Pathetic Earthlings

Australia Day 8.5: Tropic of

Australia Day 8.5: Tropic of Capricorn

Had a nice jaunt up to the Tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees South) -- what struck me was just how dull the monument was. I like good, cheesy road sign attractions and the Tropic of Capricorn marker did not disappoint. It was painted white box-beam frame holding up a globe at 23.5 degrees -- although, oddly pointed east -- not north or south, so it didn't provide much information if you didn't know what it was you were looking at.

Anyway, it was about as exciting as one of those "Markers of Historical Interest" that mark, say, the foundation of an old armoury or where George Washington and his army once took a dump. So, given that it lived precisely up to expectations, it was worth the drive.

Australia Day 8: How Would

Australia Day 8: How Would You Like Your Camel Sir?

We arrived in Alice without too many troubles -- I had a window seat for the flight up and was just stunned by the beauty of the desert. Lots of long-dead arroyos, evaporation pools and the like. And my neck is just now recovering from being tilted over the whole 3 hour flight.

I really like the airport here (Mrs E: What airport don't you like?) - where you exit onto the tarmac and the very-modern runway, through economics or geography, dictates that the runway be used as its own taxiway. (I think there are only about 10 commercial flights here a day - 4 jets and a few turbo props that use this place as their hub. Phillip Goldsen in BElize City is sort of like it.

Anyway, Alice itself isn't much of a town -- I was expecting (unreasonably) -- that it would be a bit more Santa Fe with Aboriginal Stuff replaced for Zias and Adobe. Not that I'm compaining mind you, but I found the place to be more like Lihue, Kauai, HI -- with tourist wealth uneasil layered atop native poverty. And that is pretty apparent here, too.

We ate at a neat little restaurant heavy on the local game -- kangaroo, emu and the like - and I enjoyed a Camel Sirloin. It was a bit chewy even when quite rare, so I doubt I'd get it again. But I think it was worth it nevertheless. Unfortunately, they were out of the very high-concept Emu carpaccio.

Anyway, today we're going to drive north to go to the Tropic of Capricorn -- yes, I'll drive 40 miles to take a picture of a sign -- and then to check out both the Australian Aviation Museum here in town as well as the old Gaol ... er... jail. And the rail museum.

Tonight were going to drive a bit north into the desert to see if we can spot some of the cooler deep sky stuff like the LMGs and such.

Edited for a bit of spelling. Hurried earlier to get done with the pay terminal

Australia Day 7: En Route

Australia Day 7: En Route to Alice Springs

The pay terminals here in the Sydney Domestic airport have keyboards to die for -- tough and responsive -- too bad the connection is utter crap. This is like 300 baud and it keeps prompting for more money so I can't finish.

More later.

Australia : Day 5 3/4

Australia : Day 5 3/4 (Delayed): Beer Mat Blogging

In a more civilized time, the activity was called "writing a journal" - no longer. Now it's blogging, whether you have internet access or no.

I am not one of those travellers who feels compelled to have Italian Food ever night in Tuscany if there is another option worth a try. That may be the way to bet, but if there is a German restaurant or an Indian restaurant worth a try - we will have a go. So I am hear in Sydney, Australia enjoying a pint of Spaten while Mrs E is off running about ---
damn. Double Damn. Australia hospitality has foiled me again. I can no longer blog via beer mat since the waitress saw my predictament and, without asking, brought me a healthy stack of 2 x 3" paper. I meant this entry to be entirely self-referential about the difficulty of blogging via beer mat, and now I must do something else.

I am tinkering with a handful of change and it occurs to me that while Australia is a considerably less grumpy member of the United Nations version of the International Community --- a sort of Homeowners' Association of the Unwilling, where France and Libya have a death grip on the Pet Leash Task Force -- but Australians willingness to attend committee meetings with a minimum of eye rolling has manifested itself in odd ways.

Their dollar coin -- all too convienent (sorry, Sacagewea, I did my part) -- has a default reverse of five kangaroos, but like our own state coins, has a number of variations on the reverse. Mostly, it's nice pro-Australia stuff, like aviation pioneers and centennaries of statehood and such. But I've also noticed a disturbing number of them read like adverts for UN campaigns -- the International Year of the Old, the International Year of the Children forced to Eat Genetically Modified Vegetables and such.

I hope that this is merely that the Australia mint is in cahoots with the Royal Australian Numismatic Society, but if not, I must call my friends in the Black Helicopter Crowd and advise their travel bureau to not come down here, I'd hate for the Australians to have an American go postal on them when they present my would-be traveller with AUD $2.25 in loose change.

Australia - Day 5 1/2

Australia - Day 5 1/2 : 3 Sheets to the Wind

Mrs. Earthling is off doing a tad of shopping in the Rocks here in Sydney. We may try to get together with Tim Blair and his delightful better half, Nadia, for one last shout before Mrs E and I head to the Blue Mountains to do the "Z-Train" (hurry up on that column, Tim!). We will be there for two days before we cruise back to Sydney and then fly to Alice (if nothing else, I'm going to paper-blog the Outback and put it up in Cairns).

There's so much good stuff I'm missing in the blogosphere -- George Galloway, the WMD hunt, and the like -- but Sydney has been too delightful for words. The people are generous to a fault, the weather perfect and the views unstoppable.

As a life long resident of the San Francisco Bay Area -- it pains me to say this -- but Sydney is the most beautiful city on Earth.

UPDATE: I was happy to bring Tim Blair a bottle of Junipero Gin as a small favour for his many kindnesses. He returned the favour by buying me a Deep Fried Mars Bar. Tim was slightly horrified as I ate this -- as I said I would ("Lest We Forget!") -- and then, as I described it as being essentially a chocolate-coconaut tempura -- he was strangley drawn to it. As Bart Simpson put it : "I cannot watch, yet I cannot look away."

UPDATE: A small correction to the Day 3 Entry: the bar was not the "Beef and Bourbon" - it is Bourbon and Beefsteak. Apparently, until three years ago, they only served beer in cans -- tinnys -- for fear of bottles or glasses being smashed into weaponry.

Australia - Days 4 &

Australia - Days 4 & 5 : A Brighter Day in Pyongyang

CNN International runs world weather reports at the 0:15, a listing of cities with conditions and temperature and nothing more. It's nice as we're shortly to be headed to Alice Springs, and Alice Springs is the first one that rolls on the screen. Wait a few and we can get Sydney, whose weather has been as delightful as her inhabitants.

And in between, like clockwork, you can get the weather report for Pyongyang (today, sunny and 71). Now, I'm not a media guy but there seem to be three potential constituencies for a weather report: those who are in a place, those who are travelling to a place and those who used to be in a place and are wondering what they missed. This seems tautological, but I believe it safe to say that there is no one who gets CNN International who actually falls into those three categories. Just a thought.

* * * *

Yesterday we awoke to a light rain in Sydney and I turned on the television to catch coverage of the Anzac Day parade. Anzac Day is Australia's most important holiday -- and is a commemoration of the invasion of Gallipoli, the first time Australia fought for the British Empire as a country and not as individual states and is a bit of Veteran's Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July all rolled into one -- it was, unfortunately, a disaster -- and the plan, drafted by Churchill, was its author's greatest failing. But for Australians it is a day of both pride and honor. And the coverage completely devoid of any of that hateful, winking irony one sees in the American media.

What struck me most was that there was nothing to say about the members of the Sydney Veterans of the His Majesty's Australian Navy "N" Class Destroyer Association except what should be said - where they fought, why they fought and why we, as members of the Free World, should be thankful to them. No forced sentimentality, no blubbering about how all Australians are -- or are not -- proud of them. No need for opinion when the day itself calls for fact. These men (and women) fought and died for you, the viewing audience and while most of you know this -- all of us must be reminded. Lest We Forget

There is no room on Anzac Day for the others -- for we, the protected. The men and women who wear their medals here, on Anzac Day, with pride in their hearts a smile on their face and a cold beer in their hands, are there as a reminder to we, the protected, that there are sacrifices required in this ugly world -- and these men and women have made them.

