The Country Pundit

Hooray for Cheap Games

Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, I went out and picked up a Nintendo Gamecube. Since I'm Star Wars fan, the second-to-launch title was Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III - Rebel Strike.

Luckily, both system and game have been out for a while, so my total expenditure is less than what I paid for my PlayStation 2 in February or March. Of course, the Gamecube is probably the least-selling system out of the big three (PS2, XBox, and GCN) and it might be a dying platform, but hey, I'm still buying games for my 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which I've had for twelve or thirteen years. (Matter of fact, the last time I bought a Nintendo console, George Bush was President and we were fighting in Iraq. The more things change, the more things stay the same.)

Since that means that I've got four operational game systems to suck up my time when not studying for the bar, er, blogging may suffer. Badly.

Sunday Brunch - 30 May 2004

Rise and Shine!

1. What time do you normally wake up?

Since I'm studying for the bar? About 0900.

2. Do you wake with or without an alarm clock?

With. I've got four or five of the things well out of arms' reach.

3. Name the one thing you must have immediately to start your day.

Interaction with my beloved laptop.

4. How long after you wake up do you turn on your computer?

I leave the thing on overnight. Sharon never sleeps.

5. Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day. Do you eat breakfast every day?

Yes, even though there are times when "breakfast" is served at the middle of the day.

On This Day - Norfolk & Western History

1955: Dieselization, the process of replacing steam-fired locomotives with diesel-electric ones, on the Norfolk and Western Railway began with the purchase of eight American Locomotive Company (commonly referrred to as 'Alco') RS-3 road switcher locomotives, which were numbered from 300 to 307.

The RS-3 was a commonly used road-switcher locomotive, capable of pulling freight over main lines (i.e. 'road') and also of performing switching tasks (i.e. 'switcher') in a yard.

N&W press releases at the time indicated that the locomotives were purchased for service on the low-traffic Durham District, in order to release steam locomotives for service elsewhere. Racehorse Smith stated that, "[The purchase of RS-3s] does not mean that we have changed our view that our modern roller-bearing coal-burning steam locomotives can handle the major part of our traffic economically."

That would of course be a statement which Nixon Administration Press Secretary Ron Ziegler would describe as being "inoperative", had he been around at the time. However, those eight RS-3s would be the only ones of their type directly purchased by the N&W; the next Alco locomotives to appear on the property would be RS-11s, Alco's answer to the Electro-Motive Division's GP7 and GP9 series of locomotives.

Information for this post came from William E. Warden's Norfolk & Western: Diesel's Last Conquest, published by TLC Publishing of Lynchburg, Virginia in 1991.

On This Day - Norfolk & Western History

Two important events occurred today, the 28th of May, in the history of the Norfolk and Western Railway:

1946: Robert H. "Racehorse" Smith becomes the seventh President of the railway. Smith was another product of the N&W's career hiring policy, which sought to develop bright college graduates for long-term executive service. Basically, young men were hired from college to start in low-level jobs with the N&W, just like with every other sort of business at the time. N&W management would then oversee the careers of these men, placing them in various areas over the course of several decades in order to give them the experience, operational and financial, to allow them to later assume positions of management in the railway.

The small amount of reading that I've done on the N&W's hiring practices at that point in time indicates that this was somewhat uncommon; ordinarily, it would seem that a man who was hired to be a draftsman stayed a draftsman, and maybe became head of his department or something like that. Senior-level management was often recruited elsewhere, apparently. The N&W of course didn't do it that way, and chose to create its leadership from within.

President Smith's tenure is most relevant to modern fans due to his authorization of O. Winston Link's sojourns through the system, taking photographs of the waning days of steam locomotives in N&W revenue service.

Speaking of steam locomotives in revenue service...

1959: The last Class A locomotive in revenue service, 1214, is retired on this date. She would of course not survive President Stuart T. Saunders' revenue generation programs, being sold for scrap at some point in time after that. (Of the N&W's A-class locomotives, only 1218 survives, at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.

A Shelved Series

After writing the previous entry, I dug around in the Sunbow archives and came up with the theme song to a rejected pilot for a series detailing a European special missions group and its adventures in the 21st century. Without further adieu, allow me to present the lyrics for GI Euro:

(voice-over) Go Euro!

He'll fight for Europe wherever there's Americans; GI Euro is there!

GI Euro! A real transnationalist hero, GI Euro is there!

It's GI Euro against Rumsfeld and George Bush, fighting to sing 'Marseillaise'

He never gives up; he's always there, being a nuisance over land and air.

GI Euro! A real transnationalist hero, GI Euro is there!

(voice-over) GI Euro is the code name for the European Community's brazenly left-wing bureaucratic apparat. Its purpose: To defend Islamists against the United States of America, a superpower nation-state determined to live in freedom.

He never gives up; he'll protest until the war's lost; GI Euro will dare!

GI Euro, a real transnationalist hero!

GI Euro!

Although the program tested well in San Francisco and parts of Boston, the toy line was not so successful. Hasbro found that parents wouldn't buy their children toy rifles designed to be dropped or white flags to be waved, and kids weren't very fond of wearing turbans and burqas. The Teenage Suicide Bomber playset was also canned; Hasbro had trouble getting anyone to return the things intact. As a result, the series was shelved.

Yes, I stole this from an old 1980s cartoon show. That's the tune it's to be sung to.

Shocking Violations of Human Rights

According to the secretary-general of Amnesty International, one Irene Khan, the United States' actions (presumably at Abu Ghraib) represent the most sustained attack on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights since its signing in 1948.

To this, The Daily Telegraph responds,

"Erm, what about the Russian gulag, Pol Pot's Cambodia, the Great Leap Forward and mass starvation in China, the Hutu slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda, Ne Win's Burma, North Korea under the Kims, the Argentinian disappearances, French colonialism in Algeria, Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, Idi Amin's Uganda, Jean-Bedel Bokassa's Central African Republic, Slobodan Milosevic's quest for Greater Serbia. We could go on."

For my part, the answer is obvious: None of those countries perpetrating the included offenses there were the United States. Remember today's lesson, kids: It's only wrong when fifty United States dubbed America do it.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to NRO's own sour Brit, Andrew Stuttaford.

(Despite this being about violations of a document which is part of international law, The Country Pundit recognizes no law outside of the United States of America other than that which our Navy and other armed forces can enforce. Thus, the category is Politics.)

Sybok's Blog

"Excuse me. I'd just like to ask a question: What does God need with a blog?"

Heh heh heh. In actuality, I couldn't imagine Vulcans (even renegade ones) blogging. Nevertheless, someone's chosen to mine the scorned grounds of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier for their blog name.¹

That's right, there's a blog dubbed Sha Ka Ree. As to why, their explanation is here. I just found this yesterday, courtesy of Right Moment.

¹ For the record, I don't see what the problem with Star Trek V is. Having recently finished buying and watching the six original movies, I can say this:

Out of the bunch, IV is indisputably the worst. It's followed closely by III and TMP on separate grounds; V and VI come in awfully close together, and II stands alone as the best.

X-Files Deja Vu

I recently found a copy of the X-Files game for the PlayStation and picked it up. I was an inveterate fan of the series back in its heyday, and really enjoyed it, so the game was a must-buy when found. It was in really good condition and cheap, too; used video game sales are a gift from God.

Anyways, I was poking around early on and read some correspondence or a receipt or something. Having said that, let me say this: It is jarring to read something described as "recent" when the date on it says something like March 1996.

Shock to the system, eh. So far, I haven't found an option that lets me try to make time with Laurie Holden's Marita Covarrubias or steal a light from William B. Davis' Cigarette-Smoking Man. Bother!

Blogger's Quiz

This here's a new quiz that I stole from Kim du Toit. Had to clean it up a bit on capitalization and so forth. The thing's a bit long, so I put it in the extended entry.

Blogger's Quiz

Do you have the guts to take the honest bloggers-only quiz?

Sure.

1. Which political party do you typically agree with?

The Republican Party, out of a lack of generally acceptable and viable alternatives. (There being no viability for a Nostalgic Party dedicated to rail transportation, trans-Atlantic steamships, and Victorian/Edwardian-era morality, that is...)

2. Which political party do you typically vote for?

The Republican Party.

3. List the last five presidents that you voted for?

The last President I voted for was George W. Bush. Prior to that, I lost 'em all.

4. Which party do you think is smarter about the economy?

The Republican Party.

