commit to a measure of honesty and reserve judgment to some time in the future when the third-rate tell-alls are through and objective historians can assess his record.¹

Anyways. I haven't delved into the host site of Mr. Card's essay, so I can't vouch for its ideological position. To be honest with you, I'm sort of unconcerned about it.

Please allow me a personal note: When I first started thinking about getting in on "the blog thing" (apologies to Eugene W. Roddenberry), it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, this could be the forerunner of the very things a man named Orson Scott Card described in his book, Ender's Game. Peter and Valentine Wiggin, both children and siblings to Andrew (who's off learning to be a child strategic genius) begin posting their political opinions (kind of like a future Federalist Papers) to various global networks, and eventually they, using the names of Demonsthenes and Locke, get to the point where they are able to influence government policy and public opinion.

Maybe I, and every other pundit-type who hammers away on keyboards, from the fringes of the far left to the fringes of the far right, are perhaps laying the groundwork for that. Or perhaps we'll be the shoulders of giants upon which those two children stand. I'm not entirely sure where this blog thing will lead, but it'll be an interesting trip.

¹ My position on this comes from an old, old copy of the American Heritage magazine, in its "Brushes With History" (approximately) section. The following is a vague memory of something that was read in the early 1990s, so if anyone can find this and correct me, please do.

A man observed a student in the 1960s, all full of vim and vigor, come up to an old man and harangue him about the failures of Alexander Kerensky's government in Russia and how they should have done this, and that, and so on. This continued for several minutes, while the old man (apparently a lecturer at the university) listened without comment.

He turned to the student and said, "We did the best that we could", and Alexander Kerensky shuffled away, hanging his head.

For some reason, that story has colored my views of outsider critiques of governments ever since.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Kevin Patrick at Blogs for Bush.

Another Rugby Post

This time, I'm sending you to his site. Mr Free Market has been good enough to reward us with three images of England's fairer sex cheering on its rugby team, and we'll let him reap the benefits of his munificence.

The post in question also has a wickedly funny analysis of Chirac-ian spin applied to various events throughout the history of Anglo-French relations. Go there now and see more rugby girls. Keep it up, Mr Free Market!

Men of Virginia, To Arms!

Well, not really to arms, but rather to your local polling place for the Democratic primary to be held here on 10 February 2004.

According to Tim Graham at NRO, the campaign of Governor Howard Dean, M.D. , is looking at our beloved Commonwealth as a place to demonstrate that he can win in the South.

Undoubtedly, some traitor to the Commonwealth has gone and told the Doctor that Virginia "isn't really one of those Southern States, and is a good place to show that you're the man". Initial reports indicate that the rogue in question is former Lieutenant Governor Donald S. Beyer, who was defeated by Attorney General James S. Gilmore, III, in the 1997 governor's campaign.¹ Mr. Beyer has disgraced the long and proud tradition of Democrats in Virginia by associating himself with Governor Dean, and hopefully will come to regret this on a political level.

What do all right-thinking Virginians do? GO TO THE POLLS.

Our glorious Commonwealth in its wisdom does not maintain a partisan register of voters, and the various polling organizations may not require your oath to support the Democratic nominee. If you can find out the truth of the matter, and you can honorably vote for a Democrat in a primary, then I urge you to go to the polls and vote for anyone other than Dr. Dean.

Since I'd like the Commonwealth to preserve its image as a bastion of civilization, sanity, and wise choices for government, I'd prefer that we go overwhelmingly for say Representative Richard Gephardt. Mr. Gephardt is talked about as being the possible alternative for the Democrats, and that is fine. He will, I think, lose regardless, because Virginia, like many other States, will vote to re-elect the President.

General Clark's staff thinks that their campaign in Virginia will come to a good end---this cannot be allowed. Virginia's choice for someone other than Dr. Dean or General Clark will demonstrate that we are an inhospitable place for those who sneer at our Southern heritage or who try to use the military as a smokescreen for a hodge-podge of leftist ideas.

The fevered dreams of Dr. Dean's unwashed legions can be thwarted and the entire Democratic field can be thrown into turmoil if Virginia will reject the candidate of the sordid Northeast. Virginians have a history of causing trouble in the campaigns of those who are ill-suited for government, be they various incompetent governors appointed by George III or sundry officials throughout the history of the Republic.

Our mission is clear, and our cause is just: Send Howard Dean back home with the proverbial bloody nose, bloody mouth, and blacked eyes as the reward for his slurs and the national Democratic Party's slurs against the good and decent people of the Commonwealth. History must demonstrate conclusively that the South is ignored, cast off, insulted, and sneered at by the coastal urban elites at their electoral peril.

1 Sources at the University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily have confirmed the identity of the foul traitor.

This exercise in old-style political bombast brought to you by remembering the kind of florid rhetoric practiced by orators in the 19th century, along with a deep-seating feeling of disgust at Howard Dean hoping to further his ridiculous campaign on the backs of Virginia Democrats. And yes, I'm at least half-serious about people going to vote for Gephardt or whoever's a competitor to Dean. I'd suggest John Edwards as a regional favorite son, but this vote has to count. Hang the national strategy; we've got Virginia's honor to think of.

A Miserable Failure, I Hope

It appears that the George Soros money is beginning to pay off, at least in national ideas outreach. George's son, Jonathan, is going to coordinate with various entertainment industry figures to select and broadcast an ad targeting President George W. Bush.

I held my nose and went to the organizing website to dig up just who all the judges were:

Jack Black
Benny Boom
Donna Brazile
James Carville
Margaret Cho
Hector Elizondo
Al Franken
Janeane Garofalo
Stan Greenberg
Ted Hope
Michael Mann
Moby
Michael Moore
Mark Pellington
Tony Shalhoub
Russell Simmons
Michael Stipe
Gus Van Sant
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Eddie Vedder

Link omitted because I don't want to get charged with violating various decency acts.

In regards to this list, you have got to be kidding me. Hopefully for Democrats, there's some sort of weighted vote for Carville and Brazile, because a lot of these other types don't strike me as being capable of figuring out what the Electoral College is, much less performing the level of analysis necessary to find a good anti-Bush ad that will resonate with the undecided voters and make them vote for whoever the Democrats nominate.

If I was a Democratic pundit instead of a Republican-voting conservative pundit, I'd be burning up the lines to Terry McAuliffe or someone with an ounce of sanity and trying to convince them to keep nitwits like these away from our already troubled 2004 effort. I'd almost be curious if this is more of a vanity project for the celebrity types, as opposed to being a real political effort. Sure, the final product may be an excellent piece of Hollywood art, but that's not what sways voters.

Obligatory Derbyshire-style gloomery: There are probably plenty people in this country who're stupid enough to be swayed to the message of the ad simply because of who's on this panel. Someone remind me why we made suffrage universal again, please.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Daniel Moore at Blogs for Bush.

"I want to be the candidate of..." Part II

The good Comrade Commissar of The Politburo Diktat has produced a Politburo Special Report. In this report, the Commissar relates to us how the Howard Dean campaign will reach out to another group of guys with something installed on their personal mode of transportation.

I'm certain that the KGB did its utmost professional job in obtaining these documents, and surely Comrade Commissar will be handing out medals and shopping privileges soon.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Comrade Commissar.

Alas, Oriskany

According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, the State of Texas and others are vying to get CV-34 USS Oriskany. Great, right?

Wrong.

The Oriskany is no longer a fighting flat-top in America's navy, and she's not being considered for a museum. (Would that the Texans could have preserved her in the mode of the Texas...) Indeed, her fate is now to be converted into an artificial reef, as the U.S. Maritime Administration will do with her what neither the North Koreans nor the North Vietnamese could do to her during the Cold War, namely sink the thing.

Part of me knows that we can't preserve every warship that the Navy's ever owned, but another part of me is always saddened when I hear of yet another warship going to her fate. Pictures of the scrapping of HMS Warspite produce a catch in the throat and a twinge of regret. Similarly, seeing for example South Dakota with her superstructure erased and her main battery carved up is an unwelcome image. (That one's in a book, but here is a shot of the SoDak on her way to her end.)

This even extends to vessels in the modern era: Having grown up with pictures of the freakishly beautiful and cutting edge Long Beach, I was saddened to hear that she'd been reduced to wreckage at Puget Sound. I was also incensed that Senator John Warner hadn't been able to preserve USS Virginia, which is also "featured" on the Don Shelton Puget Sound Naval Shipyard page. This is less logical than conventional-fired ships; I'm not sure you can actually keep an atomic-powered vessel around, although happily Nautilus is proving me wrong.

Anyways, back to the Oriskany. The first time I ever heard of her was in Top Gun, when CDR Mike 'Viper' Metcalfe mentioned flying with Duke Mitchell off of the ship in Southeast Asia. I don't know much else about her, but she served us well, and I wish that she could be preserved for the foreseeable future as a memorial to the Cold War. Alas, Oriskany.

Two useful links with regards to the vessel are:
The Navy's Naval Historical Center
Oriskany Reunion Association Website

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Jed at Boots and Sabers for the link.

Disgusting News from Iraq

The Dixie Flatline has some unwelcome news posted, and it's the kind I don't like to read. Apparently, some of the people that we spent good American and British lives liberating have decided to go Somali on our troops.

Apparently, some guys from the 101st Airborne were driving in a vehicle that came under attack. For whatever reason, their vehicle crashed into a wall, and the men were dragged clear by Iraqis. Unfortunately, they were not dragged to safety, but rather to a grisly mutiliation, having their heads bashed in by concrete blocks.

I can only hope and pray that our men were dead beforehand.

It's times like this that I really have to remind myself that I'm a civilized human being and that my immediate response isn't the one that would work. What's my response? Call the airbase at Diego Garcia and order up a three-ship cell of B-52H Stratofortresses loaded with Mark 82 500-pound bombs, detailed for area saturation bombing. Send 'em in low over the city of Mosul so that the people can hear them¹ and obliterate the area where this took place. To get the point across send in some people to get out the message of, "Don't mess with us. We're here to liberate you from a monster, but they don't call us the Great Satan for nothing. Do not request a demonstration."

That ain't the right way to think about things, but darned if I can't suppress the urge to reach out and throttle the punks that did this. I bet they think they're real tough, eh. If they're so tough, let's see them take those blocks after an M1A2 Abrams. Concrete block beats head, 120mm armor-piercing fin-stabilized depleted-uranium sabot round beats concrete block. As RoboCop used to say, "Your move, creep."

Winning hearts and minds is the proper macro-strategy, but I can't help thinking that from time to time an abject example ought to be made of those who would desecrate the bodies of our dead. Little monsters. Where's Mr. Blonde when you need him?

1 "Do you hear that, Mr. Iraqi Concrete Block-wielding Punk? It is the sound of an incoming Stratofortress. It is the sound of your city's death. Goodbye, Mr. Iraqi."

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to The Dixie Flatline for this story.

UPDATE: Psycho Dad, over at The Psychotic Rant was kind enough to mention me in his dispatch, and suggest that people read my remarks. Much thanks, PD

Fresh victims for our ever-growing army of the undead!

All right-thinking peoples are probably concerned about the content and underlying motives of news coverage, whether it be by CNN ("What human rights violations in Iraq? Hear no evil, speak no evil, and for darned sure report no evil.") or FNC ("We report. You buy our personalities' books unquestioningly.") A cautionary tale can probably be issued to both Eason Jordan or Walter Isaacson and Roger Ailes: Be careful how you report. People make decisions based not just on the content of your broadcast, but the style thereof as well.

Luckily for us, the style of recent broacasts concerning events in Iraq has had a pro-Bush effect in one man. John of Argghhh!!! relates the story of one man who goes by the name of Psycho Dad. (I didn't know your father blogged, TCP. --Ed. Get bent. --TCP) In his post entitled I'm Joining the Right!, Dad tells us of his prior ambivalence and disinterest in politics, but which have been turned into strong support for the President, all based upon the content of broadcast media reports in the last little bit.

I reckon he's tired of hearing the modern-day equivalent of, "American troops today landed at Normandy and successfully established a beachhead on Omaha Beach. However, American troops failed to capture Hitler and neither liberated Paris nor defeated Imperial Japan."