* * *

Mrs E and I took the ferry out to Watson's Bay and sat down in the sun to enjoy the view and a couple of pots of beer and speculate on Two Up, a game which is legal only one day a year - Anzac Day. We found a nice table with some sun -- just the two of us -- when a few Australians in their early to mid 20s asked to use the rest of our longish table. We happily obliged and, long before we struck up a conversation, these two blokes toasted "To Australia - Lest We Forget!" No irony, no winking nod and not much commentary. Just a couple of fellows who said their thanks out of any public spotlight.

We had a grand time chatting with these fellows, talking about Australian politics and Karl Marx and our experience at the Bourbon and Beefsteak -- these Australians could not have been more impressed that we'd found the lowest rock in Sydney and turned it over to expose what crawls in this city's compost.

* * *

One of my favorite things in this world are the mass flip-card rallies in Pyongyang. A million people, spit polished and spot trained to flip cards, in sequence, to promote the glory of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader of North Korea. It is a spectacle beyond measure and one of the most amazing organizations of human behavior ever undertaken. And it is done for the glory of the state. Today, whatever happens in Pyongyang under a beautiful spring afternoon, will have for the leader - and nothing that happens against the leader will be tolerated. The people starve and the Dear Leader enjoys Swedish prostitutes and Hennessey (the former, of which I have neither an experience nor an opinion and, as for the latter, I will complain about another day).

* * * *

[Add something witty about the Sydney Swans v. Melbourne Demon's AFL game -- and about the always delightful Blair household -- and nearly getting bitten by a poisonous (or at least socially maladjusted) Australia spider]

On the television, men and women marched not quite in time, worn from war and, more so, from life. Five year old boys marched, here and there, wearing the medals their great-grandfathers won in a war that they might never quite understand and fought for by a man they never will know -- too young and happy to have any care other than to march down George Street with fellows who are proud to have them by their side -- and those boys, free and happy and full of promise living in a country of boundless opportunity and indominitable spirit, in the last analysis, though they may have missed living to see it, are all the reward these men ever wanted -- and more reward than any man should ever need.

* * * *

It was raining in Sydney. And it was the most beautiful day on Earth.

Australia Day 3: Artillery Tables

Australia Day 3: Artillery Tables

It does spin the other way.

I don't mean the sink or the toilet -- that flow is utterly dominated by the design of the sink and the initial flow of water. You need a tray ten feet across and an inch deep with a tiny hole and an hour to kill to tell the difference between the coriolis forces affecting a small body of water. Not that these forces aren't important. Naval artillery shoots quite differently whether you are fighting Jutland or the Battle of the Coral Sea, and woe unto the officer that forgets it. Artillery tables -- the precision guided munitions of their day -- adjusted for particular latitudes so that one could hit the target. No. Not that kind of spin.

I'm talking about the bed. It's three in the morning, and I spent the evening having beers with eight Australians and the bed is spinning anti-clockwise.

* * * *

We took at tour of the Sydney Opera House at 9:30 yesterday morning, and got to hear the symphony warming up for a rehersal -- not quite the full effect, but cool nevertheless. And the SOH is probably as cliche a thing to do as the Golden Gate Bridge... but it's a cliche because everyone goes there, but everyone goes there because it's so damned cool. After, we rang up Tim Blair and arranged to meet at Kingsley's, in Woolloomooloo for dinner and carried on with our day. We walked around the Botanical Gardens and I, of course, was impressed with everything: "Oh, Look, Honey, it's [LATIN NAME REMOVED]!" "Uhhmmmm... that's crabgrass." Or "look, honey, it's [LATIN NAME REMOVED], we should put this in our garden!!" "Hon, that's asphalt." But there was quite a bit of good stuff -- including the flock (pod? murder? school?) of flying foxes I alluded to yesterday. Then we wandered around the Queen Victoria shopping center, which is cool, and then came back for a nap.

One thing we did do was stop by the tobacconist and having picked up a copy of the Guardian (not the UK Guardian, the Guardian which is the newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia) I sat outside here at McMahon's Point and smoked a Cohiba and read John Pilger (no, really, he was the back cover piece on the CPA's rag) and took in the view of the Harbour while Mrs Earthling took a nap.

Which brings me back to the Artillery Tables: don't drink in Australia... not least with Australians... without reasonable preparation. It's different down here.

* * * *

Tim Blair, for all his bluster, is far too modest to want me to say of him that which I think --- that he's a damned nice fellow and much more. But what I can say is this: this man, as cool as he is, he's gotten the better end of the bargain by with his partner-in-crime, Nadia, a delightful a woman as can possible be. Mrs Earthling spent the evening chatting with Nadia and Mrs. Earthling hasn't woken up to catch me up and I'm down stairs in the lobby of our hotel having charmed them enough to let me use their terminal so I don't need walk up a hill and pay for the internet. They even made me coffee.

* * * *

Our evening started pleasantly enough -- with a dinner of an oyster-stuffed filet called a "Carpet Bagger" -- and a lovely white wine called "Cricket Pitch" or something of the sort. Mrs E and I got there a bit early and chatted the finer points of "drink-driving" laws with the barkeep and enjoyed a very tasty comsopolitan as we watched the flying foxes, circling in thermals drawing off the heat of the billion-candle power of the Sydney skyline.

* * * *

We met up with several Australian bloggers later in the evening. I'm missing one here, but with Tony of agblog.blogspot.com and Alan of alananderson.blogspot.comand a third gentlemen whose name (and blog) escapes me. I'm hoping Tim can stick it in a comment if he gets to my blog today. But they all claimed to have read my blog -- and if they hadn't I wish I could have lied as convincingly -- and we just mused about how much the Blogosphere brings the world together -- we've got friends all over the planet now and I, who was never promethian about the internet, can't say enough good things about this.

One cool thing, of course, was getting to remind Tim to check out my friend Adam Bonin's blog -- Throwing Things. What was cool, of course, was that Tim (who didn't know Adam and I are friends) said, more or less: "that's one of the greatest blogs there is. I need to read it more. He's practically the only fellow doing something different in the Blogosphere."

* * * *

Mrs E and I are off to the zoo and then to Bondi Beach with Tim Blair to try a Deep Fried Mars Bar.

I gotta give back the terminal here -- I'm wearring out my welcome -- more on the seemer side of King's Cross - the Beef and Bourbon --and a two-stones too-heavy prostitute who bit my neck to Mrs Earthling's unending amusment.

UPDATE: The story continues...

Now, the Bourbon and Beefsteak is in King's Cross -- I think what passes for the red light district in Sydney or at least comparable to the more rundown parts of Broadway in San Francisco near the Condor Club. This bar had all the charm and decour of a New York City stereo store undergoing its ninth year of a Going Out of Business Sale. And we merry few of bloggers were drinking our share of beer and Mrs E pointed out this rather plump tart who was clearly trolling for business. Well, I think she decided I was the obvious mark among out 6:2 male to female ratio and she came along and kissed one side of my neck and then bit the other. No skin was broken, so unless she had a spray-hypo grafted into her incisors, I think I'm free of any social diseases. But it was an odd exclamation point to an excellent evening.

Australia Day 2: Tomato and

Australia Day 2: Tomato and Meat Pie Crisps

What is with non-Canadian Commonwealth Countries that they think any flavour in the world can be distilled and fused with a potato chip? This morning, in jet-lag delirium, Mrs Earthling and I, having slept through dinner and awake and 3 am, wandered down to the vending machine and found, among other choices - Chicken Potato Crisps (not Chicken and anything, just chicken), Bacon and Cheese Cheese Puffs, and Tomato and Meat Pie Crisp flavour. Now, imagine burning a spaghetti sauce, scraping off the unmixed bits and deciding that that was the flavor that needed to be developed into a tasty snack cracker. You would be sued for malpractice if you did such a thing. At least, you hope so, but that flavour associate is now apparently partner in the society of Australian Chip Makers. Frightening.

