The Country Pundit

Friday Five 30 April 2004

There's uh, no Friday Five today. Something to do with the archives being unavailable due to bandwidth issues. Uh, OK. I wonder how one fakes Friday Five withdrawal syndrome.

Crime Doesn't Pay

It's an article of faith that the best way to prevent yourself from being robbed is to make yourself a difficult target, yes? Likewise, the nation of riflemen must be armed and then nobody will mess with you, correct? Of course.

But then, someone goes and comes up with a better way to prevent being robbed. This just in, from Gaza:

Rather than give up his explosives, the [suicide] bomber detonated them, killing himself and the two robbers near the border fence between Gaza and Israel. Palestinian security officials said the gunmen were criminals who were involved in a car theft ring that brought stolen vehicles from Israel to Gaza.

The robbers were immediately denounced as "agents of Israel" by a Hamas official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Ostensibly, he's hoping to avoid the Hellfire how-do-you-do from a hovering Apache. The source also pointed out that, "Anyone who tries to stop a fighter from doing his work is a collaborator." On the other hand, Palestinian security forces declared the robbers to be ordinary thieves.

The full story is available from Ireland On-Line.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Interested-Participant

Word for the Day

Grim's Hall is like a box of chocolates. No, I don't mean a cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for, unlike what my favorite character from The X-Files used to think, but more that you never know what you're going to get.

Today, Grim gives us a new word, one that I've got to use more often: Mufsidoon. Here's why:

This is the Arabic for "evildoer," and can be prefixed by "Saddam's" or "Osama's" as appropriate.

The idea is that Mujahedeen and Mahdi Army (Army of the Messiah) cast the enemy as soldiers of God. That makes Coalition forces the opponents of God, soldiers of the devil. Mufsidoon more correctly identifies them, and therefore, our forces likewise.

This may wind up being a new take on that whole "one man's mufsidoon is another man's mujahedeen" thing, but hey, who cares? It's an insult to these guys in their language, using their culture, and I'll be happy to use it. So what if it digs a little deep? As Khan Noonien Singh growled nigh on 22 years ago, "So much the better..."

Thanks a lot, Grim!

Interesting Google Results

It appears from the referrer logs that someone was looking for information on the FX-1400 guided bomb developed by the Germans in World War II. A quick trip to Google shows that I'm #2 in the search engine for "FX-1400 guided bomb". Interesting. The first result sent me to a picture of the aftermath (just barely!) of an FX-1400 in use.

11 September 1943: CL 42 USS Savannah is struck off Salerno, Italy, by an FX-1400. A picture shot during the bomb's detonation is available here. Wow.

The Nationalist Country Pundit

Daniel Pipes has an article drawing from the latest work of Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We : The Challenges to America's National Identity. In his article, Pipes says that there are three basic lenses through which an American will see their home and the world:

Cosmopolitan: America ?welcomes the world, its ideas, its goods, and, most importantly, its people.? In this vision, the country strives to become multiethnic, multiracial, and multicultural. The United Nations and other international organizations increasingly influence American life. Diversity is an end in itself; national identity declines in importance. In brief, the world reshapes America.

Imperial: America reshapes the world. This impulse is fueled by a belief in ?the supremacy of American power and the universality of American values.? America?s unique military, economic, and cultural might bestows on it the responsibility to confront evil and to order the world. Other peoples are assumed basically to share the same values as Americans; Americans should help them attain those values. America is less a nation than ?the dominant component of a supranational empire.?

National: ?America is different? and its people recognize and accept what distinguishes them from others. That difference results in large part from the country?s religious commitment and its Anglo-Protestant culture. The nationalist outlook preserves and enhances those qualities that have defined America from its inception. As for people who are not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, they ?become Americans by adopting its Anglo-Protestant culture and political values.?

Mr. Pipes notes also that, "The left tends to the cosmopolitan vision; the right divides among imperialists and nationalists." He states that he wavers between the "imperialist" and "nationalist" modes, because he sometimes "want[s] the United States to export its humane political message and at other times [is] fearful that such efforts, however desirable, will overextend the American reach and end in disaster." (At the same time, Pipes notes that Huntington is strongly nationalist.) For what it's worth, the esteemable Rev. Donald Sensing considers himself to be one of the bilateralists, like Pipes.

This has bearing on peoples' opinions towards the Iraqi situation as well.

Applied, these worldviews lead to the following:

Cosmopolitans reject the unilateralism of the Iraq campaign, despise the notion of guiding the Iraqis to ?a free and peaceful? country, and deeply suspect the Bush administration?s motives. They demonstrate on the streets and hurl invectives from television studios.

Imperialists are guiding U.S. policy toward Iraq, where they see a unique opportunity not just to rehabilitate that country but to spread American ways through the Middle East.

And nationalists find themselves, as usual, somewhere in between. They sympathize with the imperial vision but worry about its practicalities and consequences. As patriots, they take pride in American accomplishments and hope U.S. influence will spread. But they have two worries: that the outside world is not ready to Americanize and Americans are unwilling to spend the blood and treasure to carry off an imperial mission.

Now, let me say this about that: I consider myself to be a strong, strong nationalist. I do believe, and was lambasted by a professor in college, that America is somehow different than the rest of the world.¹ I also doubt the exportability of our particular system of republican government to anyone other than similar countries. Before the multiculturalists raise their brickbats, hear me: Our political system and way of life has evolved starting with the earliest representative forms of government, which probably date back to the days of the Greeks. We have had over two thousand years of development for this system, and it is the product of numerous unique events in history. Under normal circumstances, it is probably sheer fantasy to think that any other fully-developed culture will readily take to our system.

I do not say that others are inferior; indeed, they are different through evolution. and history. This difference makes it very difficult for them to readily accept a transplanted system such as ours (or anyone's).² It's like asking a Macintosh computer to run Windows '98 and be happy about it. Likewise, we would be hard pressed to accept the state Shinto system that propelled Japan into the Second World War.

I also believe that we do, despite the best efforts of certain groups in this country, have a largely Anglo-Protestant culture. This is shifting somewhat in recent years, what with the large influxes of immigration. I do not have control over this and I cannot realistically boot out the immigrants, so it appears that I will one day get sale papers in my mailbox for things such as the birth of Benito Juarez, or Cinco de Mayo. I would rather the Mexicans celebrate Cinco de Mayo in their homeland instead of mine, but there doesn't seem to be much that can be done about that. Coupled with this is an influx of the Jacksonian model; the practical effect is that I think our unique national culture can be adopted by anyone who chooses to subscribe to it. For anyone who does so, "Hail and well met" is my greeting to them. I don't particularly care if their name is Paul, Pedro, Pavel, Hikaru, Rajiv, or Abdul, but I do care if they believe like I do on some basics.

Coming to the question of Iraq, I fall clearly within the scope of the nationalist again. I sympathize with the notion of bringing (or giving the old college try) freedom and liberation to the oppressed peoples of the Middle East. I do, however, worry at length over its practicalities and consequences. I do take pride in the martial accomplishments of our forces; I am alternatively saddened and enraged when the flower of our youth dies at the hands of Baathist remnants or al-Qaeda fanatics. As a calculating Nixonian realist, I welcome with a curt nod the sustainable expansion of "hard" or "soft" American influence.

I share the nationalist concern: The world is unwilling (I say unable) to "Americanize" and I'm uncertain that the American people will support an imperial mission, should the security requirements of this nation ever require it. I hope that the question never gets asked.

If there is any cinematic model for my reaction overall, it is a disturbing one, drawn from Star Wars: "I'm taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work." That is not a heartening image; Grand Moff Wilhuf Tarkin would not be high on my list of people to emulate. We have taken an awful risk, but we have the luxury, I think, of being able to make it work. We do not have to destroy Yavin IV, either; our task is limited to obliterating, in the words of an old song, "a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world." Our job is simple and is summed up by another stanza in that same song: "[N]ever give up...stay 'til the fight's done".

The problem for me is this: I can have no effect on the war effort. I do not have vast sums of money with which to fund the war. I probably wouldn't make much of a soldier; I don't often ask myself if I could do what Pat Tillman did. I'm only one man in graduate school, a simple believer in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Thus, my contribution to the war effort and to our nation at this time consists of two things:

1. An attempt to make it through law school so that I can keep the machinery of America, its economy, its system of justice, and its very fabric operational by my small contribution in the small town that will be my home once I return.

2. The inclusion of the following language in the evening prayer: "Bless our troops in the field. Bring them home safely, quickly, and victoriously. Help us to end this war as quickly as possible, and help us to do the right things for the Afghanis and the Iraqis."

I know from past experience that the Almighty hears and answers prayers; I can only hope that this one will be answered soon.

¹ Of course there are nations closer to our own experience which will be very similar; the "Anglosphere" is probably the best descriptor of the countries most similar in terms of development and commonality of governmental model.
² The exception here is Communism, the history of which shows that any system of government is portable so long as you kill enough people.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Donald Sensing for this interesting piece. When I started writing my response, I didn't intend for it to turn out this way, but it seems more proper that it did.

UPDATE: Rich Lowry has a column on this; read it here.

Uh, How's That Again?

I was reading Jeffrey A. Dvorkin's installment of his column as the NPR ombudsman. It's billed as a 'web exclusive' and focuses solely upon the soon-to-be-history Bob Edwards. Edwards, who's hosted Morning Edition since 1979, was recently given the boot by NPR management. Reasons vary on this, but the truth of it seems to be that a) Joan Kroc's $200 million gift makes men bold and b) the "new" management wants to appeal to different audiences. I'm amused at the ability of professional liberals to get a good thing from hard work and then blow it away.

Back to Dvorkin's piece. In it, he quotes a man named Peter Bye who says that, "I certainly understand a need for diversity and excellence. After all, my business is in the field of diversity and inclusion."

I'm curious: What is a business in the field of diversity and inclusion? Is it a fancy way to say that you're a temp agency?

The Maturity of Stephen Moore

In my earlier remarks, I said that I wasn't holding my breath for the endorsement of Arlen Specter for the general election by the Club for Growth.

This is no longer the operative statement.

As tipped off by a comment in the preceding entry (although it certainly wasn't me), it appears that the CfG, and by extension Stephen Moore since I spent time firing words at him, has/have the maturity I would expect from Republicans. They have announced their endorsement for Specter, and consider him the better choice than the Democrat alternative.

Bully for you, Mr. Moore. You and your organization have been raised in my estimation.

The press release is in the extended entry, and thanks to my anonymous commenter.

Club for Growth Congratulates Arlen Specter for His PA Senate Primary Victory; Urges All Republicans to Rally Around Specter

WASHINGTON, April 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Club for Growth PAC, the political arm of one of the nation's leading free-market political advocacy organizations, today congratulated Senator Arlen Specter on a hard-fought victory in the Pennsylvania Senate primary.

"Our members are disappointed, yes, but not demoralized by Pat Toomey's narrow defeat," said Club for Growth President Stephen Moore. "We always knew that the odds were strongly against unseating a four-term incumbent Senator. Senator Specter simply had too much grit and too much money to be denied a victory," Moore said.

"Although we disagreed with Arlen Specter on a number of economic issues, there is no doubt that Senator Specter is far more likely to support tax cuts and other Bush economic policies than Rep. Hoeffel and deserves the support of all Republicans in the November election. We have no hesitation in endorsing Arlen Specter for Senate."

The Club for Growth was founded in 1999 as a nationwide political membership organization dedicated to advancing public policies that promote economic growth. The organization's PAC forwards campaign contributions from its members to the most free-market oriented candidates in targeted congressional and other races. In the 2000 election cycle the Club for Growth spent $2.4 million and its PAC helped elect 10 new Republicans to Congress. The Club for Growth has grown ten-fold since the 2000 election cycle and the Club and its members raised or donated over $10 million and its PAC helped elect 17 new Members of Congress in the 2002 election cycle.

Overhead Imaging

Greyhawk has a pair of nifty pictures that illustrate our Fallujah urban renewal project. There won't be any Charles Whitmans operating from this place anytime soon.

TMG also brings us warning of the Arab street's eventual rise. However, it may yet to our advantage, for it seems that the Mahdi army is having a little bit of trouble maintaining discipline with the wearing of the uniform.

I like hearing reports of al-Sadr's fish getting eaten in the peasant sea. Take that, Chairman Mao.

CfG Zeitgeist

If you're at all interested in the Pennsylvania dustup between Arlen Specter and Pat Toomey, I suggest going to the Club for Growth's blog. This particular entry covers a few reactions.

Fairness requires me to state that the man posting under the name "Stephen Moore" is not the real Stephen Moore. Interesting how one man---yes, just a single voice---wants to punt Rick Santorum from office now.

I'm waiting for the CfG to endorse Arlen Specter, especially after they made a fuss about how Specter should agree beforehand to endorse whoever won the primary. On the other hand, I'm not holding my breath on this one.

So I'm Watching Animal House

This is the first time I've ever actually seen the whole thing. Frankly, I'm glad my college years weren't like that. Better to er, not have something to explain, you know. In the words of a former President, "In order to preserve future political viability..."

Anyways, while watching the uber-polished and super-slick face of Omega House president Greg Marmalard, it struck me that I'd seen his face somewhere before. I thought about it throughout the movie, and then I realized it: He looks like Jennifer Garner. Wowsers.

Has anyone ever seen these two together at the same time? Could be...

Specter Survives Toomey(?)

Stephen Moore's pet project goes down in defeat, apparently. Lopez at NRO says Specter wins with a 15,000 vote margin. Good thing, bad thing? I'll decide later. (Translation: You'd better not lose in November, Arlen.)

The Liberty Bonds of Today

A half-century ago, it was common to fund war debt by the Government's hideously everpresent campaign to "BUY WAR BONDS NOW OR ELSE OUR BOYS DIE HORRIBLY". We seem to have gotten past that---maybe the bond market isn't quite what it used to be---but the President at one point encouraged people to go spend money.

Since then, war and its impact on the civilian populace have changed. Instead of lining up for ration cards that cover sugar, gasoline, and other things, we're sitting around complaining because gas is increasing in price or grousing because the stock market's not back to 12,000 as it was during the years of Hope and Glory.¹

Anyways. Since the economy's supposedly a defining factor of our progress in the war against Islamist terror---like USA, Inc. is going to be taken over by al-Qaeda, LLC in a tender offer---the President has indeed urged us to go out and spend money. By the way, that helps his re-election effort too.²

Since I'm going to be a spectator to the war effort---if it's ever necessary for me to be on the field of battle, then manpower's the least of our worries---I've often wondered just what the heck I'm supposed to do. Well, mindful of the President's advice, I went out in recent periods and loaded up on DVDs:

The Final Countdown
Kill Bill, Volume 1
The Matrix: Revolutions (Yeah, I've got the other two; might as well...)
National Lampoon's Animal House
K-19
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Go figure. I've done my part, yet again, for the war economy and for the re-election of President George W. Bush. I expect my post in the Department of Defense or Department of Transportation to be passed out immediately. Paging Donald Rumsfeld and/or Norman Mineta...