Welcome to Blogs for Bush and to the Right as a whole, Psycho Dad. As a brief introduction to our activities (aside from using Mary Matalin to keep James Carville in check¹), we're involved in various projects such as:

-robbing cavefish of their sight²
-holding back electric cars
-making Steve Guttenberg a star
-keeping the metric system down

We've been less successful at the Guttenberg project lately, and rigging every Oscar night hasn't always been successful---see the Denzel Washington & Halle Berry wins---but we're doing pretty good.

Glad to have another participant in the generally rightish area of influence.

1 Talk about sleeping with the enemy! She deserves a medal, for crying out loud! I still wish Tucker Carlson had slapped the trashcan that Carvile put over his head in November 2002 after the Republicans picked up more seats.

2 Actually, we accomplished this one but it's still cool to talk about.

The Matrix: Examinations

This test comes courtesy of John of Arrgghh!, who got Mr. Anderson when taking this test. I, being one of the folks who likes the series, was drawn to taking it. Here's the result:

You are Persephone, from "The Matrix: Reloaded."
Tough cookie, you are, yet there are strains of
sadness and desire that lie beneath you- of
course, you wouldn't want anyone to know.
You're too busy putting up a facade.

What Matrix Persona Are You?

I don't disagree with some of this, but at the same time, I would rather have gotten Agent Smith. You can't go wrong with a Desert Eagle of some mark, a black suit, and dark sunglasses.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to the crew at the Imperial Arsenal of Doom.

The (Possibly) Next-to-Last Rugby Post

England has won the rugby World Cup, defeating Australia. That sour contrarian Andrew Stuttaford dug up a story wherein Jacques Chirac found a way to celebrate the victory:

This deserved victory is also a victory for Europe. Thanks to the extraordinary talent of the English players, the World Cup is coming to the northern hemisphere for the first time. All lovers of rugby in France and in Europe share the joy of the English fans.

Uh huh. Quit trying to elbow in---from what I understand, the men of England sent Team Metrosexual packing. Anyways, the final game seems to have been a close one, and I'm happy that England won, although I wish it hadn't been at the expense of Australia.

Recent Purchases 0002

Yesterday, I went out and got two DVDs, thus furthering the economic recovery. Chew on that, Waffle-Powered Howard. In the order of purchase, they were:

Galaxy Quest
The Others

The GQ DVD is defective; bloody thing skips oddly when it makes the layer transition (I think) and therefore I can't watch part of it. Nevertheless, once you get through the painful first few minutes (mostly at the convention) it's a great movie. Whatever Sigourney Weaver's politics (I don't know; I don't care) she's good in this film,

The Others is arguably one of the most creepy films I've watched in a while. I don't generally spook (as opposed to jump when the music stings or a xenomorph in its second stage (i.e. facehugger) pops out after Ripley and Newt, which still happens even though I know darn near every second of Aliens) but The Others kept me moving about a bit uneasily. I don't have words for it at this point, but my "self" (as opposed to a purely physical sense) was roiling about after seeing the end of this film. It ain't often that I reach over and flip the light on immediately at the end, so I'm quite impressed by this effort. There's just something about it that draws you in; I'm not quite sure what creates this effect. It may be the sparse nature of the film, with only about five characters in it. There isn't a whole lot going on and it's a restrained picture that leaves one's brain to run amuck. Early episodes of Space: 1999 wowed me with their sparse look, so that may be the attractive thread. Or perhaps something else; I'm not entirely certain that I'm not just fond of directorial restraint and displays of artistic skill.

Words can not describe just how beautiful Nicole Kidman is in this picture. I am convinced that somehow, she's evidence that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Are we in 2003 America supposed to believe that Jennifer Lopez in a green sheet is somehow beautiful, and that a properly-arranged woman from the 1940s (done up like Mrs. Grace Stewart) isn't? If you believe this, you can stand in line with lots of other slavering pigs to root about with J.Ho; I'll gladly take a retro-Kidman.

Having raved about her beauty, I'll simply note that I think she probably deserved at least an Oscar nomination; good grief, the woman acts well in this. I'd never seen a movie with her in it before (curious, but just one of those quirks of moviegoing) so I was a tad cautious about getting the film, but hey, it worked out. Miss Kidman carried the film quite well, and I was taken with the character. Where's my Grace Stewart, dagnabbit? A solid Christian girl who can give orders, use a shotgun, has a backbone of steel, and who ain't afraid of the dead, all while looking absolutely lovely. What's that? I'm not guaranteed that? Pout.

It was interesting seeing Christopher Eccleston (no relation to that once-comely FNC reporteress, Jennifer "Miss Shock & Awe" Eccelston) playing something other than the ruthlessly intense Duke of Norfolk in Elizabeth. The little brother in the movie did well, but darned if he didn't look like a pudgy Dennis Kucininch. Any minute you'd almost expect him to break out say something about a Ministry of Peace to settle the situation.

Two solid purchases marred only by a manufacturing defect. No complaints about either film. I'm now scrounging around to get the funds for the soundtrack to The Others, 'cause that seemed to have been an important component to the film.

New Blog Showcase Vote 0001

This here's my first vote in the New Blog Showcase run by The Truth Laid Bear.

I'm voting for the Free Market Fairy Tales based upon a post written by Mr Free Market and available at the following URL: http://www.fmft.net/archives/cat_economics_politics.html#000039

The whole post's a good one, and I appreciate his Americophile stance. Good luck to him.

Not Good

It appears that an apology is in order.

I cheerily linked to a quiz earlier in the week that let you see which member of the Bush Administration you were most like, and I got Rumsfeld. To me, that's something to celebrate at a whimsical level. I did not immediately realize that the quiz wasn't entirely er, sincere, something that should have been obvious after I read the description of Rumsfeld as 'subtle'. The man's about as subtle as a shotgun blast in the face at ten paces, and I should have detected a certain irony.

I didn't, however, say anything 'cause I wasn't too worried about the mischaracterization of Rumsfeld. My response was to brush it off as silly humor. I should have figured something was up when I saw the text for President Bush.

Bottom line: I didn't post a link to that test out of malice, and I didn't know that the thing would hamfistedly try to smear AG Ashcroft by calling him Heinrich Himmler and implying that he was a totalitarian. Heck, from what little I know about Ashcroft, I like him. Anyone willing to stand up and admit, "We have no king but Jesus" in this day and age can't be all bad.

My apologies.

Another English Trio

Mr Free Market over at Free Market Fairy Tales has done it again, this time delivering us another image of the cross of Saint George emblazoned on an entirely different trio. I'd like to say something witty and original, but I'm brought short due to time considerations. So, I'll steal from the comments section at FMFT:

I am not a rugby fan. However, I am becoming a fan of rugby events.

In order to save this guy on bandwidth, the picture is reproduced here:

From the looks of it, the Anglosphere seems set to keep this rugby cup, because the final game is between England and Australia. The Country Pundit, being easily swayed by such as above, is rooting for England unless the Australians counter with Nicole Kidman or Cate Blanchett.

Also worth reading there is his post on World War I; I don't know much about that war, but I certainly enjoyed reading what he had to say. I think the guy in the painting is supposed to be Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. A quick peek at the image title confirms this; he was supreme commander of British forces (and maybe more) for a time in the war. Sir Douglas managed to ring up some horrific casualty counts among his own troops, and as such hasn't fared so well in post-war opinion.

Colin Powell Leaves Me Speechless

General Colin Powell isn't my favorite in the Bush Administration. (See Rumsfeld, Donald H.) Sometimes, however, Powell comes through with a home run. This is one of those times.

I was browsing the archive of Free Market Fairy Tales (great blog, by the way) and found Secretary Powell's remark in this post. My reaction was simple: My jaw dropped, then came back up in a tight line, and I lowered my head in response to something that landed deep within whatever part of me responds to overwhelming emotional force in its most simple form. There couldn't possible be a better answer to the Archbishop of Canterbury's question. Sure, one might have some flashy or high-sounding statement of principle or a cutting remark, but what Colin Powell said was direct, to the point, and utterly irrefutable.

What did he say in response to the Archbishop's question about American plans for postwar Iraq and American empire-building?

"Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those who did not return."

Mr Free Market reports that the room in which this took place became "really quiet". As it should have---nothing more neither need have been nor should have been said.

Three English Roses

The first time I heard the phrase "England's rose", I think it was applied to the late Lady Diana Spencer, ex-Princess of Wales.¹ The next time I heard it was in the context of the British actress Sophie Ward. (She's not all bad looking, but darnit, she defected to the other side!)²

I'm not entirely sure what the term really applies to, but I need an artsy component to excuse what is otherwise an exercise in pure Gallic-bashing and lowbrow celebration of English women and their spirit.

With that disclaimer out of the way, this post comes from what seems to be a relatively new blog based in England, Free Market Fairy Tales. In France & the Rugby World Cup, Mr Free Market tells us a tale about "fine English maidens with the correct outlook on life. I've reproduced the picture in question in order to save him bandwidth and to disseminate this throughout the Anglosphere, all in the interests of cultural exchange. Marvel at their stoic British character as they, clad in diaphanous white, brave the watery precipitation that sends men rushing to ponchos and rain gear! (Either that or wonder just how many sheets to the wind they were before they started. --Ed.) Anyways, affix your gaze upon these women, as they display what Kevin Costner's Robin of Locksley called "English courage". Huh huh huh.

I bet Saint George wouldn't have minded seeing his cross reproduced on these particular maidens.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Free Market Fairy Tales for this image.

1 Sounds like I'm talking about a Royal Navy warship to be nitpicking about 'ex-Princess of Wales' or something, but never mind that.

2 The Country Pundit, being a traditionalist and not particular sympathetic to the ridiculous "inclusive language" doctrine forced upon him in undergraduate, considers calling a woman who acts an 'actor' is tantamount to an insult against her femininity.

Miss Ward shares circumstance with Episcopalian Bishop V. Eugene Robinson in that both of them have bailed out of heterosexual marriages and taken up with a homosexual partner. As Robert E. Lee says in The Guns of the South, "Too bad! Oh, too bad!"

Rule Britannia

Everyone knows that the United Kingdom's best and brightest hate the idiot chimp AWOL corporate tool President-select (Hail to the thief!!!!!) Bush, right? RIGHT?

Wrong.

The people over at the The Guardian usually don't produce much of note. (Buggers had the temerity to slam the character of Jean Grey in X-Men 2, don't you know.) However, as President Bush was winging his way across the Atlantic (should've been steaming into Southampton or Liverpool on SS United States) the Guardian up and published letters to the President from Britons.

Some of them are the usual tripe from people who need to be given close-range exposure to a Clue-by-Four. See Harold "I'm sure you'll be having a nice little tea party with your fellow war criminal, Tony Blair. Please wash the cucumber sandwiches down with a glass of blood, with my compliments" Pinter.

Another couple of them are from noteworthy Britons, and they're excerpted here:

It is regrettable that Tony Blair misled you into thinking that he could deliver Mr Schröder, Mr Chirac and Mr Putin to vote for a UN resolution. The PM does, I am afraid, have delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately, the doomed strategy of making weapons of mass destruction the cause of war has discredited the war in the UK. You did better to say frankly that you wanted to remove the Saddam regime which so brutalised its people and destabilised the region.

-Michael Portillo, Conservative MP

I beg you to take no notice. The British left intermittently erupts like a pustule upon the buttock of a rather good country. Seventy years ago it opposed mobilisation against Adolf Hitler and worshipped the other genocide, Josef Stalin.

. . . .

Eleven years ago something dreadful happened. Maggie was ousted, Ronald retired, the Berlin wall fell and Gorby abolished communism. All the left's idols fell and its demons retired. For a decade there was nothing really to hate. But thank the Lord for his limitless mercy. Now they can applaud Saddam, Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il... and hate a God-fearing Texan.

-Frederick Forsyth, author

But when the chips are really down, Britain is as always a firm ally, standing alongside the United States in the cause of making the world a safer place. That is what we have done for well over half a century and what we shall continue to do, whatever the chants of the demonstrators. It's called the special relationship.

-Charles Powell, member, House of Lords and foreign affairs advisor to Margaret Thatcher & John Major

Europe is bent on constructing in the EU a new nation on the old European pattern: flag-waving, glory-seeking, protectionist, exclusive of other races and creeds and full of touchy amour-propre, to say nothing of naked resentment of the US. This is a world that needs, just as much as it did in 1945, the unique American ability to be at once strong and principled in its global leadership.

Please pledge, Mr President, that under your leadership that proud tradition will be maintained and that the US will never, whatever the provocations from Europe or elsewhere, slip back into the bad old pre-1945 vices of nationalism, unilateralism, autarky and the laws of the jungle.