Anyway, on to happier things -- the weather in Sydney is fantastic, the Botanical Gardens were lovely -- with lots of giant bats (flying foxes?) -- and now were at George's Street "Global Gossip" having just been to Sol Levy, tobacconist extrodinare. Anyway, we're off to do a bit more exploring of downtown and then to dinner with Tim Blair. By the way, there are cheaper ways of getting a Tim Blair-a-lanch to your website than flying to Sydney, but none that promises to be quite as much fun. On the telephone, he dubbed me an honorary Australian for describing myself as "balding and thick around the middle" -- and here I am offering John Howard honorary citizenship for courageously fighting to liberate Iraq and it turns out I can become an honorary Australian for engaging in many of my favorites fo the Seven Deadly Sins.

Cheers.

Australia Day 1: A Long

Australia Day 1: A Long Ride Downhill

From the Sydney Desk.

Mrs Earthling and I managed our 14 hour flight to Sydney without too much trouble. Fortunately, we had a whole row (4 seats) to ourselves. So Mrs. got 9 of fourteen hours of the flight spent asleep and I did alright with about 7.5. But smooth sailing all the way down here and we're just walking off our jet lag stopping in at a few friendly pubs. The Quayle Ale at Lord Nelson's (named, apparently, in honour of Former Veep Dan Quayle) was quite refreshing.

We're going to get together tomorrow for dinner with a Sydney-based blogger of some note and that should be quite a treat.

Arion Press My grandfather was

Arion Press

My grandfather was a printer for 60-odd years. One of his apprentices, Andrew Hoyem, went on to form Arion Press, probably the single finest craft bookmaker in the world. Here's yet another great article about Arion Press and its on-going efforts to keep the art of bookmaking alive and well.

Antipodeal Blogging, Part Deux Mrs

Antipodeal Blogging, Part Deux

Mrs Earthling and I are out the door --- first off to Easter Brunch with my folks, then to the airport --- and Australia!

Instapundit Drinks Pureed Puppies It's

Instapundit Drinks Pureed Puppies

It's true. What an evil, evil man.

Go at Throttle-Up Now here

Go at Throttle-Up

Now here is some great news. Dick Rutan has unveiled his entry into the X-Prize competition.

I suspect, and indeed I hope, that Rutan (or another X-Prize competitor) is going to make a suborbital hop before the Shuttle is back in operation. The symbolism of a private initative, rather than government program, putting America back into space -- even as a suborbital hop -- will do more for stirring public interest in the prospects of space flight -- and space flight for the public -- than any shuttle flight.

I hope Scott Peterson has

I hope Scott Peterson has jelly in his pockets

Because that boy is toast.

The RTB is TCB! When

The RTB is TCB!

When the Rocky Top Brigade got together a few months ago, I took my role as Master Distiller and Whiskey Advisor to the RTB seriously and sent along the sampler pack of small bottles of the Classic Malts (Oban, Lagavulin, Talisker, Dalwhinnie, Craggenmore and Glenkinchie). Now South Knox Bubba has gone way above and beyond and sent me not only a five-bottle sampler pack of Tennessee bourbon (including one of my all time favorites, the W.L. Weller -- and four I've never had) but the new Dolly Parton CD to boot, which is completely excellent.

Thanks Bubba. You've proved, yet again, that the RTB is TCB!

What about North Korea? Yeah,

What about North Korea?

Yeah, isn't President Bush ignoring the North Korean business? Apparently not.

A swath of North Korea's military and scientific elite, among them key nuclear specialists, has defected to the US and its allies through a highly secret smuggling operation involving the tiny Pacific island of Nauru. The defections have taken place since last October and have been made possible through the help of 11 countries that agreed to provide consular protection to smuggle the targets from neighbouring China, according to sources close to the operation, which has now been wound up.

Noted via Tim Blair.

I am not available as

I am not available as a talking, 12" Action Figure. This is an American Lie!

The Iraqi Information Minister, now available from HeroBuilders.com.

The Coming Sandstorm Victor Davis

The Coming Sandstorm

Victor Davis Hanson, of course, has brilliant things to say about the war. I'm just starting his work, Carnage and Culture, and I think I've learned more from his preface than I have from most whole books, but I digress. Today, VDH had this to say:

"The United States military is now evolving geometrically as it gains experience from near-constant fighting and grafts new technology daily. Indeed, it seems to be doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling its lethality every few years. And the result is that we are outdistancing not merely the capabilities of our enemies but our allies as well ? many of whom who have not fought in decades ? at such a dizzying pace that our sheer destructive power makes it hard to work with others in joint operations."

Russia is worried and I can't imagine that this whole affair makes North Korea feel any more safe --- or Taiwan any less.

But, I'm guessing that the Defense Ministries of the People's Republic of China are asking themselves three questions:

a) How can we destroy American satellites and how quickly?
b) How will America replace destroyed satellites and how quickly can it do so?
c) What do we need to learn how to do to exploit the time between (a) and (b) in the event of a future Taiwan Crisis?

The answer to the first question is: Yes, and with a few billion dollars behind the program, very quickly indeed. Knocking down satellites isn't hard. The USAF began development of an anti-satellite missile (ASAT) in the late 1970s.

It worked. So, naturally, Congress put a stop to it.

China certainly has the technical expertise to do it. And they aren't developing their own ASAT weapon to clear the skies of our satellites at the start of a shooting war -- the one place they can really weaken our near-total strategic advantage -- they are fools, or worse.

The answer to the second question is: Not very quickly. Even a very reliable system like a Delta launch vehicle takes at least several weeks to prepare, even assuming (as I hope, but doubt) we have replacement satellites in clean rooms in Huntsville and Lompoc to be trucked to the launch sites at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB on six hours notice. Without cheap, reliable access to space, our troops can be left blind, our weapons -- now inhumanely accurate -- can be rendered nearly ineffective.

I hope our fellows in the Pentagon are thinking about this because the answer to the third question is: They're working on it.

The loss of our strategic space advantage -- even for a few weeks -- is not just inconvienent and frustrating like a sandstorm which can be ridden out.

It is the sandstorm.

I Am Not Dead. This

I Am Not Dead. This is an American Lie. Do Not Believe It.

Baghdad Bob apparently hanged himself just before the fall of Baghdad.

How sad. I was hoping NBC could hire him to spend Election Night 2004 denying Texas' 32 electoral votes had gone to Bush.

I'll take Twisted Priorities for

I'll take Twisted Priorities for $600, Alex

PETA is happy to exploit the Holocaust to suggest chickens were being treated like human beings, but when it turned out that Uday Hussein treated human beings like chickens by tossing them into a plastic shredder, PETA was silent.

But now, apparently, since chickens in the normal course of business, being treated like, well, chickens in the normal course of business, I'm supposed to care.

A Blog of Her Own

A Blog of Her Own

If any of my regular readers have a blog of their own that doesn't have a link -- and you want one -- let me know. I've got a stack of post-its I need to enter into my links and I've been very slow to update links and for that, I apologize. But I'm know I'm a link-whore, so don't be shy about asking me to turn a trick for you.

N.B.: You'll get a link --- but I'll catagorize you into the appropriate Ministry.

"THANK YOU BOSH" An excellent

"THANK YOU BOSH"

An excellent profile in the Telegraph of President Bush. I liked this especially:

"But if I may make a suggestion to my friends on the Left, do yourselves a favour and chuck the moron gags. It's insufficient to your needs. In case you still haven't noticed, Bush always winds up getting at least 90 per cent of everything he wants, and it can't all be dumb luck. A year ago the President told Trevor McDonald, "I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go". Well, Saddam has gone. In between came a lot of entertaining diplomatic dances in national costume, but, like the third act of The Nutcracker, they didn't impact on the plot: in the end, the nut got cracked."

John Howard Gets His Day

John Howard Gets His Day In the Sun

Mrs Earthling notes that Australian PM John Howard has finally gotten his invite to Crawford, Texas.

I find this paragraph from the Sydney Morning Herald a bit distasteful:

Mr Howard's visit to Crawford puts him in the company of prominent leaders. Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz went there to discuss the Middle East last year, while China's former president, Jiang Zemin, discussed the North Korea crisis there with Mr Bush.

