Shot In The Dark

Schwartzkopf Again - Eric Boysen

Schwartzkopf Again - Eric Boysen writes:

Let's see..............the president's father and America's favorite real life general are hunting buddies. Colin Powell finally folds up his "let diplomacy work" tent, dumb ol' George W. delivers a masterful State of the Union address, and the next thing you know ol' Stormin' Norman's off the reservation. Hmmmmmmmm..............it just gets curiouser and curiouser, don't it?

Off the reservation? Or playing a convenient "Good Cop?"

Back up.

Whether as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or as Secretary of State, Colin Powell has always played the role of the dissenting dove. It really doesn't matter if he actually believes in the material, it's his job. He serves at the direction of the president. There's always a dove in the administration; there has to be. Otherwise, it's the Kremlin, not the White House.

It's a principle of almost any type of human interaction: Want to make a sour dish? Add a dash of sugar. Want to interrogate a particularly nasty perp? Give 'em a good cop. In theatrical lighting - wanna emphasize a bright spot? Use cool backlighting. Want to emphasize the yang? Toss in some Yin.

No, it's not new-agey twaddle - it's a key factor of human interaction; contrasts emphasize.

Leave aside the whole aspect of (I suspect) the entire Potemkin "dove" movement within the administration, drawing the left out to be recognized.

Eric moves to a great point here:

Now that Secretary Powell has thrown down the gauntlet, lost patience, and had his little tantrums right on script for the benefit of the liberal media he's been leading around by the nose, (not to mention the State Department, Democrats in Congress, European ninnies, etc.) out trots Norman Schwartzkopf to pick up the leash.

After Stormin' Norman takes Matt and Katie and the rest of the Katzenjammer Kids out for a few laps around the Maypole, he's bound to have an epiphany himself. Eureka!! Then maybe we'll hear from John McCain, and so on and so on. This is how to control the media in wartime. It's textbook.

The irony is the liberals in general and the Democrats in Congress either don't recognize their own techniques or cannot let on that they do. This is why they sent out not the head coach, the team captain, or even the pitcher to respond to Bush's State of the Union, but the guy selling popcorn in the upper decks of Washingstonia. Ideologically, the Democrats can't support the administration; politically, they can't oppose the administration. So they sent out the mascot.

This is a very accomplished and media savvy administration about to unleash the dogs of war. It's a certainty they have as much control of the news cycle by now as is humanly possible. It would be criminally stupid not to have control of it.

Great points.

The War on Ugly Guns

The War on Ugly Guns - According to the Times, the "Violence Policy Center", in response to the wave of terrorists using large-caliber precision sniping rifles against passenger aircraft, is drawing a bead (heh heh) on .50 caliber "sniper" rifles.

The guns, .50-caliber rifles, sell for thousands of dollars and are primarily purchased by military and law enforcement personnel, but hundreds are bought by civilians every year. Some manufacturers' marketing material emphasizes that the rifles can destroy aircraft and armored personnel carriers.

Neither the times nor the manufacturers mention the other factors involved in such shooting. We'll get to that in a bit, here:

Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, the gun-control group that has long campaigned for bans on the .50-caliber rifles, said: "This is not just a gun control issue. It's a national security issue."

They could have been campaigning for a long time - it's certainly a big part of today's VPC presentation - because .50 caliber "sniping" rifles have been available since the early 1850's. The first, in fact - the .52 caliber Sharps rifle - lent its' name to the word we use today to describe an expert marksman, "Sharpshooter".

That, of course, predates manned flight by 50 years. No civilian planes have been shot down by such weapons (as distinguished from .50 caliber machine guns, which took a horrendous toll on US helicopters and aircraft in Vietnam).

The Times gives the truth a chance:

The Transportation Security Administration, however, does not see the rifles as a major threat. Robert Johnson, the agency's chief spokesman, said: "We are aware of it. We have considered it as part of a number of potential threats. We just don't feel it is high on the list of potential dangers."

Manufacturers and many gun enthusiasts say the rifles' critics are overzealous gun opponents who falsely raise fears about terrorism.

Ronnie G. Barrett, a manufacturer [of the Barret Light .50, a weapon of choice among Delta Force, SEAL, SAS and Special Forces snipers], said the idea of shooting down a moving plane with the rifle was "big time ridiculous" because a gunman would have to aim above the plane, to take account of gravity's effect on the bullet as it traveled, and then the plane would not be visible in the scope.

Other rifles could also be used against planes on the ground, Mr. Barrett said.

Mr. Barrett is both correct, and too modest. Any rifle can be used against planes on the ground - and with about the same effect as the .50 caliber weapons.

Alan J. Vick, one of the two authors of the study, said that the possibility of using .50-caliber rifles against parked aircraft was worrisome.

"These weapons are heavy, and as a sniper weapon, using a bipod, laying down, shooting at some terrestrial target, they can be very accurate," Mr. Vick said. "I can understand why people would be worried about them as a terrorism weapon."

He and other experts, while sometimes skeptical that the gun could be used successfully against a plane in the air, said it could damage and possibly ignite a plane on the ground.

Indeed. So, let's walk through this scenario, shall we?

1. A group of terrorists spends thousands of dollars on a .50 rifle, rather than on five to ten smaller weapons of adequate capability.
2. The terrorists bring the weapon to a location from which they can shoot at aircraft. Let's assume the terrorists have access to snipers as well-trained as the Delta Force, SAS or SEALS - they'd need to get within 2,000 yards of the airport's runways, apron or hangers. That's an intimidating shot if you're not a world-class expert (Delta, SAS or SEAL), but what the heck.

   And if you want to shoot them while flying, you'll need to get down under the glide path (or take a VERY difficult high-deflection shot at a target moving 120-200 mph). Remember, last summer's "Shoulder Fired Surface to Air Missile" scare caused glide paths and airport environs to be more heavily-observed than before.

So the scenario would be...what? A small group of men, one of whom is carrying a six-foot-long rifle, is to sneak into the generally-populated around a major airport, or under the now-guarded glide paths of the same airport? Unobtrusively?

And precisely why would they do that, to deliver a small bullet that'd be only dubiously likely to actually shoot down an airliner, when for the same load and risk, they could bring a surface to air missile (banned for the average American - relax, VPC - but easily available to real terrorists, and vastly more likely to do damage or destroy the target?