5. Which party do you think is smarter about domestic affairs?

The Republican Party.

6. Do you think we should keep our troops in Iraq or pull them out?

Double their numbers and crush the insurrectionists with extreme prejudice. That can be done overtly or covertly.

7. Who, or what country, do you think is most responsible for 9/11?

Saudi Arabia.

8. Do you think we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Nope. They had far too long to disperse the things, and it's unlikely at this late date that we will.

9. Yes or no, should the U.S. legalize marijuana?

No they shouldn't. I'd prefer our culture to be something other than that represented by Cheech and Chong.

10. Do you think the Republicans stole the last Presidential election?

Nope.

11. Do you think Bill Clinton should have been impeached because of what he did with Monica Lewinsky?

Yes to the moral offense and yes to the criminal offense that we call 'perjury'. I don't have time for adulterers or those who lie about it to the judiciary while under oath.

12. Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good President?

No. She is minimally qualified for the post of Senator from the State of New York; she is wholly unqualified for the post of Commander-in-Chief.

13. Name a current Democrat who would make a great President:

Senator Zell Miller, D-GA.

14. Name a current Republican who would make a great President:

Me.

15. Do you think that women should have the right to have an abortion?

No.

16. What religion are you?

Christian.

17. Have you read the Bible all the way through?

No.

18. What's your favorite book?

I haven't the foggiest.

19. Who is your favorite band?

I don't like bands, although the Charlie Daniels Band would satisfy. Mid-1990s Liz Phair will do nicely, thank you.

20. Who do you think you'll vote for President in the next election?

George W. Bush, unless Richard Nixon, Douglas MacArthur, or George S. Patton, Jr., were to suddenly appear as qualified candidates on the ballot.

21. What website did you see this on first?

Kim du Toit

A Few Words on the W/W Scandal(?)

This should be my only statement, because there are more important things to worry about:

"Having seen Ana Marie "Wonkette" Cox and Jessica "Washingtonienne" Cutler, a verdict: They're both ugly. I wouldn't chase Cutler for love or money and I'd need toxic levels of grain alcohol in the bloodstream before I'd give Cox a second look."¹

I would suggest that the cultured individual would look down their noses at these two harridans, snort indifferently, and walk away.

At any rate, much thanks to the Commissar for breaking this information. Now to go and have my retinae scrubbed from being fugly-blinded.²

UPDATE: I would, however, like to register a distinct note of protest to the otherwise sensible Michelle Malkin, who labeled these two degenerates as "the female Beavis and Butthead". Two things: 1) I liked Beavis and Butt-head; it was MTV's last gasp of cultural relevance and; 2) the boys never scored. Cutler did, repeatedly and for cash.

Secondly, remember that Glenn Reynolds was one of the early braggarts about Cox. Take that, and his reported contribution to the downfall of Trent Lott, and I'd think it's time to reconsider his usefulness to the "blogosphere" as a whole.

Thirdly, jeers to the Fox News Channel for putting them on television. I would imagine that a "conservative" news service would have ignored the both of them. Of course, what can one expect from a news network whose broadcast parent pioneered Married...With Children and programs like Temptation Island? Conservative network my foot.

UPDATE THE SECOND: It appears that Bill at INDC Journal has similar thoughts, and they were put to electrons before this post.

¹ I'm wondering if Cutler was actually paying people for their favors instead of vice-versa. Gah, she's ugly. These degenerate city people make me glad I don'twon't live in one.

² Contradistinguished from, but inspired by, the retinal injury caused from observing the detonation of a nuclear weapon with unshielded eyes. Sayeth Global Security:

"An excessive amount of light focused on the retina can cause retinal burns. The intense light burns the photoreceptors and causes a blind spot. The damage is permanent, because photoreceptors cannot be replaced."

Fugly blindness, caused by unwitting exposure to fugly persons, can be cured. It is, however, psychologically scarring at some level. It's not something you'd want to go through on a regular basis.

Holy City of Blogistan

The Politburo Diktat has another map up; this time, it's the holy city of Kablogh.

The Country Pundit, himself being a Christian guy and therefore unwelcome in the holy sites of Islam, is not represented on the map. This'll make it easier to send a Minuteman III in to flatten the place sooner or later.

Tee hee.

F U Al Gore

According to KJL@NRO, former Vice-President Albert Gore has said that George W. Bush is the most dishonest President since Richard M. Nixon.

I don't know about George W. Bush's honesty or lack thereof, and I don't care. What I do care about is Gore's need to bash arguably one of my favorite Presidents.

When Al Gore dies and goes to Hell, he'll be sent to the special section reserved for left-wing blowhards who flagrantly deserted their heritage. When he gets there, I want Richard Nixon manning the desk. RN'll look up at him and say, "I'm on loan from above. Wanted to come down here and welcome you to your new home. Enjoy!"

Most dishonest President since Richard M. Nixon? Yeah, like the Presidency passed straight from RN's hands on 09 August 1974 (a day that shall live in infamy!) to George Bush's hands on 20 January 2001. Yeah, skip Ford, Carter, Reagan, George Herbert, and a fellow named Bill Clinton. Antarctica Traffic Control calling Al Gore, come in please.

The Little Railway That Did

Ah, the joys of digging through one's Google search results.

In doing so, I found a piece from the people at Liberty Haven about the Florida East Coast Railway.

I know very little about the FEC, largely because it's in Florida and I'm in Virginia. However, I know of it because the management there did something that the Norfolk and Western would wind up doing about a decade later (depending upon how you do the math).

Obligatory N&W Content: Perhaps inspired by the FEC's successful example, Norfolk and Western president Robert B. Claytor sent management to the cab in 1978, when the clerks' union struck the N&W. Claytor became known as the 'Red Baron', for his propensity to operate a Tuscan red locomotive; the livery was experimental livery and in any event, was not adopted.

Victory!

Hee hee, I did it. At around 0230 this morning, I finished Federation versus Zeon's campaign mode. Which side, you ask? The Principality of Zeon, of course. Give me an MS-14A Gelgoog with a beam rifle, and I can do darn near anything, including whipping the RX-78-2 Gundam.

The only problem with this game is that it doesn't have an open ending; no matter how good the Zeon player does in campaign, the Earth Federation still wins. Bother.

UPDATE: Those of you wondering just what in the world I'm talking about can visit Bandai's relevant site. This is, after all, Japanese animation, and I'm a sucker for snazzy uniforms, mecha, and the like.

The President's Speech

Didn't watch it. I was too busy playing Mobile Suit Gundam: Federation versus Zeon Deluxe, which I picked up while on vacation.

In related news, I hear that Ricardo Sanchez is coming home. It would appear that Abu Ghraib has claimed a casualty after all. Buddy of mine said the TV told him that Sanchez was supposedly up for a fourth star, but that said submission of his name to Congress for that was on hold.

I may be jaded or something, but I'm getting the sense that peoples' minds have already been made up, or something, on Iraq. At the same time, I agree with Cliff May: "Too often in the past, this administration hasn't understood the importance of repeating a message, elaborating on a message, working a message until it burns its way into the public's mind and imagination."

People will, when told something enough times, more probably than not start to believe it. It works in the music business; witness the recent success of artists whose music is deplorable yet on the rotation every thirty or forty minutes. Even if the message you're trying to get out is, "Breathing is good", you'd have to hammer it into people's heads by an audio-visual multimedia campaign; Lord knows that something as complex and murky as Iraq needs at least such a thing.

Of course, the kicker is that when you do this, the established media types would probably start snickering about "Operation CANDOR" or complain about manipulation of the media. Enh. Iraq's yet another example of Kobayashi Maru, and there's a whining cadet---i.e. the media and/or the left in general---who rats every time you try and change the rules of the simulation.

I would, however, be highly amused if Bush stood up at a press conference and said, "I don't believe in the no-win scenario" and took a bite out of an apple.

Just an Operational Note

Eh, I'm back in bar classes now, so blogging will be somewhat intermittent. Don't be surprised to see lots of articles appear at random, because I'm trying to squeeze this in between learning things that I neglected while in class for the last three years.

Califano, Kennedy & Castro

I was flipping through the channels tonight, and I saw former Secretary of Health Education & Welfare Joseph A. Califano on C-SPAN with Brian Lamb for Booknotes. Since I'm a good Nixonite and am usually on the prowl for any dirt on the Kennedys, I thought that this might be interesting to watch.