-Peter Jay, former ambassador to Washington

And a personal favorite:

Are you getting out enough? The world is divided into two groups of people and here I draw no political or social distinctions. I am, of course, referring to those that run and those that do not. When you kindly granted me an interview last year, your first question to me was "Are you still getting out?" I remember the look of puzzlement that settled upon the faces of your inner circle. "Yes, Mr President," I replied, "and I hope you are too." More puzzlement. In fact, I am sure they felt that they were being deliberately excluded from the conversation in some Masonic-type code.

Maintaining your daily running diet will keep your head clear and your mind focused, and will remind you constantly that, as a runner, you have the advantage over others, knowing that the road is often undulating and the gradient and surface uncertain. You will also know, as any runner does, that the session has to be completed and, unlike the bluffers who make up the ranks of the political intelligentsia, you do something on a daily basis that is objectively measured. Good luck and, as they would say in the north of England, "Get the miles in."

-Sebastian Coe, Conservative MP and former world-class miler

Go figure. Some of the responses I've been reading around the world of blogging indicate that the British are actually in favor of the President and aren't a bunch of slobbering toadies to totalitarianism, but one can never be sure with polls. After all, before them come lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Glenn Reynolds.

Do You Believe in Miracles? Yes!

Once again, the Country Pundit endeavours to bring you, the gentle reader, the results of his laborious undertaking of an examination into the world of Internet-based tests.

Today's test asked, "Which member of the Bush Administration are you?" As Wreck-Gar said in Transformers: The Movie so many years ago, "...and the answer is..."

You're the warlike Rumsfeld! So simple, so
subtle, so darned...cute. God bless you, Donny!

Which member of the Bush Administration are you?
This hasn't exactly made my evening (not with several hours of Federal income taxation classwork staring me in the face) but nonetheless, it's lightened the tone.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to elgato at Swanky Conservative for pointing me in the direction to find this.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

The people at Right Wing News have published the results of a poll sent to 150 rightists in the blogosphere. The poll asked for the respondents to compile a list of their "Most Interesting Dinner Companions". The top twenty vote-getters:

20) Voltaire (4)
20) Sun Tzu (4)
20) Martin Luther (4)
20) John Locke (4)
20) Rush Limbaugh (4)
20) C.S. Lewis (4)
20) Andrew Jackson (4)
20) F.A. Hayek (4)
20) Milton Friedman (4)
20) Ann Coulter (4)
20) William F. Buckley (4)
20) John Adams (4)
18) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (5)
18) Muhammad (5)
14) Socrates (6)
14) Teddy Roosevelt (6)
14) Julius Caesar (6)
14) George W. Bush (6)
12) George Washington (7)
12) Margret Thatcher (7)
8) William Shakespeare (9)
8) Ayn Rand (9)
8) George Patton (9)
8) Leonardo Da Vinci (9)
7) Mark Twain (11)
6) Ben Franklin (12)
5) Thomas Jefferson (15)
4) Abraham Lincoln (16)
3) Winston Churchill (18)
2) Ronald Reagan (19)
1) Jesus (20)

What?! I wasn't asked to participate? I must register my sincere protest at the non-inclusiveness of this survey and its suspect methodolgy.¹

1 Also known as "the Moynihan objection", since the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan articulated said objection numerous times as one of the ways Washington does business. I don't have the quote in front of me, but he once said something on the order of "Most objections in Washington boil down to this: Why wasn't I asked?"

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Tyler Cowen at The Volokh Conspiracy for letting me know about this.

TECHNICAL QUERY: When I use the HTML blockquote tag, the entire list compresses to a paragraph, ignoring darned near everything I could throw at it. I didn't try the br tag because I figured that would somehow break the blockquote arrangement. If anyone knows how to get around this, I'd appreciate knowing it.

Oh, Happy Day

Several things to celebrate:

1. I'm #1 at Google for "Country Pundit". A chart-topping debut on America's favorite search engine, hooray. Look ma, no brains! (It appears that 16 November 2003 will be the date on which the anniversary of Google recognition will be celebrated.)

2. The Country Pundit has been determined (on the strength of one link) to be a wiggly worm in the ecosystem as established by The Truth Laid Bear.

Hooray. Now, the long mark to respectability begins; today establishment, tomorrow the double digits in readership!

P.J. O'Rourke in Iraq

The Atlantic Monthly has a new interview with P.J. O'Rourke posted at their site.

Among other things, P.J. talks about the late Michael Kelly, reminisces about Operation DESERT STORM, and describes the (negative) effects of the Saddam government upon the people of Iraq. The perenially indignant need not read the piece, but it's safe for everyone else.

Osama bin Laden Gets His Virgins

[Reprinted without prior permission but with a TrackBack to allow one of Jonah's military guys to yell at me if he gets mad. Given the subject matter, I just couldn't resist using it, in light of my pro-Old Dominion bias. There has been a single editorial change.]

Going to Paradise?

After his death, Osama bin Laden went to paradise. He was greeted by George
Washington, who slapped him across the face and yelled, "How dare you attack the nation I helped conceive!"

Patrick Henry punched him in the nose and shouted, "You wanted to end America's liberty, but you failed."

James Madison appeared, kicked him, and said, "This is why I allowed the
government to provide for the common defense."

Bin Laden was subjected to similar beatings from Edmund Randolph, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson and 66 other early Americans. As he writhed in pain on the ground, an angel appeared. Bin Laden said, " This was not what I was promised."

The angel replied, "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you.
What did you think I said?"

Heh heh heh. If I had a scanned image of Calvin laughing evilly while preparing a plan to surprise Hobbes, I'd post it here to illustrate my reaction. This is laugh out loud funny stuff, and I'm grateful to the father who sent it.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Argghhh!!! The Home of one of Jonah's Military Guys© for having this wonderful post. As his site states, all copyrights to original material remain with him, and certainly no effort is made by this site to challenge his copyright in any original materials.

The Solid South No More

Donald Lambro of the Washington Times has penned an article dubbed Dixie Democrats consider Dean too liberal to win. He spoke with various Democrat functionaries in the region, asking them about their perceptions of Howard Dean and other issues regarding the success (or lack thereof) the Democrat Party seems to have in the land of cotton.

The article's worth a read on the whole, but I've picked the remarks of two people to comment upon. First up: Representative Susan Westrom of Kentucky, who is the Kentucky State party chairman.

"The rural South is not progressive, as far as social issues. They are deeply faith-based on moral issues. They look critically at anything that can undermine the social fabric of their community," Mrs. Westrom said.

Ahem. You Marxist gasbag, of course we're not "progressive".¹ Who in their right mind would want your progress? Good Christ, woman! We look critically at anything that can undermine the social fabric of our communities, and you say that as if it's a bad thing. Maybe some of us aren't too excited about living in hellholes like New York City, or Washington, D.C., both places that are "progressive" as far as social issues. If we wanted life your way, we'd move! Plain and simple.

Once upon a time, I'd be willing to bet that this whole country was deeply faith-based on moral issues. The innate denseness of this intellectually-stunted fool shows another reason why Democrats of the new type are continually running into problems in the South, at least to my mind. They go to some MoveOn-sponsored conference, get their head full of "progressive" ideas, and come back to Kentucky, Virginia, or somewhere else, and say "I'm from Washington and I'm here to help, you racist, sexist, homophobic slobs! Now, all your lives are belong to us!" And then they wonder why the Republican Party wins offices it's been shut out of for decades.

Next up is Mississippi State chairman Rickey Cole:

"I understand the point he was trying to make, but I don't know if he knows exactly how tall an order recruiting those voters would actually be,"

He's talking about Howard Dean and his now-infamous statement (apparently retracted) that he wanted to be the candidate for the guys with Confederate flags on their pick-up trucks.² The problem for Democrats is that they've built such a patchwork of single-issue interest groups (i.e. the anti-gun people, the rainbow flag/pink triangle types, the abortionists, et cetera) and have relied on them to such an extent that it is difficult for Democrats to expand into new markets, if you will.

For the Democrats to recapture their once-solid Southern majority, they will need to reject both the unrealistic/unattractive "progressive" wing and retool their Democratic Leadership Council. This will probably happen sooner or later; if Howard Dean digs a big enough hole, it could be as soon as 2005. The question is, "What will happen after that?" From their perspective, Democrats probably need to reverse what they did post-1968, when the nomination process was changed to the point that George McGovern was able to claim their nomination in 1972. (And of course go on to get absolutely crushed by President Nixon, woo hoo.) Tinkering with their primary system might also help. Admittedly, these are all structural reforms , but if properly implemented, that might allow the Democratic establishment (and frankly, the Democratic silent majority) a chance to nominate someone like Richard Gephardt or Joseph Lieberman.

If I was a Democrat, I'd be voting for Lieberman or Gephardt---probably Lieberman. He's about the only one I'd really trust at the helm of the nation. (Gephardt would be survivable and Kerry might not do too much damage---being veteran politicians, they're not going to get too wild. Edwards, being a member of the plaintiff's bar, is immediately suspect. I've already made my displeasure with Clark clear, and I'd never trust Sharpton, Braun, or Kucininch in the Oval Office.)

Anyways. I've rambled enough in this. There's more to say about the Democratic primary structure, but not in this post.

1 Once upon a time, "progress", like many other words, didn't carry with it a sinister tone. The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway even went so far as to incorporate into a major slogan of theirs, "C&O - For Progress". The thing is, they were for a stronger economy, money in their coffers, and better delivery of consumer goods. The C&O wasn't for the Democratic version of "progress", which usually involves a lot of money being spent for no gain (except to public-sector employees' unions and the like), rends asunder the social fabric, and generally trashes whatever it touches. Republicans and everyone else are left holding the bag whilst the Democrat chides us for being whatever the opprobrium of the day is.

2 I wish John Kerry or someone would say that he wanted to be the candidate for the guys with neon light effects on their cars, the guys who have hydraulic kits fitted to make the car bounce. You know, the "bling bling wing" of the Democratic Party. Admittedly, I'd be more interested in seeing if someone could get away with making that kind of statement about anyone else than lower-class white men.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to the folks at Lucianne.com for bringing this story to my attention.

The Portman Doctrine

Being an American, I like snappy slogans and faux-intellectual pretentiousness, especially when I get to practice it. This leads me to a maxim I wrote a while back, probably some time after 1999's The Phantom Menace.¹

I had learned that Natalie Portman was of Israeli origin (born 09 June 1981 in Jerusalem) and indeed had visited the place recently after one of those Palestinian not-so-smart bombs had detonated itself in a public place, with attendant civilian casualties. The mental machinery of wiseacrey shuddered to life, and thus uttereth the Pundit:

"Dude. Until the Palestinians can come up with something better [looking] than Natalie Portman, I'm backing the Israelis."

Toss all the arguments about the right to self-determination of peoples, the notion of popular sovereignty, participatory democracies, the theory of the nation-state, all the religious and cultural questions, et cetera. Given that some of the rhetoric in the Palestinian corner usually mentions exterminating all the good people of Israel, I couldn't in good conscience allow such a thing to happen to a gene pool that produced Natalie Portman. It couldn't happen! I therefore articulated the outsider's question of who to support very, very simple: What've you done for my viewing pleasure lately? I was fairly certain that this maxim would go unchallenged for quite a while.

Cometh The Politburo Diktat, a blog that's nastily funny in terms of satire. Basically, it apes the old Soviet style of reporting, grammar, spelling, and so forth. It also has the honor of being the first to challenge (albeit briefly) the Portman doctrine.

In a post entitled Exploiting Ajram, TPD gives us the story of one Nancy Ajram, a pop singer who's getting into trouble with Islamic authorities in Bahrain. Why's she in trouble? The usual: She's decent looking, and doesn't wear a burka. Anyways, I don't care what the Bahrainis do² in regards to this girl; their government likes us and that's what's important.

For a brief moment, this Miss Ajram made me think that the Portman Doctrine would be applied to a different effect, that I might have to await a new Israeli babe to re-examine my political sympathies. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, Miss Ajram is from Lebanon. Until they come up with an eye-catching babe, I'll have a hard time being lobbied for their cause.³

Yeah, yeah, this is a flip post. I don't know a thing about Nancy Ajram past 'she sings' so for all I know, she could be the moral equivalent of Vanessa Redgrave. It's a Saturday and I'm not particularly in the mood to write a sober piece.