He's not in the company of the likes of them. He's a world apart (and a damned sight more likely to help the President clear scrub brush and risk rattlesnakes). And this is long overdue recognition.

Me? I favour honorary citizenship for both John Howard and Tony Blair, but this is a good start to recognizing Australia's key role in the cause of freedom.

Seven Days In May Gray

Seven Days In May

Gray Davis' favorable ratings are now down to an astonishing 27% and his job approval ratings to 24%. I think these were the poll numbers President Jordan Lyman was confronted with in John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May. But since the Governor hasn't signed a lopsided nuclear disarmament treaty with Nevada, it is too much to hope for that we might have a coup attempt by Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown.

Alas.

For reasons I'll get into another day, let me just say this: I am unalterably opposed to this Gray Davis recall nonsense. I'll put my GOP bona fides against anyone's, but if the recall comes to a vote, I'm voting against it. And, what's more, I'll vote for the Democrat contingent candidate. Not that I have any great love for the Governor, but the idea of putting a Republican in there -- even a great guy like Christopher Cox -- to clean up this mess would be doing the Democrats a huge favour. Gray Davis soiled the diaper of state and I don't feel like breaking out the wet-naps.

The Incredible Visible Legislator As

The Incredible Visible Legislator

As always, Adam Bonin at Throwing Things is on top of the most important developments in Japanese politics.

Antipodeal Blogging On this coming

Antipodeal Blogging

On this coming Sunday, Mrs. Earthling and I are off to Australia for three weeks.

Apart from the sights and sounds of Australia (Sydney, then the Blue Mountains, then Alice and Uluru (nee Ayers Rock), then Queensland to sit on the beach for a week) and a plan, schedules permitting, to share a pint with an Australian blogger of some reknown, I will find and review Tasmania's Cradle Mountain Malt Whiskey as well as their Antipodean Double Malt -- part Cradle Mountain, part Campbelltown, Scotland's Springbank. With a little luck, I'll find a couple of bottles of New Zealand's Lammerlaw and Pakistan's Murree Single Malt.

I hope to be able to blog at least once in a while while we're down there, although I'll be depending on the kindness of strangers and pay terminals so it will be more travelouge than political commentary. In any event, I hope not to lose too much traffic while I'm gone. I've been getting a healthy 150/day or so and I appreciate all of your stopping by to read my occasional rants.

If anyone has any travel tips -- restaurants to try, bars to try, dive shops in Cairns to use or avoid, wineries within a reasonable distance of Sydney worth a visit -- feel free to email them or, better still, leave them in the comments.

Go Chicks I don't mean

Go Chicks

I don't mean Dixie Chicks. I mean Killer Chicks who drive A-10 Warthogs.

From Russia With Love A

From Russia With Love

A bit of evidence about that the Russians spied on the UK and fed some information to Iraq. Apart from the suggestion that Russia offered its agents to make hits, which strikes me as unlikely -- Russia kills for its own interests, I doubt it hires its agents out for piecework -- I just can't be outraged by this. It may show where Russia's interests are, but the Big Powers spy on one another all the time and the world is, ultimately, safer for it.

In February, when news broke that the United States was spying on other members of the Security Council, the fans of the United Nations were shocked -- shocked -- to hear that spying was going on in New York and that for the United States to spy on Cameroon was the height of "arrogance". But I have yet to hear much outrage about the Russians spying on the British at the same time.... and to precisely the same end.

Is this sort of behavior okay for the Rodina but not for Uncle Sam?

Tony Blair's Place in the

Tony Blair's Place in the American Heart Now Complete

The Prime Minister will voice himself in an upcoming episode of the Simpsons.

Whiskey of the Week: Old

Whiskey of the Week: Old Potrero Single Malt Spirit

In honor of the three pillars of Operation Iraqi Freedom : Democracy, Whisky and Sexy! I thought I?d talk about a single malt whiskey made here in San Francisco: Old Potrero, but first, I?ll start with a story of industrial espionage gone horribly wrong.

Beer can be made with almost any grain. Get sugar out of the grain and yeast will produce the two pillars of goodness: alcohol and carbon dioxide. Most beer is barley based. Wheat is distant second to barely, but common enough. Ethiopia makes a Sorghum beer which a friend said was virtually undrinkable, but he nevertheless failed to bring me back a bottle to prove his point. The big companies, like Budweiser, use rice and corn as well as barley. Not to knock Budweiser ? although it?s not my favorite ? their mastery of the brewing process is so complete that they could make a tasty beer out of lawn clippings.

To get from beer to whiskey, you just need to distill beer. And what can possibly be wrong with distilled beer? Nothing, so long as you don?t stop in the wrong place. Jack Daniels starts as a corn beer ? which tastes like carbonated corn muffin mix ? but if you know where that corn beer is heading, it?s like your first kiss - sort of sweet, mostly awkward but full of promise of even better things. But they?d never bottle it because - as interesting as it is to taste proto-Jack Daniels, no one would want to drink it.
_______

The reader may recall that in the early 1990s, Red Hook Brewing Company of Seattle came out with Redhook Rye, a rye-and-barley beer, rolled out with some fanfare along side their existing beers. It was not, as I recall, so much as a specialty beer but meant to sit along side their flagship beer, Redhook E.S.B., and as part of the main line of beers.

I found the stuff to be virtually undrinkable. It was interesting, yes. But I?ve also tasted beer made out of Peet?s Coffee and marijuana (I?m one hundred percent for drug legalization and in much earlier days I did, in fact, inhale. But in this case, I tasted it before I knew what was in it. Me: What?s in this? He: Peet?s Coffee and Pot. Me: No, really, what?s in it? He: Peet?s Coffee and Pot) and while it had some of the desired effect, it tasted like death. Interesting. Not good. Redhook Rye died off ignobly. It might still be available at their brewery, but I haven?t seen it in years and I doubt I ever buy it would again.

At the time, there was room for almost any microbrew you could bottle. But at the time, the only liquid forms of rye were a few obscure rye whiskeys: Old Overholt for one, and both Wild Turkey and Evan Williams made them. But rye is for men beaten down by life. Rye is a drink for people who find Johnny Cash too uplifting. It?s certainly not a drink for the hip beer snobs. Or was it possible that Redhook had apparently found a segment that was worth a push? A unique beer to get some more shelf space at Safeway and draw more beer drinkers to your wide array of craft beers. Whatever their reason, they backed it the launch of the product. And while I?m all for experimenting with beer, but to spend the money on a big product roll-out suggests that Redhook knew something. Well, the story is, they did.

Mrs Earthling once told me that the best way to judge the prospects for commercial real estate, follow the Golden Arches. Nobody does a better job (a least, perhaps, until a few years ago) researching location that the boys from Oak Park and if you can find out where a McDonald?s is going to be placed, you can move your odds ona real estate investment in the right direction. McDonald?s knows this, so its location decisions a closely-guarded secret.

While, it seems that Redhook bought grains from the same place as Fritz Maytag owner of the Anchor Brewing Company and was tipped off that Anchor had been buying quite a bit of rye. If Anchor - makers of Anchor Steam, Liberty Ale and Anchor Porter - a company that, more than other, had revitalized craft brewing in this country - was buying rye, it stood to reason that Anchor was going to make a rye beer. Since Anchor knows what it?s doing, we?d better get to work on it and beat them to it.

There was no contest. Anchor never bottled a rye beer and never planned to. It made a rye beer, but it made it only so that rye beer could grok its happy destiny and be distilled into one of the greatest single malt whiskeys available: Old Potrero Single Malt.
_______

Old Potrero is, as the link notes, a 100% single malt whiskey. It?s a traditional American whiskey - pot stilled, a bit harsh and much closer to the kind of whiskey at issue during the Whiskey Rebellion than is, say, Jack Daniels.