The VPC shows its ignorance, incidentally, comparing the task to "bird hunting". Birds don't move at 200 mph. And while shooting a bird with a shotgun at 20-50 yards is simple, try hitting one with a single shot from, say, a deer rifle with a scope. More daunting, to be sure.

The Times quotes an expert:

John Plaster, a retired Special Forces officer who has tutored police snipers, pointed out that such rifles were awkward to maneuver, weighing about 35 pounds.

"It's very unrealistic," Mr. Plaster said. "I have never heard of a commercial plane anywhere in the world that was seriously damaged while in flight by a .50-caliber rifle, ever. It's not by any means a choice weapon."

Sales literature from Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, says of one model, "The compressor section of jet engines or the transmissions of helicopters are likely targets for the weapon, making it capable of destroying multimillion dollar aircraft with a single hit delivered to a vital area."

A competitor, E.D.M. Arms, advertises on the Web that its Windrunner .50-caliber can be used to "attack various materiel targets such as parked aircraft, radar sites, ammunition, petroleum and various thinned-skinned materiel targets."

The essential qualifier - "in the hands of an expert marksman" - went unstated.

I love this - the obligatory scare quote:

Caliber refers to the diameter of the barrel, and .50 caliber is half an inch. At the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Curt Bartlett, chief of the Firearms Technical Branch, said of the .50 caliber, "anything bigger than that would be getting into the range of cannons."

"Omigosh, Muffy! Terrorists can buy something that's almost as big as a cannon!"

Yep. In the world of ordnance, any bullet bigger than .8 inches in diameter is a "cannon shell". In the same way that any car over a certain size is a "truck". The whole line exists to frighten the ignorant.

Inevitably, we end with this:

Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said he would soon introduce legislation to regulate the weapons. Mr. Waxman said he had observed a demonstration at which marines used the rifles to shoot through a three-and-a-half-inch manhole cover, a 600-pound safe and "everything imaginable."

Expert Marksmen, ideal conditions, etc, etc.

It's a crisis in search of a problem.

I'll be following this.

Light Day - More job

Light Day - More job hunting. Will post more tonight or over the weekend.

I'll be throwing such a party when this is over. And you'll all be invited!

Schwartzkopf - Earlier this week,

Schwartzkopf - Earlier this week, the left launched itself into a paroxysm of glee - Retired Army General Norman Schwartzkopf, made a comment that could be described as opposing invading Iraq.

What a difference a day makes:

(CNSNews.com) - General Norman Schwarzkopf made headlines on Tuesday when he told The Washington Post he "would like to have better information" before endorsing a U.S.-led war against Iraq. War skeptics seized on his remarks to paint any U.S. action as ill-advised.

But on Wednesday, Gen.Schwarzkopf told NBC's Today show he thought President Bush's State of the Union speech was "very compelling," and he said he looks forward to hearing the declassified information that Secretary of State Colin Powell will share with the world next week.

"Saddam's got to go," Schwarzkopf said Wednesday morning. "He's a monster in every single way you can think of and with the linkage to the terrorists, it's scary what in fact could be done."

I have to admit, I was perplexed by Schwartzkopf's stance on the war. I think a friend of mine, Brian Jones in Atlanta, has it figured out, though. This is from an email from a list-server on which we're both members:

...I smell rope-a-dope. As soon as everybody falls behind Stormin' Norman (like the elder geopolitical statesman he's become now that he's spouting something they want to hear), saying, "Yeah, where's the nukes, we can't go without nukes," we'll get some new intelligence on nukes. Say, next week or so.

I'd thought this; Bush will let the opposition rant itself blue about "no evidence", and commit itself to attacking an evidence-less invasion; then, Bush'll release evidence he's had for quite some time, cutting the knees out of under the opposition.

As the tanks begin to roll.

Job Hunt Hijinks - As

Job Hunt Hijinks - As I think I've mentioned on here before, I'm a software designer. Depending on the company I'm working for, my job title might be "GUI Designer", "Information Architect", "Business Analyst", or (I love these) "Usability Engineer" or "Human Factors Engineer". What a wonderful country, where a guy with BA in English can be called "Engineer" without "Sanitation" in front of it. But seriously - where most companies design their software user interfaces by guess, gosh and golly, I bring some engineering methodology to the task - which saves companies a bundle of money. Honest.

I'm not writing this to serve as an online resume (although if you're an IT hiring manager and happen to need someone who do the voodoo I do, please write!), but as a shot of economic good news.

My job is a "leading indicator". Projects and companies hire people like me when they're getting projects off the ground, ramping up, getting ready to move ahead on things.

The last year in my field has been very slow. Not a lot of jobs to be had. I was lucky I had the crappy job I did, even if it ended three months early.

This week, I've been getting some rumblings. Companies calling back. Interviews with hiring managers instead of headhunters (and headhunters calling with open positions). No offers yet - but the fact that the rumblings have started is a good sign.

I hope.

So let's phrase this in the form of economic punditry: My consumer confidence is at a historic low of "0" for this week, but the outlook is improving, depending on whether an offer comes through any time soon.

Low Tower - Some of

Low Tower - Some of my friends - these'd be friends on the far left of the DFL and a few Greens - bloviate about what a fabulous guy Jim Hightower is. They were the same ones who swore Hightower's talk show would push Limbaugh off the air, about five years ago, but I digress.

Hightower attacks the notion of the liberal media:

"Liberal Media" my butt! The true bias of the barons who control virtually all of the mass media is not to the left or even to the right, but to the top... to their own corporate class. The so-called "news" we get is filtered through the media's corporate lenses and tinted to a nice, rosey corporate hue. Indeed, revealed by the diligent watchdog group called PR Watch, it turns out that many of the "news stories" we see on television are actually nothing but video feeds from corporations with something to sell.

Y'know, I'll give Hightower this much: there's a point in there. The media is most loyal to "the establishment" of which it's a part.

Now - someone please show me where the major media have come down on the right side of, say, gun control? Abortion? Tax cuts? Contraceptives in schools?

After years of asking, I await Mr. Hightower's answer - or that of any of his supporters - on that question.

Blast of Cold Water -

Blast of Cold Water - Regis Sabol is left-wing pundit with a long portfolio.