¹ I have distinct memories of the economy being hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread back when the Dow went north of 10,000 and hovered around 12,000 during the Clinton years; from what I understand, it's back over 10,000 and has been playing with the 11,000 barrier for a while. Yet, the economy's in the tank and so forth. I may be a rural rube, but can someone differentiate these two scenarios for me other than to say that there's a difference in Presidential administrations?

² We're supposed to help by contributing directly to Bush-Cheney '04, which is now being abbreviated 'BC04' by various outlets. Me, I get confused by that. I stared for a second or so the first time I saw it trying to figure out just what the heck 'Battlecruiser 04' was, and then I remembered that it must've been one of the Alaska-class battlecruisers (USS Phillippines to be exact) but then I figured it out. Sneaky right-wingers! As for donations, I'm a struggling graduate student who has no money in any amounts worth donating.

Excuses, Excuses

Blogging has been light due to the fact that I had two papers to finish and a trial to prepare for. This will continue until after the trial is concluded; don't head for the hills if I'm not publishing on a regular basis.

Gah, I hate the end of the semester.

Six Months In

Hrrm. Today's the six-month anniversary of the opening of this blog. Three hundred and eleven entries later, I'm still cracking at it, and learning all the while. I've met a lot of people who I would not have otherwise met, and I have had a lot of fun.

I reckon since I've kept this up to this point, the numbers suggest that I'll keep at it for a while. Hooray, eh.

Let's Talk About Trust

Richard Gere gave a speech recently, and here's what he had to say, according to a friendly blog:

"Trust is so important," Gere said, and I paraphrase a little here. "I've learned not to trust anyone who thinks he has God exclusively on his side." Pause. "Not even the president."

Yes, yes, Mr. Gere. Bush lied, people died, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, paging Yul Brynner. Now for some ad hominem:

We're supposed to trust the opinion of the guy who left Cindy Crawford? Cindy Crawford. This fine woman's the only reason most men in the 1990s watched the otherwise unwatchable House of Style on MTV.¹

Heck, I bet Pepsi's early 1990s resurgence can be pinned solely upon her. Pepsi knows this; they brought her back for a recent ad which I thought a lot of. She's been arguably one of the most beautiful women in the world since the early 1990s, and you left her behind to chase the Dalai Lama.

Allow me to borrow from your own theme: "I've learned not to trust any man who'd walk away from Cindy Crawford." Son, not only do I not trust you, but I think you need your bloody head examined. What were you thinking?

In fullness of disclosure, Richard Gere is a bit off in the head; he chose to make some speech about the need for peace and understanding while the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldered. Needless to say, that didn't go over well with the audience, and I have some recollection of him being nearly booed off the stage.

UPDATE: I've reworked this one a bit, adding in some personal and historical flavor. Richard Gere's hideously boring, so a bit of an ode to Cindy Crawford was in order. Heh heh heh. Been surfing the 'net for ten years, and I'm still punching "Cindy Crawford" into search engines. Some things never change.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Right Voices.

¹ We certainly didn't watch it for Todd Oldham or Isaac Mizrahi, both of whom would infect the screen whilst wearing something on the order of tight leather or leopardskin pants. I vaguely recall snarling at the screen something on the order of, "We're watching this for her, not for you. She's the one we want to see in leather or leopardskin, you light-in-the-loafered sissies!" I kind of edited it in order to adopt for the er, verbal indiscretions of youth that I'd prefer not to recount.

Start the Clock

The militant Palestinian group Hamas has apparently replaced Mr. Rantisi, who ran afoul of an Israeli weapons exercise most recently.¹ This is now several days old and the link in their original post doesn't display the right story. Nevertheless:

GAZA CITY – Hamas has quietly appointed Mahmoud A-Zahar to head the movement in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas sources said Mahmoud A-Zahar, 53, was selected as the organization's new head in the Gaza Strip. A-Zahar succeeds Abdul Aziz Rantisi, who was assassinated in an Israeli missile strike on Saturday.

I suppose that if I were a lawyer in Gaza, I'd start trying to take over the "assassinated Hamas leader" estate management business, or something. One of the posters at the DGCI site has opined that this current bum could be something of a missile magnet, or perhaps the loser in a power struggle. After all, he's probably now got a missile or a guided munition with his name painted on it. Poor fellow.

That being said, I support the policy of anti-Hamas operations. When these goons start seeing that there is a price for standing up and hollering how you're gonna slaughter Jews and make the streets run red with Jewish blood, then perhaps they might start rethinking their policies. Good.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Democrats Give Conservatives Indigestion.

¹ My thoughts on the Rantisi attack are here.

Sic Semper Sullivan

I've been highly suspicious of Andrew Sullivan since I first ran across him some time around the turn of the century. He was occasionally a good read---I'd never thought of myself as a "theocon" until reading his broad-brush efforts---but his positions taken post-11 September had gotten me to the point of giving him the C. Montgomery Burns sideways-glance-through-narrowed-eyes that CMB issued to Waylon Smithers once after an uncomfortable question.

Recently, because someone's had the nerve to think that maybe homosexuals shouldn't be able to force the state to grant them some benefits, Sullivan's gone off the deep end, ranting and raving about the evil religious right, sneering and heaping scorn whenever he gets the opportunity. Yes, it got old after about one week, and I quit reading him. Whoopy frickin' doo, to paraphrase Private W. Hudson, USCM.

Anyways, I was kicking around The Evangelical Outpost and got directed to fraters libertas, which put a few torpedoes (Sorry. Unacceptable innuendo, say the guys at Standards & Practices. --Ed.) into ol' Andy.

I've been uncomfortable with him being lumped into the "right" at all, because of his rather self-centered views on human sexuality and his religious viewpoints. These guys, instead of grumbling, decided to read the riot act to Sullivan. A key quip:

So Sullivan is gone from the political right, perhaps revealing that despite his September eloquence of three years ago, he never really evolved in his political philosophy at all.

Enh.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Evangelical Outpost.

A Google Bomb for Good

Kids, it's time to harness the power of the blog (as opposed to the Power of Grayskull or the power of the Autobot Matrix) to right a wrong done to Google.

Google-bomber extraordinaire Ken of Esoteric * Diatribe tipped me off to this campaign, which intends to reclaim certain Google search results. Those results have currently been appropriated by a group that seems to be (their website is unaccessible) less than reasonable on the question of Judaism. The way to combat this is very simple, and models itself after the various other Google bombs done primarily for political purposes.

First, visit the Anti-Defamation League page on the issue, for background. Then, read this, from Google.

The next thing to do is simple. Make a link like so, and tell your friends: Jew If you display the Friend of Israel logo, then this would be an action that is consistent with the aims of that earlier campaign.

Hope this works.

It Came From Georgia!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the voting booth...

IT!!! staggers back from electoral defeat and media embarrassment. Yes friends, Cynthia McKinney is running for Congress again.

Maxine Waters must be happy, because a McKinney victory might mean that she, Waters, was no longer a frontrunning candidate for the dubious laurels of biggest wacko in the Congress. That's one honor---probably the only one---the lady from California would be happy to decline. Just off the cuff, a McKinney candidacy might be a good thing. If she loses, and hopefully she will, she'll make a mess of it and go down in figurative flames, taking her party's hopes in that district with her for at least 4-6 years.

Keep talking, and keep running, Cynthia. A hopefully-expanded Republican majority thanks you for your sacrifice.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Ed Moltzen of Late Final

Interesting Referrer

This is interesting: Someone out of the domain historyfactory.com was looking for information on Herman Pevler. Of course, they found his name in my post on John Palmer Fishwick.

I wonder what for, eh? History Factory, in their own words, "is a heritage management firm that helps organizations discover, preserve and leverage their history to meet today's business challenges." That's certainly not something you see every day, but I think it sounds like a valuable business concern. After all, the corporate form is designed to outlive any stockholder or director; such a longevity will create a history of great highs (and embarrassing lows) which would prove valuable in a public relations campaign. Just quickly breezing through their site, it looks like they're an interesting place to work for; if that's a proper impression, I might even like to give it a go.

It appears that this blog is number three in Google for the relevant search string. This blog also has the distinction of being the first one on the topic of the N&W's former president. There seem to be other mentions of a Herman Pevler who was around at the time, but I can't confirm any links between the N&W man and the man who collected advertising awards. In all likelihood, the surfer was looking for the latter man, and not the man who fell victim to a Fish(wick).

Interesting.

Oh, for Crying Out Loud

First the annoying Gavin Newsom and his followers, and now this.

I've got nothing to say other than, "Rick Santorum was right." There are days when the country's civilization just can't win.

More on Marni

In a prior post, I mentioned that I'd found Marni Soupcoff again. I dismissed The Iconoclast in the manner of Neville Chamberlain and Czechoslovakia, and so history repeats itself. Chamberlain was cast into war, and I get to eat some crow. The Iconoclast is a joint production of the father-daughter duo of Murray and Marni Soupcoff.

As Jeff Greenfield once said, "Oh waiter! One order of crow."

Ms. Soupcoff's columns for Tech Central Station are archived here.

The New Arab Way of War

Jen Martinez points the way to an analysis of Arabist/Islamist warfighting doctrine /theory appearing in the Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute's March 2003 issue.

The article, entitled "The New Arab Way of War" is authored by Captain Peter Layton, of the Royal Australian Air Force. The piece is short, and brutal in several ways. On the other hand, it draws upon history and recent Western (particularly NATO) experience to suggest a way forward.

I. EXCERPTS

Middle Eastern societies have taken stock of the Western challenge and devised an innovative, strongly asymmetrical response. Middle Eastern societies demonstrably cannot win symmetrical conflict involving Western militaries. Their "better way" inherently appears barbarous, murderous, and cruel as it is diametrically opposed to the Western approach to armed conflict.

There is, as Walter Russell Mead points out, a distinct danger to being considered "barbarous, murderous, and cruel" by an influential component of the American political landscape, namely the Jacksonians. Admittedly, I belong almost exclusively to this group, and it distinctly colors my analysis of events.

The manner of Arab warfare is intentionally designed contrary to the modern international laws of war.

To the extent that this assertion is true, I would take it and suggest as a result that perhaps we should not apply the rules of war between civilized nations, except where doing so would serve our political, military, and diplomatic interests. This is, however, currently unlikely. The problem that arises is that the transnational/global bureaucracy that I see embodied in the United Nations apparat, the International Court of Justice, and the European Union is unlikely to accept our waiver of these rules, and they will litigate, pontificate, and prevaricate accordingly. This is a concern of mine; it may not be that our leaders and those of the West will always be capable of escaping the nagging hand of Brussels or the Hague, even if engaged in legitimate acts of national self-defense. When the ranks of this aforementioned bureaucracy are filled with people hostile to our basic war aims, then a distinct political threat arises. How it is dealt with other than by pointedly ignoring it or burying them in their own treaties, I don't know.

In the modern Arab conflict style, the people, not the government, often bear responsibility, especially in situations where the central government is weak, fragmented, ineffectual, or corrupt. The West's indignation must be focused on the societies, not just the governments of the nations from which the assassins originate. Members of the societies directly or indirectly supporting attacks must understand they will be held responsible and pay a price for their support.

This is, on one hand, an attractive policy. The problem is that the communication of such a message is extremely difficult to carry out, short of invasion. Air campaigns do not seem to generate anger at the government whose action (or inaction) brought on the attacks. Rather, the air campaign (at least in Germany and other targets of USAAF/USAF bombing) tends to increase support among the populace for the target government. The lesson Captain Layton seeks to teach may be above the ken of the average citizen in al-Qaedaville, whether the government's propaganda organs take the field against the Yankee air pirates or not.

Captain Layton also has a grasp of several positive incentives that we can offer to the Arab population base. The first is nothing less than a scheming psychological effort, with an "aim...to make each individual perceive being held personally responsible and targeted for his or her support of the Arab way of war." He suggests that this effort, along with military operations elsewhere, should be implemented due to a potential socio-cultural vulnerability among the target population.

His second idea relies on the potential for stool pigeons. He theorizes that if we make support for the terrorists expensive, then there will be individuals who waver and tire of the cost. When and if that occurs, we should be positioned to welcome them with arms wide open, and take their statement. Captain Layton realizes that this strategy would probably lead to several intelligence failures---Richard Clarke, call your office---but that any tips-that-turn-out and the discord amongst terrorist leadership (Has Achmed sold us out?) would be useful. I tend to agree, because this conforms to my endorsed idea of dealing with Moqtada al-Sadr.

Captain Layton then resurrects a Cold War doctrine, that of like-type retaliation for nuclear attack:

[A] declaratory policy could be devised based on the threat of retaliation if an attack occurs in the West by nonstate actors using the Arab way of war. In such a circumstance, there could be a strategy of instant, graduated response: nuclear strikes against several of the capital cites of the Middle Eastern nations that long have demonstrated support for this method of war. The response's intensity and discrimination would vary based on the severity of the WMD attack. This approach would be a policy of deterrence through the threat of brutal and immediate punishment of particular societies.

He does, however, note that this is irrational at one level, due to the fact that peoples would be held responsible for their governments. He goes on to refute irrationality by stating that this is the same doctrine used against the Soviet Union and that,

In this new application, the citizens of several Middle Eastern nations would be held responsible for their own actions, rather than the actions of their governments. The societies' futures would be in their own hands. The sole alternative at present is preventive war; as noted, this strategy may not be sufficient, practical, sensible, or long-term.

I agree on his critique of preventive war. That strategy is highly risky; as the global political and economic fabrics seem to inexorably weave tighter, a standing policy that the rest of the world heavyweight actors disagree with could theoretically lead to some sort of sanction against the United States. If the WTO could be put to use against us as a result of our foreign policy choices, then our security aims could be thwarted and our economy damaged, with no positive offsets.

Captain Layton's approach seeks to unsettle various political, cultural, and religious elites, such as they are, in the Arab world. In other words, his policy would be based upon exacting a terrible price on their way of life if these elites did not act to prevent groups such as al-Qaeda taking action.

Yet, he does not solely offer the stick; he also has another carrot available, one that I am willing to consider as viable:

There also should be an incentive to motivate Middle Eastern societies to change their ways and be taken off the instant-response list. The Arab way of war starts in the schools and educational facilities of particular nations. Twenty years after a society stops teaching children to hate and kill, and twenty years after the last attempted terrorist attack by the members of that society, their capital should cease to be targeted.