In the course of the interview, Mr. Lamb got around to the subject of John F. Kennedy and Fidel Castro. During this segment, Mr. Califano mentioned that it was his belief that, "Castro's people got to Kennedy first". This is, of course, an interesting theory.

I have no real truck with the hordes of conspiracy theorists, and I really don't care about the Warren Commission or anything connected to it. Oswald capped him and it's too late now to do anything about it if he didn't act alone; end of story. Mr. Califano noted that Castro had been the target of multiple attempts by November of 1963, and also that Castro had probably taken note of the recent coup against the Republic of Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. Thus, Califano said, Castro would have tried even harder to get Kennedy because he, Castro, knew that JFK was serious about killing people.

After some garbled talk about Lee Harvey Oswald--peh---Messrs. Lamb and Califano moved on, with an aside about Califano being assigned to some secret working group that was tasked with eliminating Castro. He also noted that Robert F. Kennedy, who led that group, was wracked with guilt later due to the fact that he thought his actions might have spurred Castro to act against the President.

Interesting stuff. If it were ever proven, I suppose it's a cause for war, but I'm not sure splattering Cuba in 2004 is really worth the effort.

Califano also noted that he advised Alexander Haig during Watergate that if he, Califano, were Nixon, he would burn the infamous White House tapes. This advice was given prior to the subpoena of the tapes, which led to further trouble for Nixon. I had to temper that amusement with irritation, because Califano also spent time advising Democrats (Well, duh. --Ed.) on who to get for the staff of the House Committee covering the issue.

Anyways, Califano's got a new book out dubbed Inside: A Private and Public Life. It covers one of the more interesting periods in American history, namely the post-war period from ~1960 forward, and I'll probably wind up buying it. For the Booknotes page on the broadcast, see here.

In summation and having listened to Mr. Califano for most of the broadcast, I think I would like to have seen his Washington. Aside from replacing Democrats at the helm of state, I think I would have enjoyed it more than what we have now.

Sunday Brunch 23 May 2004 - My Favorite Things

1. What is your favorite color?

Judging from a quick peek in the closet, it's blue.

2. What is your favorite piece of clothing?

Uh, I've got a sweater that several girls thought was decent looking, but I quit wearing it.

3. Where is your favorite place to eat out?

There's a little steakhouse the next city over from where I live; it's owned by some immigrants---half-century here or more---who've done pretty well for themselves and who serve really good flounder.

4. What is your favorite meal?

One that I didn't have to fix myself.

5. What is your favorite sport or recreational game?

Watching Winston Cup racing on Sundays, hooray.

Bah

It's things like this that annoy me. Protection against terrorism my eye.

Just another reason to shake your fist at al-Qaeda for disrupting the country's natural flow of business. Luckily for me, I've got my own property with a view of the local Norfolk Southern line, so good luck to their cops coming and making something of me being on a porch with Carl Zeiss binoculars.

Tea

God bless the Iced Tea Pot by Mr. Coffee. That is all.

Ugh

It's official.

Bar review classes sap the brain and destroy your will to do anything other than sit in the apartment. They've managed to ruin the post-graduation environment, all while giving me a big case of The Fear due to the fact that I'll have to know a lot of things by the end of July.

Not good.

(And also having a really attractive PS2 game about does wonders for eating seven to eight hours in a sitting. If you're interested, the game is Koei's Naval Ops: Commander.)

Starfighter Speed Record

According to the Wikipedia, forty-six years ago yesterday, a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter set a world speed record at 1404.19 MPH.

Joe Baugher's site says,

"On May 7, 1958, Major Howard C. Johnson reached an altitude of 91,249 feet in a zoom climb at Edwards AFB in California, setting a new altitude record. On May 16 (sic), 1958, Captain Walter W. Irwin flying a YF-104A set a new world's air speed record of 1404.19 mph flying over a 15/25 kilometer course at Edwards AFB. For the first time in history, the same aircraft type held both the world speed and altitude records at the same time."

The Federation of American Scientists have an illustrated fact sheet on the F-104; give a quick pass-through.

The Starfighter is arguably one of history's most excellent-looking aircraft of the jet age. It's also one of the longest-serving types, with the Italian air force still flying the Alenia-manufactured F-104S-ASA as of this writing.

Kerry and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

As heard today on Sean Hannity's execrable radio program, Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) believes that the role of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is to be used as some sort of energy slush fund, tapped whenever the American consumer balks at fueling the sport-utility vehicle. Or at least, that's the implication I got from today's broadcast.

However, it doesn't appear that Kerry's on board with that notion, according to Hannity's own evening cable affiliate, the Fox News Channel. FNC says that, "[Democrats], like Kerry, urged increased pressure on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which cut production in March and April, to boost its output to meet demand. Others called for tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an idea Kerry has not backed."

My initial impression was to remark in a nasty tone that, "The reserve exists for the use of the DOD, not an SUV." I imagined that the SPR (and the similar Naval Petroleum Reserves) existed for, at the worst, the last-ditch use of the armed forces of the United States in a disaster scenario. An SPR/NPR establishment is a good idea, inasmuch as World War II clearly demonstrated the value of fuel in modern warfighting.¹ Of course, I'd been irked when President Clinton ordered the release of petroleum from the SPR in order to ameliorate high gasoline prices back during the 1990s.

However, it seems that the President was right, and I was wrong. A quick visit to the Department of Energy's website taught me that the SPR was designed with a strong emphasis and focus upon oil as the facilitator of the American economy, not as some super fuel dump for the DOD. While the President could probably authorize release of fuel from the SPR to the DOD for warfighting or other military-related applications, such purpose does not appear to be the primary intent of the legislation as quoted in the site.

Therefore, it seems that the notion of tapping the reserve for fuel prices is, at least facially, a viable idea and the one envisioned by the drafters of the original llegislation. At this point, I suppose that the question is one of "do we need it", not "can we do it". Even so, I am not certain that the situation calls for a tapping of the reserve.

The economic problem, as I see it, is this: A growing economy depends upon transport of goods. The transport of goods requires fuel, and that's a fixed cost whose actual number will be variable on a regular basis. (Please excuse any sort of terminology errors. I'm not an economist.) If fuel prices go up, then the price increase will be passed along to the customer in order for the manufacturer to maintain or increase earnings.² With increases in the the price of goods, people can't buy as much. As consumption of goods decreases, the economy falters and jobs are lost in order to match costs with declining revenues. Economic recovery no more, eh.

With regards to the Reserve, the President's decision to fill the reserves (salt caverns somewhere on the Gulf Coast) has been cited as a reason for the increase in fuel prices.

Thus, my problem:

An economic recovery rides on available fuel. Fuel's expensive right now. This can be addressed by, among other things, tapping the SPR. When the SPR is drawn down, it will have to be refilled. Filling it drives up the cost of fuel and then you're right back where you started.

'm not sure how to get out of it other than to grab Chevron/Texaco by the corporate lapels and tell them to get cracking on increasing production instead of cutting costs by eliminating refineries.³ I suppose the "supply-side" answer is to say that some other market force will intervene once the cost of fuel is driven down by an SPR release and then sustain economic growth such that the Reserve can be refilled and the economy sustained without problem.

Bringing this back to John Kerry (ever so tangentially) is this: Quite frankly, I don't care that people with SUVs are paying a lot of money. If they're stupid enough to buy an inefficient land barge with the approximate fuel economy (and none of the corresponding coolness of a Winston Cup stock car or the usefulness of an M1A2 Abrams) then let them pay a price. Inasmuch as it seems that a lot of social and economic liberals drive the things, let them suffer! Perhaps they'll learn a little about efficiency instead of trendy as their primary determiner of transportation choices.

On the other hand, those aforementioned liberals are less likely than good middle- or lower-class people to be vulnerable to economic disruption by rising costs and a stalled recovery. After all, do the ACLU or similar groups ever downsize? Conversely, higher prices for transportation of goods can affect jobs in manufacturing and other areas of the economy which operate subject to market forces.

There's the problem. I don't have a solution and I can only say this: "We must not've gone to Iraq for cheap oil, 'cause it sure ain't flowin' over here." I then usually follow that by saying, "Look, we own a country full of oil and I'm paying nearly two bucks at the pump?"

Enh.