1 I refuse as a matter of personal conscience to grant cinematic recognition to the dreadful pictures marketed under guise of 'prequels' to what right-thinking people will consider the best trilogy ever made. Take that, Messrs. Wachowski! (And, by extension, Peter Jackson.)

2 Or did; for all I know she went ahead with the performance. It is difficult to find news about the Middle East when one doesn't speak the languages of the Middle East.

3 Successful candidates will present a portfolio that overrides Miss Portman's record of playing a girl (albeit a really young one and therefore not entered in the 'babe' category) who watched Transformers and liked sniper rifles, along with playing the third-best royal-in-white (behind, in a messy tie, Cate Blanchett's Galadriel and Carrie Fisher's Leia Organa) and who at the same time was an excellent homage to Erin Gray's Colonel Wilma Deering.

Weswatch 0004 - The Case Against Clark

Although I don't really like digging through left-wing blogs to glean useful information, from time to time I do, and courtesy of Kevin Drum, I found a very-well written statement that sums up, at least on a topical level, much of my misgivings about General W.K. Clark and his campaign. It's a response provided by a guy going by the nom de cyber of Joe Schmoe¹, and it's reproduced here in full, without prior permission or editorial alteration:

Don't assume that simply becuase Clark is a general, he is certain to win any debate on national security policy. Neither Bush nor Cheney, nor any other Republican candidate, is recoil in horror before Clark's stars.

Let's say that Bush debates Clark on national security. First, he is going to be very well prepared for the debate. I realize that Bush is not an outstanding debater, but he'll bone up for this one like crazy. He'll have the finest political minds coaching him for months in advance. Moreover, Bush has been dealing with national security issues every single day for the past four years. He's fully conversant with the issues. Given all of this, it's extremly unlikely that Clark will wipe the floor with Bush. If he's debating Cheney, or Rice, his job will be even harder.

Second, and this is by far the most important point, Clark's theories on national security can be defeated on their merits. Not everyone is going to agree with them. For example, I have heard Clark speak on national security, and I am not impressed. He seems to be mired in a pre-9/11 mindset, as he has advocated approaching terrorism as a law enforcement problem. I also think that he is placing far too confidence in international institutions. This frightens me and, more importantly, makes me mistrustful of Clark. The man obviously knows that our allies have limited capabilities, and an even more limited inclanation to help us, yet he seems to be suggesting that they will shower us with money and troops if only we use a little more diplomatic finnesse. This seems so improbable that it makes me question his veracity.

Third, people might not like Clark. I don't like him. He seems to be a power-hungry, narcissitic government bureaurecrat who is willing to say whatever he has to say to sit behind the big desk in the Oval Office. He reminds me of the vice president of some insurance company who is always kissing up to his superiors, fawning over them at the country club and taking up golf just becuase the boss likes to play, and riding roughshod over his subordinates, always threatening to fire them and holding their performance reviews over their heads like a club. This is not a favorable impression.

Lastly, don't assume that the American public will value the fact that Clark is more articulate than, and may be smarter than, Bush. Intelligence is valued in leaders, but not if it is condescending and mean-spirited. If Clark comes accross as a smirking prick, he'll suffer for it. If his supporters keep saying things like "it's time to put the adults back in charge," he'll suffer for this as well. This kind of personality poltiics won't matter as much in 2004 as it might have in past elections, because the issues facing our nation are serious. However, they will still matter.
Posted by: Joe Schmoe at November 11, 2003 04:08 PM

That, especially the national security issue, is why I don't like Wesley Clark. He places far too much trust in multilateral bodies and consensus politics to be trusted. He's far more willing to trade away our precious national sovereignty in order to bring externals on board, like the French or the Germans. In an age of declining national sovereignty, a President Clark would be too eager to exchange hard-won (with the blood of our soldiers and the treasure of our people) sovereignty for favorable reviews from the French and German governments, along with the similarly-constituted apparat of the European Union and tbe Brussels apparatchiki.

There may be considerable merit to Wesley Clark's politico-military ideas and viewpoints on the primacy of diplomacy, but I neither endorse nor recognize these merits at this point in time. Regardless of any objective measure of satisfactions that I have with President Bush, when a subjective scale is applied, he far outdistances every single Democratic candidate. Only Senator Lieberman is even able to remain in the rear view mirror in terms of national security.¹

On a more personal and less noble note, the thing about Clark being a corporate VP who takes up golf because the president likes it is another reason to viscerally dislike the guy. I've seen plenty of people like that in my law school, and I'd prefer to stop those people wherever possible. Bloody sycophants and grovelers; can't stand them.

Go figure. Re-elect the President.

1 Click the "Continue Reading..." link to see another one of Joe's posts that paints him as a Democrat disgusted with the tenor of their side's campaign so far.

2 I've never been fond of the term "homeland security"---I would have preferred that the topic be addressed as "national security". Oh well.

Tip of the pristine USS Wisconsin captain's baseball cap to Matthew Stinson for pointing this out.

If Dean or Clark gets the nomination, I will vote for Bush. I will donate money to Bush's campaign and volunteer for it.

If, however, Gephardt or Edwards gets the nomination, I will vote for either one. Not sure about Lieberman.

Unlike many here, I do not believe that the Bush presidency has been a catastrophe. I am sick and tired of the hysteria and constant stream of invective coming from the Democratic party. When the Republicans did it during Clinton's presidency, I felt alienated. Now that "my side" is doing it, I feel just as alienated.

These constant attacks on Bush are undignified and immature. If only one of the Democrats would run an issues-oriented campaign, it would be really nice. Unfortuantley, the leftist primary voters want nothing to do with that, so we get the nauseating and emotional refrain of "Bush lied," "the Republicans want to repeal the New Deal," and "that incompetent chimp and his crew of crony capitalists are miserable failures."
Posted by: Joe Schmoe at November 11, 2003 03:38 PM

William F. Buckley's Missed Opportunity

Gore Vidal is the kind of guy who, in the abstract, could use a beating with a Clue by Four. He's worse than the average teenager who can mouth disorganized platitudes about "Bush ist Hitler!" and "No blood for oil!" while smashing windows in Seattle. Why is that? Because Gore Vidal's smart. I can't deny that the guy's intelligent, but darned if he isn't a waste of good brain cells.

Back in 1968, he had a televised near-dustup with William F. Buckley of National Review fame, as the two were covering the Democratic National Convention in Richard J. Daley's Chicago. Both had been hired by ABC to provide commentary, and suffice it to say that the two of them didn't get along, to the point of WFB threatening to punch Vidal's lights out. Luckily, this was caught on camera, and has been preserved for posterity. Click here for some background, along with audio and video of the event.

Comes now Mr. Vidal in the LA Weekly, some sort of rag published ostensibly as a lifestyle magazine for the Los Angeles area. In the course of an interview by Marc Cooper, Mr. Vidal has the following profound thoughts on "the links between our revolutionary past and our imperial present":

Or is this really just one more rather corrupt and foolish Republican administration?

No. We are talking about despotism. I have read not only the first PATRIOT Act but also the second one, which has not yet been totally made public nor approved by Congress and to which there is already great resistance. An American citizen can be fingered as a terrorist, and with what proof? No proof. All you need is the word of the attorney general or maybe the president himself. You can then be locked up without access to a lawyer, and then tried by military tribunal and even executed. Or, in a brand-new wrinkle, you can be exiled, stripped of your citizenship and packed off to another place not even organized as a country — like Tierra del Fuego or some rock in the Pacific. All of this is in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Founding Fathers would have found this to be despotism in spades. And they would have hanged anybody who tried to get this through the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hanged.

The Country Pundit has no official position on either of the PATRIOT acts (other than to say that I'm worried about the power of such in the hands of people like Janet Reno and so forth) but I'm pretty darned sure we're not in the hands of a despot. So long as the system of checks and balances survives, with independent coordinate branches of government, I'm not too terribly concerned about the imposition of despotism. Further, I'll leave Judge Kenneth Starr or Theodore Olsen (and throw in Laurence Tribe along with Cass Sunstein for balance) to speculate as to the actions of the Founders in regards to our current executive branch.

Do you not think of Bush and Ashcroft as Americans?

I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open. We have a deranged president. We have despotism. We have no due process.

What result if I (or anyone else on the right) were to say that "The Clinton Administration was an alien army"? The mocking laughter would echo from one coast to the other, probably. I realize that Mr. Vidal is probably thinking of "alien" in the traditional sense, i.e. a foreign army like the Red Army or something, but I'll also admit to snickering at the possibility that he thinks space aliens inhabit the White House. Admittedly, I was a fan of Kenneth Johnson's V back when it came out, and I really enjoyed watching the original and follow-up miniseries on DVD recently. Bless you, Warner Brothers.

I'm not competent to discuss whether we've due process or not, but I'm pretty darned sure the President isn't deranged, and I once again refute the 'despot' thing. Merriam-Webster considers the definition of despotism as being "a system of government in which the ruler has unlimited power". As I stated earlier, so long as checks and balances (along with the corresponding separations of power) exists, textbook despotism cannot be found in America. Besides, if the President was all-powerful, wouldn't he just override the Democrats in the Senate and appoint judges at whim? Oh well---reality in liberal analysis quite often is a rare thing.

Is Bush the worst president we’ve ever had?

Well, nobody has ever wrecked the Bill of Rights as he has. Other presidents have dodged around it, but no president before this one has so put the Bill of Rights at risk. No one has proposed preemptive war before. And two countries in a row that have done no harm to us have been bombed.

I'd argue to Mr. Vidal that if you want to discuss 'wrecking' the Bill of Rights, then any list of criminals probably starts not with George W. Bush but rather with Abraham Lincoln or any other President who's gone and put paid to the Tenth Amendment. You want to talk about internments? Three words and one historical example come to mind: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the actions taken by the government in regards to people of Japanese heritage after Pearl Harbor. (As an aside, George Takei, who played Captain Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek, has a story on CNN.com about his return to an internment camp where he spent about a year as a child during the war.)

As for Mr. Vidal's raving about pre-emption, I would hope that his haughty moral stance and righteous indignation will be sufficient to prevent any future terrorist attacks on the United States. Somehow, I doubt it. Does anyone out there see Osama bin Laden (or one of his henchlings) quivering in their shoes and refraining from attacks because a 77-year-old writer crab says that pre-emption is bad? Let me put it this way, Mr. Vidal: I'd rather for them to live in fear than Americans. If that requires pre-emption, then so be it.

How do you think the current war in Iraq is going to play out?

I think we will go down the tubes right with it. With each action Bush ever more enrages the Muslims. And there are a billion of them. And sooner or later they will have a Saladin who will pull them together, and they will come after us. And it won’t be pretty.

With apologies to Hillaire Belloc in regards to a response to Mr. Vidal's tripe, "Whatever happens we have got/the Department of Defense and they have not." Certainly the image of Saladin is a powerful one; he's probably the most-well known Islamic warrior outside of rarified academic circles. I think (off-hand) he's probably one of their most successful military commanders, and probably deserves a level of professional admiration. However, not every Islamic is an Islamist. Not every man and woman who pray to Mecca five times daily is willing to mount up and "make mine Mistel" when they board an airliner.

Mr. Vidal's analysis confuses anger with action. Is there a lot of anger against the United States? This is almost certainly true. The important question is, "How much of that anger translates into action?" Based upon what I've seen, the answer is, "Not much." If, every time an Islamic cursed the name of America, harm was done to us, then yes, we'd be in trouble. But it's not. The relative few among the Islamic world who're stupid enough to march off to arms against America generally don't do so well. In fact, they tend to get slaughtered on the whole.

WFB missed a good opportunity in 1968.

The full article is available (for an unknown duration) by clicking here.

A Blogger's Worst Case Scenario

Thanks to the good guys at Boots and Sabers for alerting me to this story in The Onion that neatly summarizes one of the deeply-held fears that many bloggers probably have, namely discovery of the blog by someone who doesn't need to know.¹

In a turn of events the 30-year-old characterized as "horrifying," Kevin Widmar announced Tuesday that his mother Lillian has discovered his weblog.

. . .

Upon receipt of the e-mail, Widmar mentally raced through the contents of his blog. He immediately thought of several dozen posts in which he mentioned drinking, drug use, casual sex, and other behavior likely to alarm his mother.