This seems like an eminently sensible thing to at least try, but it would be something that we couldn't waffle on, and we'd have to have the resolve to see it through, even if that meant putting say Saudi Arabia "first-in-line" for retaliatory strikes. (Admittedly, OPEC might suddenly become more reasonable if they knew our strategic arsenals were pointed in their direction. That would be a fringe benefit of the highest order.)

Another perceptive point that he brings up in the footnotes is the strategic posture of these groups. He lists several potentially incompatible things, notes that all of them can't be had, but "[s]trategic coherency and consistency, or even maintenance of a defined aim, does not appear to be a feature of the new Arab conflict paradigm." This is eminently true, and it's a problem for us because maneuvering to negate one aim may in some way enable another; one is tempted to ignore their war aims and simply carry out the prosecution of our efforts. This does not, however, aim for efficiency or focus upon specific weaknesses in the Arab effort; the acceptable alternative is simply to keep slogging forward in hopes that the Arab will find himself further and further away from any of the mentioned goals.

The last excerpt goes along with what I wound up calling The Benjamin Martin Scenario:

[T]here have been many instances in Western history where patience has been exhausted suddenly and merciless, ruthless responses undertaken. The Arab way of war could yet reap this whirlwind for the Middle East if attacks by assassins go too far. History suggests this line will not be known, or even articulated, until after it is crossed. This is one of the difficulties with dealing with democracies that opposing political systems have problems comprehending.

The Islamists continue to tug at our civilizational coat, and they take their lives, along with those of their co-religionists, in their hands when they do so.

The thing that Arab national leaders and Islamic religious authorities should be worried about is that we may very well decide not to turn the other cheek some day. When that day comes, I agree with Captain Layton that it will come without warning for the Islamists. They will not hear the measured tones of George W. Bush saying 'our cause is just', speaking pleasantly of how we will be measured, careful, and discriminate. Instead, the Islamists who cheer a mushroom cloud in the continental United States may see something inspired by Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith: "Hear that, Mr. Islamist? It is the sound of re-entry vehicles en route to target; it is the sound of your civilization's death. Goodbye, Mr. Islamist."

As I wrote before, we have the weapons necessary to inflict a horrible retaliation upon the Islamists and their Islamic brethren. The willingness has not yet surfaced, but our history is replete with examples of our capacity for horrific acts. All it takes is one successful attack, the loss of a city. Then, the operative quote of the day will be as John Derbyshire put it, "Let America's enemies crow today: Tomorrow they will tremble, and weep."

In closing:

Miss Martinez asks, "[D]oes anyone have a clue? Anyone at the State Department, NSC, NSA, CIA, DOD, DOJ... the Pentagon, the White House, Congress and Senate. Do they know? Do they care??"

I'd say "Yes, Miss Martinez." I would imagine that there are policymakers and men of import who have thought these very things. However, Captain Layton's analysis may speak truth where truth cannot be spoken. I do not disparage his conclusions and his paper; rather, I would say that the public at large---the American electorate, the world community, and the transnationalists---would not stand for such a cold and unyielding view of the way forward.

In a way, it's understandable. It is difficult in this post-Cold War period to imagine that atomic weapons would move back into the forefront of security policy. Threatening nations with nuclear annihilation isn't something that should be done casually, or even deliberately on a regular basis. I personally, however, think that the circumstances of this war may eventually warrant such a policy as Captain Layton suggests. It's probably a form of latter-day brinksmanship & massive retaliation---hooray for Foster Dulles---with none of the attendant risks of a Soviet nuclear response.

Nobody wants to be the man who asks for the football carried not by a center but by a career Navy officer. I myself am highly uncertain of my ability to carry out such a threat if that duty fell to me. My theoretical response would probably model Jack Ryan's in The Bear and the Dragon, namely the doing of my duty and the prompt commission of suicide for having done that duty.

The fact that we as a society are uncomfortable threatening nuclear annihilation to whole societies is, I think, a good thing. It demonstrates that we are civilized and that we have done some growing up.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Jen Martinez.

Technorati Input, Please

I've been kicking around the idea of signing up with Technorati, but I'm somewhat hesitant to do so. What I don't see is the tremendous value of signing up; from what I can tell, I get some sort of faster indexing, and I'm not sure that it's all that important.

As you can see, I'm quite in the dark on this one, and would appreciate some clarification, please.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sulu

According to the little day-by-day calender in my carrel, today is the birthday for Mr. George Takei.

George Takei, when not appearing as a South Vietnamese officer or North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho (nearly 30 years apart), also had a role in Star Trek, as Hikaru Sulu. Mr. Sulu started as a science type in his earliest appearances and then moved to Enterprise's helm for the next twenty years. Sulu finished his broadcast & motion picture run as commander of NCC 2000, USS Excelsior in 1991's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Takei also took a dip into politics, with an unsuccessful run for Los Angeles City Council in 1973. For more on this guy, who's been working hard since 1956, see his official biography.

Bush and the United Nations

We have heard much recently about the need for Bush to seek a closer link between the United States' overseas operations and the United Nations.

The United Nations, in its wisdom and benevolence, has taken the first step towards making this closer relationship a reality. Also, it has agreed with Bush that the time is right for a global war on a problem that threatens all countries around the world. Finally, the two parties have been reconciled.

For more details on this significant breakthrough in internationalist affairs, click that little link that says "Continue reading"...

What, you were expecting George W. Bush? Fuhgeddaboutit. We're talking about his niece, Lauren. Huh huh huh. Cool. Check out the whole thing:

Lauren Bush, the 19 year-old Princeton student, Elite model and niece of President George Bush, speaks Tuesday, April 20, 2004, at the United Nations in New York, after being named the UN's World Food Program honorary spokesperson for its new global hunger campaign on the web aimed at college students. Bush, who just returned from a fact-finding trip to Guatemala with her mother Sharon, was convinced of the urgent need to take action. (AP Photo by Kathy Willens)

Some grammar and spelling was corrected by me.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Jonah Goldberg at NRO.

The Evolution Continues

Well, now this is amazing. I was on a downward spiral from my "Flappy Bird" status of late last week, but a quick check of the Ecosystem shows that I'm actually up to #1503, classified as an Adorable Little Rodent.

This is really cool. However, it wouldn't be possible without each and every blogger who's been kind enough to link to me. I appreciate your courtesy.

I don't use BlogRolling, so each and every link you see here has been manually added by me. That means if you've got a blog that manually links to me, and you don't see yourself on my blogroll, let me know.

New Blog by The Politburo Diktat

Comrade Commissar, fresh from the Lubyanka where he's been ignoring corruption in the local soviets, has set his Dragunov's sights on the United Nations food for oil program in Iraq, and the resultant growing scandal(s) surrounding the administration thereof. The abuse of this program is an odious thing, and may go to explain why certain individuals and governments were less than enthusiastic about overthrowing the Baathist regime.

Correspondingly, please visit Friends of Saddam for further information on the despicable circumstances coming to light. I don't hate the UN as an idea, but I'm certainly disgusted with the goings on at this point.

UPDATE: I want to make clear that Friends of Saddam is not a tongue-in-cheek enterprise on the order of The Politburo Diktat. It is a straight news blog, and will serve as a resource for information on the issue.

A Violation of Interstate Commerce and Odious Segregation

Suppose I were to tell you the following story:

A black couple and a white couple, both from out of State, were traveling together in the State of Alabama. They decided to stop at a motel somewhere inside the Yellowhammer State, and asked for two rooms. The manager of the hotel comes by later, saying, "We don't want you [the black couple] here."

The black couple protested, but the manger stood firm, citing a policy of not allowing blacks to stay on the property. The manager said that he had to appeal to the majority and the majority wouldn't want blacks to stay at the hotel. The manager decides to let the blacks stay one night, but had to leave the next morning and would not be compensated for the inconvenience.

Off the top of my head, that's a Federal civil rights case. The motel, in doing business with out-of-State customers, is a participant in interstate commerce. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled previously that since there is an action in interstate commerce, Federal laws will apply and trump any State interest. Under the previously-settled jurisprudence, the motel cannot prevent the black couple from staying there.

Remember: Although the State may have a law which allows a business to discriminate in terms of who it serves, if the business trafficks in interstate commerce, Federal pre-emption overrides the State statute. After all, we won't stand for discrimination of any kind, right? Well, there's a bit more to it than that.

Some of the details identifying the parties have been changed. In reality, several couples, most of whom were from San Diego, California, were travelling together in Florida. These couples, a mix of heterosexual and homosexual, decided to stop at Big Ruby's, a hotel in downtown Key West.

They apparently registered without incident but were later approached by the manager, who in fact said that the heterosexual couples would have to leave because the manager didn't want them there. When the heterosexuals protested, they were told that the majority of the hotel's guests wouldn't want them there.

The heterosexuals left.

My response to this runs on several levels:

I. First, a guffaw. I find this case amusing. From the story, it appears that other homosexual support agencies have tried to remedy the damages, but that's irrelevant to the legal issues at hand.

II. Part of me hopes Big Ruby's is able to beat this. I like the concept of freedom of association and I'm more than willing to trust the free enterprise system to impose some sort of broadly-acceptable mean. That means if Malcolm X wants to open up a hotel that serves only blacks, that's fine. If he can stay open, hey that's great for him; bravo to the new niche market he's serving. If he can't, then too bad and perhaps he shouldn't have served only blacks. However, this is not the majority opinion and is out of step with established jurisprudence, which leads me to point III.

III. To remain faithful to stare decisis and other principles of the well-settled jurisprudence over things like this, I hope the DOJ falls in on Big Ruby's like a ton of bricks. Send lots of earnest men and women down there in droves, so that we can see a repeat of what Tom Wolfe wrote about the affirmative action space program in The Right Stuff:

Every week, it seemed like, a detachment of Civil Rights Division lawyers would turn up from Washington, from the Justice Department, which was headed by the President's brother, Bobby. The lawyers squinted in the desert sunlight and asked a great many questions about the progress and treatment of [name redacted] and took notes. [Charles] Yeager kept saying he didn't see how he could simply jump [name redacted] over these other men. And the lawyers would come back the next week and squint some more and take some more notes.

The story points out that there is some wiggle room for the hotel's position; if they are able to classify themselves as a clothing-optional establishment, then a policy of gender exclusivity can be upheld. Without any further information, I would think that such a dodge would be difficult for Big Ruby's to make, unless it has a history of serving only male or female homosexuals. I don't know, and I really don't care. This one might be amusing to watch.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Interested-Participant.

A New Meme

Via Ipse Dixit comes this new meme:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

The nearest book is New York Central Railroad by Brian Solomon with Mike Schafer in the "Railroad Color History" series. The fifth sentence of page 23 is, "Vanderbilt had the sense and resources to improve his property, which clearly set him apart from many of his contemporaries in the financial world."

In keeping with Dodd Harris' example, the context is a discussion of the effects of Cornelius ("The Commodore") Vanderbilt's creation and control of several New York State railroads under the banner of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad. This particular 'road was created in 1869 by Vanderbilt's merger of the New York Central Railroad and the Hudson River Railroad, along with the lease of the New York & Harlem to the NYC&HRR.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Ipse Dixit, who got it from Long Story, Short Pier.

A Golden Oldie That May Yet Occur

Here's a joke that was reportedly going 'round in late 1980 and early 1981:

"What's flat as a pancake and glows in the dark? Iran after Reagan becomes president."

Yes, nuclear annhilation of an entire country is A Bad Thing and shouldn't be done, but it can be laughed about, especially when President Reagan is concerned. After all, anyone who makes that supposed gaffe of "Bombing begins in five minutes" can't be all bad. This'll be your most recent dose---meeting FDA requirements, mind you---of black and/or gallows humor.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Ed Moltzen at Late Final.

Another Political Quiz

Well, these aren't results---yet---but I figured I'd pass the URL along for starters:

Four-Axis Political Test

Referred to me via e-mail. I'm off to take it now, and results will be reported in this space.

UPDATE: After taking 179-odd questions, here's my four-axis score:
Conservative: 148
Liberal: 7
Libertarian: 8
Communist: 16

It looks like I've been hanging around The Politburo Diktat a bit too much. Heh heh heh.

The Desert Fox Rides Again

One of the more interesting things to do during the period of open hostilities with the Baathist regimes was to watch TV news for updates. Me, I found Fox News useful for one thing alone, namely Jennifer Eccleston.

Sure enough, I'd use Fox's Web-based correspondent archive to catch up on what the gal entitled "Miss Shock and Awe" or "The Desert Fox" (with apologies to Rommel) had to say. Silly? Probably. Amusing? You betcha. A solid use of bandwidth that otherwise would have been taken by undergrads downloading MP3s from a then-functional peer-to-peer network.

Anyways. With the fall of the Saddam Hussein statue, I once again ignored television news and gradually forgot about the gal I once referred to as "Jenny Ec". An off-hand search through Google today led me back to the largest Eccleston fansite that I know of, jennifer-eccleston.com.

There, it's revealed that Eccleston is now working for the NBC News group, and she's still overseas. I don't know when she left FNC, but she's been with NBC News since some time in late March, it would appear. If NBC's websites weren't tied up in the horrific mess that constitutes msn.com, I'd go around and dig up the official page, if any, for her. The last known report filed by my favorite foreign correspondent was on 11 April 2004 from the Vatican, in the nine o'clock hour on NBC's Today program.

Hooray for her employment.

Today's blogging has been weak due to the fact that I've been tied up with academic responsibilities, which even I can't get around to shirking. In related news, I'm slipping back in the Ecosystem rankings. Bother!

Viva Marni

Back in the earlier part of the century, I was occasionally fond of reading the work of one Marni Soupcoff, who got published in the Web-based magazine of the American Enterprise Institute. Fast forwarding to the present day, I remembered her after browsing some Canadian blog that I'd run across.

After an "Oh yeah, her" sequence, I hopped over to the AEI's website and found nothing, no mention or anything. I hit Google, and found that she was published on Iconoclast, some website of which I know little and will probably learn less. Somehow---no thanks to Google---I managed to find Marni's public site, and I am happy for it. Yes, I'm easily amused. At 0200 hours when you're hunting an author's website, little things grow in importance.

marnisoupcoff.com is the site, and although it's difficult to navigate at times, I thought I'd pass it along.

The Apt Pupil

On the issue of the death of the now-former leader of the Palestinian terror group Hamas, The Country Pundit has this to say:

"I note without sorrow the death of Abdelaziz Rantisi. I imagine that he is now explaining his misdeeds to Allah."

The preceding quotes were inspired by Tom Clancy's writings, specifically Executive Orders and The Sum of All Fears.