He's also apparently been under a rock for a while. I found this article on Fraters Libertas - an article in an online 'zine Mr. Sabol edits.

Just about any city with an AM radio talk show boasts a few Rush Limbaugh disciples. The guys I ran into in Erie, Pennsylvania, were Limbaugh wannabes. They had the same flapping jaws but not half the intelligence.

Because I don’t listen to talk radio, I didn’t know what I was in for when I called Jeff Johns at WJET 1400 Talk Radio to get publicity for MoveOn.org, a national anti-war organization.

That sets things off for me. Mr. Sabol - supposedly a pundit dealing with the events of the day - seems to be unaware that AM talk radio has become a province - really, the major mass-media presence - of the right, and certainly the only place where the "conservative street" finds a voice.

Mr. Sabol, as Fraters points out, is a mover and shaker behind "Move On", which the Fraters' Saint Paul described as well as anyone ever has:

”Move On” is the group that formed back in 1998 with a single purpose, to support the right of older, married male employers to shag their young female interns while on the clock. Their first case concerned a gentleman named Bill Clinton. (Unfortunately for lascivious, immoral, aging men everywhere, "Move On" never moved on to find a second case to defend.) In an effort to easily distill their message to Congress and the American people on how Mr. Clinton should be punished, their official slogan back then was “Censure and Move On” (many in their constituency of lascivious, immoral, aging men preferred the slogan “Zip Up and Move On,” but that never really caught on with the media consultants).

So we have a guy whose organization's entire M.O. is to forgive the oopses (intern-banging, genocide) of...whom? Anyone opposed to Republicans, I guess.

Sabol, like a sheep to the wolves, was shocked...shocked, I tell you - to find out that conservative talk show hosts didn't learn argumentation in grad school seminars:

We weren’t more than two minutes into the interview when Johns asked if I thought it was all right for Saddam Hussein to gas his own people. What the hell does this have to do with the MoveOn petitions, I thought.

Bear in mind, we're getting the entire context for this exchange from one of the participants, one with whom I'm sure I disagree on most issues. But I can think of three possible answers to his question:

1. Mr. Sabol is used to the media with which he deals being uncritical, sympathetic, even sycophantic to his cause. It's likely the only interviews he's ever given are with NPR affiliates, Pacifica stations, and major networks staffed with Clinton supporters and Democrats, who'd be perfectly willing to uncritically pass on word of "MoveOn's" petitions without question or comment, or
2. Mr. Sabol is crying crocodile tears. He set up this interview in full knowledge that he was going to be running into "right wing attack dogs", and he wanted a patented "I'm in the belly of the beast" article with which to titillate his Volvo-driving, "No War In Iraq"-sign-displaying, dictator-appeasing readership, or
3. Mr. Sabol isn't the brightest light on God's christmas tree.

The interview continued - but really, we all know where this is going, don't we? Innocent lamb lost among the right-wing wolves, yadda yadda. The two talk show hosts tried to tie him to anti-American activities - fairly or unfairly, read the article and judge for yourself.

It's more interesting, really, to note his adjectives used for describing the hosts through the rest of the piece:

• "Joe McCarthy would have been proud. "
• "I could see these guys at work in a KGB interrogation room" [Actually, liberal gab host Geraldo Rivera perfected this form of interview...]>"these right-wing media whores" [As if "MoveOn" isn't entirely a product of media prostitution]
• "Sadly, America has a long tradition of airwave demagoguery. The Jew-hating Father Coughlin drew millions to his weekly broadcasts during the 1930’s and 1940’s. His more contemporary avatars are Paul Harvey and, the most successful of them all, Rush Limbaugh, who has made Hitler’s theory of the Big Lie his stock and trade. [Comparing Harvey and Limbaugh to Coughlin? Indeed? Let's leave aside the Internet truism that once Hitler is invoked, the argument is illegitimate - isn't that big talk for someone who two breaths earlier was whining about "McCarthyism"?]
• Millions of his benighted followers believe that if Rush said it, it must be true, no matter how outlandish the lie. "
• "Like carriers of the bubonic plague, right-wing radio gunslingers have crawled out of some primordial slime to attack any hapless caller or guest who disagrees with them or, foolishly, attempts to reason with them." [Open note to Mr. Sabol - when have "you" ever tried to "reason" with "us?"]
• "They are fascistic yahoos of the first stripe "
• "appealing to an audience that is, at best, gullible or subscribes to right-wing dogma, especially when it is served up with venomous mean-mindedness. " [So unlike the intellectual giants who chant "MoveOn! MoveOn!", regardless of the facts]
• "These vermin hone their skills at the Goebbels School of Radio Broadcasting." [Oddly, this form of talk radio was "pioneered" by the likes of Tom Leykis and Alan Berg. Goebbelsish, perhaps - and on Mr. Sabol's side of the fence]
• "Their great role model is Joe McCarthy, the alcoholic demagogue who was drummed out of the United States Senate after inflaming the great Red Witch Hunts of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s and leaving a bloody trail of ruined lives. " [Perhaps it's time to expand that Internet truism to include references to McCarthy - especially two, disconnected references in the same article]
• "The two local yokels "
• "My country right or wrong. I thought we’d settled that defense at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. " [Perhaps Mr. Sabol needs to be reminded - the First Amendment applies as much to "yokels" in Erie, Pennsylvania as it does to, say, Robert Mapplethorpe. Nuremberg didn't settle any "free speech" issues - other than the "yokels'" right to speak as freely as Mr. Sabol]
• "slathering attack dogs"...

...and so on.

And while Mr. Sabol professes shock at the type of communication that "right wing talk radio" uses, MoveOn itself is behind some pretty shabby, emotionally-manipulative propaganda that would have done proud any authoritarian Minister of Information.

I guess the only response is to advise Mr. Sabol to follow his own group's advice: When you're facing something that you find repulsive, wrong-headed, obnoxious, evil, ugly, and "benighted", well...

...just "Move On".

Deathblow? - Austin Bay, on

Deathblow? - Austin Bay, on why conquering Iraq might put Al Quaeda on the ropes:

9-11's strategic ambush sought to force America to fight on Al Qaeda's terms, to suck the United States into a no-win Afghan war, to bait the United States into launching a "crusade against Islam." Osama bin Laden believed he possessed an edge in ideological appeal, "faith based" strength against what he perceived as U.S. decadence. U.S. failure in Afghanistan would ignite a global "clash of civilizations" pitting all Muslims against America.

