The Wise Man Says

It's http://blogged.rightweare.com. Please update your bookmarks.

NZ Bear, please update my Ecosystem listing.

Alliance, please update my listing there too :)

The Wise Man Says is moving and getting a name change.

In keeping with my domain name here, and to emphasize my militancy, I will be posting as General Belisaurius (and possibly other such Roman/Byzantine types), and my new blog name is Blogged & Dangerous. http://blogged.rightweare.com is the new address, and I will -try- to get everything like the Ecosystem and sitemeter set up by the end of this weekend. No time right now - getting ready to go bowling with a buddy.

I like Sean Hannity. I think Alan Colmes can even get things right once in a while, though not necessarily for the 'right' reasons.

But I hate watching Hannity & Colmes, and I hate the kind of interview that Diane Sawyer put President Bush through.

I hate it whether the person being questioned is a conservative or a liberal, a Republican or a Democrat.

Why?

Because it's 'attack' interviewing. And not just places like Hardball, where it's the nature of the program, but normal fricking interviews.

Someone fumbles part of what they're saying? Well, obviously they should be interrupted and attacked before they finish! Someone makes a statement, obviously we should ignore what they've said in order to press our so-called brilliant flow of attack questions!

A pox on all their houses.

Sawyer, next time you interview President Bush, STFU and let him state an answer and listen, so your rebuttals make some kind of sense. Hannity, Colmes, stop the damned crosstalk. One of you ask a question, wait for the answer, then the other. Force your guests not to interrupt your questions, to - that's just the other side of the damned process.

Any time someone comes on with a damned TV interview, this is why I turn it off.

Take care, folks - sometime after the first week of January, I'm going back to daily or more often posts, but right now my work doesn't allow me to ping weblogs from work (nor can I visit any blogspot site, I'm lucky to get to blogger), and what with Christmas shopping and weird work schedules, I have not the energy to post more than... hm, looks like once every two weeks :P Which puts me squarely at the folks on vacation at the next period of the update waveform.

UPDATE: Ooo, neat, just found a feature in blogger that automatically pings weblogs for me. Didn't know that.

Ooo, even neater - I'm now a Marauding Marsupial! On Pearl Harbor Day, I popped up from upper 40s for inbound links (and lower 40s for uniques), up to upper 80s for inbound links (and upper 70s for uniques).

Yeah, I'm no Instapundit, but wow, it's kinda cool. Gotta remember to take some time during vacation to update the ol' Manual Blogroll with a lot of reciprocal links.

David Eddings* once wrote a line that I'll paraphrase as, "No war was ever won by a committee".

It's a common sentiment. He probably got it from Clauswitz(sp?), who probably got it from Accepted Standard Military Wisdom Of His Buddies.

Sun Tzu probably wrote about it.

The United States Constitution, while reserving the right to formally declare War unto the Congress, reserves the role of Commander in Chief to one person - the President of the United States.

I'm sure any casual political junkie like myself realizes why it would be, not only wrong, but absurd, laughable, to give the command of the Military to Congress as a whole, or even to a Committee or Subcommittee. They'd never get anything done. They'd bicker and countermand each other and trade favors absurdly (you authorize invading my enemy, I'll authorize invading yours).

I fully admit I have no idea how the European Common Defense Force (or whatever the name is) will be organized, but it will no doubt fall prey to the same problem unless they establish an European Commanding General.

It's the same reason the UNSC, let alone the United Nations Grand Assembly has no - none, zero, zip, nada - actual Army under its control.

And it's that very reason, that very nature of committees, that is why America must - must - remain in control of the Teaching Of Iraq How To Be A Good Neighbor.

Give control to the UN? Fellow Conservatives (right-wingers, Republicans, etc) will laugh along with me, but beyond that, everyone else, there exists a very good reason the United Nations has only - after 50+ years - only East Timor to its credit (and I've no idea if that's still working or not).

The United Nations is, on every level, in every way, intentionally and expressly a committee. Its only true powers are 1) that of the committee, to talk things to death, and 2) what its most powerful members give it.

The United Nations cannot lead Iraq to prosperous democracy. The United Nations can't lead the hunt for the Fedayeen. The United Nations can't even lead an effective search for the Weapons of Mass Destruction (which are probably either in Syria et al, or sitting unlabelled in hundreds or thousands of public and secret weapons depots in Iraq).

The United Nations is a Committee, with a capital (or maybe a communal) C.

The United States of America is a Single Country, with a Single Commander in Chief, and CENTCOM has a single General in charge of its operations. The CPA has a single man in charge.

Make no mistake, this is why we aren't in Another Vietnam. If we were trying to run this by Committee, we would be. I suspect most of the Administration's less successful decisions came out of Committees among the factions - State vs Defense vs No Such Agency vs CIA vs Whatever.


Okay, that's the point of this post. The nature-of-site update:

1) Yeah, I'm posting a LOT less recently. Life gets in the way, as do a plethora of other interests. I Ain't Dead Yet!

2) Yeah, I will get off BlogSpot some day. Maripat, did you get my email with those questions?