"I don't have one of those sites that's a big tell-all about one-night stands and wild parties," Widmar said. "I mostly write about the animation I like or little things that happen to me and my friends. But there are definitely things in there that I wouldn't, well, write home to Mom about."

Fortunately for Widmar, Lillian's comments about the site indicate that she has not delved deeply into its contents.

. . .

As of press time, Widmar had not decided whether to shut PlanetKevin down.

I'd been looking for an excuse to link to Boots and Sabers for a while, and this is that excuse. Owen and Jed regularly pontificate on law, firearms, a certain heiress and her recorded tryst, technology, and the military, all while being rather enthusiastic about bonfires. It must be a Texas thing.

A coordinate post at Tiger: Raggin' & Rantin' said that the greatest fear he had was having no one read what he wrote. Given my generally paranoid disposition, I can state that I share in his fears---and also worry that someone might actually read it. Talk about your fear and loathing in the blogosphere.

1 I know the Onion is fiction. Given the nature of blogging, and the often refreshing candor with which many bloggers write, I think the reaction of the fictitious blogger is realistic. Or so I would think.

Blegging for Mergers

I'm currently slogging through a paper on the differences between the merger approval mechanisms of the United States and the European Union. If anyone's got some whiz-bang resources for EU "competition" regulation, policy, and procedure, I'd love to hear from you. Likewise, any information readers think might be useful for the American side of things would be appreciated.

I've already raided the European Union's official site(s), so that's a good start. At the same time, I'd appreciate more information, so I can get the right answer instead of a politicized rant about the evils of Brussels. As much fun as that might be, the relevant professor would not look kindly upon such a work.

Just use the 'contact' link off to the right if you've got anything. Thanks!

Jews and Communists

The Volokh Conspiracy has some really good posts over the last little bit in regards to Judaism and Communism, courtesy of Professors Volokh and Bernstein. For the sake of permalinks, click here, here, and here. The discussion arose from a story out of Germany that stirred the pot on the notion of Jews and the introduction of Communism to Russia, and corresponding "class guilt" for that.

This whole notion seems to stem from unfortunate circumstances of history in Russia, and the socio-political climate there about a century ago. Professor Volokh says he has a sense that many in the Communist movement were Jews, and I've got the same sense. Now, as to the reason for that, the Pundit has a theory which Professor Bernstein might support, and it's one I've kicked around for a few years: "Of course the Jews of the Russian Empire would be involved in Communism. Think about why they would have been. It's not so much that Judaism is automatically collectivist and Communist, but more that Communism's actions would have been attractive to Jewish people of a political slant. It's the early part of the 20th century, and you're Jewish. The official policy of the Romanov government in your direction can be summed up by saying, "Ohmigod, you killed Jesus! You bastards!"¹ Pogroms and other lesser forms of discrimination abound, and the czar thinks you're a traitorous bunch. Basically, you're the scapegoat for whatever goes wrong in the Russian Empire.

Are you going to join the local branch of the Romanov Party, or are you going to kick some butt? Answer: You're going to kick some butt. From the perspective of an oppressed minority, the Bolsheviks offered some hope. They had a (on the face of it) seemingly decent plan (Peace! Land! Bread!)² and they were willing to take drastic measures to get their plan implemented. Who wouldn't sign on with that? While Lenin was alive, one could theoretically think that Trotsky (nee Lev Davidovich Bronstein) might be the heir apparent and that'd be great, 'cause he was also nominally Jewish and might just avoid sending the troops on raids to the local Jewish village.

Of course, all this turned to ashes when Stalin came to power, because Uncle Joe was just as bad as the little corporal of Austria when it came to disliking the chosen people of God. The difference between them seems to have been that Hitler focused on the Jews (about 46% or so of the casualties of the various National Socialist extermination programs were Jewish, if you use the generally accepted 6 and 13 million figures) whereas Stalin had no focus at all. (Kill 'em all! Let Marx sort 'em out.)³

The whole history of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia is an interesting thing to look at, because many of the evils of the 20th century can be traced back to Moscow under the hammer & sickle in one form or another. Luckily for us, the Soviet Union quit and Beijing seems content to suck the money out of the West instead of fomenting revolution abroad. (The sound you hear is me knocking on wood.)

1 It's worth noting that "official Russian thought" was that Moscow, Petrograd, or maybe Russia itself constituted the "third Rome" (with Constantinople being the second) which would last as the eternal holy city or something. I can't make this stuff up; Nicholas II's correspondence often makes your stomach churn 'cause you know this guy's not playing with a full deck. Moreover, the deck he is playing with has a bunch of pinochle cards shuffled in, and that's never good. If only Kerensky could have succeeded!

2 Not as catchy as "Democracy Whiskey Sexy", but one makes do with what one has.

3 Admittedly, Stalin towards the end of his life was reported to have been gearing up for another round of terror; the "Doctors' Plot" period of ~1948-1953 is or was thought to have been the stepping-off point for anti-Semitic purges in the Soviet Union. At any rate, as far as "the Jewish question" goes, Stalin=Hitler and it goes to show you that the Eastern Front of the Great Patriotic War (snicker snicker) was more about ideological sibling rivalry than it was good versus evil. More like the younger Evil brother picking a fight with the older Evil brother, if you will.

Is John Spong Relevant?

While working on the update for the Halliburton post, I came across an ad at Slate which caught my eye and then drew my ire. The ad, which I'll upload later today once I get FTP access, is for some sort of electronic forum featuring Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong. There will be no link, because I don't want to give any additional traffic to this loon. As Han Solo might've said, "Trust me."

The name of Spong is enough to draw cheers in some circles and snarls of revulsion in others. The Sunday school class I attended prior to graduation from college certainly had people who knew the name of Spong, and they weren't particularly pleased with him. Suffice it to say that Bishop Spong (this may be an inaccurate title; I'm a Methodist and we don't get wrapped up in all this quasi-Romish folderol in terms of titles) is more than likely an avid supporter of V. Eugene Robinson's advancement in the Episcopal hierarchy. (The Country Pundit is not, for a variety of reasons.)

The ad's money quote asks, "ARE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS STILL RELEVANT?" I'm from a small Southern town, hence the name 'Country Pundit'. I'm not used to sitting around pondering the relevancy of the Decalogue, but rather pondering just how I'm going to bring my actions into compliance with its contents. So, after I wiped a Tea Leoni-ish look of bewilderment (I saw it once on an ad for her NBC program back in the 1990s; can't find a shot of it) I decided to read the ad and click the link. My next reaction was to scoff: "You'd just as soon ask whether gravity was still relevant."

The ad promises "NEW CHRISTIANITY FOR A NEW WORLD" as "Bishop Spong Explores Biblical Truth in our Modern World". Pardon me for asking the obvious, but what new world? Did we colonize Mars or something when I was asleep in my carrel at school earlier? Furthermore, other than the fact that we're 1900-odd years away from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, what exactly is so very different about our world that the denizens of the first century A.D. wouldn't understand after a bit of catch-up? Barbarians at the gate, a savage hatred of Christians among the upper class, and the army sent hither and yon defending the national interest. The more things change, the more they stay the same. It would seem that the single most important constant here is mankind. Yep, mankind. The same craven, fallen creature that departed the Garden of Eden a long time ago after noshing on the fruit of the Tree of Life. (See the book of Genesis, chapter 3.) The only way that that changes (for Gentiles, that is) is through the redemptive and life-transforming grace available for free through Jesus Christ. I consider it of minor significance that I don't see the name of "John Spong" listed anywhere in my copy of the King James Version or my battered New International Version.

Anyways, Spong's particular straw man is 'fundamentalism'. You know, wherein Christians hijack airliners and fly them into large buildings. Wait, that's Islamist fundamentalism. Sorry; the way most of the Left talks, America has more to fear from a bunch of devoted Christians than it does a cell of Islamist kamikaze pilots. 'Fundamentalism' is probably described as "disagreement with Bishop Spong" so that means that much of Africa and its Anglicans are "fundamentalists", along with the Southern Baptist Convention, the Roman Catholic Church which recognizes the authority of Rome and the Pope, me, and millions of other people who don't go around tinkering with a divinely-inspired book to create "progressive Christianity".

Here's the kicker, under "PRAISE FOR BISHOP SPONG": “…Spong provides enlightened reading for people who no longer believe in the God of Sunday school and are looking for something else to give their lives meaning.” This comes from the San Francisco Chronicle. Huh? If you no longer believe in the God of Sunday school, you do need to see a preacher man, but I think you'd need to go towards God, not into someone who I'd describe as a servant of the very devil of Hell.

To wrap up an irate post, I'll say this: It's a sign of Western civilizational superiority that Spong hasn't been killed by an angry mob on the orders of a bearded half-blind cleric who sits in judgment in a court of life and death that has no sanction of the governed. However, the Coulterish streak in me wants desperately to dare Bishop Spong to pull this kind of a stunt on al-Jazeera, where he promises a "NEW ISLAM FOR THE NEW WORLD", and await the response. John, I wouldn't plan on showing my face for the next 25 years or so. He can take comfort in the fact that Episcopalians don't issue fatwas, although I'm tempted to ask Rowan Williams to make an exception.

At any rate, the Christian church has endured many things over the course of two thousand years, and I suppose it will weather Spong and his heresy. This will, of course, irritate Spong, V. Eugene Robinson, and the Purple Pundit Who Shall Not Be Named, but go figure. My religious forebears faced down Nero and others, and some nitwit bishop doesn't match that kind of threat.

UPDATE: I promised the ad, and here it is:

The Fictional Country Pundit

Yes, there is substantive content---stop laughing---in this blog. However, this post isn't one of them. As stated before, I like taking anything that tells you something about yourself. Sometimes those results aren't pretty. This entry revolves around the author whose fiction I most resemble, or something thereabouts:

Anne Rice is writing your life. Go you goth girl, go.

Which Author's Fiction are You?

Picture omitted because I'd prefer not to get billed for the costs of replacing a lot of keyboards ruined by vomit. Viewing all possible results, I think I would like to have gotten either William Faulkner or Robert A. Heinlein. I could understand maybe Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson, but Anne Rice?! I mean, I've seen & read Interview with the Vampire, enjoying them both, but darned if I'm some morbid black-wearing pansy who mopes about writing stupid poetry about the sweet embrace of death. (You're a khaki-and-blue-wearing wiseacre who lays about, writing stupid blog entries. -Ed.)

Anyways. I promise (and hold me to this!) that I won't do more than one of the test-result entries per day at most. I'm sure the readers would rather hear my ruminations on why Rumsfeld rules or something, and I'm also sure that in the grand scheme of things, nobody cares.

The Evils of Halliburton

Many people, by now, have heard about the perfidy of Richard B. Cheney who went from soliciting government contracts at Halliburton to awarding government contracts to Halliburton.

Well, I had fervently wanted to believe that this sort of thing wasn't true, that Americans were better than that, and that we wouldn't just go and beat the stuffing out of some country merely to give a services company in Texas something to do. Call it me being subject to needing a 'moral cause' to fight for, something that Richard Nixon outlined as being quintessentially American.¹

At any rate, I continued to hope that the ravings of the anti-corporatist Left weren't true. Lo and behold, David Brooks delivereth me from concern and returneth me to my prior heights of scorn, mockery, and sneering. In his latest broadcast from behind enemy lines (i.e. the occupied city of New York), Mr. Brooks has the following to say:

The problem with the story is that it's almost entirely untrue. As Daniel Drezner recently established in Slate, there is no statistically significant correlation between the companies that made big campaign contributions and the companies that have won reconstruction contracts.

The most persuasive rebuttals have come from people who actually know something about the government procurement process.

...

The fact is that unlike the Congressional pork barrel machine, the federal procurement system is a highly structured process, which is largely insulated from crass political pressures. The idea that a Bush political appointee can parachute down and persuade a large group of civil servants to risk their careers by steering business to a big donor is the stuff of fantasy novels, not reality.

...

But answering these questions would mean coming up with a positive vision of how to better proceed with our reconstruction efforts. Instead the Democratic presidential candidates are content simply to repeat demagogic and misleading applause lines.

The lesson of this Halliburton business is that some parts of our government really do make their decisions on the merits. And just because a story makes you popular doesn't make it true.