The key element of guerrilla warfare, of course - don't fight on your enemy's terms. Not only that, take the fight to him on your own.

Bin Laden's strategy flopped, for a slew of reasons. Chief among them, American liberty remains an ideologically powerful idea. The United States also pulled an "asymmetric" military move of sorts, using Green Beret-guided Afghan allies and hi-tech airpower to topple the Taliban.

It's a play straight from the British playbook - it's exactly how the British fought in many brushfire wars from the '50s through the '70s; SAS-led locals, bankrolled by London, did the dirty work, supported by judicious application of RAF firepower and small units of elite (Parachute Regiment and Royal Marines) infantry when muscle was needed. We saw a reprise of that strategery, only more ambitious, last winter in Afghanistan.

Bay continues to his conclusion:

The massive American build-up around Iraq serves as a baited trap that Al Qaeda cannot ignore. Failure to react to the pending American attack would demonstrate Al Qaeda's impotence. For the sake of their own reputation (as well as any notion of divine sanction), Al Qaeda's cadres must show CNN and Al Jazeera they are still capable of dramatic endeavor.

Like the Tet Offensive, Al Quaeda must "show the flag", earn its credibility.

This ain't theory. Al Qaeda's leaders and fighters know it, and the rats are coming out of their alleys. In Afghanistan, several hundred Al Qaeda fighters in the Pakistani border region have gone on the offensive. They specifically link their attacks to America's pending assault on Baghdad. Al Qaeda terror teams are reportedly moving into Western Europe.

Al Qaeda's offensive thrust in Afghanistan produces open targets for the 82nd Airborne Division. Moving and communicating terror cells are terror cells more vulnerable to police detection. Moreover, the terrorists are no longer operating on their time line, but on America's time line. The United States creates a situation where Al Qaeda either loses ideological credibility or must risk operations during a time of focused U.S. intelligence activity.

Ever see "Das Boot"? A U-Boat was safe when laying still and quiet deep underwater. It was also perfectly ineffective, hiding and not taking any offensive action. When it fires up its engines and has to go someplace...that's when it becomes vulnerable. Same for terrorists; the only purpose they serve when hiding underground is as a threat, and as fodder for left-wing armchair strategists who bay at the moon about waiting for the US to capture them before dealing with Iraq...

But the big blow to Al Qaeda will be the loss of Baghdad. Baghdad is a counter-terror intelligence trove. Saddam's fall will loosen knowledgeable tongues. Al Qaeda will have fewer alleys to inhabit.

But the big loss will be access to Saddam's WMD. A WMD spectacular is the kind of operation that can reverse Al Qaeda's international propaganda decline.

As always, read the whole thing.

(Via Instapundit)

Multilateral - So here's what

Multilateral - So here's what happened:

• Congress demanded that the President get their approval. Bush got their approval.
• Congress and the media demanded that the President go through the UN
• Congress and the media demanded that the President allow inspections. Bush got the inspections.
• The left and the media demanded that the President wait until the inspections found something incriminating. So they did.

So finally, the left and the media demanded that Bush "wait for the allies".

Here they are - the prime ministers of Spain, Portugal, Italy, the U.K., Hungary, Poland and Denmark, and the president of the Czech Republic.

What next, Democrats?

The Peevish Left - I

The Peevish Left - I found a surprising editorial in today's Strib, by Paul Scott.

I'm a lefty. But lately, instead of inspiring me, the left keeps making me feel awful about the world.

Awful? When the world is about to suffocated from global warming and we're about to led into a quagmire by the government? Why awful?

Sorry, I digress:

My latest lefty-awful moment happened on Martin Luther King Day last week, as I turned on an MPR call-in show. The subject was the peace movement, and host Katherine Lanpher's guest was New York-based professor of sociology and commentator Todd Gitlin.

An older listener had called in to say he had lived through World War II, had seen what happened when you appeased a megalomaniac, and was starting to get uncomfortable about the reflexive opposition to war with Iraq. He was comparing Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler, of course, and mentioned that he remembered Neville Chamberlain's visit to Berlin. Greatest Generation be damned, however; after a minute or so Lanpher told Grandpa to get to his point, argued with him when he asked for more time, then cut him off and turned the mike over to Gitlin.

Let me make a quick aside here: Katherine Lanpher is inexcusable. She's the most inept talk show host in the Twin Cities today. She's a terrible interviewer (heaven help her if the talkback from the producer went out), she handles callers incredibly badly...

...and as much as I respect MPR's news division (yes, fellow conservatives, I think the hard-news people there do a decent job) Lanpher is about as blinkeredly leftist as Ira Glass, without being able to hide behind "art". She's positioned as a pseudo-journalistic "News and issues" host, but she's no less biased than Jason Lewis or Syl Jones. Just less honest about it.

Back to the article:

"The caller can't possibly remember Neville Chamberlain going to Berlin," said the eagle-eyed professor, "because Chamberlain went to Munich. And the rest of his statement is about that accurate."

Touché!

Gitlin has himself written about the alienating ways of the peace movement, so it was disappointing to see him assume the stance that minds are changed through argument and ridicule. After a point-by-point refuting of the comparison between Saddam and Hitler -- steadfastly avoiding any acknowledgment the caller might just be a fellow member of the human race, responding to his very real and affecting experience in life -- our thoughtful radio expert submitted his rhetorical coup de grace: "The analogy crumbles," he said. "It's made of proverbial sand."

Beating up on callers - nervous, fumbling with their thoughts under pressure - is the hallmark of the cheapshot artist.

If you've never called a talk show - it's not easy. You hold...and hold...and hold...

...and suddenly, there's a harsh screeching sound as the host says your name and the telemixer puts you on the air. And BOOM - you have to be coherent.

It's hard enough all by itself. Then, Cacklin' Katherine starts with her little song and dance (if you dare to disagree with her).

It's not easy.

Back to Scott:

I felt bad for the caller -- how shabbily the two had treated him on their little morning show here in the waning years of his life. I also began to wonder where the left gets its harshness -- a know-it-all style of dark grievance-dom that has increasingly come to define the peace movement.