I am, as are others in the blogosphere, amused by the reports of Palestinians swarming into the streets and swearing vengeance while firing Kalashnikovs into the air. (Come to think of it, I'd like to do that some time.) Nota bene: If you (i.e. the Palestinians) persist in supporting leaders who speak of war and authorize asymmetric warfare against a nation with a standing defense establishment, then you run the risk of there being a military response. Had the Israelis zapped a Palestinian Gandhi, then I would not be so cavalier in dismissing the cries for revenge. However, they killed a man who advocated death to Israel and who was at the helm of an organization which regularly put advocacy into practice. Borrowing from what Valentin Zhukovsky said in Goldeneye, "He was a ruthless man. He got what he deserved."

Getting what he deserved seems to be Israeli policy at this point, according to the Washington Post:

"We are preventing terrorist attacks, and part of the prevention is to go after terrorists like Rantisi," said Gideon Meir, deputy director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "Anyone who will replace him and will continue this business of terrorism against Israel is a legitimate target."

I approve of the Israeli policy, for what it's worth. This is what you call a protective reaction strike, and better for Rantisi to die than for innocent Jews and brainwashed Palestinians to be killed as result of Rantisi's odious leadership.

On the day Rantisi took over as the Gaza leader of Hamas, he told thousands of supporters at the city soccer stadium that his organization would strike Israel wherever possible.

"We will chase them everywhere," he told the crowd. "We will teach them lessons in confrontation."

It would appear that the Israelis have learned, Mr. Rantisi.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to The Politburo Diktat.

An al-Sadr Solution?

I've been thinking the last week or so that we need to just flat out kill Moqtada al-Sadr and quit wasting time. What I didn't figure out, however, was how to get around the consequences of that, i.e. a period of increased violence and the likely creation of yet another "martyr of Islam".

My bright idea was to endorse letting the guy off the hook for the time being. He would get to save some face by backing off from his current uprising and show humility to this Sistani fellow, followed by an "isn't-that-awful" car accident or something a few months later that just happens to claim his life. Darn. Funny how that happens, ain't it?

Anyways, I found a better solution that brings an evil Calvin grin:

You can't give al-Sadr his own zone (for obvious reasons), but you can promise it to Sadr's successor. Some greedy underling will betray him in a short period of time, or Sadr will be too busy watching his back to lead any kind of rebellion.

All we need to do is have Bremer or the CPA spokesman make some casual remark that while we have nothing to say to al-Sadr, we are interested in discussions with the man who succeeds him. This can be done shortly, because we've put a whipping on al-Sadr, enough for him to say 'no mas' to some extent. If luck holds, he's got some disgusted subordinates who want to take his place, some of whom might be able to try. This works on the "colonels shoot the generals" notion that Tom Clancy used in Executive Orders and the like, so it's at least plausible in this instance.

I don't know if this would work, but I'm really fond of it. It's a pleasant way to get al-Sadr's attention in a way that turns him inward, and which basically amounts to tossing a bundle of dynamite over the fence into a hostile neighbor's back yard, with a detonator that will go off, if at all, when it feels like it. And best of all, we could repeat the thing if necessary, assuming we honor the initial promise, which I don't categorically suggest.

The obvious problem is replacing the devil we know with the devil we don't, and I'm not entirely convinced that such a course of action is called for here. Had al-Sadr gotten more backing from non-subordinate forces, then maybe we could consider him skilled and crafty, in need of the bundle of dynamite. As it is, he's not the greatest operator in the world, and apparently couldn't talk anyone else into helping him. It may be better to have the bumbler you know. Still, it'd be funny if nothing else.

Heh heh heh.

This is part of a message board for the blog of a guy named TMLutas, who I found through den Beste.

Let Your Fingers Do The Surfing

Those hard-working chaps at the Politburo Diktat have come up with a new product for the weekend, part of the continuing Communist plot to dominate the blogosphere. (As an aside, are there any Communist blogs? I've been absent the daily infusion of Marxist humor-posing-as-political-thought for the last several years.)

Comes now the War Bloggers' Yellow Pages, from uh, Soverizon. Or something.

Due to the Commissar's good graces, this blog has been included in the listings as one of the "Thinkers", and with some pretty lofty company:

Andrew Sullivan
Belmont Club
BuzzMachine
Captain's Quarters
Daniel Drezner
HobbsOnline
Hugh Hewitt
Insults Unpunished
Michael J. Totten
The Country Pundit
USS Clueless
You Big Mouth, You!

To be honest, I'm humbled and flattered. Much thanks to Comrade Commissar.

Reader Movie Reviews?

Does anyone know anything good about the 1996 Julia Roberts vehicle Mary Reilly? It got recommended to me by Amazon the other night, and I'm debating as to whether I ought to go and look for the thing.

Canadian Blogs, Please

Recently, Jonah Goldberg or someone at the The Corner wrote a post noting that Canadians were starting to flock to the political blogosphere. Since I've got more than a passing interest in the Dominion, can anyone point me in the direction of some Canadian Alliance-influenced blogs?

Yes, I know Harper united the right, but I was distinctly uncomfortable with the whole "Progressive Conservative" platform, and so I'd rather read some stuff from one of the two chunks of Canada that I'd like to have in the United States. Hee hee.

Friday Five - 21 September 2001

We are told in today's entry to pick one from the past and go for it. Thus, the first Friday Five:

1. Where were you born (city or state or just country)?

American by fate, Southern by birth, and Virginian by the grace of God.

2. What is your favorite number?

Uh, 42?

3. Vanilla or chocolate?

Vanilla.

4. What section of a bookstore would I find you in?

The transportation or history section, trying to decide what to buy.

5. What kind of mattress do you have on your bed? soft? firm? water?

Er, a softish firm one that's just right. The only problem with is that Nicole Kidman's not there right now. Ha! I kill me. Meanwhile, the adventures of Gordon Shumway continue...

The Benjamin Martin Scenario

This post stems from a response I was concocting to the Interested-Participant's comment in regards to my post on the death of Fabrizio Quattrocchi. I asked, "Good God, when does it end?" The IP wrote: "I'll answer your question. It will end when all of the enemy are dead or pacified. But, you knew that already."

Reading about scenes like this, and the thing in Fallujah, sorely tests one's civilized character, I think. There are times when you simply want to lay the mantle of civilization down, and wreak havoc on your opponents.

The illustration that occurred to me was that of Benjamin Martin in Mel Gibson's "The Patriot". I would like to think of "the West" in general as Mr. Martin, elegant coat, stockings, refinement, and all that. He doesn't want to wage terrible, awful war because he's seen the elephant. Western civilization has seen the elephant, especially in the twentieth century. We are tired of war, and many long for respite. The Europeans, having suffered two terrible wars on their continent inside a quarter-century, have largely lost their appetite for conflict. Given their losses, I can almost understand it.¹ When people from Europe made war, we didn't mess around.

Benjamin Martin had done awful things in war, and he wanted to put it behind him. In fact, he tried very hard to do so. He argued against the notion of fighting the British, because he so hated war. At this time, the West as a whole is Mr. Martin, arguing with Colonel Burwell in polite company over the proper course of action. There are some (be they the United States and the United Kingdom in the present day or men such as John Adams or Colonel Burwell in the film) who have chosen to fight, and there are some who have not made up their minds (Mr. Martin at that point in the film and much of Europe itself today) about what to do.

Let me pause the metaphor at this point, and look at things from the position of the Islamist. Let us assume for a second that Western Civilization is the very devil and that the Islamist is pursuing said devil with all his might. Let me offer a warning from history:

ROPER: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

MORE: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

ROPER: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

I do not know if anyone in the Islamic community can play the role of Sir Thomas More to Osama bin Laden's Roper, but I would suggest that someone should do so soon. The conduct of al-Qaeda and its henchlings in this war cuts down some of the basic laws of civilized conduct. These laws restrain the horrible hand of Western warfighting, and yet Osama bin Laden fights mightily against them. I would suggest that continued executions, mutilations of the dead, and terror bombings such as we have seen may be a far more effective axe than bin Laden realizes.

Yes, he may get the West to change. That change may come with us on our knees, or it may come with fear, terror, and anger.

Back to Benjamin Martin: War came to his front door, despite his best efforts. One of his sons was shot before his very eyes, and it led him to cast down his dress coat and undo his stiff collar. Benjamin Martin laid down the mantle of civilization and took off the coat of maturity. He went to a trunk and drew out tomahawks, the better to kill his enemy with. He brutally slaughtered British Army soldiers, literally coming back with a bloody shirt. He fought with the fear of losing his family and with anger for the circumstances forced upon him.

Consider our collective history, that of the nations of Western Europe and their progeny:

We have done great things with our technology. We have put men in space and on the moon. We have sent space probes outside of our system and peer back into the earliest days of the galaxy's existence. Our science has conquered diseases that once threatened to erase without mercy infected populations. We live longer, healthier lives. Our intellectual tradition has produced representative government that functions on the consent of the governed. The Enlightenment and the Renaissance arose from Western European nations, producing magnificent works of art, literature, science, sculpture, and advancement in numerous other areas. People live free lives, largely without the fear of violent death, enjoying the plentitude that can only come from our way of doing things.

Yet, these thousand points of light do not come without some cost: Collectively, we are the most lethal civilization to yet walk the Earth. Western Europeans have repeatedly throughout this past century led their fellow men into genocide, culminating in the Holocaust and in the blood-soaked ideology of Communism. Our internecine wars of the 20th century erased generations, cities, and empires, producing tens of millions of dead, and we even now strive to make our weapons faster, better, and stronger. Imperial conquest lies in our recent history: Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte, two of the greater military conquerors of history, both hailed from European stock.

We are the peoples who developed, deployed, and dropped atomic bombs not once, but twice on a civilization that we thought was bestial and savage, who "fought dirty". For half a century, our armies stood ready to usher in a war that would probably deal a mortal blow to life as we know it on earth. We never took that final step because the Soviet Union, ruthless as it was, knew what would come if it chose to strike. The phrase "mutual assured destruction", while bad grammar and inelegant, spelled out an essential truth, that there would be no survival of a NATO-Warsaw Pact nuclear war.

The Islamists, on the other hand, do not benefit from the protective might that shielded the Soviet Union. Yet, the Islamists operate as if they are immune to retaliation and proclaim their eager willingness to die. With their bestial displays of uncivilized warfighting, they take steps that the Soviets were unwilling to take.

They strike with all their might, and yes, they inflict horror. Yet, they punch above their weight. With every additional execution, with every additional bombing, with every additional mutilation, they tug at our civilizational coat. Some laws remain, and Benjamin Martin's son Thomas still lives. We do not fight with both hands because we consider our enemies to be human. This will not necessarily be forever, though. Each charred corpse that the Islamists dance around, each plane they hijack, each city they cowardly bomb moves us closer to civilizational retaliation. Benjamin Martin resorted to tomahawks and flintlock muskets. We, on the other hand, have great gleaming engines of evil that live in giant subterranean silos, aboard missile submarines, and in the bays of jet bombers. We have weapons that were spawned in corroded tanks and which are marked by skulls-and-crossbones, and we have weapons that were conceived in laboratories and stored in locked refrigeration, designed to kill millions without ever firing a shot. We are not the devil, but we are proficient in the use of his playthings.

The West hasn't had a all-out fight-to-the-finish for the future of its civilization in half a century. When we finally doff Martin's coat and lay down the mantle, we will probably do so in a state of rage and fear. We shall make war with all our fearsome technological might and with the force of a blood-soaked history. The figure of the "grim reaper" is a European invention, and we may unleash him on a helpless Islamist target. We have the ability to turn night into day in a single horrifying second, and reduce millions into carbonized ashes, leaving mortally wounded survivors to stumble about sightlessly as their cellular structures disintegrate from radiation poisoning. If the Islamists escalate the war too far, then they risk the foregoing scenario at best, or a fate such as occurs to the victims of the A Prime Flu in Stephen King's The Stand or that suffered by the victims of Saddam Hussein's chemical attacks.

If indeed the Islamists convince the West as a whole that we are in an all-out fight-to-the-finish for survival, then, to paraphrase Admiral W.F. Halsey, we may see a future where Islam is referred to only in the past tense. Osama bin Laden probably wishes to be remembered down through the ages as a great man of Islam. If he continues on this course, then he may be remembered as the man who ushers in the annihilation of the Islamic faith. He may go down in history as the man whose actions led to the making of Mecca and the Muslim community into nothing but an unpleasant memory.

Al-Qaeda is fond of issuing warnings to various target populations through its mouthpiece, al-Jazeera. Allow me to thusly reciprocate: "Do not idly call the name of the devil, for you might get a response." Right now, al-Qaeda and the Islamists call the name of the West, and they have yet to get our full attention. For your sake, pray that we do not decide to answer. Do not force us to carry out the example of Benjamin Martin.²

¹ This stems from a European who responded to Kim du Toit's infamous essay on the state of the Western male. It may be that overt European martial aggressiveness simply has "gone out of the universe", to borrow from Grand Moff Wilhuf Tarkin.

² This primarily is an expression of frustration and anger. In some ways, it may be cathartic. I grow tired of these savages and their conduct, and bristle at hearing that we must understand the root causes of the conflict, accept this, tolerate that, and so on. Part of me longs to retaliate with the might that I know America and other states possess. It is a conscious effort to remind myself that That wouldn't be right. It is solely the Christian component of my being that reins in the urge to retaliate. Thus far, it has been successful, and I haven't yielded to the urge to advocate annihilation for the Islamic community. However, the danger is there. It probably resides within all of us, a product of our human natures.

I do not wish to speak of Islam in the past tense. I do not wish death upon a billion people, and I wish we didn't have to fight this war. I would suppose that I wrote this as some sort of warning, in the hopes that somehow, the broader Islamic community might call bin Laden and his henchmen to heel. This may be wishful thinking, but to carry out the alternative would be an awful act that could constitute the unforgivable sin, the thing that would make Christ and the Father turn their eyes from us. I do not want to be driven to this end, so I write thusly. It is all probably in vain.

Woo Hoo

I'm a Flappy Bird in the TTLB Ecosystem; hurrah! I know that this is temporary and that I can't hold on forever---probably drop back into the 2200s soon---but for a brief shining moment, I'm #1700 on the list.

Sorry. This is just a celebratory post, ephemeral and fleeting. Like George C. Scott's rendition of General G.S. Patton, Jr., said, "All glory is fleeting". And yes, this blog is only mortal. But hooray for the time being. I've been listed on blogs that I didn't know existed, and that's always cool.

Three cheers for the Bear.

Troubling Talk from NPR

I was out and about just now, and heard something disturbing on NPR's Morning Edition, and no, I don't mean the voice of the recently-fired Bob Edwards.¹

In a piece on search engines, Edwards interviewed some whiny-voiced fellow who had connections to the "search" industry. Aside from the interviewee's horrible grammar (typified by his constant reference solely to "search" without saying "search engines" or the like; it's comparable to saying "blog will be the future of the internet" instead of saying that "blogging will be the future of the internet") the man blathered happily about a disturbing view of what the search engine providers want.