19 MAY 2004 UPDATE: The Fox News Channel story is now linked, and the content is revised to reflect it.

¹ The Germans had lots of Me 262 interceptors and high-quality tanks left idling because they didn't have the fuel (and the parts) to operate them. If your Pz VIE Tiger super tank doesn't have the fuel to maneuver, my M4 Sherman with a 75mm peashooter can easily run circles around you. The same could be said for the Japanese, period. If I understand history right, the flow of fuel to that country essentially stopped due to SUBPAC's actions, and that made Japan's bad situation even worse.

² Norfolk Southern Railway president David R. Goode, among others, has complained about the rising cost of diesel fuel and thinks it's going to be a problem. The upshot of that is that the newest six-axle locomotives, the EMD SD70ACe and the GE Transportation Evolution are supposed to be more fuel-efficient than ever. (Aren't they always like that?) Norfolk Southern is testing the Evolution for purchase, which it designates the ES40DC. On the highways, several transportation companies (like UPS and so forth) are charging a fuel surcharge.

³ The immediate answer is drill in the Artic National Wildlife Reserve. For a number of reasons, I do not support such an initiative. I'm concerned about potential environmental disruption of course, but that's not one of the major objections I've got to the project. If our appetite for oil continues to grow, ANWR drilling would only be a temporary panacea. The analogy I thought of was that of a patient on the operating table who's hemorrhaging blood from a ruptured artery. Additional drilling is the equivalent of bringing in more units of blood; I'd prefer to hold down blood loss (i.e. oil consumption).

The long-term answer is alternative energy sources, but none of the leaders are plausible for a variety of reasons. Hydroelectric power requires water, and we're essentially out of major rivers to dam up and the American Southwest is going to need more and more water in the future. It may be that we'll have to reduce the number of dams in the West simply because the water's needed elsewhere. Solar power's the "safest" idea but you need huge amounts of land and the infrastructure's expensive. Wind turbines apparently don't work and cause lots of problems with birds, or something. Nuclear power plants are verboten thanks to the bloody Soviets and our little problem at Three Mile Island. That being said, I'd rather build reactors. If the French can do it, so can we.

I'm the Daily Mail

Found an interesting quiz at Quizilla, Which British Newspaper Are You?.

I took it the first time and found I was the Daily Mail. I'd never heard of that one, so I tried again, and got The Sun. After a period of embarrassment, I tried one last time and got the Daily Telegraph, which made a lot more sense.

Would the British readership care to comment upon the accuracy of the test, and also which of those papers The Country Pundit resembles?

You are The Daily Mail!


Which British newspaper are you?
brought to you by Quizilla



You are The Sun!


Which British newspaper are you?
brought to you by Quizilla



You are The Daily Telegraph!


Which British newspaper are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

NASCAR Reality Television

So I watched the new NASCAR reality program, and here's my initial responses:

1. Kevin Harvick is a weenie. Son, you're not worthy to drive a car with 'GOODWRENCH' on the side. (Actually, if you want to succeed Earnhardt, nobody is. --Ed.)

2. Wow, Rusty Wallace is rich. It must be nice to have a house in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by trees as far as the eye can see. Ditto having helicopters to pick you up and a Learjet 31A to tool around in while hunting sponsors.

3. I've never had anything against Kenny Wallace, and although I've got absolutely no use for Stacker2's YJ Stinger product line, I'm going to find a way to throw some support towards one of the lesser Wallaces. That guy's a hard-workin' man who could use some fans. Good luck and God bless, eh.

Sunday Brunch 15 May 2004 - Head to Toe Fashion

1. Is your hair its natural color right now and do you wear your hair long or short?

Yes, and I wear it short, unfortunately! I miss the salad days of high school, when a bit of length was acceptable.

2. Shirts: long sleeves or short?

Ooh, ooh, the perfect law school answer: "It depends." On the whole, I prefer long sleeves. They can always be rolled up.

3. Do you wear a belt?

Yep. Got to have something to keep the pants up and to hang the phone on.

4. Tell me about your favorite bottom wear.

Er, they're khaki pants.

5. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

Let's see: One pair of really dress shoes (but not wingtips!), one pair of "Sunday shoes" which I wear to work, a pair of dilapidated Columbia sandals, a pair of hiking boots, a worn-out pair of Nike running shoes, and that's about it. Viva Imelda Marcos.

Oops

Hee hee, I ran my phone card out of minutes so I'm just now getting to the blogosphere. Bother!

And We Wonder Why She Was Second...

Not that I actually know anything about these off-the-wall contests run by larger blogs, but the folks over at Wizbang have run one, in a manner of speaking.

The aforementioned entry shows us some gal named "Willow", who's ever-so-nicely-reclined and inverted whilst facing the camera. It's a fetching black-and-white shot, or so we're led to believe. While gazing approvingly upon it, I saw something that explained second place.

Yep, that's right. A Starfleet insignia from the TNG era, instead of the much more attractive Bob Fletcher design used from The Wrath of Khan until The Undiscovered Country. (A comparison of the two is available from Spike's Star Trek Site. Look at the third and first images, respectively.)

Had she been outfitted with the right insignia, victory would have been assured. Make that, "had she been kitted out in the standard Fletcher maroon-and-black Starfleet uniform".

Yeah, OK, so Kathryn Jean Lopez would probably crack my skull for a post regarding inanities of Star Trek. So sue me; I'm a sucker for 1960s sci-fi trash, or at least the first six movies made off of it. Thumbs down to the 24th century.

Oddities in the Berg Case

Comrade Commissar's covering some unexplained potential anomalies in the background of the late Mr. Nicholas Berg. I haven't a clue as to the truth of any of it, but gee, that's strange.

Rumors swirling range from contacts with an acquaintance of Zacarias Moussaoui to strange goings-on once he was actually Over There.

Read the whole thing and try to figure out just what the hey is going on here. This article doesn't help clarify things at all.

I'll trust you to read the whole thing; here's a few of my points in response:

-The lack of al-Jazeera or other media exploitation is interesting. Al-Qaeda operatives generally are pretty good at media manipulation, no? Unless this was some impromptu thing, one would expect them to have put on a better PR campaign.

-What's the deal with this guy's company? If there's no record of his installing any towers, what was he up to over there? Of course, records aren't always found immediately; it could be that the guy was busier than a one-armed paper hanger.

-And what about his college career? I don't know what it takes to install these towers, but surely it takes some brains and perhaps extensive instruction, especially for a one-man operation.

-I haven't a response to the political memberships of his father and so forth; that's really outside my (admittedly limited) range of analysis.

There's a couple of variables missing in this equation, and I don't even know what they are. Curiouser and curiouser.

Blogs for Bush MIA?

Well now, this is strange. I don't seem to be loading the Blogs for Bush blogroll any more. I wonder why?

Eh, all answers appreciated, even if it's blindingly obvious and downright stupid.

The Patton Speech

Everyone who's ever seen the 1970 George C. Scott movie Patton has probably memorized at least one or two lines of dialogue from the opening sequence. Of course, being 1970, the real "Patton speech" couldn't be put on film. I doubt Franklin J. Schaffner would even have tried. (Today, it'd be the centerpiece of the film; it's better than anything Quentin Tarantino's ever come up with.)

Anyways, the guys at Boots and Sabers have reproduced the speech after having a link to it come up in the comments. I won't copy it here, 'cause it really exceeds the standards of content, but I will link it and send traffic their way. Laugh out loud and get the Evil Calvin Grin as you read it.

Click here to read.

UPDATE: Oops, I didn't correctly mention the source of the speech. I also forgot to mention that the real General Patton wouldn't have delivered that speech in a low-pitched growl. From recordings made of the man during the war, he had a rather high-pitched voice, and sounded kind of like an angry old uncle when he talked. Admittedly, that might be a limitation of the technological medium at the time; I still can't figure out why Eleanor Roosevelt and Amelia Earhart (whatta gal!) sound alike on old recordings.

Jacksonian Fervor Rising

I continue to be disgusted by the recent performance of the American and Islamist establishments lately.

On the one hand, we are wasting time and focus wringing our hands about this worthless Abu Ghraib story. Message, Mr. President: I DON'T CARE. So some dirtbag enemy "soldiers" got pushed around a bit in a jail. Big deal. I didn't see any heads being sawed off. (The thing with the dog may be a bit much, however.) Message to the Congress as a whole: DROP IT. I wish Rumsfeld had gone to the Hill and said, "I take full responsibility because I ordered these activities. It was necessary to demonstrate to Islamist forces that to oppose the United States is to not only invite death but to guarantee humiliation, torture, and other things. Message: We be bad."