When I was filling in on KSTP the other night, James Lileks summed it up nicely. There are three categories of leftists:

1. People who view their disagreements with conservatives as honest differences between peers
2. people who are liberals and just don't think about it that much - it's all they've known, they really don't care about alternatives, and
3. those who view liberalism as a force that must wipe out a benighted, ugly, stupid, evil opposition. We know who we're dealing with here, don't we?

Back to Mr. Scott:

It was on my mind because I had seen this belief system in full bloom two nights earlier, as I watched a replay of the day's big Washington, D.C., antiwar demonstration.

At the march, speaker upon speaker proclaimed the supposed true motivation behind the current U.S. build-up: The rush to war is about oil. The rush to war is about U.S. global aggression. The rush to war is about Bush Jr. finishing the work of Bush Sr. The rush to war, according to the very name of the organizing body behind Saturday's protest march -- International ANSWER, or Act Now to Stop War and End Racism -- is about race.

The soup of causes, theories and pronouncements made my head spin. It also made me wary of my spokespersons. Much has been made of late of the unlikely bed-partners at these marches -- how the merely conscientious must sit through the orations of the terminally consternated. How the presence of former Milosevic-defender and attorney general Ramsey Clark shouting for impeachment might just alienate the less-cynical pastors, housewives and earnest teenagers who had boarded buses to Washington.

Indeed, it may be the best we can hope for.

I just wish that every gathering of my lefties didn't have to become such a tedious exercise in cause-linking, chant-bullhorning and supposed truth-telling. I have the fantasy of a progressive cause with no Youth and Student Coordinator, no West Coast Representative, no brother from the movement in the country to the south and no presumption that words like Solidarity, Network, Action and Uprising are always to be treated as gospel, the code words that say we are all the same.

An acquaintance described a Green Party convention as being like a Puritan gathering - serious to the point of obsession, dour, clenched...

...that's the impression I - and apparently Scott - got while looking at the demonestrations: like Temperance protesters of the 1890's, awash in the seriousness of their cause, not wanting to sully its purity with any false levity.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. didn't play this game. Look at his face, full of dignity and calm while being pushed into the police station counter like a petty thief. Far from being consumed with rhetorical swordsmanship, crowd counts and secret agendas, he seemed to gain confidence in standing up against the simple, obvious truth -- the whack jobs that the Southern whites had become. He may have come out against the Vietnam War, he may have embraced a peripheral cause or two, but I can't imagine he would have strayed from the optimism of his dream to support the grab-bag of activism and sour outlooks of the scoundrels who would try to use the moment to sign us up for less defensible causes. (Long live the Palestinian people? Isn't theirs the cause that bombed a Sbarro?)

And I can't see him doing something so ineffectual or insecure as pointing out a mistake about an event that happened 70 years ago, not when there was a potential friend to be made.

I suggest this: To the left, there are no potential friends. There are allies, and there are enemies.

It all boils down to the most noxious, caustic phrase to gain acceptance in recent years: "If you're not with us, you're against us", or it's collegiate cousin, "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem".

All of us who aren't convinced? Yep. We're the problem.

Another Tricky Day - Three

Another Tricky Day - Three job interviews today. The first one - at a local Fortune 500 - is one I really want. Badly. Your prayers, Karmic vibes and best wishes are all eagerly encouraged, as always.

Bloggered - The Blogger website - via which I publish Shot in the Dark - has been down most of the day.

I'll try to catch up here.

A Few Good Men -

A Few Good Men - Former Marine Richard Botkin has an excellent article in the current World Net Daily on those who, a week and a half ago, left ports on the east coast for "Southwest Asia". The whole article's worth a read. But having re-immersed myself in SLA Mashall lately, this paragraph struck me:

When I think about the pending war, I think of the protesters, the appeasers, the America haters, Sean Penn, Tom Daschle, Bill Clinton, the French. The only thing the peace-at-any-price crowd has in common with the few warriors who will be at the absolute tip of the spear when hostilities begin is that neither group wants to go to war.

America will win this war against evil. Complete victory this time is the only option. It will be won with or without the support of Al Sharpton, with or without the support of Hillary Clinton, with or without the support of the Germans and the Chinese, and with or without the support of every Hollywood dimwit who thinks sacrifice means drinking grapefruit juice for breakfast.

This war against evil will be won because of who is going to fight it. Armed to the teeth with 21st-century technology, schooled and thoroughly trained in the latest tactics, the on-paper edge goes to our side. Far more important though than all of the precision weapons and night-vision equipment is the firmly rooted culture of victory and sacrifice and duty of our nation's Marine Corps.

Botkin being a former marine, the article lionizes the Corps. He's entitled.

But the same description holds for the rest of the people on their way overseas as we speak. It's not just the weapons, or the numbers - if it were, the Soviets would have trounced Finland in days in 1940. It's who we're sending that makes the difference.

Long Day - I'll catch

Long Day - I'll catch up the blogging tonight. Lots going on today.

No job offers yet, but we're working on it.

Hitch on Weasels - Christopher

Hitch on Weasels - Christopher Hitchens attacks and debunks the "Cowboy" trope. That's the myth so beloved of the far left and the Axis of Weasels - that Bush and the adminstration are a rogue posse of vigilantes.

A cowboy surely would have wanted to do something dramatic and impulsive (such as to blow up at least an aspirin-factory in Sudan) in order to beat the chest and show he wasn't to be messed with. But it turns out that refined Parisians are keener on such "unilateral" gestures—putting a bomb onboard the Rainbow Warrior, invading Rwanda on the side of the killers, dispatching French troops to the Ivory Coast without a by-your-leave, building a reactor for Saddam Hussein, and all the rest of it.

True.