A few comments:
1. Neener neener, Dennis Kucininch; the Child Mayor of Cincinnati gets it wrong. Again. This is a recurring theme here.
2. Maybe the Left thinks the civil service bureaucracy is rife with Republican subversion, but I'd be more willing to bet that the progeny of the Great Society and the Clinton Administration are ready, willing, and able to throw a monkey wrench in any such scheme. It's difficult to imagine that someone wouldn't get the word out to somebody "on the outside", namely Henry Waxman, or a member of the Fourth Estate, who would gladly skewer the Bush Administration if there were any factual basis. And no, Paul Krugman doesn't count. I said 'factual basis' for a reason, you know. (Perhaps you should have said 'rooted in reality, give or take a few dimensions. It is Krugman that you're talking about. -Ed.)
3. Mr. Brooks continues to be useful in his op-ed position, and perhaps he'll pull Safire back to his old roots. Like the slow replication of Smith, soon the New York Times will be ours! (Cue the evil laughter.)

Therefore, all is good and well in the Republic, at least until Dennis Kucininch needs another applause line. Is it just me, or does he look like the guy who was chronically getting his lunch money taken from him in elementary school?

1 Not to imply that I'm not capable of supporting military action solely out of a cold-blooded calculation of the national interest, mind you. I just like having something to toss out to the audience that doesn't make me sound like Fail-Safe's Professor Groeteschele; call it 'HAL-9000 with a human face'. I can't hide behind a wickedly sinister accent like Doctor Kissinger, so verbal comedy has to suffice. HAK, you lucky devil.

Click-of-the-tongue-and-point-of-the-finger to Kevin Patrick at Blogs for Bush for pointing this article out.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds provides his usual level of service and sets me on the road to a more complete entry. Check his post here to view his post, which set me on the road to finding the following:

The Daniel Drezner Slate piece Mr. Brooks references can be found here. Mr. Drezner has further commentary upon the issue at his personal blog. Click here for further details. Boy, is it fun to drive a series of nails into the coffin of that particular meme., and with a pneumatically-powered nail gun. (Shades of Lethal Weapon 2 or the original Quake by id Software!)

At any rate, even if there is some smoke here, any potential concerns ought to be swept away. It's only normal that friends of any Administration get a wee little preferential boost when compared to a company that, being otherwise equal, didn't write a check to the campaign. If that sort of thing offends one's moral conscience, I can't help that. It is the very nature of politics. Duh. Deal. I've got a personally-acceptable level of favoritism, and what I seem to understand from Messrs. Drezner & Brooks as fact doesn't approach that level.

"This isn't the corruption you're looking for. You can go about your business. Move along, move along..."

Veterans' Day

Check your calendars, ladies and gentlemen: Today is Veterans' Day.

I don't have some eloquent Buckleyian elocution put to pixels to offer today, but I can say this: To every man or woman who's ever carried a rifle, swabbed a deck, or strapped into an airplane, thank you for going out to face the enemies of the United States of America. It's the sacrifices of people like you who let me sit back here in Virginia and fumble my way through law school.

Special thanks go to my dad, who once upon a time worked on tanks and assorted armored vehicles somewhere out in Texas and Oklahoma. I'm pretty sure he wasn't thinking about building a future for his son at the time, but he wound up doing it.

If you're like me and have never served a day in the military, find a veteran today and thank them for their service. America has been the better for their presence, and we owe them a debt that may not be repayable.

Revolution-Era Poll, Round Two

After a slight error in entering a URL, I found a different, less noble quiz at the Founding Fathers site. I duly punched in the answers as they came to me, and I came up with the answer to the question of which Revolutionary War er, hole I most resemble:

Hee hee. Having watched Disney's The Swamp Fox as a kid, I'm generally acquainted with Colonel Banastre Tarleton, but General John Burgoyne will do. Americans ought to like him since he surrendered his army to Major General Horatio Gates after the Saratoga campaign, on 17 October 1777.

Weswatch 0003 - A Dedicated Blog

Early on, I had intended to provide a topical coverage of Wesley K. Clark's run for the White House, but the impetus for that has lessened since I gave up drifting through Generally Speaking. One can only take so much, and I think I reached my fill of nutso Democratic fawning and/or bravo sierra pretty quickly.

Luckily, there are some brave and dedicated souls out there on the Internet who're fulfilling my intent with far better ability than I would provide, and since I found one of them, it's time to mention them:

Wesley Watch professes to keep track of the good (or not-so-good) General, and it seems that they know what they're doing. The permanent link is over there on the right.

Which Founding Father?

The Country Pundit enjoys celebrity personality tests on the Internet. They're fun, meaningless, and involve precious little in the way of resources. They're also a way to boost one's ego if the results come out right.

To wit: This quiz asks which Founding Father you are. I took the test back in November of 2002 and took it again today. The results, rather shockingly, were the same:

Back then, I took the thing again and got the following:

I can see where me clicks with this variant of John Adams. I think I've said before that I'm not particularly interested in being liked but would rather be the one that people ask "What's the answer?" That being said, I also liked John Adams in a stage performance of 1776, so Adams isn't too far away from a facet of my personality. ("Cool Considerate Men" is arguably my favorite song---y'think?---followed closely by Richard Henry Lee's song-and-dance routine. Absolute-Lee.)

This one's actually too bloody close for comfort. I'm told (by suitably enlightened people!) I've got a great sense of humor and it usually works, but when it doesn't, hoo boy. I'm also reportedly pretty amusing to hear on a live rant. At any rate, I'm working on the mover and shaker part. "Wait'll they get a load of me..." From what I gather out of a French Revolution Time Machine book, Paine collected the death sentence on twelve star systems from Robespierre's government, and that's a bad thing. He did, however, escape, due to the fact (I think) that Messrs. Robespierre et al got marched to Mme. Defarge's salon before Mr. Paine did.¹

In the final analysis, it is good to know that I am like one of the most famous Virginians. The fact that we both have sideburns determines that we will both be President, muahahaha. You know, Internet quizzes being so reliable in predicting anything other than that people will waste time at them.

1. Ed Burke was right and that revolution was bad. The more I think about it, one of the last things that the French did right was to help us out in 1789; after that, it was all downhill. Sigh. You'd think the land of Jeanne d'Arc, Laetitia Casta (broadly), and the TGV might be able to come up with something other than knee-jerk opposition to America. Hope springs eternal, I suppose.

Recent Purchases

I went and did my part last night for the war economy by buying the following things at Best Buy:
X-Men 1.5
The Very Best of Sheryl Crow
Afterglow by Sarah McLachlan

OK, so having finished the DVD, I'm left wondering how the thing went by so fast. (Answer: It's a short movie, stupid.) Blah blah prejudice and fear, blah blah all the subtexts about Ian McKellen making this a movie about hating homosexuals or the like. The other side of the coin (i.e. the public policy question about how one keeps the good people of the United States (be they mutant or be they homo sapiens) safe while constraining the bad people and all under the Constitution is never really addressed. Admittedly, this isn't the action point of the movie, but I still would have appreciated something other than the fumbling attempt at tying Senator Joseph McCarthy to Senator Robert Kelly. (Never mind that history as culled from the archives of various Soviet agencies seems to have born McCarthy out in large part.) On the other hand, kudos to the director for not labeling Bruce Davison's character outright as a Republican, a swipe that most Hollywood types probably wouldn't have avoided.

Anyways. Captain Picard faces off against Richard of Gloucester and the results are worth watching. Patrick Stewart's one of these guys you pretty much can count on for a solid performance no matter the material, so he pretty much owned the role of Professor Charles Xavier. I just wish he'd said 'Engage!' at least once. Magneto seems like a man with a competing ideal, not merely the 'BWAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHA! DEATH TO ALL! MUAHAHAHAHA!' type of villain that I usually don't go for. McKellen's portrayal is effortless and thoroughly ruthless; Magneto seems completely at home with a fearsome level of control over electromagnetic forces. It's impressive to see McKellen own the screen in Richard III, The Lord of the Rings, and then here.

On to my favorite X-Man (er, woman): Famke Janssen's Jean Grey. I dunno why I'm particularly interested in that character, but she caught my eye back on the old Fox cartoon in the mid-1990s, right about the time of the Dark Phoenix thing, or somewhere shortly before. Anyways. I enjoyed watching her on-screen and was as usual pleased by Miss Janssen's performance. This makes the third or fourth flick I've seen her in (starting with, what else, Goldeneye) and I've yet to be disappointed. I hear the Phoenix angle starts to come out in the second movie, so I'll be picking that up on DVD soon. I'd almost want to get into the whole Phoenix comic saga, but I have this vague notion that I'd be spending a lot of money, and I'm not up for that.

Two short notes: The much bemoaned "what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?" quote makes sense in a comics context. Think about how you'd have it in a mag, and the line becomes more credible. Box 1: Storm comes up the elevator shaft and Toad looks back. (Uh oh...) She asks, "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning?" as we see her come up the elevator shaft, electricity brewing around her. Box 2: THE SAME THING THAT HAPPENS TO EVERYTHING ELSE! as a text box as a massive bolt of lightning drills the Toad through a wall or something out into space, or has him writhing around like Luke Skywalker on the second Death Star as Emperor Palpatine tries to fry him. Alternatively, use some sort of "voice over" from the narrator of the comic to say the punchline, because I'm not sure that a character can deliver it right. In any event, I'm not sure it belonged in the movie.

UPDATE: I've gone back and watched this sequence a couple of times (best part being Wolverine's single-finger salute to Cyclops as they enter the museum) and I think the line works. In a way, Halle Berry's laid-back delivery of that punchline's the thing that makes it. I'd rather see 'laid-back' than 'all-out' in the delivery, and I suppose that's the reason I'm favorable to it. We now return you to your original blog material.

Now I'll have to lay out more money for the second X-flick when it's out on DVD and then catch the next one in theaters, especially since it's reportedly supposed to center more around Famke Janssen. Woo hoo.

Moving right along, it's been a while since I've willingly listened to Sheryl Crow. I got somewhat irate with her over the buildup to war with Iraq, and had in effect banned her from personal listening. I wasn't sure if it would be permanent or not, but I was definitely going to do something. Er, right. I'm sure she cares. It just seemed to be awfully convenient that she was all gung-ho for Kosovo and kept her mouth shut during Operation DESERT FOX, but the minute Bill Clinton wasn't calling the tune for war, she decided she didn't like the military. Nice. I had already dismissed C'mon, C'mon as a banal attempt to somehow catch the current market in music (namely the bad parts thereof) in a way that I didn't like, and thus shelved the thing after a single listen. Yep, I thought it was that bad.

So anyways, I approached the decision to buy The Very Best of Sheryl Crow with some trepidation. I had to basically be convinced by a buddy of mine who's big into Bruce Springsteen and Johnny Cash, so this was a somewhat surreal experience. The disc has seventeen tracks, so it's not short, and the version I paid extra for had a DVD with 13 of her videos. It's not bad for $22.99 plus Virginia tax. (Woo hoo, 4.5%, suck it Tennessee!) I'm still listening to it, and I'll get back to the readership with a review later. Meanwhile, there's a de rigeur essay in the liner notes, along with a bunch of photos of Miss Crow over the years. The American Spectator once named her "the thinking man's sex symbol", and hey, who am I to argue with the guys at TAS? Warping Laura Ingraham's formulation, shaddup and look good or sing, Sheryl. We're not particularly interested in your latter-day Streisandian political "thought". Suffice it to say, however, that she still passes the Butt-head test. Huh huh huh...uh...huh huh huh...

I haven't listened to any of Afterglow yet, but if/when I do, I'll get around to posting some sort of a half-wit review. Then I've got to get my hands on Dido Armstrong's latest, which ought to be good. Yikes, it's like my college days all over again---now if only law school were as easy as my undergraduate years.

A Blog for Bush

This full disclosure statement should come as no surprise, but there's probably some unwritten rule out there that demands that I say it:

The Country Pundit, and by extension, his blog, supports the re-election of President George W. Bush to serve as President from 20 January 2005 until 20 January 2009. Therefore, I've posted the graphic button link to Blogs for Bush, and will sooner or later work up the courage to send in my site.

Groovy. Smashing. Re-elect the President.

Matrix Musings

Den Beste complained about having to watch what he read for a while due to the likelihood of spoilers from The Matrix: Revolutions being broad blog topics. For what it's worth, Mr. Den Beste, this topic meets your expectation.

The following article is chock-full of spoilers and unvarnished opinion about The Matrix: Revolutions. Do not click "Continue Reading" if you don't want to have the movie spoiled. To steal a theme from Reloaded, the choice is yours.