What they want, he explained (and Edwards elaborated on) is to be able to get more data and get more comprehensive data about the searches run. Here's the rub: They want to make it personal. This engineer spoke approvingly of the need for companies to be able to match a pattern of searching activity over time, so that "the most relevant results" can be provided. In other words, they wish to create a user-specific profile that knows what I've looked for in the past.

The example given was to be able to discern what I'm looking for when I punch "china" into say Google. Currently, I'd have to pick between sites regarding a very large country in the Pacific Rim, or something that belongs on a dinner table. What the next-generation search engine types want is to be able to know in advance, based on past activity, whether I'm looking for info on the country or on the plates.

Edwards noted that privacy advocates objected to this, but it was also pointed out that generally technology advances anyways. The repellent individual who Edwards was speaking to happily pointed out that there were "billions" in revenue for this sort of activity, and gave me the impression that this was only a matter of time.

I find unacceptable the notion that Google will keep track of my searching habits on a personal level. A detailed list of one's WWW searches is not something that should be kept, even by the Federal government. I do not trust someone simply because they're from Silicon Valley. In fact, when you take into consideration Oracle's Larry Ellison, my trust in them plummets lower than the government.²

Also mentioned was Google's upcoming e-mail system that mines the content of your messages in order to provide targeted advertising. It'll be a cold day in Camp X-Ray before I use that system. I don't usually march with the Internet privacy advocates, but both of these things go too far. I miss the Internet as it used to be.

The quotes and attribution are not offered as wholly accurate statements; if I can get the piece from NPR's RealAudio section, I'll link it and also correct this article.

¹ Enh, I'll miss Bob Edwards. For better or for worse, he's been weaving his way in and out of my morning routine since 1991 or so.

² Ellison has, for the last five to ten years, been trying to drum up support for a national identification card. He swears that it leads to increased public safety and so forth---yadda yadda---but usually doesn't seem to mention that, "Oh by the way, we can implement this solution with our products..." Ellison's willingness to invade on what are probably Constitutional grounds solely to make a buck is a) irritating and b) quite troubling.

A Brave Man Dies

This news, from Iraq:

"ROME, April 15 (Reuters) -...Fabrizio Quattrocchi, one of four Italian security guards abducted [in Iraq] earlier this week, was shot dead on Wednesday after Italy refused to bow to the kidnappers' demands that it withdraw its troops from Iraq. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said a video recording of the killing showed that Quattrocchi was hooded when his kidnappers put a gun to his head. "When the murderers were pointing a pistol at him, this man tried to take off his hood and shouted: 'Now I'm going to show you how an Italian dies'. And they killed him," Frattini said. "He died a hero," he added..."

Godspeed, Mr. Quattrocchi. Somewhere in the recesses of the Italian people lies the the spirit that once led Romans to dominate the world. We have seen it on display in front of savages yet again.

The only thing that I can say is that I hung my head and closed my eyes in regret---or some other ill-defined emotion---when I read this. I remain sorrowful that brave men and women have to give their lives against these bestial savages and their murderous theology. Good God, when will it end?

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Andrew Stuttaford.

The Ratio, Revised

In a previous post, I complained about the 700:70 kill ratio reported by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, USMC. It now appears that this number isn't the right ratio, and that our operations in Fallujah turned out better than I understood.

In reading The Happy Carpenter, I came across his recounting of a story run in the Moscow Times.

The Fallujah numbers, the ones I'm most interested in, are as follows: 600 al-Sadr forces killed; 1,000 wounded. United States KIA: 20.

Friends and neighbors, that's 30:1. That's fantastic. Good hunting, Marines! I am well pleased with these results, and I'm glad to see that our people are putting a grievous hurt on the al-Sadr forces. Of course, it would be a mistake copied from the 1960s and the example of Robert S. McNamara to focus solely upon the numbers game. However, when one needs a tidy box score to cheer about, such numbers will do nicely.

At the same time, I regret the loss of our people in battle, and I regret (well, sorta) the fact that the new Iraq requires the wasted lives of many young Iraqis who cling to an impossible and malignant ideal. There must be no Islamic Republic of Iraq, and we must ensure that no such polity comes about.

Forward for victory.

Ninety-Two Years Today

Speaking of RMS Titanic, today is 14 April. Ninety-two years ago today, Titanic was somewhere near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, headed for the city of New York. She's four days out of Southampton and is expected to arrive on 16 April 1912, at the White Star Line's berths in the new Chelsea Piers complex.

Of course, she does not complete this voyage, as she strikes an iceberg at roughly 11:41 P.M. local time. The reported speed of the ship was 22.5 knots when lookout Frederick Fleet calls the bridge to report a sighted iceberg.

James Cameron's 1997 motion picture is probably as good a visual reference as any for the resulting events; suffice it to say that Titanic never had a chance, for a variety of reasons.

One site I used for background was Lost Liners. In addition to Titanic, it covers a number of other significant maritime passenger vessels, and is rather well put together.

Titanic MMORPG

I don't play massively-multiplayer online role-playing games, but this is still funny:

[Anarchy Online] chat log taken when the RMS Titanic sank

Yes, I know that the loss of ~1500 people is a bad thing, and yes it's awful that RMS Titanic sank, but this is still funny.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Dodd Harris for this little gem.

On This Day - Norfolk & Western History

I previously wrote about the first Y6b to leave the N&W's Roanoke shops; now let me close that particular chapter with this:

On 14 April 1952, the last Y6b, #2200, left the Roanoke shops. See the earlier entry for more details on the Y6b class of locomotives.

Another Casualty of the Crimean War

Dodd Harris has this story, covering the death of what has to be the last Crimean War veteran.

Read his entry, and then read this for the full story. Call me a soft-hearted guy, but it's hard not to smile charitably at the tag attached to this particular veteran, or when you read about his conduct during World War II.

From My Cold Dead Hands

It appears that the "green" movement is after another dangerous threat to the environment, i.e. the cellular telephone in national parks.

The Interested-Participant is covering this, and promises to have more information as it develops. The IP also notes that while, "cell phones can be an annoyance", he doesn't "think that freedoms in America should be taken away just because some people are annoyed. I also believe that the action by the environmentalists is only a small initiative in their overall campaign to outlaw everything that annoys them in society."

For what it's worth, I tend to agree. The basic observation I have of the radical environmentalist movement is that they're not interested in a sustainable equilibrium, or even that much in the way of human progress. I won't go so far as to tar them with the brush of the folks in Rainbow Six, but one wonders where the logical end of their preferred policy objectives are. Now, let me mount the soapbox, and hope that the wood's been kept up:

At this stage, I must confess to being a cellular phone addict: My family's been using one since the early days of the widespread introduction, and I have very fond memories of our first "portable" phone that came in a bag with an antenna. I felt like I was on top of the world with a modern CIA-issue satellite telephone carrying that sucker around. It was cool to have that thing in the car, along with an antenna on the back glass. Fast forward to the present day: My current Sprint PCS phone stays with me nearly everywhere I go, and people can get in touch with me at almost any point in time---church and class being major exceptions---assuming service is present.

However, I understand the complaint of the man who wishes to visit the biological majesty of the Jefferson National Forest, and to do so in silence. That means that I hear the complaint of the green in this instance with some sympathy. (Wait, weren't you the guy calling some girl from the deck of USS North Carolina to brag about being on board a battleship? --Ed.) It's disruptive, yes, and it's a small problem, but it's not one that needs to be dealt with by means of a sledgehammer across-the-board approach like the one being advocated here.

Having said that, the National Park Service has the ultimate in rebuttals to the green position in this case: Safety. To me, the provision of a system to increase the availability of emergency medical services to those who need them is something that you don't argue with. But yet, that's what these green types are doing in this instance.

I'm not a fan of the constantly chirping, singing, and song-playing cellular phones in this world, and I'd shut a lot of ringers up if I could---have some decency, sir!---but darned if I'm going to say that people who go into the NPS establishments can't have something to call for help if they get into trouble. Exactly what do you green types have against saving lives? (Zero population growth types aren't going to give you the answer you're looking for. ---Ed. )

I would suggest a) keeping the system as it is and b) posting signs that request the users to respect other patrons and limit cellular telephone usage. If the greens can't get in line with this modest policy proposal, then I'll adopt the viewpoint of Charlton Heston and the NRA. It won't have the same effect as Heston and a musket, but imagine me hoisting a small Sanyo telephone over my head and intoning, "From my cold dead hands". You greens will get my phone when Camp X-Ray freezes over.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Interested-Participant.

(Yes, this is an increased operational tempo around here; it, like most "surges" in activity, probably won't be maintained for long. For some reason, I've got a lot of neurons firing at the moment.)

The Kill Ratio

In an earlier post, I had grumped about the apparent kill ratio resulting from the operations against Moqtada al-Sadr's forces in the suburbs (?) of Baghdad. As the fighting went on, I lost count of what the number was, and so therefore it's time for an update.

This information comes courtesy of the California Yankee, by way of the Associated Press:

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Monday that U.S. troops killed about 700 insurgents across Iraq since the beginning of the month. Around 70 coalition troops - almost all Americans - were also killed.

Rounding the numbers, that's 700 of theirs for 70 of ours, i.e. 10:1. That's not bad. I don't have comparable figures---if even they can be compared---for other American operations throughout history, but I can live with 10:1. I wish we could move that to 20:1 or higher. Would that the number was 700:0, but alas, we'll probably not be that lucky. Similarly, I can't help but wish that we didn't have to do this. I'd rather the considerable efforts in planning and execution---on both sides---could be directed towards building an American-friendly prosperous and free Iraq, but it does not appear that circumstances would allow that. Pity.

A certain simple lesson can be drawn from the number, though: "Don't fight Americans unless you can sustain hideous casualties, for they shall inflict them." I've read somewhere---thought it was Mark Bowden in the WSJ, but that's not it---that after engagement which claimed the life of, among others, Randall Shugart, the Somalis were in a funk due to the demoralizing effect of losing lots of their people in exchange for a handful of our people. One wonders if this same effect translates to al-Sadr's militia, and if so, what our leadership will do about it.

As a Jacksonian, I suggest giving them an opportunity to give up their weapons and go home. Anyone who doesn't do so can keep fighting and be annihilated. I am distinctly tired of this al-Sadr and his private army, and I am suspicious of any attempt to deal with him that doesn't involve a laser-guided bomb.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to California Yankee.

UPDATE: I had to cut out the Mark Bowden reference, because it wasn't exactly what I thought he had said, and the actual statement did not support the premise I was fronting. Enh, this journalistic integrity thing, it is hard.

The Soviet UFO Policy

You've got to love the Soviet Union's Voyska PVO. If it moves, they'll shoot at it. It seems that flying the Russian skies was equally unfriendly, whether it be American reconnaisance aircraft (Hey, Open Skies means you, Ivan!) or alien invaders from beyond space. This just in from The American Kestrel:

Soviet military encountered many UFOs, maybe for this reason in the end of the 60s a secret laboratory of researching "flying objects" was created in the USSR.

UFO researchers often blame the military of hiding the cases of alien rockets and disseminating false information of UFO. Army officers are not interested in the disputes about alien civilizations, they are interested in knowing what impact UFO can impose to military equipment and personnel.

1947. Antiaircraft guns of Transcaucasian Military District fired on the flying cigar-shaped object which came from the side of the Turkish border. The object"s flying altitude was below 4,000 meters, and the guns were capable of reaching a target at the altitudes up to 12,000 meters, but that time the fire made no harm to the "cigar". Then the cigar increased its speed and flew away over the mountains.

The English is bad because the Kestrel quotes from the English-language Pravda article of 23 January 2004. I am, nevertheless, highly amused. Holy shades of Delta Green, Batman! Heh heh heh. The article goes on to describe several other instances where the Soviet air defenses challenged seemingly invulnerable things, and ultimately failed to intercept them. Also included is some questionable story of a recovered unidentified craft that later vanished from a hangar. A word of analysis: I doubt it went back to Tatooine. More likely that it wound up in a scrap yard so the local KGB officers could have more money for vodka. Ahem.

And no, I'm not going to start covering UFOs and all that extra-terrestrial stuff, unless you think that me writing about movies or TV programs falls within that gap. I'll leave that sort of thing to Chris Carter and the Cigarette-Smoking Man.

Tip of the Eldridge hat to Donald Sensing. Snicker snicker.

City of New Orleans Update

I promised to keep abreast of the wreck of The City of New Orleans, and I've now got an update to pass along:

Cause of the wreck of the City of New Orleans, Train 58(06APR) is believed to be a 2 1/2 inch piece of rail that was added to the east rail (engineer's side) during January 2004 to replace a section with a crushed rail head. Under changes in temperature, compressive forces in that rail combined with poor condition of ties caused that rail to roll outward under train.

Engine 82: $50,000
Baggage 1223: $55,000
Sleeping Car 32036: $2,000,000
Dining Car 38009: $2,000,000
Lounge Car 33013: $700,000
Coach/Smoking 31592: $700,000
Coach 34069: $650,000
Coach 34087: $350,000
Sleeping Car 32005: $215,000
Coach 34135: $176,000

It is unlikely that the first five Superliners will ever return to
service.

I do not know the truth of this information, but it seems consistent with initial reports. Additional analysis from the same source:

Sometime before January of this year, a piece of rail was crushed (the railhead) and then in January it was repaired. The repair was just a patch job, they probably cut about a 2 inch section out and either welded a new piece in or bolted it in as a joint. Unsure if they used a cutting torch to do this, as that would destroy the tensile strength of the rail and cause a derailment (which is exactly what happened on the [Missouri Pacific] about 20 years ago....derailed the Texas Eagle in Woodlawn, TX...five minutes from my house). Regardless, the fact that it was just a patch job mixed with either rotted or just old wooden ties was not good for the City of New Orleans. What they suspect happened is that once the train it that section (doing somewhere around 70MPH) either the patch came loose or the spikes gave out, causing the rail to "roll" outward under the train. The rail in question was on the engineer's side, explaining why the Superliners fell in that direction.

Oh, bother. This places the blame solely upon Canadian National, because their people either didn't repair the rails properly, or they didn't come back to implement a permanent fix. Given Amtrak's poor financial state, I'm curious as to what will be done about the five wrecked Superliners. Those cars will need to be replaced; simply going on without them is probably not an option. After all, you can't carry passengers---I know Amtrak's a little short on ridership from time to time---if you haven't the coaches. David Gunn has repeatedly harped on the fact that one of his priorities is getting equipment back into service, and he's spent scarce capital to do so. This accident sets their program back a fair amount, and it's distinctly unwelcome news.