Here's the summary:

In the present case of Iraq, a cowboy would have overruled the numerous wimps and faint hearts who he somehow appointed to his administration and would have evinced loud scorn for the assemblage of sissies and toadies who compose the majority of the United Nations. Instead, Bush has rejoined UNESCO, paid most of the U.S. dues to the U.N., and returned repeatedly to the podium of the organization in order to recall it to its responsibility for existing resolutions. While every amateur expert knows that weather conditions for an intervention in the Gulf will start to turn adverse by the end of next month, he has extended deadline after deadline. He has not commented on the eagerness of the media to print every injunction of caution and misgiving from State Department sources. The Saudis don't want the United States to use the base it built for the protection of "the Kingdom"? Very well, build another one in a state that welcomes the idea. Do the Turks and Jordanians want to have their palms greased before discovering what principles may be at stake? Greased they will be. In a way, this can be described as "a drive to war." But only in a way. It would be as well described as a decided insistence that confrontation with Saddam Hussein is inevitable—a proposition that is relatively hard to dispute from any standpoint

Read the whole thing, of course.

I've said it over and over - in this blog, on the air the other night, and in countless conversations on the subject: the US, and the President, have played this by the numbers. For all the caterwauling about "unilateralism" and "going it alone", we have played the consensus game. Bush had played the game masterfully.

And the left, outraged at being outmaneuvered, doesn't like it one bit.

(Via Instapundit)

Deserve Victory - Fellow Churchill

Deserve Victory - Fellow Churchill buff Elder, from Fraters Libertas, sends this:

I just wanted to let you know that we've created some bumper stickers (hopefully lawn signs are next) to counter the anti-war Left and the "No War With Iraq" signs which I'm sure you've grown as tired of seeing as we have. Our slogan is simple; "Deserve Victory!" and is borrowed from one of the greatest war leaders of all time, Winston Churchill.

Check it out and send in your order.

Of course, a Churchill quote is a quick route to the "A" list of my attention span. The Fraters run this one - surely a classic:

Last time I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own fellow-countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind. There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe.

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

We cannot guarantee victory, but only deserve it.

And pass the word.

One Prayer Answered - Dave

One Prayer Answered - Dave Barry has a blog.

Crunch - I've been job

Crunch - I've been job hunting for three full weeks now. I hate it. But hopefully I'm getting down around the end of it here.

I'm down to crunch time on two job opportunities. One, I'm supposed to hear about today (in theory), and I'm supposed to have a second interview for another on Wednesday.

This feels like opening night of a play - after all the brutal work and auditions and callbacks and rehearsals and rehearsals and rehearsals and technical runthroughs and dress rehearsals, it's time to put the show on. You don't know if you're going to flop or be a hit.

So prayers, meditational vibes, karmic energy or best wishes, again, are all gratefully accepted.

Alternate Universe - I remember

Alternate Universe - I remember interviewing members of a local "radical" group, the U of M's Progressive Student Organization, on my old talk show at KSTP back in the mid-eighties. I had a distinct impression that I was chasing a greased pig - it was impossible to get a hand on the argument. They and I were in two very different worlds. The vocabulary, geography and history each of us observed were completely different. I said "Lincoln freed the slaves", they said "Lincoln opened up opportunities for Jim Crow".

Lileks has it pretty much figured out this morning:

One of the speakers quoted in the article said we’d insulted Arab cultures: “Long after the Gulf War was over, we had arms depots outside of mosques, American servicewomen dressed inappropriately for where they were.” So women shouldn’t be in the military? No, of course they should serve. So they shouldn’t be posted to the Middle East? No, they should have the same opportunities as men. So they should wear the veil while they’re on the base? No, but we have to understand that their presence upsets the local culture. So you support overturning the governments that impose strict miserable sexist regulations on females? No, we just have to realize how they see us. And then we do what? I don’t understand the question. Once we realize that they see us as a Godforsaken culture that lets women drive cars AND planes AND wear shorts and thongs, AND dance with someone they just met five minutes ago AND have a day job operating machine guns, then what? Well, we enter into a cross-cultural dialogue that enables a syncretic process aimed at facilitating strategies of coexistence. Yes, but what if they want to kill us because we actually think that their concepts of female servitude are negotiable? Well, I don’t accept your definitions; I think we have to change the terms of the debate so violence is never an option. It’s an option for them. It’s Job One, as the Ford ads used to say - oh, look, it’s a fellow with a bomb-belt, running towards us. Should I shoot him? Violence never solves anything. It’s about to solve you, ma’am. It’s about to solve you for good.

And that more or less sums it up.

It's like arguing an overly smug fundamentalist (you pick the religion) - when cornered, a simple "Read the (Torah, Bible, Quran)" or "Violence never solves anything" or "Dialog! Dialog! Dialog!" usually ends the conversation, as far as they're concerned.

Sarah and Jim "Crow" Brady

Sarah and Jim "Crow" Brady - Gun control laws have always been aimed at blacks. It goes back to the very first gun control laws, after the Civil War - where the Klan-controlled government tried to disarm the freedmen and Union Army veterans in the Galveston, making them easier victims. The fight against the law led to the 14th Amendment.

Other gun control acts since then have similarly attempted to disarm minorities first and foremost.

Rarely has this been acknowledged in the major media, though. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, however, has this:

No one tracks the number of felons living in Milwaukee County, much less the racial breakdown. But the state Department of Corrections maintains a database of felons on probation and parole. At the end of last year, there were 10,606 in the county - 67% black, 30% white. Bill Clausius, a department spokesman, said the racial breakdown remains fairly constant.

CEASEFIRE "manifests the most insidious flaws of the criminal justice system for two centuries," said federal public defender Dean Strang. "It says, 'We're afraid of guns, we're afraid of black men, and we're really afraid of black men with guns.' "

Strang said part of the problem is that prosecutors want to send the most likely candidates for long sentences - people with repeat convictions involving drugs or violence - to federal court. Those people are more often black than white.

The suburban lawmaker's biggest nightmare - running into a black kid with a gun on the way between, say, the Ordway and the parking ramp.

Rainbow Six - The CIA

Rainbow Six - The CIA is starting its own private army - again:

During the Balkan conflicts in the mid- and late 1990s, agency paramilitary officers slipped into Bosnia and Kosovo to collect intelligence and hunt for accused war criminals like Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic. But the newly formed teams did not have enough manpower for snatches even when they were able to pinpoint Serbian targets. "The CIA," complains a former senior Clinton aide, "didn't have the capability to take down a three- or four-car motorcade with bodyguards."