Carrie-Anne Moss sums up this movie in one classic sentence, right before she proves why she's easily one of my favorite movie heroines: "I don't have time for this shit." She says this while listening to the Merovingian talk about wanting the Oracle's eyes in exchange for Mr. Anderson's freedom. Immediately after she snaps out this terse remark, she does some sort of somersault, kicks a pistol out of some guy's hand, and reverses the tactical situation: The supercilious 'Merv', as she refers to him at one point, winds up with a Beretta (model 92, I think) planted firmly against his forehead. The tarted-up Monica Bellucci (who's also in the "been drawn on by Trinity" category) tells her boyfriend that yes, Trinity will shoot. Miss Trin then thumbs the hammer back and notes that she's tired of waiting and that she doesn't mind dying since the Merovingian would go with her. Classic Mexican standoff.

This all takes place in the S&M club from hell. There's more latex rubber, PVC, and other vinyl/leather being worn than I ever care to see again, but yet there's still a lot of copiously displayed flesh. Even the bloody guards to the place are kitted out as if they were playing for bit parts in "Dungeon Torture Paradise" or something. A buddy of mine wisecracked that every S&M shop in Australia must've been cleaned out to shoot that scene. I'd believe it.

The lead-in to the S&M club gives us our one good gunfight in classic Matrix format, wherein Trinity, Morpheus, and that annoying Seraph go shoot up some guards and barge into the club. That's a plus, but it's the first and last time that something really nifty happens. (Admittedly, the trio walking past an advertisement for Tastee Wheat was amusing.)

The other good line in this movie is uttered by Neo early on. He's stuck in a subway station and has just finished talking to the Matrix's version of Apu along with his good-looking wife, plus their annoying kid. Neo gets whipped on by some dirty-looking maniac named the Trainman, who's on the Merovingian's payroll. He's apparently built some sort of subway system, but its exact place in the grand scheme of things is unclear to me at this point, and we don't get much explanation about the Trainman. I just got the feeling that a lot of effort had been spent building this guy up, and then he just goes away. Anyways. Neo gets up from being slapped around and decides to walk down the track to get out of 'Mobil Station'. He exits stage right and then reappears shortly stage left. He then utters "Shit" in a disgusted manner.

That's my reaction to The Matrix: Revolutions. I'm not a disciple of this series. I like them kinda-sorta and I've got the two movie releases. Revisited and Animatrix I don't have. Thus I may not be fully part of the whole mythos, but still. Anyone who goes into Revolutions expecting something wonderful will probably be sorely disappointed. It's a great movie and all, but it struck me as being notoriously absent of what I considered to be the heart of Matrix mythos, i.e. significant questions of belief and questioning reality. Toss in leather-clad chicks who probably fit the definition of "weapon of mass destruction" plus the Agents, and you've got a good movie.

This ain't your daddy's Matrix film. Instead, it's more of a mix of Mobile Suit Gundam, Return of the Jedi, and maybe Starship Troopers. Much of the movie is concentrated on the battle for Zion, but it's an unsatisfying battle despite considerable effort expended by the effects team. We know that the Zionists (hee hee) know just about everything about the advance of the Sentinels and their drilling rigs. They pretty much know where the things will break through, and it's clear that they're prepared for that. That's nice. But we're treated to a sight of mobile suits (as opposed to mecha, which I think is reserved for variable-configuration stuff) trudging around like the Colonial Marines' power loaders with large-caliber weapons and so forth. However, they forgot to put an enclosed cockpit on the things. Bummer.

The Sentinels do finish their drilling of course and the firing begins. It's pretty impressive, and one would think that as withering as it was, not much could survive it. Assuming that not every round is a tracer round, these guys were putting out some serious fire. Of course the Sentinels breach the defenses of the humans, and an all-out slugfest begins. The problem here is that the defense of Zion is relegated to a handful of "APUs", the name given to the mobile suits, some people armed with ersatz rocket launchers, and (later) a series of gun turrets mounted on the Zion air traffic control tower. That's it. Off-hand a century or two to prepare, and that's the best that can be come up with. I suppose the vast majority of the people were too busy wearin' next to nothin' 'cause it's hot as an oven and dancing at Morpheus' love shack to build more of a defense.

All is not lost---the rockets are pretty effective. Or at least the ones we see; there's never much to suggest that many of the troops are deployed. There's a fundamental disconnect between reality and the opinion of the Council which may have contributed to this. The commander of Zion's defense says that he would have given every man, woman, and child a weapon and sent them to the dock in order to repel the Sentinels. The old white-haired lady who seems to run the show announces in an arch voice that perhaps it's better that he doesn't run things beyond the defense. Right, lady. This isn't exactly the first Gulf War wherein our people kinda ran over defenseless Iraqis. Rather, it's more like Rorke's Drift (seen in the 1964 classic Zulu) with the potential to turn into the battle of Isandhlwana if not careful. I concurred with the commander, and was half-expecting to see something out of Enemy at the Gates, namely "The one with the rifle shoots! The one without, follows him! When the one with the rifle gets killed, the one who is following picks up the rifle and shoots!"

Instead, we see precious little of the surprisingly effective rocket troops and the entire defense of Zion is seemingly left to the mobile suits. I would have expected that the bloody tower would have been the focal point of pouring fire into the incoming Sentinel horde, but I suppose not. You must unlearn what you have learned, eh.

The Zion battle sequence comprises a lot of this film, it seems. I didn't clock the thing, but an awful lot happened without the presence of Trinity, Mr. Anderson, or the participation of Morpheus. Instead, we got to see a lot of Will Smith's wife (yawn) and a standard base under attack. News flash: That's been done better, nearly a quarter-century ago. Two words: Echo Base. The Battle of Hoth was far more interesting, and held my attention. This didn't.

Moving along, we find that Bane, the assimilated (is there any other word for it?) crewman, exhibits plenty of Smith when he gets up and starts sounding like Smith. In all honesty, that was about the only creepy thing in this flick. I don't know if Hugo Weaving or Ian Bliss was doing the talking at this point. Bane's dialogue conveyed (nay, screamed) "SMITH!" and I thought this was an interesting sequence. Bane/Smith manages to ruin Trinity's day at one point, and really does a number on Mr. Anderson. But, as Jason Mraz writes, "It all amounts to nothing in the end." Mr. Anderson discovers the burning truth behind Bane after receiving God-only-knows how many clues and we see him copy Luke Skywalker on Dagobah as he swings for the fences with Bane.

One other sequence is noteworthy on a positive basis, and that's the approach to the machine city. Trinity and Mr. Anderson become the first humans in a while to see the real sun while practicing their ballistics. I thought something was going to be said, but it got glossed over, unfortunately. Or perhaps skewered over.

Making an immediate segue, the Oracle (played by Mary Alice, replacing the deceased Gloria Foster) is revealed to us as more of a grand scheme plotter as opposed to a mere mystic. She's apparently on speaking terms with the Architect, 'cause they share a strained exchange at the end of the film. Nevertheless, she seems to paint the guy as the ultimate Robert S. McNamara, endlessly balancing equations in a presumptive effort to retain control of the Matrix.

Now, the Ugly:
YOU BASTARDS, YOU KILLED TRINITY. She dies. 'nuff said. My favorite human of the bunch and she's dead. Great.

Agent Smith: To quote Ellen Ripley, "Did IQs drop sharply while I was away?" I know that part of the Smith arc is that he has slipped a gear. More than slipped, say stripped a gear or two. Part of his appeal was his understated menace, the man in the gray flannel suit who was ready willing and able to kill you. In Reloaded, his intensity ratcheted up a notch and he developed a healthy sense of ominous humor. Revolutions ruins him. After assimilating the Oracle, he (or one of himself) busts out laughing. Not in the "hmm hmm hmm" mode, but in the "YAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" mode. It's about as disturbing as seeing Sybok laugh in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier was supposed to be. Later on, the big fight sequence with Smith v. Anderson for all the marbles left me sorely annoyed. The climatic battle that now is to save mankind and machine from the evil anti-Anderson, and all we can manage is something that looks like it's from Superman II or some children's power fighting cartoon. But wait, that's not all: As Smith continously fails to kill Mr. Anderson, he starts whining like a Scooby-Doo villain.

What the hell. "It's not fair! You tricked me!" Is this the best Andy and Larry could manage for a character who once previously stated, "Hear that, Mr. Anderson? It is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of your death. Goodbye, Mr. Anderson." We see the phlegmatic and intense killing machine of the first two movies reduced to a pale copy of Khan Noonien Singh in the final moments of his existence aboard U.S.S. Reliant.

Bottom line: Bane was a better Smith than Smith in this movie. I don't blame Hugo Weaving. I blame the jerk who gave him the orders to act that way.

The third strike against this film was the ending. I half-expected that kid to break out in song at the close, singing "...gonna be a bright, bright, bright, bright sunshiny daaaaaaaaaaay."

Three strikes, you're out. My two favorite characters either died or were rendered shells of themselves, and the movie spent way too much time on worthless battle sequences (I'd prefer the Burly Fight from Reloaded at this rate...) or treacly interpersonal moments between people who I didn't care whether lived or died.

The upshot of this viewing was that I saw Galadriel making an appearance in the Return of the King trailer. Woo hoo. She's the uber-babe of the whole LOTR series, and the middle entry was far weaker because of her absence.

Addendum: It struck me that the machines won. Mr. Anderson is seemingly dead, Smith is eradicated, and some argue that the Matrix has been reloaded yet again. An agreement was secured whereby some humans would remain in the Matrix, and so basically the entire truce is dependent upon a malevolent machine intelligence that probably has as much notion of honor as it does love or affection and the effect those two can have on the minds of men.

We've come a long way from David Lightman and Professor Falken tricking Joshua into a self-defeating loop of atomic tic-tac-toe. We've come full circle, perhaps. The machine intelligence found that Mr. Anderson's "choice" was to give the machines what they wanted. I betcha as soon as the human guard is lowered and the bodies start slappin' (from doin' tha wild thang (yes, the Pundit knows some of his 1980s music, and this is Zion where nobody seems to understand that death could be coming at any minute and should be fought), the Sentinels return.

This movie was thoroughly unsatisfying, downright annoying, and I'm sorry I paid what I did to see it. The fourth movie better be in production.

A Few New Links

Readers of this site will, hopefully, note several new entries in the link columns. Briefly summarized:

ADDITIONS
The Edge of England's Sword - Billed as 'Voices from the Anglosphere', this particular blog piqued my interest by trying to cover an 'Anglospheric' perspective. Inasmuch as I'm favorably inclined towards the idea of such an entity, I'll read that one. If you're wondering just what the heck an 'Anglosphere' is, see An Anglosphere Primer for more information. I, being an American who thinks a fair amount of Teddy Roosevelt, am somewhat suspicious of a call for America to downgrade "hemispherist" ambitions.*

Dixie Flatline - The author of this blog claims to be a Berkeley Law graduate and he takes a fighting rightist tone to various issues. I haven't figured out how to delve into his archive, but on the merits of what I saw yesterday and today, I'll give the guy a link.

USS Clueless - Steven Den Beste's blog seems to be one of those ubiquitous blogs that everyone links to. Well, there's probably a reason. He's another one of these chaps who can expound at length on a variety of things, and he seems to be an intelligent fellow. His piece on George Catlett Marshall, Thomas E. Dewey, and the politicization of intelligence essentially made the decision for me. If you get the chance, read what left me almost awed at the personal sacrifice Governor Dewey made in order to further America's fortunes at war. That's bipartisanship, ladies and gentlemen.**

DELETIONS
Generally Speaking - I like lots of information and a variety of viewpoints. It's helpful in making the best decision. However, some of the recent content at the Wesley Clark blog has either gone into the sophomoric adoration that is typical of any good candidacy, or into the mania that exists somewhere on the level of "Bush eats children". It's stultifying, and the signal-to-noise ratio there is too much to bear. As a result, the Clark blog is cut.

The Crusaders Respond

Normally when someone mentions "Crusaders", I think of the Vought F-8 used by the Navy and the Marine Corps.*

However, the term 'Crusader' apparently maintains a more ancient meaning to the people of the Middle East who consider themselves to be followers of the prophet Mohammed. They of course think of the Knights Templar and others like them, because the Crusades are the Big Example of the evil foreigner Western devils kicking the Islamic door in and laying the smack down. Of course, they kinda sorta got even by taking over much of Spain and so forth, but lay that aside.