I am, of course, irritated with the CN maintenance of way and financial managers who didn't have the rails in a good state of repair. Further information will be reported when available.

UPDATE: Photographs purportedly taken at the wreck site are located here. The third and fifth pictures demonstrate most clearly damage to the rail, and would perhaps suggest that the failure of the actual rail itself was the cause for the derailment.

The Newest Bloggerist Manifesto

Comrade Commissar has, under the aegis of the Politburo's diktat, released the latest component of the bloggerist manifesto. It's a simple seven-point plan for continued progress against the ancien régime of the big-name "professional" bloggers.

If those of us who blog in obscurity are ever to be prominent, then we must stop sending the vital capital of blogging (i.e. traffic) up to the people who get more traffic in one day than some blogs have had in their lifetimes. Allow me to suggest a corollary: When you find a story suggested by that fellow in Knoxville, go to another blogger, one of the little guys, and link to them instead. Tennessee's chief blogger doesn't need any additional traffic.

To the blogosphere barricade, comrades! Peace, land, and voluptuous former tennis stars named Anna to all participating comrades, eh.

A Little Bit of Ben-Veniste

Full disclosure: I'm more in Richard Nixon's corner than not, and therefore am predisposed to loathe Richard Ben-Veniste from the get go.¹ I find him repellent, and have done so since I started reading about Watergate back in the very early 1990s. From what I understand, he's been a pest to Republicans since the days of the first big Democratic witch-hunt in Washington, i.e. Watergate.

Anyways. Ed Moltzen of Late Final has come up with a very interesting piece of information indicating that perhaps Mr. Ben-Veniste has not been as compliant with ethical standards as perhaps he should be.

The bottom line: His law firm (Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw) is representing claimants in the litigation over the collapse of the World Trade Center. Mr. Ben-Veniste just happens to have access to a lot of otherwise classified information that other parties would have to use the Freedom of Information Act and/or extensive discovery procedures to get at, if at all.

I do not mean to suggest that Mr. Ben-Veniste would act in any way contrary to the rules of professional responsibility, but we're using the New York Times standard of "appearance of impropriety", not any actual objective standard. Perhaps Mr. Ben-Veniste should recuse himself from the Commission, or perhaps his firm should withdraw from the suit?

I'll probably wind up asking one of my intelligent professors about this, since I'm always hazy on this part of the rules of professional responsibility. Since I'll probably never be asked to be on a commission like this or be in a giant firm, these concerns are not my problem.

Read the whole thing. Very interesting.

¹ To put a wiseacre's spin on it, allow me to quote Lynyrd Skynyrd: "Watergate does not bother me", and my conscience does not bother me, I tell you true. Yes yes, criminal activity is bad, blah blah.

Buff History

On 11 April 1966, the USAF started using B-52D (more than likely) Stratofortresses as God and Boeing intended, striking targets in North Vietnam. Specifically hit was the Mu Gia Pass, which constituted an entry point for the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail. I think they would have been drawn from the 28th Bomb Wing, if my sources are right. These strikes were ordered by General William C. Westmoreland, with their targets being in the southernmost area of North Vietnam.

A number of B-52D units had been modified to the BIG BELLY standard, which gave them the ability to carry nearly 60,000 pounds of ordnance to targets in Southeast Asia. The raids against the Mu Gia Pass took place on 11 and 26 April, for a total of 44 sorties. Sorry, Charlie; death from above, baby!

I added A Collection of Thoughts to the blogroll a while back, because she's a gal who writes about AC-47s and B-52s. Any gal who's at home with a minigun-toting cargo plane or the most excellent conventional & nuclear bomber in all of history can't be bad, now can she?

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Miss Jennifer Martinez.

Back to Stephen Moore

Recent readers will know of my disagreement with Stephen Moore and his "Club for Growth". I'd gotten one tirade worked out of my system after reading the recruitment letter I got sent---thanks for nothing, CPAC---and didn't think I'd be writing on him again. After all, I'm not from Pennsylvania and I'm not particularly concerned as to whether Pat Toomey or Arlen Specter triumphs in what is a domestic issue for Pennsylvanians.

Comes now the intrepid duo at Boots and Sabers, commenting upon a New York Times piece reporting upon the influence of the CfG. Owen had this to say:

The story is about a national conservative committee that's dumping money into campaigns around the country. [A local candidate for Congress] is a beneficiary of the group. The story has a negative tone to it, but not about [the local candidate].

Having read the CfG recruiting materials sent my way, it is clear that the Times got a fact wrong right off the bat:

None of this financial largess was sought by [the candidate]. It fell into her lap without her having to lift a finger and has already helped her dispatch one of her Republican primary rivals.

Either the CfG departed from standard operating procedure, or else the reporter, one Leslie Wayne, had some difficulties in accuracy somewhere in the pipeline. CfG materials suggested that each candidate in which they take an interest is interviewed and vetted on the basis of several rigid ideological criteria, along with the CfG's evaluation of the candidate's "leadership potential".

That part's fine. If they want to do that, then let them. It's several following quotes that irritate me:

Moreover, to the consternation of mainstream Republicans, the club is not shy about pouring millions into primary races and attacking moderate Republicans with the same ferocity it reserves for Democrats in general elections.

"Our donors are very ideologically driven, more than party driven," said Stephen Moore, who co-founded the organization in Washington in 1999. "They are antitax and they feel the Republican Party has dropped the ball."

"We have no loyalty to the Republican Party," David Keating, the club's executive director, said in an interview.

As I stated before in my earlier post, I'm distinctly against some sort of unelected and unaccountable latter-day Inquisition running around targeting elected Republicans for elimination simply because they, the sitting member, doesn't dance to Stephen Moore's tune. Perhaps I am an unsophisticated simple Southern boy, but I don't readily cotton to the tune of a man whose goals don't think highly of the party that brung him, so to speak. Likewise, the Keating quote raises my party loyalist hackles. So you have no loyalty to the Republican Party? Then we should have no loyalty to you, and the GOP should do its darnedest to make Keating eat his words. Another excerpt:

"I'm adamantly opposed to their activities," said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a 527 committee that supports moderate Republican candidates. "Why are they splitting the Republican Party? They've got a funny name for a group that is trying to shrink the Republican Party."

I've got no real interest in the "Republican Main Street Partnership" and don't really even know what it is.¹ However, I find her barb about the CfG's funny name amusing. Turning back to the CfG proper, the article notes that they exerted pressure on Senators Olympia Snow and George Voinovich of Maine & Ohio, respectively. Calling them "Franco-Republicans" and "questioning their patriotism", the CfG claims credit for helping George W. Bush's tax cuts pass with Voinovich's vote.

This really irks me. Does Stephen Moore and the CfG really mean to suggest that disagreement on taxation policy means that an individual Senator is from France? I'd like to think not, but their over-the-top remarks to the Times indicates that they do. I'd also like to know where Moore gets off by questioning someone's patriotism because they're not hell-for-leather excited about tax cuts. I suppose one could turn right around and question his patriotism for not being supportive of the war effort, which is more important in any case.

Moore addressed the "Franco-Republican" issue in a column for National Review Online, which I read in the course of preparing this piece. He stated at the end of the column that, "My group doesn't want to kick Snowe and Voinovich out of the party." This doesn't square with his more recent remarks to the Times that, "[w]e threatened to fund a primary opponent against Senator Voinovich".

Is Stephen Moore a liar? I don't know. Is he disingenuous? Probably. He wants, understandably, to exert influence. The problem is that Moore's exertion of influence is probably a bad thing. Arlen Specter stuck his nose about in the Penn Central's ruin, and I've got no patience for him, but I'm uncertain as to whether money from Virginia (for example) ought to be used in deciding a Pennsylvania race. Obviously, Stephen Moore is very eager to do this, but that doesn't make it "right".

If outside money is to be injected into political campaigns within a State, then I think they ought to come largely from the RNC or one of its subordinate campaign committees. This would of course overturn several decades worth of practice, but something rubs me wrong about a cash-flush donor from California deciding the outcome of a race here in Virginia simply because he cuts a check to Stephen Moore. Even if I were to agree with this theoretical donor, my loyalties to Virginia's right to make her own decisions runs ahead of an ideological theology.

Of course, Moore didn't help himself by writing an acid tongued piece skewering Virginia's Republican leadership for their efforts to cope with the problems we've got in Virginia's budget. I didn't get to read the whole thing due to NRO's teaser policy, but I'm willing to bet that Moore's grand solution was something on the order of "growth will solve all problems" and nothing further. I don't have an ideologically-acceptable answer to our problems, but I'll be darned if I let a national group tell Richmond what to do.

Allow me to close with a quotation from Richard Nixon: "I would rather have Republicans as majority leaders in the House and Senate than Democrats." Stephen Moore's policy risks elected Republicans in order to crown candidates of his choice, and I regard this as strategically, operationally, and tactically unsound.

¹ A quick examination of the RMSP website shows that Northern Virginia's Tom Davis is the lone Virginian in the group. Inasmuch as I'm hardly fond of Northern Virginia, that carries little weight with me. It would appear that none of my favorite Congressional types are in this partnership, so nyah to the bias-seekers. At any rate, I've got no time for this "Main Street Partnership", since they're so fond of Lincoln Chaffee. The only way I can stomach the survival in office of people like that is if there's no other alternative.

On This Day - Norfolk & Western History

On this day in 1948, the Norfolk & Western Railway's first Y6b locomotive, #2171, departed the Roanoke Shops for road service.

The 2-8-8-2 Y6b was a monster locomotive, weighing in at about 582,900 pounds; adding the (presumably full of coal and water) tender¹ took the figure to 961,500 pounds. With a weight like that, one doesn't casually go hopping from somewhere in Connecticut to Penn Station in the city of New York for the morning commute.

Instead, these locomotives were used for low-to-moderate speed service pushing or pulling long drags of coal cars headed to Norfolk from out of Southwest Virginia and West Virginia, our rogue province. Coal traffic had the advantage of being distinctly non-perishable, so timekeeping wasn't so much of a virtue. More important was the ability to carry a lot of coal at a steady pace, and the design of the Y6b reflected that.

The Y6b can easily be mentioned in the same breath as the Allegheny 2-6-6-6 type used by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway and the Virginian Railway, and the Big Boy 4-8-8-4 used by the Union Pacific Railroad. All three types constitute essentially the giants of American steam motive power, huge coal-fired monsters that shook rails and the ground around them every time they passed.

Y6a #2156 survives today at the National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri, but no other Y series survived the scrapper's torch. Kim Thurlow suggests that the last surviving Y6b locomotives met the torch in a Roanoke, Virginia scrapyard in 1976. Wouldn't surprise me.

¹ My source indicates that the standard Y6b tender carried 22,000 gallons of water, along with thirty tons of coal.

A Naval Aviation Classic Comes to DVD

Everyone's heard of a movie where improbable events take place aboard a US Navy aircraft carrier, right? It stars the Grumman F-14A Tomcat, has a romantic side-plot for the women to pay attention to, a lead who later becomes a player on an NBC television drama, and gorgeous aviation footage.

Top Gun, right? Wrong.

I'm talking, of course, about The Final Countdown, a 1980 motion picture starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, James Farentino, Katharine Ross, Charles Durning, and Ron O'Neal, with a score by John Scott.

Martin Sheen plays Warren Lasky, a civilian systems analyst. He's detailed to CVN 68 USS Nimitz while she's on deployment to the Pacific Ocean, ostensibly to conduct a study on USN procedures. In other words, a wonk before wonks existed.

Kirk Douglas plays Captain Matthew Yelland, an 'old man of the sea' who's pleasantly tolerant of this interloper. His XO, Commander Dan Thurman, is played by the late Ron O'Neal, who also made an appearance in Red Dawn as the South American---maybe Nicaraguan---officer who has a change of heart.

The last man I'll mention is Commander Richard T. Owens, commander of Carrier Air Wing EIGHT. 'CAG'---short for 'Commander, Air Group' and his shorthand reference throughout the film---is played by James Farentino, another actor who seems to have been important in 1970s cinema. Commander Owens is writing a book on naval history, and this becomes relevant to the film in due course.

While on maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean, CVN 68 USS Nimitz encounters an electromagnetic storm that hurls it backwards through time, from 06 December 1980 to 06 December 1941. That's all you need to know.

The DVD itself is released by Blue Underground, an outfit more famous for releasing movies that've been somewhat obscure, for whatever reason. Both widescreen and fullscreen versions are available, along with a two-disc limited edition widescreen set. I, of course, got the latter one, one of 100,000 being produced. William Lustig, the man in charge at Blue Underground, has stated in an interview that this is far and away BU's best seller, and well it should be.

The extras include a short interview with a fellow named Lloyd Kaufman, an associate producer for the film, and an interview with the members of Fighter Squadron EIGHTY FOUR, the now-disestablished Jolly Rogers. The latter interview is worth a fair amount of money on its own, and connects well with the film. The pilots interviewed all flew the Tomcat work done in the movie, and you get to see a little bit of the interaction between highly-trained professional aviators and highly-trained professional movie people, and also their interaction with Katharine Ross.

I've been watching this movie on TV or VHS for twenty-odd years, and I've got to say that this is a fantastic release. I found out it about it one evening and raced about trying to find the two-disc set, finally settling for an order from Borders. Such was my anxiety to acquire this film that I went back to Borders later and dropped thirty bucks without hesitation on a copy that I found nestled on a cart.

I want a medal for Conspicuous Consumption, First Class. Sooner or later, I should be up for a Hero of the War Economy medal, plus copious cleanly-scrubbed capitalist babes clustered around me for official ITAR-TASS photo shoots.

User Input Requested

I've been wandering through the far reaches of the blogosphere lately, and I've run into way too many sites that use the same template as me. Therefore, I'm looking for input from the readership as to what kind of visual changes they'd like to see in order to make the site a) easier to read, b) visually distinctive, and c) more reflective of the content.

All suggestions (other than "shut it down") are appreciated, so send 'em on it by way of comments or e-mail. Thanks!

Saint-Ex Recovered, Sort Of

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning last flown by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry has been recovered from the Mediterranean Sea, positively identified, and will be placed on display at Marseille, in southern France.

Saint-Ex, as I first heard of him, was a French military pilot and writer active during World War II. He vanished on 31 July 1944, flying "one last mission", nighttime reconnaisance of German troop movements in the Rhone River Valley.

Why do I cover this? First, I'm a sucker for aviation history. Secondly, I try to be a literate man, and I generally focus my efforts in literature on things that I already like. Saint-Exupéry is an aviation author of note; therefore I ought to be reading his stuff. Besides, you can't like World War II aviation and not have heard of this guy.