Old Potrero?s rye taste hits you up front ? and with the sharper anise-like notes of rye, not the lingering slightly bitter taste you?d get in a rye bread ? and the warm after glow is to be savored. It?s definately something to be enjoyed over ice ? at 61.5% it?s probably not best consumed neat ? and I think it goes best as a nice drink to have when you are reading something very, you know, manly like Victor Davis Hanson?s Carnage and Culture. It?s not cheap ? at no better than $55 a bottle ? it?s an investment, but I think after this weeks events I?ll be buying it just a little bit more often.

On Wednesday, as I watched the icons of Saddam come down around Baghdad, I wanted to drink something, well, American. Much as I love our British allies, single malt Scotch wasn?t quite right. So I poured myself a couple of fingers of Old Potrero.

I almost tossed it in the sink.

The only time in my life I?ve really gotten drunk off the stuff was in the waning hours of September 11. Mrs Earthling, who lost three coworkers in the South Tower and who had been scheduled to go to that meeting until a few weeks before had finally gotten to bed. After a fifteen hour televised parade of horrors, I drank three big helpings of the stuff and I didn?t feel a thing until I?d washed that down with a couple of beers. When I finally got to bed, I cursed myself because I?d ruined one of my favorite drinks. It was a particularly selfish thought, but in as much as my wife (then of less than four months) was with me and not at some pointless meeting in New York, it was a thought that came to me nevertheless. And for the last eighteen months I couldn?t drink it without so much -- too much -- of that day coming back to me.

Mrs Earthling bought me a bottle for Christmas 2001 - 18 months on, I still have most of it.

Well, Wednesday night, I sat down and watched the fall of Baghdad and pushed down a couple of fingers of it, I didn't want to associate the fall of Baghdad with September 11th -- although September 11th was clearly necessary, if not sufficient, for us to get to where we are today -- I feared the whiskey might work a transitive property of Pavlovian association, so strong is the association. But I also wanted to rinse away the old flavor and the old memories that I associated with Old Potrero. I hope, now, this caustic goodness will be associated here on out with liberty.

If the Buddah can be as comfortable in a motorcycle engine as in a mountain stream, liberty can ring out just as well in bronze-on-bronze as with ice-on-glass. And if I can pour a glass of rye ? especially one from San Francisco ? from here until well past my three score and ten, and associate it with this... this new birth of freedom, it may bad for the liver. But it?s good for the soul.

So here?s to Democracy. And Whiskey. And Sexy.

Let Freedom Ring.

Water Discipline There's been a

Water Discipline

There's been a lot of noise over at Atrios, CalPundit and now from Eugene Volokh about this article of a few days back about an Army chaplain who -- while our troops hadn't seen a bath in two weeks -- had a 500 gallon pool of water. You could immerse yourself, the story goes, but the price of admission was steep: Give Your Soul to Jesus.

I don't know the particulars of Baptist practice, so I don't know whether the 500 gallon pool is "Holy" in the same way Holy Water is at a Catholic baptismal font. I don't know whether or not it would be sacreligious to use the water for some other purpose. But it's pretty clear from the story that the quid pro quo here was not (and I think this is important): become baptised and you can take a couple of gallons with you, water that isn't available to those who aren't baptised.

Rather the quid pro quo was: become baptised and you can do the very act of baptism. That that someone who goes through this baptism is, if not exactly clean, at least rinsed of some of the diesel and dust is an entirely secondary effect. That they are clean(er) is no more fundamental to the service than the secondary buzz one might get from an overly large sip of communion wine.

Given that (and, as a Catholic, I'm moving onto more familiar ground here) I just don't quite see how this is distinguishable from a Catholic chaplain having unconsecrated communion wafers. No one in their right mind would argue -- except in the most dire moments of starvation -- that a Catholic chaplain would have to give up the very material he needs to perform a fundamental part of a Catholic service.

It becomes even harder to distinguish if we assume that, even in a situation of starvation rations, a Protestant chaplain is carrying with him communion hosts which have already been transubstantiated (which I believe they do if a Catholic chaplain isn't handy). It's downright sacreligious to simply eat something that corporally to non-Catholics is bread, but as a matter of theology to Catholics, is the actual body of Christ.

Now, I will quickly acknowledge that his fellow's attitude needs adjusting. He sounds like a class one jerk to be joking about something like that, rather than treating his position as something solemn. Frankly, he ought to be cashiered for his attitude alone. It's wrong (the Army's problem) and, possibly blasphemous (his problem) to try to treat a religious thing as a corporal resource and to treat it as a quid pro quo.

But the soldiers supposedly* hurt by this, the ones who couldn't "bathe" were getting sufficient - but not generous - water rations while supply lines got worked out. And I don't think that trumps a religious service. The 500 gallons (about two cubic meters), given the requirement of (a) full immersion and (b) that the Chaplain usually stands with him in the pool, is about the minimum need for services and, therefore, had the smallest possible impact on the rest of the unit. And I have to say that, not least on a battlefield, a solider has a more fundamental right to a clean soul - and that's what those soldiers asked for - than a clean crotch.

And, finally, if this were a story about "eating" Catholic religious symbols (a broadly acceptable religion) rather than "bathing" in something fundamental to this sect of the Baptist fath (which, judging by some of the reactions to this, a less acceptable one), I just don't see how this story has legs.

UPDATE: On second thought, the other soldiers were actually hurt by this. Even though 500 gallons is a small amount, on the margins, that's a reasonable amount of extra water even spread over two thousand troops. My point, however, remains.

Les jeux sont faits. Translation:

Les jeux sont faits. Translation: the game is up. Your ass is mine. - Ed Rooney

"Hey, listen, Mommar... buddy, yeah, it's me. Yeah, sorry, I know I haven't called you lately. But, listen, I'm moving out of New York City --- yeah, work's not so good here a change up in management and, yeah, I don't think I can keep my place. I need a place to crash for a couple of days... maybe a week. Think I could, you know, crash on your couch?"

HMAS Sydney "A Greenpeace anti-war

HMAS Sydney

"A Greenpeace anti-war protester hangs from the bow of HMAS Sydney as the Australian frigate departs from Sydney Harbor, Australia, on its way to the Persian Gulf. Police cut the man free."

Why'd they cut him free? He'd have fallen off eventually.

Have Space Suit Will Travel

Have Space Suit Will Travel

Heinlein's "Have Space Suit Will Travel" has been optioned by Warner Brothers. It's one of my favorite Heinlein novels, I just hope Hollywood doesn't screw up the ending with its rousing defense of humanity. After being accused, and convicted, of being an unpleasant, primitive and war-like race, the hero gets to say his final peace before humanity is sentenced to death, by having the sun extinguished:

"Have you anything else to say?" old no-face went on relentlessly.

I looked around at the hall. --the cloud-capped towers...the great globe itself-- "Just this!" I said savagely. "It's not a defense, you don't want a defense. All right, take away our star -- You will if you can and I guess you can. Go ahead! We'll make a star. Then, someday, we'll come back and hunt you down -- all of you!"

But then this passage, right at the end, struck me just now, as nice little parable on the month's events. You can set up your own countries as dramatis personae:

"Keep your ears open. 'Have Space Suit -- Will Travel' that doesn't say enough. To make money out of that silly clown suit, we got to have oomph. So we add: "Bug Eyed Monsters Exterminated--World Saving a Specialty--Rates on Request.' Right?"

I shook my head. "No, Ace."

"S'matter with you? No head for business?"

"Let's just stick to the facts. I don't charge for world saving and I don't do it to order; it just happens. I'm not sure I'd do it on purpose -- with you in it."

Both girls tittered, Ace scowled. "Smart guy, eh? Don't know that the customer is always right?"

"Always?"

"He certainly is. See that you rememeber it. Hurry up that malt!"

"Yes, Ace." I reached for it; he shoved thirty-five cents at me; I pushed it back. "This is on the house."

I threw it in his face.

__________

Pacifica Watch This morning on

Pacifica Watch

This morning on Pacifica Radio (KPFA) I have listened to a number of really cool things. A piece on a Jazz ensemble. Right now, I'm listening to an interesting interview with Mark Herman, the author of a new book on the history of gold mining all over the world. It's terribly fascinating stuff and I may well buy this book.