Today it does, and the sog's capacities are growing. Its maritime branch has speedboats to carry commandos to shore, and the agency can rent cargo ships through its front companies to transport larger equipment. The air arm, which Pentagon officials have nicknamed the Waffen CIA, has small passenger jets on alert to fly paramilitary operatives anywhere in the world on two hours' notice. Other cargo planes, reminiscent of the Air America fleet that the agency had in Vietnam, can drop supplies to replenish teams in remote locations. For areas like Afghanistan and Central Asia, where a Russian-made helicopter stands out less, the agency uses the large inventory of Soviet-era aircraft that the Pentagon captured in previous conflicts or bought on the black market.

"Waffen CIA", of course, is a play on "Waffen SS" - Hitler and Himmler's private army - and in that wry remark is the big danger.

While there are attractions in creating myriad small, specialized military units to do specific jobs, there comes a point where too much splitting of force, effect and budget causes you more problems than it solves. Nazi Germany's military was hampered (thankfully) by a maze of private armies; Himmler's SS had its own huge army (Waffen SS), lavishly equipped (at the expense of the Wehrmacht or national army), while Hermann Goering's Luftwaffe (Air Force) developed its own very large military force.

One of the big achievements in the last twenty years for the US military is, after forty years of our terribly inefficient (but politically expedient) Joint Chiefs of Staff system, having restored an element of unity of command and focus to our national military operations. Here's hoping we don't squander it.

Swing to the Right -

Swing to the Right - The US and Germany aren't the only countries whose left-wing parties are in disordered retreat.

According to left-leaning Ha'aretz, Likud is reeling in Israel:

With less than a week to go before the elections, Labor is a dangerous freefall. For the first time in the campaign, the largest party in the 15th Knesset could find itself with less than 19 seats in the 16th, according to the latest Ha'aretz/Dialogue poll. The anti-unity move failed. The latest zigzag in the party's propaganda blitz - emphasizing socio-economic issues - made little or no difference. Even wheeling out Shimon Peres as an alternative candidate served only to damage the standing of party chairman Amram Mitzna. The street fights and ego battles among the Labor leadership, primarily between Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and Mitzna, are scaring off the few remaining voters who still support Labor.

And, as in the US, the swing is most pronounced among the young:

The deeper one digs into the bowels of the Labor Party, the more desperate the situation looks. Among first-time voters, for example, 0.0 percent (yes, zero percent) say they intend to vote Labor. Compare that to 46 percent of these 18 to 22-year-olds who say they will vote Likud. Even if first-time voters make up just 7 percent of the electorate, the trend is clear.

Watch for the results in Israel. And if we move into Iraq, and all goes according to plan (successful liberation, uncovering of WMDs, release of details of Hussein's torture state), look for left-wing governments in Germany to get rolled way back, and for further gains by the right in Poland, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium...

Judenrein... - ...is German for

Judenrein... - ...is German for "Jew-Free" - more accurately, "purified of Jews". It's a word from the Holocaust - a trade, or military unit, or eventually a town or region, would declare itself Judenrein after it had gotten rid of all it's Jews.

Liberal Jewish anti-war groups are being excluded from ANSWER's pro-dictatorship rallies for supporting Israel's right to exist. It's a part of the growing anti-semitism on the left that's driving many Jews to the right.

Judith Weiss of "Kesher Talk" asks:

So - do you want A.N.S.W.E.R. running your antiwar protests? Let's see whether United for Peace forces Jews to leave their identity outside the big tent.

There are quite a few articles linked from the various pieces - they're all eye-openers.

(via Instapundit)

Hussein's Preparations - According to

Hussein's Preparations - According to the BBC, Iraqi opposition groups are providing evidence that Hussein is equipping the Republican Guards to fight a chemical war.

Iraq's Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard are among the recipients of special suits and atropine, according to the documents.

A former arms inspector, Bill Tierney, told Today that "if both these two units have new equipment, then it would indicate that they are prepared to use chemical weapons".

The report of Iraqi war preparations is bound to intrigue UN weapons inspectors, the BBC's Rageh Omaar reports from Baghdad.

According to a UK Government report last year and UN inspectors' findings, Iraq has undeclared stocks of VX and sarin nerve agent. It is thought Iraq could deploy such chemicals quickly.

"Intrigue" inspectors? Like they'll acknowledge them?

League...er, United Nations - The

League...er, United Nations - The Axis of Weasels - France and Germany - may well be for the UN what Ethiopia was for the League of Nations; proof to anyone who is open to it that it has no place in dealing with international crises.

The "Man with Notebook" crisis, then, would be the UN's Munich.

I have long had doubts about the UN's ability to resolve international crises. Now, I think they're completely illegitimate.

Administration Smackdown - This is the part that amazes me; George W. Bush has been derided as the "Dumb Guy" every since...well, ever since he's been in the public eye. And like Ronald Reagan, he's taken advantage of everyone's low opinion of him; he's used it as a smokescreen behind which he's maneuvered to achieve virtually everything he's set out to do, politically, in the past two years.

So ever since September 11, it's amazed me that so many otherwise politically-astute people have completely poo-poohed the possibility that the "conflict" within the administration is all a show designed to further disarm the administration's opponents. The feud between Rumsfeld and Powell could be legit - but given Bush's control of his adminstration's spin machine, I'd have to wonder if it's not the greatest "good cop/bad cop" scenario in history - and one of the most politically successful.

Think about it; the "feud" between State and Defense splits the opposition. The opposition is occupied reacting to two different sets of initiatives and signals, and only the Administration knows which one is real - or for that matter, can choose which one it is, when it wants to.

Newsweek's bought into it (I think):

WHEN HIS ARCHRIVAL, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, had raised the idea of taking on Saddam Hussein only days after 9-11, Powell rolled his eyes in exasperation, insisting Al Qaeda alone should be the focus. Last summer Powell warned President Bush in dire terms not to attack Iraq unilaterally, and prodded him to go to the United Nations.

...which, with benefit of hindsight, we know he did - after he'd used the issue of going to the UN to get the opposition to expend an awful lot of political capital.

But last week, as Powell listened to Europeans boast about the success of the weapons inspectors in Iraq, his patience finally gave out. Sitting across a long rectangular table inside Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the usually genial Powell issued a stark warning to his French counterpart: the clock has run out on Saddam and the United Nations. “Don’t underestimate the resolve of the United States to solve this problem without dragging it out,” he said. The dove had finally morphed into a hawk.