Three little anecdotes or vignettes about Saint-Ex and me:

1. When I was a wee little nipper, I watched a lot of Nickelodeon. (Marc Summers' Double Dare was years in the future.) Included in this programming was something called The Little Prince, where a kid caught passing comets with a butterfly net and went to other worlds. I remember nothing else about it than that, but the source for this was none other than Saint-Exupéry.

2. I had been reading something on trial practice this past week, and a quote popped up: "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away." It is worth noting that the uncredited author was none other than Mr. Saint-Exupéry himself.

3. He's mentioned several times in one of my favorite books, Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Unfortunately, all I can find is the reference where Wolfe quotes him during the re-entry John Glenn's Friendship 7. I suppose it's just another one of those interesting coincidences that humans seem to have on a regular basis. Funny; I was reading The Right Stuff just this week.

I am glad that his aircraft was recovered, and I hope that the display in which it will be incorporated is a worthy one.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Comrade Commissar.

Friday Five - 09 April 2004

1. What do you do for a living?

I while away the hours in law school. Peh.

2. What do you like most about your job?

That I get to perhaps do some good in the world, which is one of the things that folks who sign up with Christ have to do.

3. What do you like least about your job?

It will be long hours with low pay and zero respect from the community. Good thing I'm an arrogant-in-my-own-way type that's largely immune to public opinion.

4. When you have a bad day at work it's usually because _____...

Because someone else screwed up, and I get blamed along with being told to fix it.

5. What other career(s) are you interested in?

High-level executive operations at a Class I railroad in the United States or something aboard a cruise liner; I'd kind of like to be involved with transportation somehow. Failing that, I'd like to be a historian or a writer in general. Makes sense, from the work done here at the blog.'

Eric al-Sadr

I've been looking at pictures of Moqtada al-Sadr recently, and it occurred to me that he looks like an adult Eric Cartman. One association led to another, and I wound up wondering if the rotund youth---he's not much older than me---would break out and say,

"HEY! I am a mullah, and you will respect mah authoritah!"

I don't know if he's a mullah, an imam, or if he's like the Islamic Jesse Jackson, and frankly I don't care. I wonder if his madrasa yearbook had, "Most likely to attempt the establishment of an Islamic Republic of Iraq" under his picture.

David L. Gunn Interview

I admit it: I like at some level the work that NPR (more accurately various program-producing member stations) does. It's useful information, and it's reliably biased, so you know how to take it. Devil you know and all that. The recently-fired Bob Edwards could report on Presidents Clinton and Bush saving a child, and Clinton would be hailed as a valiant saint for saving that lone kid while thousands others died; conversely, George W. Bush would be excoriated for failure to save them all even if he only missed one.

That being said, NPR's member stations are occasionally useful for something other than entertainment, and today I've found something of value. A program dubbed Radio Times (of which I have never heard) recently interviewed the head of Amtrak, David L. Gunn, and has posted the audio of same on the World Wide Web for all to hear.

I'm not sure how long it is and I haven't listened yet, but it was passed on to me as being a good interview. Without further adieu, click here for the goods. It's a *.ram file, so you'll need one of those cursed RealAudio players.

On This Day - Norfolk & Western History

08 April 1970: John Palmer Fishwick (1916-) is elected to serve as the tenth president of the Norfolk & Western Railway.

Fishwick succeeded Herman H. Pevler as president. Pevler, a former senior officer of the Wabash (leased by the N&W on 16 October 1964), is most famous to me as being responsible for the introduction of the blue livery with Dulux lettering. Mr. Fishwick is famous also for introducing the overall black livery with white "NW" lettering.

A Pennsylvania Railroad history site notes that Fishwick engineered a coup against Pevler, after Pevler suggested that a Chesapeake & Ohio man would become head of the combined C&O/N&W. Fishwick, having engineered the merger in the first place---check this with Richard Saunders' Merging Lines ---was not impressed, and thus got Pevler booted to the position of "Chairman", supposedly a meaningless promotion.

Of course, with the debacle occurring in the Northeast with the Penn Central, the C&O/N&W merger would be called off by the respective companies. C&O President Gregory S. Devine and Fishwick would announce this on 19 March 1971. Interestingly enough, Devine would retire as President within two weeks, replaced by the man who would make the Chessie System (and later CSX) a reality, Hays T. Watkins, Jr.

Fishwick would serve as President of the Norfolk & Western throughout the tumultuous 1970s, being replaced by Robert B. Claytor in September of 1981. Claytor would be the last president of the N&W and the first president of the newly-created Norfolk Southern.

Congratulations (albeit 34 years later) to J.P. Fishwick, and thank you for your service.

Positive News for Norfolk Southern

I pulled this off of my Sprint PCS phone last night while sitting in a boring gathering that I didn't want to be at. I'd link the article on the regular World Wide Web, but darned if I'll register with those guys for this information. What is typed below is excerpted---can't spell that today---from my little color LCD phone screen. It also dates from 24 March 2004, but that's OK.

Morgan Stanley analyst James Valentine upgraded two of the four major American railroads and downgraded the other two, ostensibly in earnings potential. However, Valentine also stated that he maintains his opinion that the North American railroad industry remains challenged as an asset-intensive, heavily unionized, semi-regulated industry.¹ His actions are taken, he said, in response to divergence in prospects for the sector. His research note stated the likelihood of seeing a "more clear divergence in each carrier's growth trajectory" in the remainder of 2004.

As a result, Valentine now considers Norfolk Southern Corporation (NSC) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (BNI) as "overweight", up from "equal-weight". Conversely, Union Pacific Corporation (UNP) and CSX Corporation (CSX) have been downgraded from "equal-weight" to "underweight".²

That was part of a good week for Norfolk Southern's financial picture; earlier the Bear Stearns brokerage house had raised its evaluation of NSC to "outperform" its industry peers (i.e. UNP, CSX, and BNI). Bear Stearns says that NSC is positioned for "greater earnings leverage" in 2004, whatever that means.

Inasmuch as I'm a ruthless booster of Virginia's remaining railway, this is a good thing. Greater earnings won't necessarily lead to me being hired by the Norfolk Southern as a lobbyist or anything, but it might fatten the portfolio when I get around to buying fistfuls of NSC stock.³ More money for NSC is a good thing all around, and I'm glad to hear that the folks at 3 Commercial Place in Norfolk are being rewarded for efforts in business.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to the management and labor of the Norfolk Southern Corporation.

¹ I would agree that the railroad industry is rather heavily unionized; a retired NS man---rest in peace, old friend---once stated to me that the railroads were the first industry to organize in this country, and I think he's probably right. He adamantly defended the right of labor to organize, and I don't necessarily disagree with him. Ideally, you don't need a union; management would be "good" to its employees, and the employees would be loyal and hard-working in return. Alas, one doesn't always get that---from either side---and so it's probably just as well that an essential tension exists between the people who hire & fire, and the folks who get hired & fired. Equality of bargaining power, I suppose. That being said, I don't get the sense that a lot of unions have realistic demands any more.

As for "asset-intensive", well, yes. They've a sprawling real estate base (i.e. the track) and the infrastructure (yards, locomotives, freight cars, etc.) necessary to handle the size and volume of freight traffic in this country also has to be large. This isn't Star Trek where one beams automobiles from Detroit to a distributor in Alabama; something's got to get them there over something. Methinks that the bean-counter doth protest too much. There's only so much that can be cut on a railroad before you start eating the seed corn.

With regards to regulation, boo hoo. Some people just can't be satisfied.

² You may wonder why the railroad components are not the named industries. I've only had two classes in corporate law, and so Professor Bainbridge might be angry at my explanation, but here goes: These corporations are holding companies in essence, which oh-by-the-way own a railroad, along with other business components. Off the top of my head, each of these railroads are wholly-owned subsidiaries of their parents(?) and thus would follow current thought and regulations on how to handle such things.

³ In my ideal scenario, 3 Commercial Place would call my attorney (or broker, whatever) and worry about a takeover attempt. I then of course would sign that pleasant little agreement saying that I have no intentions at this time about a takeover. Call it irrational investing; I'd buy stock simply because I like railroads and I trust NS management to keep running a profitable railroad. This is incredibly unlikely because I'll never be rich enough to buy the pre-requisite amount of stock (either 3%or 5%, last time I checked) to trigger such a concern. One can dream, though.

A Flag Flies (Or Doesn't) in Kirkuk

Something's come up in Kirkuk, part of our psychological strategy in terms of convincing the Iraqis that we're not there to keep the place. It appears that the air base in Kirkuk has received orders that prohibit the regular display of the flag of the United States of America.

Venomous Kate linked your humble correspondent to a story in the Washington Times which details this. It's actually more of an entry in a column, but I'll call it a story for the time being. This excerpt, with a little work by me, comes from the Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough story:

A copy of the order states, "[A]ll outside U.S. flags need to come down per [Central Command Air Force] guidance." The order states that American flags can be displayed indoors and that "we are allowed to put the flag up for special days or events, but we can't have it up all the time implying that we are occupying Iraq."

I agree wholeheartedly with a policy that tries to measure how the Iraqis perceive our actions and suggests ways to minimize avoidable friction. It is important that the Iraqis believe that we are there to help and that we are not a hostile occupation force.¹ Consequently, I understood the orders issued when a brave young man took an American flag to the top of a Saddam statue. His sentiment was absolutely proper for the perspective of the American fighting man, and I nodded tightly with a grin on my face when he did it. It was also proper for the order to be given to remove the flag. We did not seek a total military victory over the government and people of Iraq. Our mission was to destroy the government, and we have done that.

Since we are not a conquering army, we must do things differently. We actively seek the peaceful cooperation of the Iraqi people, even if bums like Moqtada al Sadr aren't inclined to give it. Therefore, we must take into consideration their mindset, and images that inflame the responsible Iraqi (or give easy fodder to the Sadr types) should be minimized. I would call this sort of mindset 'resource denial' because it doesn't give the bad guys anything to work with.

That being said, I wholly disagree with the specific policy that bans the regular display of American flags at an American installation inside Iraq. The thing that would argue for reconsideration of that position would be objective showing of some concrete affiliation in the living Iraqi memory that links the display of a foreign nation's flag to some sort of outside dominance. I do not believe that this sort of thing can be shown, but I remain open to that possibility.

The best solution, in my opinion, is to fly our flag on our bases per standard guidelines (embodied in 4 U.S.C. § 7(g)) and fly alongside it the flag of the new Iraq. This may be in contravention of established military practice, and if so I'll have to figure out a new solution. My goals here are a) to keep our flag flying and b) to signal to the Iraqis that they are our partners in this new experiment of Arab statehood.

In closing, Kate asks people to display the American flag on their blogs to "show our soldiers the blogosphere's support". Inasmuch as I back our boys, here's the flag; I'll be trying to figure out how best to incorporate a smaller flag into the sidebar in the near future. Suggestions appreciated.

¹ It may very well be that we are, under law, some sort of occupation force, but I see a distinct difference between "We're here to help and leave" and "All your base are belong to us".

A Little Clarity on Amtrak

Amtrak train #58, the northbound City of New Orleans, has derailed 25 miles north of Jackson City, Mississippi.

CNN's report indicates that a single passenger, a 68-year-old woman, has died and that there are 60 injured. Amtrak's press release states that four people were admitted to local hospitals.

Before we go any further, let me raise a flag in defense of Amtrak. I am almost certain that there will be some in the blogosphere who will immediately harangue Amtrak for this accident, and demand that it be put out of business, or bash the passenger rail service all together.

If one rules out sabotage, then there are two broad possibilities for liability as I see them:

1. Amtrak, through fault of the train crew---mainly the engineers---or through defective Amtrak equipment, which would be the motive power or the cars in the consist.

2. The Canadian National Railway, because it's their track upon which the City of New Orleans was travelling.

It is important to understand that Amtrak (more accurately the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) does not, for the most part, travel upon its own rails to get from point A to point B. The private freight railroads maintain ownership of almost all the track that Amtrak provides service over.¹

Since Amtrak does not own the tracks where the City of New Orleans derailed, Amtrak cannot be held responsible (broadly) if the rails and related infrastructure failed. It is the responsibility of the freight railroads to provide "maintenance of way" to keep the rails---which they own outright---safe for transportation. Maintenance of way is expensive, alas, and it is often deferred, with negative results. Neither the best equipment in the world nor the best crew in the world can keep a train on a rail that breaks or that is worn out to the point of providing no surface for the flanged wheel to roll upon.

My initial reaction to the accident, after reading the CNN report, is to be highly suspicious of the rails themselves. I base this upon the following statement: "A train carrying hazardous chemicals crashed on the same section of tracks in 1997, forcing the evacuation of about 4,000 people. Three other freight trains have derailed within a five-mile stretch -- one in 1986 and two in 1994."

A brief bit of research in rail enthusiast circles indicates that as of 1995, the CN had performed significant maintenance on the line. However, a later passenger on Amtrak's train 58/59 indicated that the rails were in bad shape. Since there was a switch in 1995 to welded rail, that would indicate heavy maintenance of the rails themselves and the bed upon which they rest. Therefore, accidents prior to 1995 (i.e. three of the four reported) are irrelevant. In any event, the National Transportation Safety Board will discover the reason(s) for the accident. I'll probably post the link to the final report when it is issued.

This does not function as a particularly legalistic analysis other than to try and frame the issues properly; I'm not yet a lawyer and I'm most certainly not competent---yet!---to provide counsel on transportation liability. I left out General Electric and the manufacturer of the passenger equipment, primarily because I doubt that there is any products liability question present. The "Genesis" series of locomotives is safe, and coaches of the Superliner type have been in operation since the early 1980s. See above about the certainty of accident where maintenance is not practiced.

If you are the praying type, I would suggest that the crew, passengers, and their families should be included in your activities of this sort.

¹ In no particular order, CSX Transportation, the Norfolk Southern Railway, the Union Pacific Railroad, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, the Canadian National Railway, and the Canadian Pacific Railway own the majority of Amtrak's route miles. On the other hand, Amtrak owns the "Northeast Corridor", the former Pennsylvania Railroad/Penn Central line from Washington to Boston, along with something in Michigan of which I know nothing.

Tartan Day

The Country Pundit, being of English background by way of Pennsylvania some time between the 1760s and the 1890s, doesn't generally fit in where Scottish heritage issues are raised.¹ With that being said, I'm also generally supportive of "British Isles" heritage celebration, due to my Angophilic interests and for some ill-defined reason that probably runs deep into post-graduate explorations of culture and society, none of which I'm willing to do.

Nevertheless, I present something called "Tartan Day", sponsored by a gal named Ith over at Absinthe & Cookies. The significance of this is as follows, borrowed from I Love Jet Noise:

Why Tartan Day? On April 6th, 1320, the Declaration of Arbroath was drawn up at Arbroath Abbey, declaring Scottish independence from England.