What's more interesting is that, after months of all-day coverage about the United States' plans to nuke Iraq until it glowed and then shoot in the dark --- they seemed to have completely ignored, shall we say, recent developments.

The Game is Over Iraqi

The Game is Over

Iraqi Ambassador: "The Game is Over, I hope that the peace will prevail."

Egypt, Saudi Arabia Call for

Egypt, Saudi Arabia Call for Democracy....in Iraq

Official Saudi and Egyptian reaction is generally positive. But this was amusing:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said the Iraqi people should take over the government of their own country "as soon as possible", the official news agency reported. He said it was "the quickest way to ensure stability for the Iraqi people." Saudi Arabia said Iraqis should be allowed to choose their own government, saying the US-British occupation should end as soon as possible.

Hosni, Abdullah - I couldn't agree more... and right back at-ya!

Iraqi National Congress has moved

Iraqi National Congress has moved into the Iraqi Embassy in London

FOX News so reports.

"Candy" Bomber Wants to Fly

"Candy" Bomber Wants to Fly Again

Col. Gail Halverson, who started dropping candy to German kids in Berlin during the 1948 airlift, wants to fly over Baghdad and repeat the process. The logistics are less difficult here, but good on him.

Wow! This is the greatest

Wow!

This is the greatest political image I've seen since Christmas Day, 1991, when the Hammer and Sickled dropped over the Kremlin for the last time. We may get a better one out the fall of Baghdad, but this is pretty damned cool.

Still, I think of Scott Glenn's performance of Alan Sheppard in 1983's film version of the Right Stuff. As they are about to launch the Mercury capsule -- something well-designed and well-thought out and well-built but not quite completely tested -- and he's about to do something truly glorious, he mutters to himself: "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up."

There's No Pleasing Some People

There's No Pleasing Some People

Baghdad is today rapidly disintegrating into a lawless city with hordes of looters taking to the streets. Initial jubilation as US troops took control of five main districts of the city has swiftly been replaced by concerns that the sudden collapse of Saddam Hussein's hold has created a new and dangerous security nightmare.

There's no pleasing some people.

All Your Base - the

All Your Base - the 2003 Remix

Noted via Instapundit - All Your Base Are Belong to Us!

New Europe and New Alliances

New Europe and New Alliances

Here's a great piece by Geoffry Wawro over at National Review about the City of Brussels, EU bureaucracy and the prospects of a successful Europe. But I really liked this passage:

He pondered for a moment: "We need to get closer to the American system." Indeed: Portugal spends 85 percent of its small defense budget on personnel, and 50 percent of that on pensions. Germany, unable to shed tenured employees to make room for procurement, spends just $40 million a year on new vehicles and $1 billion to repair the old ones.

"New Europe" ? those doughty young nations of the east praised by Donald Rumsfeld (and told to "shut up" by Jacques Chirac) ? is on an entirely different track. Rather than persist with a Russian-model military, they are moving into "niche specialties" that will benefit a U.S.-led war effort. The Slovaks, for example, will invest their entire defense budget in just four things that we Americans can actually use in a coalition of the willing: light and mechanized infantry brigades, an artillery regiment, and a nuclear-biological-chemical clean-up battalion.

Note that last part. The Slovaks know they can't do everything -- and they won't try. But what they will do is provide some sophisticated combat and support units that we can integrate into a war strategy, whether its to deal with an unneighborly Belarus or help us invade Lichtenstein. I don't know (and I'm trying to check) whether or not that means Slovakia is going to forgo an Air Force altogether, but it may, and it certainly means that they will be dependent on allied logisitics should these units be fielded.

Our really good allies do this already: Britain hasn't had an air superiority fighter since they retired the HMS Ark Royal and its F-4 Phantoms in the mid-1970s or sold off its BAC Lightnings to the Saudis in the 1960s. Years ago, we came to an understanding with the British that would specialize in ground attack aircraft (e.g., the Jaguar, the Tornado, the Harrier) while we would guarantee the security of the skies over Great Britain. If Britain and France wanted to go rounds, Britain would have a hard time doing it without the United States simply because they wouldn't be able to control the skies. But Britain knows we would never let them down in a fight and have become very adept at close air support and need not duplicate our air superiority capability. Likewise, the Australian Navy is excellent, but they don't burden themselves by trying to build their own aircraft carriers. Should Australia need defending, the Pacific Fleet will be there.

It will be interesting to follow how other New Europe countries move along this trend. Poland just bought 48 F-16s, and as we start to move our bases to Poland, I trust that the Poles will want to specialize their military as well -- not only to be a useful strategic ally to the United States -- but to see that the forces they do have are indeed gold standard. I'd much rather have a quality, integrated Polish armored regiment (or whatever) with British Challenger tanks that can be used in an integrated operation, defensive or otherwise, than a whole division of outdated T-72s.

What a Drag Fedayeen are

What a Drag

Fedayeen are now resigned to wearing women's clothing in an attempt to ambush the United States Marine Corps:

Irregular Iraqi forces, some wearing women's clothing, ambushed a U.S. Marine platoon of light-armored vehicles Monday in the central Iraqi city of Ab Diwaniyah, but the U.S. unit escaped without casualties, Marines in the firefight said.

Via Tim Blair.

Dead Again? MSNBC is claiming

Dead Again?

MSNBC is claiming that Administration sources have told them that they think they got Saddam.

If that's too much equivocation for you, turn on the tube.

Where the Streets Have No

Where the Streets Have No Name

As I watched the Iraqi Minister of Information's rooftop press conference last night -- even as an M1 sat on Saddam's front lawn -- I half-expected the United States Army to appear right behind him and to have a Captain politely ask him to pipe down. "Excuse me, sir, do you have a permit? I know you are in the middle of shooting a video and all and we'd hate to disturb you, sir, but we've got to shut this little rooftop concert down. Infidel? Yes, sir. Maybe so. But you are making a hell of racket for this early in the morning. It's bothering the neighborhood and backing up traffic."

Baghdad is Falling AP Reports

Baghdad is Falling

AP Reports we've got the Information Ministry and the Al-Rashid Hotel.

Scotland the Brave Just a

Scotland the Brave

Just a great narrative of a battle around Basra. Bagpipes included for no extra charge.

Will it Play in Peoria?

Will it Play in Peoria?

Apparently. Bill runs three blogs. One about Peoria, Illinois (which, I'll admit, is not a great passion of mine). A second one about Robert Heinlein (which is). He runs a third one, aptly called Page Three which I advise not looking at on the boss's nickel.

He also linked to me which is certainly very kind of him.

Progress

Progress

Spinning Saddam in his Grave

Spinning Saddam in his Grave

The twenty-three members of Tupac Amaru were probably not all killed in a fair fight.

One hundred percent fatality rates are the provence of airplane crashs and suicide bombers, not gun battles. So when Peruvian special forces tunnelled into and then stormed the Japanese Embassy in April 1997, ending a four-month hostage crisis and a political embarrasment for President Alberto Fujimori, it?s certainly conceivable that Fujimori, no friend of the rule of law, made it clear that he preferred not to be bothered with survivors.

It was not, as we say, a nice thing to do. But a week or so later, I got into a chat with one of my more liberal classmates in law school. He pointed out and, ultimately, I had to agree that it was likely that any members of Tupac Amaru still alive after the operation were lined up in the basement and executed. I was impressed with the mission ? I think only two hostages died ? one of wounds, one from a heart attack ? and said as much. But if the guerillas were all killed in the firefight ? or even executed after the fact ? that was too bad, and not a great moment for the Peruvian judicial system, but I couldn?t work up a great deal of sympathy.

It seemed to me that one assumes a certain risk when you kidnap, among others, the President?s brother along with the Ambassador of your country's largest donor of foreign aid, that you might not get a trial. He was adamant that some cosmic injustice had been done to these folks and I just couldn't see it.

?They could have shot their hostages but they didn?t.?

?What??

?The guerillas didn?t shoot their hostages even when they had the chance ? but the government saw fit to shoot them without a trial.?