On the other hand, I am outraged at the grisly execution of Nicholas Berg by Islamist forces. Al-Qaeda continues to march forward on the Benjamin Martin Scenario, and their actions may eventually cause a grievous problem for all of Islam. Which way do you turn to pray when Mecca's been reduced to a smoldering hole?

I am a Jacksonian. That means that I don't favor pulling punches (except the NBC punch) in wartime, and I don't tolerate the abuse of our prisoners. The enemy will be relentlessly pursued and annihilated whenever possible. We are obviously not doing this, because Moqtada al-Sadr still draws breath, and the enemy does not fear us. That needs to change. The anguished wails and ululations of Islamic women should ring out in the night as they find their Islamist husbands dead by our hand. America can mean great friendship and cooperation. It should also stand for a fearsome enemy that demands respect or delivers annihilation.

I wholeheartedly reject any suggestion that the Abu Ghraib issue or further ruthless retaliation against the enemy somehow establishes moral equivalence between us and them. We would have laid the mantle of civilization down in order to defend it and to force an end to hostilities. The Islamists, on the other hand, have never been capable of productive civilization; the historically impressive gains of Islamic civilization are beyond their grasp.

The Jacksonian code as spelled out by Mead properly analyzes Abu Ghraib in my opinion. The Islamists, having executed people who could be considered their prisoners, (Daniel Pearl, the four military contractors from Blackwater, and now Nicholas Berg) have invited Mead's dirty war, and I would have no major compunction against watching Iraqi/Islamist POWs be gunned down. (Public relations issues would be the only thing I'd really worry about.)

Andrew Jackson's mindset would probably say something like this: Escalate the violence against our enemies until they collapse. Destroy anything necessary to bring about the end of the war and the defeat of the Islamists. Any and all casualties suffered by their side in pursuit of this goal are acceptable; there is no subsitute for victory.

I am only one man, and my opinion is unrespectable in the halls of Washington. Yet, it may be that there is a rising tide amongst the Jacksonians of this country.

Rich Lowry, in a post to NRO's Corner illustrates this:

I just finished a review of Walter Russell Mead’s new book Power, Terror, Peace, and War. One of the points he makes is that there is an inherent tension between Jacksonian and Wilsonian goals in Iraq. Jacksonians care much more about smashing our enemies than reforming them. Wilsonians have grandiose ideas about uplifting foreign nations. As Wilsonians are discredited to some degree by recent events in Iraq, we will have to rely more on Jacksonian sentiment to see us through there. What seems to be the growing backlash against the wallowing in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal is a classic Jacksonian reflex. It will be made only stronger by the execution of Nick Berg. If you want a pretty good distillation of Jacksonian opinion on Iraq at the moment, consider the end of the New York Post’s editorial from today.

I went and read the editorial. In case it goes away, the entire thing is reposted here:

NICK BERG'S MURDER

May 12, 2004 -- What cruel, sick bastards.

Indeed, you can't get much more barbaric than the filmed beheading of 26-year-old Nick Berg that splashed across a terrorist group's Web site yesterday.

In case the world needed a reminder of why America is waging its War on Terror, it got one yesterday.

It's hard to imagine the terror that must have filled Berg in those final moments as he realized his hooded captors really were going to kill him.

It wasn't enough that they slaughtered the young Philadelphia businessman like a sheep and held his severed head aloft as if it were a trophy. No, they filmed the whole thing for the world to see.

Soldiers don't behave like that.

Only cowards and thugs do.

Now it's time to ratchet up the response to this war.

Forget Abu Ghraib.

The abuse committed there by a handful of soldiers was not typical; nor is it acceptable.

But the beheading of Nick Berg is par for the course for al Qaeda.

Of course, the terrorists of Muntada al-Ansar, an al Qaeda offshoot, claimed they were acting in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib abuses.

Bull.

There were no known abuses at Abu Ghraib when Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and Italian hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi were murdered by Islamic terrorists.

And the events at Abu Ghraib had not yet come to light when frenzied crowds in Fallujah burned and mutilated the bodies of four Americans and strung them from a bridge.

No, the massacre of Nick Berg had nothing to do with Abu Ghraib.

Instead, this slaying was about the war against the West in general - and America, in particular. Indeed, the beheading may have been carried out personally by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top aide of Osama bin Laden.

Some people - some Americans - have forgotten about 9/11.

That attack should have been enough to justify all-out war. But the hand-wringing over the war in Iraq - and over even the modest steps America took to defend itself, like the Patriot Act - suggests that folks truly have lost sight of what the war is about.

Yesterday they got a shocking reminder. And now they know: This war cannot be waged with half-measures.

It can end only with the total annihilation of those who practice butchery and barbarism. Those who have set as their goal the destruction of America.

There is no negotiating with such people. There can be no compromise with those who mean to destroy us.

Yesterday, the White House promised to "pursue those responsible and bring them to justice." That's the least of it.

America has to come out swinging.

And not stop until every last one of the savage thugs is dead.

If that means a resumption of major combat in Iraq, so be it.

Would it mean another division or so of combat troops to get the job done?

Turn to our garrisons in Europe, or Korea, to get them.

In sufficient numbers to get the job done.

To hell with political sensitivities in the region.

To hell with negotiating with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Najaf and the Sunni insurgents in Fallujah.

To hell with handing Saddam Hussein over to Iraqis, as some want to do, and risking some reverse - perverse - kangaroo trial that results in his survival.

Evil, cutthroat terrorists need to be eradicated.

Let's face it: This is a job that's going to take overwhelming - yes, brutal - force. There is simply no "nice" or painless way to accomplish this.

As yesterday's slaughter showed (yet again), the enemy is bound by no moral compunctions.

America won't go that far.

But it had better steel it's backbone and get ready to fight like it means it.

It's the only way to win this war.

---

Mr. President, I am tired of hearing about justice for the men who did this, and other crimes. I am distinctly uninterested in "justice" for these men. I want them, or their mortal remains, delivered to the doorstep of Hell in a Ziploc bag after a close encounter of the Paveway III kind.

A Strategic Air Command Love Sonnet

One of the first things that caught my eye about Jen Martinez's A Collection of Thoughts was a piece she wrote on the Douglas AC-47. Any gal who wrote about those sorts of things is readily worth reading.

At any rate, Miss Martinez has posted something on my favorite strategic bomber:

Ode to the Old B-52

O'Great Bird that flys so high,
And looks so graceful in the sky,
Who did its mission great or small,
Who made SAC's men look so very tall.

She came to this land so far away,
And for eight years she would stay,
For most of these years she would fight,
While Charlie cringed in desperate fright.

The men would call her a hulk of rust,
And look at her in great disgust,
She would set there with no fear,
For she knew she had no peer.

To many she was known as the Old Black BUFF,
All her life she was treated rough,
The men who worked on this bird of prey.
Would never know an eight hour day.

Although they called her many names,
Old B-52 remained the same,
Although not a plane of beauty,
She knew how to do her duty.

For many years, TAC had their show,
Now it was time for SAC to have a go,
So it was in 72,
That we launched the B-52.

She was equal to the task,
And North Vietnam felt her vengeful blast,
Their streets in ruins, their buildings alight,
To the peace tables they went, to make things right.

Now it was in 75,
That Old B-52 would homeward fly,
Her work well done, she had no shame,
The decisions were not her's to blame.

Charlie rose and gave a cheer,
For the Old B-52 was leaving here.
But as you know and I do too,
This is not the end of Old B-52.

For she's always there, just one flight away,
To come again and save the day.

---

Miss Martinez notes that this was written by a guy who was at U Tapao in Thailand, doing maintenance on these monsters. The events he references are, of course, Operation LINEBACKER II, authorized by none other than President Richard Nixon. Me, I've only seen a B-52 in flight once, and it was during the Cold War. I was at a school which is more or less on a USAF low-level training run, and the building I was in started rumbling. I thought I heard engines, so I ran outside and looked up. Suspended in the sky, low and slow, was this thing, instantly recognizable as a Stratofortress. It was shaking the ground and thundering its way under a radar site reportedly up on a mountain in the area. Hear that, Mr. Anderson? It is the sound of the Stratofortress; it is the sound of your freedom. Goodbye, Soviet Union. Yes, By Dawn's Early Light is one of my favorite movies. Too bad it's not on DVD.