OK, so the Scottish were ungrateful. Go to all that trouble to exploit them going and coming, and they have the cheek to go and declare independence. Well, you'll note that William Wallace gets it in the end! Snide Derbyshire-ian remark aside, this is a neat little thing, and I'm happy to publicize. (Bob in legal says we can't use that; it would suggest that we've actually got readers. --Ed.)

Oddly enough, I have in recent years had a fair affinity for "Highlands" culture, be it Irish-Celtic or Scottish in origin; a bagpiper's always a good way to get my favorable attention, and I've always enjoyed a Celtic festival or two in terms of music. What's creepy is that it just happened. Perhaps my ancestors predicted the trans-Atlantic flight patterns of the 1940s and 1950s in reverse, stopping off in Shannon before heading to the New World.

So with that, Happy Tartan Day.

Now Playing: The overture from Elizabeth. I swear I didn't pick that on purpose; it was a random selection by me out of my carefully hoarded folder of home-made MP3s. However, you've got to admit that it's an amusing coincidence, considering the issue of Scotland and Mary Stewart comes up during the movie.

¹ I did however figure out that my ancestors et cetera were from the county of Yorkshire. This is appropriate, if creepy, on three levels: Yorkshire was important to Richard of Gloucester, who reigned as King Richard III. I'm actually kind of fond of old Richard, having sunk money into the McKellen movie of the same name and at least two books on the guy. Secondly, Yorkshire is the home of John and Charles Wesley, the two men most famous for founding what is today's United Methodist Church. Thirdly, Yorkshire has the Settle-Carlisle line of the old Midland Railway, which is represented in Microsoft's Train Simulator, and which I occasionally play at driving upon. Richard III, religion, and railroads-if I could raise an eyebrow, I would. Curiouser and curiouser.

Brother, Can You Spare $50,000?

I was bouncing around the blogosphere recently, when I found Quent Cordair Fine Art, by way of Cox & Forkum.¹

Now, I'm a relatively simple guy, and my tastes in art are pedestrian. That means that I don't dig a crucifix in a Mason jar full of urine, and Robert Mapplethorpe leaves me cold. (Or grumbling about a waste of good film.) Most modern art doesn't do much for me, and I daresay that most of the non-realist art of the 20th century falls flat where I am concerned. A lot of modern art seems to be an exercise in hoo-hah, wherein a fast-talking artist suckers some city slicker out of several thou by throwing around buzzwords that sound in vogue or something.

Conversely, I like things like Rembrandt's Night Watch, and I was very fond of the artwork of Michelangelo that I saw when I was at the Sistine Chapel. In other words, old & realistic=good. After visiting QCFA's website, I realized that I'd found something else to add to the mix, namely the notion of "Romantic Realism". In QCFA's own words:

Romantic Realism, the movement which renews the high esthetic standards and techniques of pre-20th century ateliers, brings a rebirth of comprehensibility, beauty, romanticism and stylization to contemporary subject matter. The gallery's collection emphasizes themes which celebrate the moments of happiness, joy and success possible to Man on earth.

Some examination has revealed that Randroids² are fond of this style for some reason---which boggles the mind---but yet I'll not let that get in the way of enjoying the works of one Bryan Larsen.

Mr. Larsen has two works that I wish I had the money for, and since I'll never have the money in time to buy the things, I figured that I'd make a brief note of them here. My evaluation is monstrously unsophisticated---dare I say that it lacks nuance?---and falls down to something on the order of "It's cool", but I thought I'd give it a shot. Pictures and the very brief remarks are in the extended entry.

The first painting is dubbed Born With Wings, and since I didn't take any art classes anywhere, I don't know what to say about it. It's just good work. Somehow, it manages to suggest confidence or something. I'd be happy to hang the thing in the house I've got planned for when I'm a Rich Lawyer. Maybe it's something to do with liking aviation.

The second painting, dubbed How Far We've Come, has as its backdrop a space station, with an Enterprise-class space shuttle in the frame as well. I've been a sucker for the space program since I was in the early days of NASA's "Young Astronauts" program, and there's just something about this one that "speaks" to me, to use one of these strange and amorphous emotional terms.

I'd really like to have the both of them, but the blasted things would wind up costing me in the neighborhood of $50,000 and up. Bother, bother, bother! Too bad, oh too bad. Enh, I'll just track the things down later in life and buy them when I truly am a rich lawyer.

¹ C&F are, by the way, the halves of an editorial cartoon production team that's pretty darned good. Go there, and buy their stuff.

² That is to say, the supporters of Ayn Rand.

An Operational Complaint

Why is it that I never get the "Updated" notation on the Blogs for Bush blogroll? There must be something that I don't have set up right or some ping that isn't getting sent, because I don't think I've ever been on it.

Bother.

A Word on Joschka Fischer

My family has some background in police work, so it goes without saying that I'm no fan of Joschka Fischer's youth activities.¹

In the run-up to Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, he was one of the more prominent voices complaining about the war effort, echoing his nominal boss, Gerhard Schroeder. It's been a while since I heard anything from old Joschka, but I remembered something I read by the late Michael Kelly, and dug it up:

A German Radical for Saddam

In it, Mr. Kelly details some of the seamier details of Mr. Fischer's political past, and ties it into his opposition to the American-led effort against the Baathist regime. He closes with the tagline I remembered, "You ask to be excused. You have been excused."

There isn't any particular reason that I posted this, other than that I thought it should not be forgotten. Whenever you hear the name of Joschka Fischer, just remember what kind of man he is.

¹ Fischer was reportedly photographed while beating a German policeman in an April 1973 riot. I don't care for that kind of conduct. Call me a Jacksonian all you want, but I've never been particularly comfortable with violence against policemen. I cheered when Mr. Orange blew Mr. Blonde away after the latter decided to give Marvin Nash an ear shave. Likewise, I was distinctly displeased with the Invisible Man in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel, because he decides that a bobby is worth killing in a rather brutal and graphic manner, all for no good reason. Enh.

Air America

Hrrm. More Google warfare. Air America.

I was tempted to link the Amazon page for the 1990 Mel Gibson/Robert Downey, Jr., movie, but better to buck up the leader in the Google results. Air America makes the compressed air component of a paintball combat system. I haven't played paintball in years, so I haven't a clue as to the quality of their work.

Go figure.

Attention All Units...

This is good news.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An Iraqi judge has issued a murder arrest warrant for a radical Shiite Muslim cleric, Muqtada Sadr, for the slaying of another Shiite leader shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of the country, coalition officials said Monday.

I had been wondering to myself (and overlooking the larger historical implications) "Who will rid us of this troublesome cleric?" Now, it appears that the Iraqi judiciary---hopefully it's a non-sharia court---has stepped up to the plate. At the same time, there is something of note here:

[Coalition spokesman Dan Senor] said the arrest warrant had been issued several months ago. He refused to say why Sadr had not been arrested earlier.

I suppose that the usual calculations went into the decision not to arrest Sadr earlier. These would probably include "Can we get him?", "Do we have enough evidence?", "Can we hold him?", "What will the repercussions be?" and so forth. It may be that, until the most recent clashes between Sadr's troops and Iraqi/Coalition forces, there may not have been appropriate isolation for him.

What is isolation? Isolation from the sense of community that Iraq's Islamic population feels. We have to strike in such a way that the average Iraqi does not feel that, "The infidels are coming for Allah's faithful!" but rather that, "The Americans are getting a dirtbag. Good on them." I don't know what kind of reaction there was to the latest fighting, but it would seem that this was the tipping point. As always, we've got to be seen as helping the average Iraqi rid his society of bad guys, instead of reaching in from the outside to pluck out good guys.

At the same time, the "isolation" point may not have been reached. It is also possible that someone somewhere decided that, "Enough's enough" and made the warrant public, in order to try and advance the isolation effort. Either way, I hope that we soon capture this fellow, and on the cheap. I respect the right of religious-based dissent to the shape of the new Iraq, but I will not support policies that let violent thugs have a seat at the table.

Similarly, I am uncertain as to why these people need their own private militias at this point anyways. I understand that snap-of-the-fingers or wrinkle-of-the-nose disarmament is impossible and probably undesirable, but I would, if possible, suggest a policy that starts winding these groups up. They may be docile now, but they may be the seeds of sectarian (if that's the right word) strife and outright conflict in the future. Our interests in Iraq do not include such an outcome, and therefore the armed mullah militias must not stand.¹

There will be a backlash, of course. Iraqi and Coalition personnel will have to weather it in whatever fashion it comes and keep driving towards the ultimate goals of a stable democratic (i.e. no Islamic republic!) Iraq with regular free and fair elections. Think about the big picture.

¹ I do not understand the role (outside of "personal security") of these militia groups. I suppose they're similar to the Freikorps and other such street-fighting entities that existed in the Weimar Republic, but that doesn't authorize them at all. In fact, given the nastiness that such groups unleashed in that republic, I'd probably be inclined to do that much more to strangle them. It's just very difficult for me to accept the idea that religious leaders "need" gun-toting political militiamen. I can't really imagine anything like it here in America.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Kathryn Jean Lopez.

UPDATE: Grim's take on VIGILANT RESOLVE is intertwined with this; he says that the reason Shiites need an army in the Sadr City area is because there's lots of Sunnis around them. That makes sense at some level, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it when looking at the situation as a whole. Private religious armies are, I think, a bad thing.

Operation Vigilant Resolve

Allow me to quote General M.D. Meridius, RIA (ret.) at this point:

"At my signal, unleash Hell."

FALLUJAH, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. Marines on Monday closed all roads into Fallujah, the site of last week's slayings of four U.S. civilian contractors and the horrific mutilations of their bodies. The Marines engaged in firefights inside and around the city, sources there said.

CNN reports that we have sustained a casualty---!@#$---and there are between five and seven Iraqi casualties. That's not a good enough kill ratio. I want twenty to one, or better. These vermin, or more accurately those who survive them, must understand that there will not be any further attacks such as the ones that claimed the lives of four private military contractors last week.

As for the people who dare slaughter our people, well then, the words of LCDR Anavel Gato will once again suffice: "DIE!" International law be hung; we've got an obligation to our people to live up to here, and that comes first. The "human rights establishment" of Europe can bellyache all it wants, but Americans can not and should not tolerate that sort of uncivilized violence against the remains of our people.

On a related note, Grim of Grim's Hall has pointed me to the legal definition of "mercenary", and I thank him for it. It came up in the discussion of the Kos thing, which I won't go into. I had my suspicions that "mercenary" was a defined term under the old traditions of war, and I am pleased to see that it does not apply to the individuals lost in Fallujah.¹ For further information, see Southern Appeal.

From the halls of Montezuma to the walls of Fallujah. Semper fidelis, Marines, and get even for our boys. Good luck, God bless, and good hunting.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Jonah Goldberg.

Now Playing: "The Battle", Hans Zimmer from the Gladiator OST.

¹ I have been told that a woman was included in the dead. As a good Southerner, color me outraged. There's no call for that kind of behavior and I'm hoping that we find someone to apply a little extra pain to.

Google War II

Everyone remembers the big blow-up over the left-wing attempt to paint George W. Bush as a miserable failure. Well, we sort of retaliated against that, and started talking about a great President. I sure did, in ish #91.

Now, some intrepid chap, in the course of wanting more traffic, has decided to launch a new campaign against the left-wing blog types. Point your browsers in the direction of the Esoteric Diatribe for background.

In the meantime, we're going to focus on breakfast, specifically waffles. Heh heh heh.

A New Book

Stopped off at Borders tonight and found a book I'd been wanting to buy: Pennsylvania Railroad, by Mike Schafer and Brian Solomon, part of the Railroad Color History series. It's a good book, in my opinion. I haven't fully read the thing to review it, but I'll say two things against it:

1. The authors apologize several times for the incompleteness of the work. This seems more a pre-emptive response to fanatical PRR fans who would whine that the book is neither authoritative nor complete. To this, I can only say, "Why bother?" The book is 120 pages long. It's not going to cover 121 years of a company that at one point had more in bonded debt than the United States government and served something like half the population of the United States.

2. There are, however, spelling errors; I caught two of them on the first read. I can be somewhat sympathetic for a Tom Clancy 800 page plus doorstop, but for this book, good grief!

Still, if you're a fan of the Standard Railroad of the World, give it a look and a buy; it's good for quick reference.

The Fallujah Mess

I've refrained from commentary on the loss of four private military contractors due to the fact that I've been trying to figure out what to say.

My initial reaction was just like everyone else, i.e. call the Stratofortresses from Diego Garcia, load 'em up with the Mark 82 500 pound bomb and send a three-ship cell in broad daylight to retaliate. That, or implement the Darth Sidious solution, which is summed up as, "Wipe them out. All of them."

This is, of course, a purely visceral and most unproductive response. I would also hate to have to explain support for such an action to a fellow named Jesus Christ, so that's the ultimate double whammy. It would also smack heavily of the German National Socialist response to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by British-backed Czech irregulars.¹ Hitler, enraged at this affront by the Czechs (the very nerve, killing the man sent to oversee their liquidation!) ordered the annihilation of the town of Lidice, right down to having it taken off of maps. If memory serves, their "crime" was being less than enthusiastic about the presence of the unsmiling men with the skull-and-crossbones on their hats and a hankering for violence.

I would prefer for the name of American forces to not be associated with Fallujah as was the German politico-military establishment with Lidice.

At the same time, the individuals who did this must die. Insofar as we can identify the guilty parties, they should be captured, marched out into a public place, and shot. An abject lesson must be taught: To kill Americans is to invite an unyielding and excruciatingly accurate retaliation, especially if you're stupid enough to talk to Sky News or whoever it was that taped this.

I would like to point out to the Iraqi man that claimed Fallujah was an American graveyard that perhaps his syntax is garbled and that his luck was with him. Much more of these kinds of actions, and the Americans may turn Fallujah into a graveyard, if not a giant glassy crater.

The important objective will be to carry out the lesson from two paragraphs up without killing non-combatants or Fallujahns who're willing to participate in the peaceful and pro-Western new Iraq. Hopefully, our people will retaliate at the time and the place of our choosing.

¹ SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich had been set up as the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (former Czechoslovakia, if I have my geography right) and was generally a man who deserved a far more brutal death than he received. He was Adolf Eichmann's boss, and participated at the Wannsee Conference, where it was decided that the Jews of Europe would be exterminated.

Happy Birthday, Gracie!

Today, the first of April, is Grace Lee Whitney's birthday. The world knows her for playing Lieutenant Commander Janice Rand, first as a yeoman aboard NCC-1701 U.S.S. Enterprise on TV and then as Communications/Operations Officer aboard NCC-2000 U.S.S. Excelsior.

Happy birthday, Ms. Whitney.

Good Grief!

You are Charlie Brown!


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