If he wanted me merely to agree with him on the principle of the matter, I might have. But his underlying point that Tupac Amaru was "kind' and "humanitarian" for not shooting their hostages alluded me. My point, I suppose, was that these fellows assumed the risk of a less-than-perfect system of justice and that, to a reasonable observer, it might be predictable that the Peruvian government would shoot them without, I dunno, Benefit of Clergy. I?m not sure this fellow liked me, and he clearly thought he was smarter than me, but it struck me as terribly odd that a fellow of such intellectual gifts could think that it was ?kind? that the hostage takers didn?t shoot anyone. This might have some traction on the giant kharmic treadmill ? and even on a simple one-bounce-of-this-mortal-coil morality, he may have had a point.

But such a calculus does require discounting the rather glaring fact that the hostage-takers held hundreds of people hostage for months and certainly threatened them with death (even though, of course, Tupac Amaru denies it: ?The goal of the MRTA [Tupac Amaru] commando was not to murder the embassy prisoners. They were determined to have their demands fulfilled while providing the maximum protection for the lives of their prisoners.?) (This explains all of the AK-47s and hand grenades). This is not a discount I?m willing to provide and, to this day, I?m just not very teary eyed about how these folks met their doom.

It?s possible a flash of kindness stayed their hand at the last moment. It?s possible. But Tupac Amaru were cowards, not men. Certainly not soldiers.

There are plenty of stories of Luftwaffe pilots escorting battered P-47s back to the English Channel so they could fight ? no doubt to the death ? another day. There?s the Christmas truce of World War I. As far as I?m concerned, soldiers have the right to stay their hand ? and to expect some chance that their enemies may treat them with mercy, too. A chance meeting at a prefered pissing tree in the Ukraine or the jungles of Vietnam, soldiers have the right to let the moment pass ? to let their enemy live. Those random mercies between soldiers, however rare, earn all soldiers, at all times, the chance of one for themselves, and the men and women who wear a uniform are nobler for it.

But the ?men? of Tupac Amaru didn?t display any nobility by not killing their civilian hostages ? they did kill two of the Peruvian hostage rescue team ? they did only what is required of all men, at all times, in all wars ? to fight the enemy soldier, and to avoid killing civilians, but they were not soldiers themselves. Their ultimate death may have been, shall we say, extra-judicial. But they had done nothing to earn the mercies my classmate wished them.

____

It may be a few weeks before Saddam Hussein makes a run for it, and while I?m hoping him to go like Moussolini, I?m guessing he goes down swinging in Tikrit. But when Baghdad falls and Saddam Hussein swings from a lamp post ? and if no chemical agent worse than tear gas is used ? the rehabilitation of Saddam Hussein will begin.

I don?t know who?ll do it first, but one of these folks on the anti-American, anti-war Left (N.B.: You can be patriotic and anti-war, I?m not suggesting otherwise), the Robert Fisks and Margo Kingstons, is going to start praising Saddam Hussein for not using chemical weapons, even when ?his? country was being attacked. They?ll sing high and proud about how Saddam Hussein didn?t use his cutting edge weapons ? World War I-era mustard gas ? while we used weapons designed in the last two years, and George W. Bush has the blood of hundreds of civilians on his hands, Saddam Hussein didn?t kill tens of thousands, and is therefore - at least a bit - cleansed of his sins. We used the best weapons. Saddam didn?t use the worst.

See? They?ll ask, Saddam stayed his hand and didn?t kill all those civilians. He was bad, sure, but not the monster George W. Bush and Don Rumsfeld made him out to be. Sure, Saddam was bad. But America and Britain and its ?EBay? allies killed hundreds, but look what Saddam Hussein did not do. Look what Saddam could have done. That will be their moral calculus. And you don?t have to guess how George W. Bush will measure up. To the Robert Fisks of the world, even then, and even years from now, George W. Bush will come up short even to Saddam Hussein.

And they?re going to start wondering why everyone has stopped listening.

In eight months or a year or three, Robert Fisk is going to go back to Iraq. And he?ll find a sympathetic looking crowd and he?ll proclaim to anyone who listens that George W. Bush is worse. America is worse. Look what America did to you. And look at what Saddam Hussein didn?t do when he had nothing left to lose.

And Robert Fisk is going to get his ass kicked, again, by the Arab street. And he?s going to blame himself for their anger.

And for the first time in his sad little America-hating life, he?ll be right.

____

As I woke up this morning, I saw armour* pouring into Baghdad and it is clear that the end of Saddam Hussein is near. If you?re in command of an Iraqi artillery battery in Saddam City and that?s dust churned up by the United States Marine Corps ? not smoke from your own oil trenches or the smoldering metal of your armoured divisions ? that mutiny you are thinking about ? to refuse that order to fire the mustard gas or the VX, is the small payment on your chance. That mutiny you are contemplating may just buy you the mercy that is all the right of all soldiers. But you, at least, are a soldier. And I hope you remember the nobility that can be yours, and that mercy can be yours, even as you fight for an unlawful regime. Our men and women will give it to you, because for all of our many faults, we?re still the good guys.

____

Death may soon come to Uncle Saddam from a 7.62mm rifle cartridge or a 2000 pound JDAM. But somehow I hope Saddam?s death comes late at night, years from now, in exile in Egypt, when the Mossad awaken him from his first good night's sleep in months. Mossad will announce themselves, just long enough so he knows he?d been bested by Israel. He'll curse the Jews and he'll die in a sputtering, pneumatic hail of silenced .22s. He wears the uniform of a Field Marshall, but he?s no soldier. He?s earned no mercy. Not even the chance of it.

That Saddam Hussein will die without a ruling from a court of law may not be the perfect world -- but he created a Rule of Man and shunned the Rule of Law. And now he is most likely to die and the hand of man, untempered by even the chance of mercy. He made no payment on his chance. He's got nothing coming to him. And I won't pause over it even for a moment.

He?s done nothing but storm the gates and keep a country hostage for twenty-five years.

___

* Commonwealth spellings here at Pathetic Earthlings, until the end of hostilities, in honour of our British and Australian allies.

Life Imitates Art The minor

Life Imitates Art

The minor league team in Albuquerque, formerly the Dukes, has renamed itself the Isotopes. Go 'Topes!

UPDATE: Technically, the Dukes left New Mexico to become the Portland Beavers and the Calgary Cannons left Alberta to come to New Mexico and become the Isotopes. Yes, your honor, as they say, but my point remains.

Ghandi Action Figures I made

Ghandi Action Figures

I made a few bucks buying Mattel when it was below ten bucks a share, but I'm concerned that they're not seeking out the niche toy market aggressively as some of their Japanese competitors. I like action figures as much as the next guy, but I haven't been keeping an eye on the breadth of the market.

Who knew, for instance, that there still was a market for Action Figures tied-in with Blair Witch Project, Edward Scissorhands, Tron and the always age-appropriate Reservoir Dogs.

Everyone's Making Jokes About Baghdad's

Everyone's Making Jokes About Baghdad's New Airport Code

But for the record, it's BWN.

You can get some information on Iraqi Airways right here. Curiously, it's an all Boeing fleet. I don't think ol' Iraqi Airways is going to be buying a lot of Airbus in the next few years. Just a hunch.

I tried the main telephone number (+964-1-8863999) for Iraqi Airways, but didn't get through - it would have been cool if I'd found a US Marine or something on the other end.

Pfc Lynch at the Congressional

Pfc Lynch at the Congressional Medal of Honor

The excellent Rachel Lucas has some her excellent comments about the excellent Pfc Jessica Lynch. There's some talk afoot about awarding her the Congressional Medal of Honor (you don't "win" it), but it seems to me unlikely that Pfc Lynch will receive it. Not that she might not be worthy of it -- she is a tough hombre who apparently fought to the end -- she might. But unless we find her comrades alive, it's unlikely anyone is around to tell her story. And she's unlikely to say much more than "I just did my job."

Do yourself a favor and go to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society website and read through some of these citations. Senator Daniel Inoyue was awarded the Medal of Honor for a honest-to-god machine gun nest storming. Or Clarence Sasser, a medic, who, under heavy fire and his legs shattered by injury, crawled through 100 meters of mud to treat a fellow soldier.