Jen's fondness for the Buff (headed for 50 years of service, baby!) is one reason I enjoy reading her site. Go and read this patriotic Patton-loving, fire-breathing, veteran-backing gal's website.

An Arab Outrage

I just heard on the radio that "an Arabic website" has posted video of an American being beheaded as revenge for this prison nonsense. (And no, I don't care that a few Iraqis got "treated like women" or "hoo-mill-e-a-ted".)

A brief message to the people responsible: You have now joined the ranks of the Imperial Japanese Army in thinking it's cool to behead our men. Open your history books (assuming that you have them and that you can read, two very big assumptions) and turn to the events of August, 1945. Even as the Japanese war machine was grinding to an eventual halt, they lost two cities in the world's first atomic strikes. As Walter Russell Mead points out, we firebombed Tokyo and others to the ground because it was thought that we were facing a bestial enemy.

You people don't even have the ancient traditions of Japan and its culture to offer as reasons to spare your worthless lives.

The Country Pundit's solution? Escalate the violence. Our soldiers and our civilians over there will know that they face a medieval execution if they surrender, and will fight with further aggression, knowing that there is no surrender to the likes of Islamists. I suggest we begin by inflicting pain on these people. There will be collateral damage. That's fine. I've been losing patience with these people (and the apparent unwillingness of the American people to fight dirty) for quite some time, and I want a permanent solution to this issue.

I am not disgusted by some photographs of naked Iraqis who have been captured in battle against our forces. I don't care that one of them wore a leash and was photographed with a woman holding it. I do not perceive the events at Abu Ghraib as some sort of "stain" on our honor.

I do, however, think that it is imperative that we avenge the execution of our people. The International Committee for the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and the European human rights industry be darned, the beheading of Americans can not be tolerated. Retaliation can begin with the people at Abu Ghraib.

The enemy must fear us and should never see an American President "apologizing" for American forces in pursuit of operational intelligence.

Vacation

OK, so like, I'm at the beach, and blogging will continue sparse, since I'm having to use a phone card to call the modem pool back at the law school. On the other hand, I did get Enter the Matrix earlier tonight.

I'd been hoping that there was an Agent game. Blah! (Meanwhile, Andy and Larry-who'll-be-Linda-soon Wachowski count the money I dropped in their pocket and laughed all the way to their crummy bank.)

Sunday Brunch 09 May 2004 - What Would You Do?

Everyone has different reactions to different situations. So, what would you do if you came upon the following...

1. A person obviously struggling to keep their head above water in a pool or lake.

Use my ever-ubiquitous Sprint PCS phone to call 911, and then start trying to remember how best to rescue someone from BSA lifeguard classes taken during the Cold War.

2. You find a $100 bill on the floor in a store.

Take it to the service desk, even though I'd really like to spend it myself. Some poor individual has obviously lost it, and probably needs it more than I do.

3. A dog or cat with a broken leash wandering aimlessly in your neighborhood.

Bug the guy across the street, who's really good with pets and so forth. He'd know what to do.

4. A person you don't know knocks on your door in the middle of the night claiming they have an emergency situation and want to use your telephone.

Offer to call 911 for them, while they stand on the porch, and lock the door in the process.

5. You see a car veer off the road and into the ditch.

First, report it via the handy-dandy Sprint PCS phone. Then, drive past (i.e. up ahead) and stop. Walk back to the car, looking for signs of trouble which would indicate that I should get in my car and go about my business.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Sunday Brunch.

Pomp & Circumstance (Sort Of)

OK, so the law school experience is over. Got my fake roll of paper and I've gotten through all of this. Been to a couple of wrap parties, and I'm done.

Rather anticlimatic, all this. I did manage to quip, "Our long academic nightmare is over", to rip a line off of President Gerald Ford. I've also recently found out just how much I owe on this pleasant little misadventure, and los federales will be wanting this money back soon. Yikes!

In the interim, I'll be pounding the pavement looking to spin a middlin' academic record and a freewheeling outside-the-box ('cause I can't find the box to be in) style that either leads to victory through confusing the other side or leads to me extolling the virtues of my client and asserting things that didn't need to be proven or something. Overwhelming obfuscation is a tremendous thing; just ask Ari Fleischer.

The next entries will probably be disjointed; I've got to make several long-range trips in the next few days, and none of them will be conducive to blogging. Expect them to be posted as I get them prepared.

It Is Finished

It is a day that has been three long and arduous years in the making, but I have finished law school, and I have submitted my application to the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners.

Graduation is but a short time away, and I will celebrate as if it were the end of the Second World War. There have been many times where nothing but the grace of God carried me through, and it has been the case thusly this semester.

Praise the Lord, absent all irony and sarcasm; it is a good thing to be finished. The long academic nightmare is over, and I will be free soon.

Next up: The Virginia bar. Yeah, out of the frying pan and into the fire. Huh huh huh...uh...uh oh.

Alas Friday Five

There aren't going to be any more Friday Fives. Read this for an explanation. Bother!

Anyone got any other weekly memes to participate in?

UPDATE: It appears that this will serve to satisfy my thirst for memes, and it's apparently got something to do with the people behind the Friday Five.

A Bloody Outrage

OK, this isn't cool:

On the Technorati Top 100 sites linked to, President Bush's website is linked to less than the site of the Massachusetts Merovingian. The numbers as of ~2051 in the East:

Kerry - 1741 blogs 2999 links
Bush - 1427 blogs 2160 links

This is, of course, unacceptable. All of you city types that haven't linked the President's website (georgewbush.com) need to get it in gear, and overtake our version of the oh-so-annoying Merv. Merv's 46th, and the President is 61st.

I'm doing my part; how about you?

UPDATE: I tweaked the wording a bit so that 'Merovingian' might just show up with 'John Kerry' a little more.

Sprint's Parent

Here's something I learned in the last month or so:

The telecommunications provider Sprint used to be a business unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad.(!) Reportedly, "Sprint" really ought to be "SPRINT", for "Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Communications.

According to one source, "[t]he Sprint name dates back to a microwave long-distance network put together by [the] Southern Pacific along its railway lines in [the] 1970s. Called Sprint, for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Telecommunications, the network was bought by GTE Corp. in 1983."

The Southern Pacific began offering dial-up service (ostensibly long-distance, not internet) in 1978, after the Execunet II decision (citation unknown).

Ack and bother, my favorite cellular provider once belonged to the bloody Southern Pacific! (No, I'm not a fan of red and yellow locomotives, and the GS-4 is inferior to the Norfollk & Western's J series when it comes to discussing the 4-8-4 wheel arrangement.

See here and here for the two articles used as reference; note that their information on the meaning of "SPRINT" conflicts.

Cinco de Mayo

Whoops, I almost forgot:

In commemoration of the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, I grabbed an album and played a song. It wasn't exactly a mariachi favorite, though. To wit, the song I chose was none other than:

"Cinco de Mayo", from whip-smart by Liz Phair.

I don't recommend her albums to a family audience, but I sure like 'em, and she would feature heavily on the college soundtrack. Check out the lyrics to her "CdM":

Cinco de Mayo.
Blow out, denial.
It wasn't fun this time, letting you go.
What if I never, a bullet forever,
Held out my hand to you, we wouldn't have known
Beautiful flow,
Absolute measure, I ain't no pleasure hound
Bus' out of control, plowing the road.
Out on a bender, just Alice falling down
A deepening hole.
I'd never been to Rome until you smiled.
You're about as old and piled.
I used to pray for snow...
Now I just wonder what spell I was under,
Thinking you thought of me as
Something to hold.
I'd never been to Rome until you smiled.
You're about as old and piled.
Cinco de Mayo.
Burn-out, Ohio.
It wasn't me this time, letting you go.

Stolen from Aaron Walker.

Rumors of Norfolk Southern, Canadian Pacific/Delaware & Hudson Deal

Just in:

Norfolk Southern to assume operations of the Delaware and Hudson from CP Rail (05-04-2004) - Several Norfolk Southern Officials have confirmed that NS will assume operations of the D&H from CP Rail in the near future! How this will affect the immediate Engineers roster is not known at this time. Based on prior acquisitions, assume that the D&H Engineers will be "dove tailed" into the Nickel Plate BT Roster.