Cold Fury has an letter posted in the Pakistan Christian Post by a chap who basically calls Osama bin Laden out for single combat. The man, who signs himself "Chevalier James R. Reese, Grand Prior of the United States", seems to come across as serious. If I were to evaluate this on the level of playground machismo, it does the job. Chevalier Reese goes way beyond the level of remarks made by Lieutenant General W.G. Boykin in framing the war in religious terms, but with far more uh, fervor, or something. He certainly considers himself to be in a line with the men who rode east with Richard the Lion-Hearted---notice the phrase "When we faced Saladin".

I was under the impression that, in the intervening eight hundred years or so, none of the major groups of knights who went on the Crusades had survived. I'm pretty sure that a couple of them ran afoul of various pseudo-Catholic monarchies and were gobbled up for their real estate holdings and their bank accounts. Needless to say, I'll be digging about to see what I can find out in regards to the modern day knights. I ran a few terms through Google and it seems that maybe this guy's a Mason or something. That's a kettle I won't be plunging into, because I'm not eager to muck about in the fetid swamps of conspiracists et al, but this guy seems vaguely interesting so I'll keep at it.

I'd pay good money to see this guy put a whipping on Osama, courtesy of Christendom. And yes, I'd accept the chivalric granting of mercy if requested, but I'd be more interested in seeing OBL hacked to bits.

As Drudge might say, this is a developing story and further information will be related in this space.

* These were really nifty daylight fighters, developed as the last gasp of the gun-armed air superiority fighter. They had four 20mm Colt M39E cannons, and could also carry four AIM-9 Sidewinder family infra-red homing missiles. They were largely replaced by the McDonnell F-4 Phantom series in service.

** I don't have the link at the second, but the people at Little Green Footballs did some fact-checking on this guy, but the gist of their work I gathered was to merely muddle the waters. Link will be posted when I'm in a better position to do so.

Must-Not-See TV

According to an entry at the Internet Movie Database's Studio Brief (reproduced in its entirety at the link ending this entry), the National Broadcasting Company has decided to suspend its broadcasts of the American version of Coupling. This version is after a British comedy of the same name which apparently does well on the BBC.

Who cares, you ask? Well, I don't care all that much. I hadn't watched a new series on NBC since they canned Dark Skies, and the only thing before that was ER along with Law & Order back in 1991-1992. The reason I care now is because of what Coupling was supposed to be. The IMDB blurb stated that the series "resolve[d] to push back the boundaries of sexual expression on television". That's right. In an era where we've got a cable network dubbed 'Skinemax' and an Internet whose underlying architecture is probably nothing more than a massive porn delivery network, NBC felt the need to push back the dreaded censorial hand of decency.

This isn't some great victory in the culture war, I suppose. We'll still be stuck with images of that repulsive relic Madonna sucking face with the trailer-trash Britney Spears, but at least the annoyingly repetitive in-your-face sex crowd's been pushed back for a little while.

I hope NBC lost a pile of money on this. If I wanted sexual content, I'd fire up my modem and check my inbox. I don't need it on broadcast television. But no matter---I haven't been big on watching a regular series or anything since The Lone Gunmen got taken off the air.

NBC Returns 'Coupling' to the Brits
imageLaunched with a fanfare of publicity trumpeting its resolve to push back the boundaries of sexual expression on television, the new NBC comedy Coupling was officially silenced on Monday. Before its debut, network executives had expressed hope that it would replace the departing Friends in the affection of the U.S. audience, but it drew dismal ratings on Thursday night, ordinarily NBC's highest-rated night of the week. The original British version of Coupling has been running on the BBC for four years and remains a big hit. In an interview with today's (Tuesday) New York Post, Coupling producer Sue Vertue suggested that NBC's overly exuberant publicity may have been at least partly to blame for the early cancellation. "I don't think you can say it's a show 'everyone is talking about' before anyone has seen it," she said. NBC did not indicate Monday how it intends to replace the show following the November sweeps. Currently it is filling the time by airing "supersized" versions of Friends, Will & Grace and Scrubs on Thursdays.

Meeting the Troops

I was browsing threads in alt.fan.don-imus yesterday, when I happened upon the following entry by Ron Hardin, a prolific and regular poster to the newsgroup. In that post, Mr. Hardin suggests that President Clinton would have met the crew of the EP-3E Aries II SIGINT platform intercepted and forced down by the People's Republic of China when that crew arrived in Hawaii. Mr. Hardin also says President Bush would not have done this, noting that a Presidential reception in Hawaii "makes the service about [the President]".

I suppose I'm curious as to why that would be the case. There might be a solid argument for a Rose Garden reception within a week of their return for maximum ruffles and flourishes. You know, the majesty and dignity of the White House, et cetera. However, from a visual and symbolic standpoint, I also tend to think that it would send a powerful and unadorned (in a good way) message to have the men (and women?) of the aircraft greeted by no less than the President as they return to freedom. Let them disembark from their flight to a red-carpet reception party with the President waiting at the foot of the stairs in front one of those portable podiums with the Secretary of the Navy and an appropriate uniformed officer to shake their hands, exchange salutes, and then have a brief statement or so from the proper parties. That's a run-on sentence, but it conveys how I thought such things should be "ideally" greeted.

I suppose the best analog for this would be the reception given to our POWs as they were liberated from the clutches of the North Vietnamese. President Nixon was not at the arrival ceremonies, and I could see him going for the dignfied majestic concept ("The President must be presidential. See to it, Haldeman" -- RN) very readily.

After some reflection, I suppose it's more a commentary upon the political culture than anything else. For whatever reason, when a political figure is in attendance at a serious event, the motivations are analyzed as less of "the 'decent' motives of the man" and more of the "present for photographic opportunity purposes" stripe. When Mayor Giuliani attended a slew of funerals for the fire, police, and Port Authority personnel killed in the Islamist attacks against New York City, there wasn't any hubbub about him grandstanding that I recall. That may be explained by simply stating "that was different" and forcibly moving on to the next example for consideration.

Admittedly, all this stems from an article penned by Maureen Dowd at the New York Times over a closing of Dover AFB for pictures when caskets of servicemen are returned, so it's probably a waste of electrons. Cori Dauber looked at the issue here, but I'm not sure I agree with Dauber's take on it.

I don't know that Robert E. Lee attended the funerals of soldiers from the Army of Northern Virginia who were KIA against the Army of the Potomac, or indeed if any major leader does things like that. I do, however, disagree that it would somehow be inappropriate. Indeed, if my (speculative) offspring were killed in battle in some faraway land, I would appreciate the presence of the President at the funeral to tell me that my son died fighting for American ideals and so forth. It would be meaningful to me to receive the flag on behalf of a grateful nation from the one individual who can be most said to represent America at any one point.

This is probably all academic anyways, so I'd probably have to defer to the judgments of Richard Nixon or George Patton. Reader input is appreciated on this subject.

Fin.

Matrix News of Varying Quality

I admit it: I find the Matrix movie trilogy interesting. I've not managed to plunge into the mind-bending exercises of convoluted interpretation that many apparently have regarding the movies and their content, but I do enjoy watching the work of the Wachowski brothers, even if they do have it in for Republicans.*

Nevertheless, I've got four things to run past the readership whose interests run towards Wachowskian cinema:

1. Inside the matrix proper, Mr. Anderson works for a company named 'Metacortex', a software house that ostensibly writes software for business applications. A site has sprung up on our Internet which uses the 'Metacortex' name as its name in business and says that it makes, among other things, virtual reality software. Cute.

It's also coded entirely in black and green. Even the pictures have a green filter over them. If you go to the employee directory (see the bottom of the little Flash thing), select 'Redland' as your city, and enter AndersonThomas as the query, you get the response:

***TRANSFERRED***

No forwarding information available.

Someone's having a splendid time mimicking the world in which the Matrix series takes place, and I appreciate the effort. If you're interested in perusing the site itself, point your browser to http://www.metacortechs.com/ and go from there. I've investigated this a little, and it appears that the site is part of some vast role-playing game effort, centered around unfiction.com, an "alternate reality gaming" site. It doesn't appear to have anything to do with the Revolutions promotional effort. This "alternate reality gaming" thing seems to be just another evolution of the whole live-action role play thing that the White Wolf people popularized in the last decade or so. Ho hum. Back to one's boring daily life as a coppertop, I suppose.

2. This is old news, but it's just too good to pass up. The people of somethingawful.com have a section on their website devoted to altered screenshots around a Matrix theme. Some of the shots are crummy, but some of them can't be seen somewhere that would not allow you to respond, whether it be a snicker or an out-loud laugh. Er, like class. Anyways, check out the site by clicking here and have some fun. You'll have to be pretty familiar with various elements of pop culture, or some of them won't make any sense. My personal favorite's got to be the poster for Matrix Dogs which doesn't appear here, but might if I can figure out a way around any potential restrictions on use by the SA people.

3. 05 November 2003 is the release date for The Matrix: Revolutions. Go see it, and knock those cursed Disney computer-animated monstrosities off their respective shelves for box office receipts!

4. Despite having knocked Messrs. Wachowski in a footnote to the introduction, (Here's a question that'll really bake your noodle: Did I bash them before this fourth point, or after it?) I'll give credit where credit's due and salute their writing and cinematography meshed with Hugo Weaving's portrayal of Smith. The movie's interesting and all if you're into philosophical tangents that are essentially unprovable at this point (unless Laurence Fishburne starts handing out pills...) but all movies need an engaging antagonist. Enter Agent Smith. I won't say anything else in this overly long posting, but if asked my favorite character, the answer is constant: "Smith will suffice."

Enjoy.

* In The Matrix, the protagonists are betrayed by a man referred to as "Mr. Reagan" who doesn't want to "remember nothing" and wants to be "an actor". If we are to credit Messrs. Wachowski with the kind of deliberate symbolism that so many do, the linkage of these three facts can not be considered coincidental. Indeed, they play off a popular theme among cultural liberals, namely that President Reagan was an actor who remembered nothing at the time of the Iran-contra hearings. It is somewhat irritating to see them repeat this theme and then connect President Reagan to a traitorous individual.

In The Matrix: Reloaded, we see Thomas A. "Neo" Anderson conversing with a malevolent machine intelligence dubbed "The Architect". This entity is responsible for creating the matrix in which all humanity lies trapped to serve as a power source. The conversation between Mr. Anderson and the Architect takes place in front of a bank of monitors, upon which various images flash at differing times. At least three distinct individuals are broadcast upon those monitors in relatively short sequence: President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush, and Führer und Reichschancellor Adolf Hitler.

Gee, thanks Andy and Larry. They have chosen, for whatever reason, to put forward the two Bush presidents and the third- or fourth-most successful mass murderer in human history, presumably to hammer guilt by association. This isn't a new line; various stories about connections between the Bush family and the German National Socialists have floated about for years, but with questionable veracity. The 'George W. Bush as Hitler' thing is, of course, recent. It's juvenile and cheapens the sense of revulsion that any human being should feel at the actions of Nazi Germany. Shame on the Wachowskis for buying into left-wing nuttery.

The Country Pundit Visits the Gender Genie(!)

Some people get taken to see the Oracle. Others have to make do with visiting the Gender Genie. I'm one of the latter. I took all of the entries below this one that are currently displayed on the page, and entered them.

Lo and behold, the software was able to confirm (broadly) what I could have told anyone after a quick check of various attributes and so forth: The Country Pundit is a man. Under Gender Genie (heh heh heh) analysis, the score is 'male' by more than 2:1, on results of a "male score" of 16209 versus a "female score" of 7726.

Of course, this thing also called Virginia Postrel a man, so I'm not entirely sure that it works all that well. However, VP does point out that the thing's underlying theorems are supposed to work on fiction as opposed to non-fiction, so it's going to be a little out of whack on non-fiction.

I've got an irreverent question at this point: Has a Turing test been given at some level? If the Turing test requires Human A to be incapable of distinguishing between the responses given by Human B or Computer C in a blind test, then perhaps the Gender Genie has failed an ersatz Turing test. I had a theoretical construct of how this was minutely significant somehow in the development of computer intelligence, but the heat of the room in which I'm composing it caused me to forget or otherwise bungle the theory. My law school's too bloody cheap to turn off the heating when the temperatures creep above 70 in the city. Their excuse is something about coolant and so forth, and all this may be true and objectively problematic. That doesn't change the fact that I'm subjectively sweltering in here.

Ende.