These are stories of inhuman bravery and should be read and reflected upon.

Michael Kelly killed in Iraq

Michael Kelly killed in Iraq

Michael Kelly, one of my all-time favorite pundits, was killed in a Humvee roll-over while embedded with the 3d Infantry Division.

But he died doing what he loved, and that's not all bad.

Go... astronauts..... cosmonauts...errr...taikonauts... uhmmm... Indian

Go... astronauts..... cosmonauts...errr...taikonauts... uhmmm... Indian Space Explorers!

India is starting to make some more noise about their own space program, with hints at a manned program. This proposed 2015 time table for a manned lunar landing is way too ambitious when they've not shown even the beginnings of a manned program, but I'd be surprised if they aren't doing manned flights by the end of the decade (China launches their first taikonaut in October). They need to build up their own manned program -- which will take years -- before they go plant the flag on the moon, but there's no doubt they've got the technical expertise to do it.

You can visit the Indian Space Research Organization here.

Comments are Finally Up Finally

Comments are Finally Up

Finally got around to putting up a comments section. I'll make rules as I see fit down the road.

Best,
-The Management

If You But Doubt Your

If You But Doubt Your Courage, Come No Further, For Death Awaits You All With Big, Sharp, Pointy Teeth

Robert Fisk gives us yet another eccentric peformance.

Anyone who doubts that the Iraqi Army is prepared to defend its capital should take the highway south of Baghdad Fisk says, by way of explaining why the war is already lost for the United States.

Take the highway south of Baghdad? Gee, I think the 3rd Infantry Division did just that.

Noted via Rand Simberg.

Whiskey....and Sexy! "What, the man

Whiskey....and Sexy!

"What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring? "Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!""

Noted via Andrew Sullivan.

Iraq, I hasten to add, has a domestic beer industry -- they're no prohibitionists -- Ferida Brewing Company has been out of operation only once, during the First Gulf War (and presumably currently):

Here's a Reuters story on it, which I cannot find online -- this link is busted: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011008/lf/iraq_beer_dc_1.html

Sanctions and Religion Threaten Iraqi Brewery
by Khaled Yacoub Oweis
Reuters, October 8, 2001

BAGHDAD: The combination of water from the river Tigris, Bavarian hops and French malt has earned Iraq's Ferida brewery a reputation that stretches well beyond the country's borders.

``If you go to Baghdad, drink Ferida lager and eat grilled fish. They were among the best I ever had," says a senior Lebanese businessman who used to visit Iraq decades ago, when it was unburdened by embargo and external wars.

But the aging Ferida brewery in the Zaafaranieh district southeast of Baghdad is fighting an uphill battle to maintain quality and sales in an economy damaged by years of U.N. sanctions and a society where the hold of religion has increased.

Ferida, the country's oldest brewery which was established by Muslim and Christian industrialists in 1956, resumed production last month after stopping for months for what management described as ``technical reasons."

It was only the second stoppage in Ferida's history. Production ceased for some time during the1991 Gulf War when the U.S.-led bombardment of oil refineries cut deliveries of the diesel that powers the brewery's back-up generators.

Ferida swiftly returned to capture more than half the domestic market.

``Ferida's name still rings. It is regarded as a premium brand," says a leading distributor, conceding that imported beers would have challenged the dominance of Ferida and two other local brands if they were more affordable.

Iraqis appear to like the strong, if somewhat flat taste of Ferida, which is produced in refillable brown bottles. Ferida Red Label, a less strong and more expensive brew produced under license by Amman-based Middle East International Investment, is favored by foreigners.

``We were so proud when the Jordanian company approached us to buy the licensing rights. Imagine being able to export an Iraqi name under the conditions our industry is enduring," says Ferida General Manager Salem Rassam.

``Officials were swift in approving the paperwork. Like us, they were ecstatic," Rassam says.

Red Label is produced under stringent specifications - and it appears to show.

``Ferida Red is actually pretty good beer," says a foreign reporter who could not tolerate the taste of bottled Ferida.

An Iraqi drinker disagrees. ``We Iraqis want beer that has an immediate effect," he says. ``I remember drinking a pack of Red Label when I was at a discotheque in Amman. It did nothing for me."

Culturally diverse Iraq has traditionally been one of the biggest beer markets in the Middle East. But hyper-inflation and economic collapse following the Gulf War helped bring down Iraqi beer consumption to an estimated 250,000 hectoliters annually compared to a peak of over one million in the mid-1980s.

``We used to buy Ferida in boxes but we cannot afford to drink any more," said a government employee. ``The country also grew more religious," he added, citing a ban on serving alcohol that drove bars and night clubs out of business.

Some of the older Baghdad restaurants still serve beer and whiskey discreetly to preferred customers but by law alcohol can only be sold at licensed stores.

Ferida's refillable one-pint bottle sells for 650 dinars or about 32 cents, a sizable sum for most Iraqis. Sanabel and Shahrazad, the two other local brands in which Ferida has a stake, cost 500 dinars.

A large array of imported beer is also available but costs more than double local beer. It includes Ferida's Red Label cans, Amstel of the Netherlands and Laziza of Lebanon, which was among the first beers to be brewed in the Middle East in the early 1930s.

Ferida's Rassam says his company is comfortable with the competition.

``There are certain nuances of making beer that our competitors tend to ignore. We concentrate on keeping our lager golden, fresh and affordable," says the German-educated chemist.

But he admits that U.N. sanctions, which were imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, have prevented Ferida from importing equipment to switch to nonrefillable bottles and increasing efficiency.

``I would like to modernize the whole factory and make it less labor intensive," says Rassam, who has managed to maintain supply lines through Turkey and Jordan despite the sanctions.

``Iraqis have been always broad-minded. I am positive that the market will rebound once sanctions are lifted," he says.

For now Rassam says that Ferida, one of the top performing companies on the thin Baghdad Paper Securities Market, remains profitable. Each of its 2,000 shareholders can expect to collect the usual gift with their dividend -- 12 bottles of Ferida.

Al-Jazerra is Being Kicked Out

Al-Jazerra is Being Kicked Out of Iraq

Or, at least, being told by the Ministry of Information that they can no longer report from Iraq, so CNN has just reported.

Things must be bad indeed for the Ba'athists.

Post War Iraq Check out

Post War Iraq

Check out this set of links to Iraqi archeological sites. Mrs Earthling and I have always wanted to go to Petra, in Jordan -- and now that Iraq will shortly be free, I hope we can swing some of this stuff as well.

Honey, Can We Sell The

Honey, Can We Sell The House and Buy This? Please?

I enjoy Star Trek, although I'm not sure I own any Star Trek stuff beyond a handful of DVDs, but this... this is cool:

For $80,000 (reserve), you can own the Helm/Navigation station from the original Enterprise. Get over to EBay and start bidding.

UPDATE: Mrs Earthling says no.

"[The Marines] don't really advertise

"[The Marines] don't really advertise that they kill people."

Stephen Funk joined the United States Marine Corps Reserves. And God Bless him for it. But now he wants out.

He had had a lapse in judgment when he signed up as a 19-year-old, swayed by his recruiter's pitch of new skills, camaraderie and a naive belief that it would be "like the Boy Scouts."

Now he wants conscientious objector status -- and I suppose that's fine, too (he could have mentioned this when he joined up). He's the captain of his own soul and I shall not question his veracity. But can anyone smart enough to be a United States Marine be so stupid as to believe the business of the United States Marine Corps might not, from time to time, involving killing people?

UPDATE: My South Bay Military Advisor muses: "Perhaps Mr Funk thought he'd be defending the Sea of Fire against the Lava Beast with only a Cutlass."

What to the French and

What to the French and the Iraqi People Have In Common?

One in three want Saddam to win.

A Japanese Children's Show Talks

A Japanese Children's Show Talks Strategic & Tactics

My South Bay Military Advisor notes this tremendous link. I particularly like the large-headed Saddam Hussein.

Check it all out.