Here is what the NS officials have indicated:

* Operations are to be assumed somewhere around September 2004.
* SK Yard to be absorbed and included into the NS Buffalo operations.
* East Binghamton Yard to be assumed into the NS Binghamaton operations.
* NS to operate the Canadian Pacific Freight Main Line between Montreal, Ontario and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as well as other D&H locations.

This information comes from the current events page of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen, Seneca Division 659.

What does this mean? Well, it means that my favorite modern railway will be reclaiming America's oldest transportation company from the clutches of the Canadians. Interestingly enough, one of Norfolk Southern's corporate predecessors (the Norfolk & Western Railway) once held the reins to the D&H via the DERECO subsidiary, which was set up in the late 1960s as a way to help stabilize the Northeastern railroad situation.

As for the corporate existence of the D&H, I don't know what NSC will do with it. Continuous operations since 1827 or so probably won't mean anything to the gimlet-eyed men and women at 3 Commercial Place (but it might!) and so the future is all black and white for the D&H. This does, however, mean that the NSRy will have improved access to Canada, and that's always a good thing. It ought to improve their position vis-a-vis CSX, whose access to Canada has been better for several years.

I hope it's true, and furthermore, I hope that Norfolk Southern does something positive for the line. Updates as I get 'em.

One Man's Comment Spam is Another Man's Rising Star

In the vein of the various articles written by Comrade Commissar on how to blog effectively, the following article entitled "INDC Journal Guerrilla Blogging Guide: Comment Spam".

Bill has a three-step method to begin abusing the open comment threads of various blogs to bring your blog to prominence, at the expense of someone else's bandwidth. Inasmuch as I'm also always trying to get more traffic, more readers, and more links, I figured that perhaps this information should be suppressed. However, it's better to share it all in the theory of trickle-down blogonomics. Hooray.

At the same time, it must be noted that it's occasionally difficult to link a guy who paid for a Sekimori Design overhaul; if he's got the bucks like Glenn Reynolds, then maybe he can suffer the fate of Wonkette. I'm kidding! I'm kidding; he's on the Bloggahland map with me in the Analysts section, so the link-love is free, fast, and furious. Or something.

OK Boys and Girls, It's a Boycott

Here's the deal: Ted Rall is a cartoonist/columnist who I've occasionally read.¹ I freely admit to laughing at "CHICKEN HAWK DOWN". Nevertheless, Ted's gone and done something dumb:

I didn't know the late Pat Tillman. I barely remembered the story of a guy ditching the NFL for the military, and I at first didn't understand the significance of his death. With that being said, I would vehemently disagree with him being dubbed an "idiot". I'd prefer to designate a man who walks away from athletic millions as a moral exemplar, the Starship Troopers version of a citizen. In short, I'd tip my hat to his memory.

Mr. Rall did not, however, see fit to leave himself at that. He has written a column that goes a wee bit further, in response to the allegations of misconduct by American forces in an Iraqi-based prison. In his column, he makes the following points:

Now it's official: American troops occupying Iraq (news - web sites) have become virtually indistinguishable from the SS. Like the Germans during World War II, they cordon off and bomb civilian villages to retaliate for guerilla attacks on their convoys.

Hrrm. L. Paul Bremer hardly seems to be the American equivalent of Reinhard Heydrich, and I have a hard time seeing Himmler in the face of John Ashcroft. (There are, however, large political groups that can't see this difference.) I've written about the National Socialist destruction of villages before, and since I know a little bit about it, I don't see Fallujah as equal to Lidice. After all, Fallujah still stands.

[The prison where these events are alleged to have occurred] Abu Ghraib, you can bet your bottom dollar, is merely the tip of the iceberg. Our military is structurally corrupt. Beginning in Afghanistan during the weeks after 9/11, civilian command yielded to the amoral gangster mentality of the arrogant intelligence officers of Army Special Forces and the CIA, who stand accused of massacring thousands of captured Taliban prisoners yet have never faced a real investigation.

I've never really known anyone from Special Forces etc., but I doubt that they possess an "amoral ganster mentality". If they're arrogant, it's probably justified; in any event, the campaign in Afghanistan taught us a few things about the tenacity and irregular fighting ability of the Taliban. And then we annihilated them. As for massacring "thousands" of captured Taliban prisoners, ask me if I care. Again, Valentin Zhukovsky: "They were ruthless people. They got what they deserved." I for one am neither eager nor interested to get to the bottom of rumors about supposed slaughters of "surrendered" Taliban combatants. Besides, they seem to fight quite well while in captivity; ask the family of J.M. Spann and others present at the prison around Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan.

I am, to say the least, disgusted by the comparison of our troops with the odious records of the Waffen-SS and the regular SS units. Mr. Rall, you are worthy of contempt; yours is an immature and unfounded position. I didn't think I'd ever get to use the moveon.org stamp again, but here goes: You're not worthy of sitting at the national table and having a discussion with the adults about how things will be. Sorry. Take a seat with Howard Dean and International ANSWER.

Towards the idea of trying some non-violent retaliation against Mr. Rall, the Evangelical Outpost has a plan. The suggestion is this: Boycott any and all publications running UExpress material, if possible.

At this point in time, I don't have a list of those publications. The only one that's come up is Men's Health, which I don't read and haven't ever bought or subscribed to.

I won't even bother with the disclaimer that "freedom of speech" lets him say whatever. Mr. Rall can take comfort in the fact that tarring and feathering, or the literal riding out of town on a rail have both fallen into disuse in the last fifty years or so.

Mr. Rall, you sicken me.

¹ Mr. Rall won't be getting a significant amount of linkage from me.

See a parody of the original cartoon here.

Another parody is here; thanks to Comrade Commissar for this one from Mamamontezz.

And A Milestone Is Reached

Although we can't actually tell you, the first milestone I rereferenced in an earlier post has been reached. Now, I just need one more bloody hit tonight and I'll be at another goal.

Thanks to all those who've surfed in and visited.

My Methodist Dollars At Work

From The Interested-Participant:

(Pittsburgh, PA) The General Conference of the United Methodist Church has decided to join a boycott of Taco Bell because of complaints from Florida tomato pickers that they don't make enough money and are treated badly. Every four years, the church leaders meet to discuss important issues and pass resolutions for action. Current action will be against Taco Bell. It's not clear which fruit and vegetable pickers will prompt the next boycott, but there are many to choose from. There's the banana pickers in Guatemala, the coffee pickers in Columbia and West Africa, the citrus pickers in the Rio Grande Valley, and so on.

And the local folks wonder why I restrict my activity to small potatoes giving and the occasional speech. Enh. I bet we'll see a resolution saying that George W. Bush is the anti-Christ, assuming the leftists in the UMC believe in the latter.

Another Post on Bush and the Deuce

The Happy Carpenter has a new post on George W. Bush and the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger:

Some have said he was hiding out in the National Guard. What such folks don?t understand is that the Air National Guard was (and is) a very active force. Many of its pilots were sent to Viet Nam.

Read the whole thing. My entry on the issue is here.

The John Galt Line

The things you find while surfing Google.

I was surfing around trying to find information on the Utah Belt ("for UnBeatable service") fictional model railroad. While doing so, I found word of something called "The John Galt Line", which was also a fictional model railroad. I'm vaguely familiar with the question "Who is John Galt?" being tied to the works of Ayn Rand, and so I figured I'd go check out the JGL.

As it turns out, this particular model railroad has a nicely put-together website, and I figured I'd share it with the readers: The John Galt Line. There you'll find a history of the line, track diagrams, maps, motive power rosters, and the like. There's also an answer to the question of who Mr. Galt is, and I'm amused that it took me several years and a railroad to inadvertantly stumble across it. Yay.

I'll say this: They didn't buy Alco PAs, FAs, or Centuries, so obviously there's something wrong with the Galt Line. I wonder what the nickname would be for it.

UPDATE: I thought about it, and "The Road of Objectivism" doesn't seem to be as cool as "The Road of Anthracite" (i.e. the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western), nor does Ayn Rand make as attractive a symbol as the real Phoebe Snow. On the other hand, "America's Rationalist Railroad" might work, if you fudge things a little. Stolen of course from the late Chicago, St. Paul, Milwaukee & Pacific ("The Milwaukee Road") which billed itself as "America's Resourceful Railroad".