3) For the Holiday Season, I may be on a more Whittlean or den Bestean schedule and nature: Every few days a post of more thoughtful nature than has been my past modus operandus. If I catch something like Operation Serve Thanksgiving Dinner before it's completely over and discussed to death, I may post something about it.

4) Once the primaries start, I'm sure I'll be back into politics with a vengeance. Those who dislike it, be warned, those who like it, be of good cheer.

*the site linked above was just the first decent one I found with a search for "David Eddings".

I think I just realized the other night why gay marriage, or at least the way it's argued for, makes my teeth itch:

It is precisely the same attitude as 'slavery reparations'.

<mocking, over-the-top depiction of Sullivan-on-gay-marriage removed because even I could see it would cause people to ignore what was being said in favor of reacting to it>

Gays who want to marry, I offer this advice:

1) Stop trying to treat it as an inalienable right. It's a privilege, both by law and by creed, or else I wouldn't be single, and I'm as straight as they come.

2) Realize that you may have to take half-measures for a long time. It hasn't killed you yet, if you're reading this.

3) Stop expecting the Socially Conservative Christian Denominations to change what they believe because it's inconvenient. Relatedly, realize they are being intellectually honest instead of flailing around like an elephant stuck on the tip of the needle of the Eiffel Tower. They are not out to get you. Try to respect their integrity just as much as you respect Bush for being tough on terrorism, or as much as you respect <insert equivalent left-of-center icon and position here>.

4) If you insist on staying in, say, the Catholic Church (heh, especially if you become a priest), remember: celibacy is an option. Hey, I'm a 24-year-old straight guy, and it works for me. If you want to change Social Conservative attitudes - start from something they already respect. Celibacy outside of marriage is what I recommend, as I'd recommend it to non-gays as well.

5) You are not a 'victim' just because you can't marry the person of your dreams. You're a victim if you get beat up just for being a man attracted to other men. If you survive such an event, you are not forever a victim, even though you were victimized. You're only a victim so long as you don't do your part to eliminate that which makes you vulnerable: educate your community, fight back... heck, get a gun and a concealed carry license. If you are a victim of physical abuse just because of your preference, don't fall into battered-spouse-syndrome: It's their fault they attacked you, not yours for being attacked. Call them on it. Round up a sympathetic crowd to make your case to the cops if you have to.

6) Fight back if you're attacked, but don't go attacking me or any other Christian or straight verbally simply because we draw the line at 'tolerate' rather than 'completely accept'. You're asking for people who often don't even 'tolerate' their in-laws, ferchrissake, to make such a radical change of stance?

7) On a related note, realize that just because you say you can 'live and let live' with the 'wrongheaded' Social Right, doesn't mean that's what you're doing.

8) Just because you're gay, doesn't mean everything is about gays or gay marriage.

Confession: Probably 75% of this is drawn from the attitude I see from Andrew Sullivan whenever he mentions, say, John Derbyshire, or just about anything on gay marriage. The other 25%, by its very phrasing, is drawn from advice I'd like to scream into the brain of anyone who thinks 'their group' makes them a victim, or that being a minority means the majority should kowtow to their want, not need, for a Privilege they've decided is a Right.

(Sparked by this post. Sorry, Ith, if it gets you hatemail from those who don't read the entire post I'm linking to.)

Ralph, Ralph, Ralph... wake up, man. It's clear you have a pathological, obsessive hatred for Rumsfeld and an addiction to Overwhelming Numbers as the be-all and end-all of strategy. If it wasn't before, you've just made it perfectly clear with this article.

Time and again you point out how the terrorists are playing to the media, and the media spinning false wins for them in return.

Yet you finish up - as you started out - by castigating Rumsfeld and suggesting he be fired, that somehow it's all his fault that the terrorists still exist, that the terrorists use the media, and that the media suck up to the terrorists and are willingly used by them.

Grow up, will you? Put aside your - to use your word - 'ideological' hatred of Rumsfeld's positions. You'll be a better columnist for it, and one I can better respect.

(This post is.. um... a few days late to be 'published'. Dunno if it made it out there or not, I tend not to 'visit' my own page unless I've messed with the template, in order to keep the traffic accurate).

Let me start out by asking an obvious question:

DOES THIS MAN HAVE NO UNDERSTANDING OF BASIC SECURITY?!

Rockefeller also took a swipe at those behind the leak of the memo, saying it "was likely taken from a wastebasket or through unauthorized computer access."

(From the Union Leader)

Duh? Shred those memos, moron, especially if they're indelicate draft forms. Encrypt and password-protect your documents.

This should be basic SOP for someone on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Moving on, this dirty, underhanded, put-politics-ahead-of-country attitude (to quote, "Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern..."), shows just how irresponsible the Democratic Party is (as opposed to working-man Democrats, many of whom are good, if misguided and seriously deluded folks (just teasing here)). If the Party is this irresponsible and, indeed, malevolent towards matters of national security, how much better can their presidential candidates be?

Please, volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign.

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