Country Pundit's Colonialist History Revealed

VIRGINIA - Allegations and period documentary evidence have surfaced showing that The Country Pundit was accessible and known to the world as far back as the Great Bloggah War.¹ A regular KGB purge of State archives located a map made by obscure 19th century explorer Boris Kutznutsov, and made public its findings here.

"The Country Pund", considered part of the "Vast Right Warlike Confederation", was closely affiliated with the "Analyst" group. It is unknown if elements from Pund participated in the actual battle against the Moonbat colony, established by Leftieland. Evidence exists to suggest that the majority of Pund forces remained in the rear, attempting to plan for a post-war system of railroads, the acquisition of Southern accents, and forcible conversions of the conquered populace to Jacksonian thought.

Al Sharpton was heard stating that demands for reparations would be made, since "[T]he blood of many bloggah people is on the lily-white hands of The Country Pundit." TCP had no comment other than to ask if Jesse Jackson ran a blog or not.

¹ A bit of research showed that I hadn't actually written an entry about this work by Comrade Commissar. I kept seeing it in referrer logs and decided to see if I'd actually written the post. I hadn't, and this corrects it.

Button Love

I forgot to do this a while back:

Almost all of the buttons displayed on this site come from Taylor McKnight. Without his site, I'd probably be stuck with a handful of non-standard buttons found wherever.

Thanks!

How A Salvadoran Fights

Pulled from the Blogs for Bush blogroll (available on the right; scroll down some if necessary) is Frizzen Sparks. I visited there today, and I found this:

NAJAF, Iraq — One of his friends was dead, 12 others lay wounded and the four soldiers still left standing were surrounded and out of ammunition. So Salvadoran Cpl. Samuel Toloza said a prayer, whipped out his knife and charged the Iraqi gunmen.

In one of the only known instances of hand-to-hand combat in the Iraq conflict, Cpl. Toloza stabbed several attackers swarming around a comrade. The stunned assailants backed away momentarily, just as a relief column came to the unit's rescue.

"We never considered surrender. I was trained to fight until the end," said the 25-year-old corporal, one of 380 soldiers from El Salvador whose heroism is being cited just as other members of the multinational force in Iraq are facing criticism.

Additional research indicates that Corporal Toloza used a switchblade knife in this little dustup. I know precious little about knives, so you decide:

A prayer, a blade, and indomitable spirit. Wow. This guy's a beast, and I'm glad that his bold move was rewarded with survival for him and his comrade. The extended entry holds the other photograph of Corporal Toloza from the AP, shot in a square of some sort that is dedicated to the memory of another fallen Salvadoran, Natividad Mendez.

Cpl. Samuel Toloza of El Salvador's Cuscatlan Battalion poses for a photograph in Najaf, Iraq, Saturday May 1, 2004, at the square erected in the memory of Natividad Mendez, who died on April 4. One of his friends was dead, 12 others lay wounded and four soldiers still left were surrounded and out of ammunition, so Toloza used his switchblade knife and charged the Iraqi gunmen. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Frizzen Sparks.

UPDATE: There's more on the story over at Castle Arrgh!. Corporal Toloza has a brief quote and the situation is more fully described; also, the relationship between Salvadoran and American forces is looked at ever so briefly.

Things That Make You Go "Huh?"

Jessica Simpson's public persona has to be one of the most ignorant that I've ever seen:

"I really liked the surprise ending!" -- Jessica Simpson, on seeing The Passion

She's probably doing pretty well in terms of money at this point, but good grief. If she were known for sarcastic or otherwise witty remarks, this remark would have been amusing and worth a positive laugh. The light in which it was probably presented earns a derisive snort. That is to say, "laughing at you, not laughing with you." Just another example of how surface beauty (and a lot of it; she's a looker!) doesn't mean there's a brain beneath.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Spare Change.

UPDATE: An eagle-eyed reader has written to note that they think it's satire. I thought it was a plausible remark, given her Chicken of the Sea comment. As to the truth of the matter, I have no idea. Thanks to my correspondent for taking the time to write.

Oh, Goody

Analysis of the Sitemeter statistics indicates that a possible numeric breakthrough is possible today, with only a few more than average hits. Come on, people!

Another Veteran For Kerry

We've heard a lot about a couple of veterans who're adamantly supporting the candidacy of John Kerry for the Presidency. Well, your humble correspondent has found evidence of another veteran who supports Kerry. Click here to read the story of another Vietnam veteran who's thankful for John Kerry.

I wonder if he'll be on the Kerry campaign bus any time soon.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to: UNKNOWN

The Future of the Wachowski "Brothers"

Grab a trashcan or an emesis basin, 'cause you're gonna need it shortly: 'Matrix' co-creator ready to be whole new woman, says the Chicago Sun-Times.

It's a good thing I'm too full of pizza to puke, 'cause otherwise I'd probably be doing more than saying "Ewww....dissssssssssssgusting!"

Real men don't let their brothers grow up to be women. Of course, if I'd turned in that stinker known as The Matrix: Revolutions, I'd probably want to make a substantial change in my life, too. Admittedly, if I were in Larry's shoes, I think I'd start with ditching the dominatrix. On the other hand, this article does explain where they got all the gear for the stand-off with the Merovingian in his club.

At least we'll always have Andy, but I'm curious as to how they'd be billed in any future cinematic endeavours. "The Wachowski Twins", perhaps?

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to INDC Journal.

A Semi-Desperate Bleg

Where do I get one of those things that goes in the comments box and requires a commenting visitor to type in an alphanumeric code before posting? I'm having to deal with a batch of spammers at the moment, and I'd like some better weapons.

UPDATE: Yay, MT-Blacklist is installed and supposedly functioning well. Party on, Wayne. I culled something like 40 comments out of the list for being objectionable, and that's great. I'm happy that the blogosphere as a whole is useful on this. Hooray!

Additional information: I've tried to get David Raynes' mt-close.cgi working, but it's been fruitless so far. Everything's set right; it's just not closing. I uploaded in ASCII format and CHMODd the file to 755, according to my FTP client.

Also: Once I figure out how to work with a .tar.gz file, I'll implement one of those Captcha things and be better protected. This means that the visually impaired commenters will be SOL if I do the Captcha thing; if you're a commenter and can't read the screen, let me know.

More on National Military Appreciation Month

I decided to take a look at the NMAM participation site after seeing the address in Jen Martinez's entry on the subject. They've got a "MEDIA-NEWSPAPERS, RADIO, TV" list of things to do, which I've partially reproduced in the extended entry. I've removed things that bloggers can't do, like "project crawls, scrolling, and banners on screen", since none of us have a TV station.

* Remind readers, listeners and viewers of National Military Appreciation Month.
* Perform a "military trivia question each day" or "today in military history" and have listeners call in. Coordinate with local retailers who may be willing to donate prizes in support of NMAM.
* Invite local military to discuss their experiences in the military.
* Add NMAM banners to your website.
* Conduct live interviews with NMAM organizers, Shauna at www.amillionthanks.org, or elected officials: Governor, Senators or Congressmen.
* Display the flag as a banner on your website.
* Remember to mention POW/MIA's and Rolling Thunder on Memorial Day.
* Promote The Armed Forces Children's Education Fund, Inc.

As for my end, compliance with several points will be forthcoming.

Military Appreciation Month

This, from the Bull Moose Republicans:

May is National Military Appreciation Month. The Bull Moose Republicans would like to acknowledge all veterans and current members of the military, and thank them for their service to our country.

A bit of the purpose behind the event:

Our military has played a major role in the development of our country chronicled through their unbending honor, their dedication to duty and their love of country. Because most holidays commemorating historical military events have become little more than three-day weekends lacking focus on their original purpose, a vehicle is needed with form and structure to promote this month-long May observance.

For more information, visit National Military Appreciation Month.

The Country Pundit would like to issue a thanks to all men and women who have served their nation in uniform from 1775 to 2004, and beyond. I am grateful for your service, and thankful for your willingness to go forth into harm's way in defense of American freedom.

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Bull Moose Republicans.

Another Meme(?) - The Third Song

From Ith over at the re-designed Abinsinthe & Cookies:

1. Grab the nearest CD.
2. Put it in your CD player.
3. Skip to song 3.
4. Post the first verse along with these instructions. Don?t name the band, nor the album title.

Here goes:

Rusted brandy in a diamond glass
everything is made from dreams
time is made from honey slow and sweet
only the fools know what it means

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Absinthe & Cookies. It's worth noting that the version I'm listening to is a cover.