On schedule, I'd suggest. Powell's "dovishness" was a prop.

Well, that's what I think history'll tell us.

Job Hunt Redux - Waiting on final word on a couple of jobs this week. Prayers/karmic vibes/good vibes appreciated.

Last Weekend - More from

Last Weekend - More from last week's pro-dictatorship demonstrations, this week from Baltimore. It's a photo series. And it's pretty sickening.

Indymedia is a site that publicizes left-wing, pro-dictatorship, pro-genocide activities around the country.

Shocking - This story from

Shocking - This story from Powerline nauseates me.

An Iraqi man, clutching files to his chest, jumped into a van full of UN "weapons inspectors" today. As the "inspectors" watched and the man begged for help, Iraqi security pulled him from the van and dragged him away to an uncertain - but probably dismal - fate.

Powerline had this to say:

CNN adds that the man appeared "agitated and frightened," and yelled "save me, save me" as he jumped into the U.N. vehicle. CNN also describes the U.N. "inspector" who, "watched from the passenger seat, unfazed" as the Iraqi guards dragged the man out of the vehicle. So now we'll never know whether the man was a nut or someone with valuable information to offer. The U.N. had no interest whatever in finding out what he had to say. And now any other Iraqis who might be thinking of approaching U.N. "inspectors" with information that might interfere with the U.N.'s pro-Saddam agenda will know better.

Some of the current analysis posits that the current "weapons inspection" fiasco will lead to the eventual irrelevance of the UN. Yesterday, it was a wonky, procedural point.

Today, it's written in blood.

UPDATE: Instapundit's also on the story:

I guess the U.N. wouldn't want to give would-be Iraqi defectors the idea that doing so might be, you know, safe. The guy had a notebook. I wonder what was in it?

I suppose he could be just a common garden-variety nut, but he doesn't look like one in the picture, and we'll certainly never know. But the message was undoubtedly received by any potential defectors: approach us, and we'll hand you over.

Can we charge the inspectors with "material breach?"

I believe the charge we want is "aiding and abetting".

Solidifying Irrelevance - The relatively

Solidifying Irrelevance - The relatively conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine talks about the summit between Germany and France - AKA the "Axis of Weasel", according to some:

The events in Versailles, planned to be largely ceremonial in nature, took on deeper significance when Schröder and Chirac issued a joint statement against military action against Iraq without the backing of the UN. It prompted U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to comment acidly that he could see the “old Europe“ in the attitude of Germany and France.
During the Versailles ceremonies, Schröder and Chirac also listed numerous areas of deepening cooperation, to the point of allowing their citizens to have dual Franco-German nationality. They pledged to cooperate more closely in policy areas as diverse as the family, military and foreign affairs. They also said they wanted to align their respective national positions in international organizations. The statement came as France chairs the UN Security Council; Germany will take over for the first time next month.

All well and good - after a couple hundred years of Franco German warfare, it's good to see them TRYING to get along.

But while their systems are still dominated by the social-democrat/Green coalitions that led them to their current state - economic stagnation and thrall to the bureaucratic EU - it's all window-dressing.

Sitzkrieg - The Democrats that

Sitzkrieg - The Democrats that aren't kvetching about going to war, are busy kvetching about how long it's taking Bush to get the war underway.

As is frequently the case when talking about defense issues, Steven Den Beste of USS Clueless has the most spot-on analysis I've seen on the blogophere - and, ergo, in the media period:

For instance, many have wondered why it was that it's taken so long to prepare for war. Likely it will be years before we truly find out, but among other things it appears that there were certain logistical necessities which couldn't be prepared before now. For instance, more than a year ago it became clear that we couldn't rely on the Saudis, and that meant we couldn't depend on using the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia. It wasn't just that the runways would not be available to us for airstrikes; it was that our regional military command center was located there. Starting about a year ago, we picked up and moved, and built up the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar into an alternative command center. That only became operational in December, and General Franks and his staff have spent the last month shaking it out and making sure everything works correctly.

Another problem was that we had run through a substantial percentage (probably more than half) of our stockpile of precision guided munitions in Afghanistan, and we were not producing them at a wartime rate. It takes a long time to ramp up production of this kind of thing, because the manufacturing pipeline is extremely long for modern high-tech weapons. And even after the higher rate finally emerged from the back end of the pipe, it was necessary to wait for our stockpiles to build back up. But that's happened now, and we again have a lot of JDAMs and Tomahawks and the rate of production is much higher now.

And though we are capable of fighting nearly anywhere, in almost any kind of conditions, there are some which are better than others and favor us more. It turns out that February and March are the best months in which to fight a war in that region because of the weather and the climate (as Donald Sensing pointed out last August). It's no accident that the last Gulf war ground action was also at this time of year.

The point is that what looks from the outside like dithering and stalling may simply represent unglamorous but critical hidden progress.

There probably were other issues involved, some of which we may not learn about for decades. If we'd ignored those things and gone in earlier, we certainly could have won – but it might have been an extremely ugly victory, one which was more politically damaging than politically useful. Remember that the point of war is to advance your political goal; you don't fight wars just because you're pissed at someone. (Not if you're intelligent, you don't.)

Read the whole piece.

RIP Mauldin - Very sad

RIP Mauldin - Very sad to see one of the great personalities of the World War 2 generation, Bill Mauldin, passed away yesterday at 81.

He'll be remembered.

Useless Idiots - Steven Schwartz

Useless Idiots - Steven Schwartz on the real faces behind last weekend's pro-dictatorship protests. :

The despicable record of WWP [the World Workers Party] in promoting Stalinist and fascist dictators is old news. WWP, the patron of International A.N.S.W.E.R., is on record supporting:

* The pitiless massacre of Chinese protestors by the armed forces in Tiananmen in 1989. WWP states, "troops were issued arms… after some students took some soldiers hostage. On June 4, [1989], the demonstration changed from a peaceful protest to violent attacks on the soldiers… events were a battle – not a massacre." Everybody in the world knows this is a disgusting lie.

* The dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, among whose defenders WWP are doubtless the most fawning. Their newspaper, also titled Workers World, wrote gleefully, in 2001, "more and more countries had begun individually breaking the ban on flights and other sanctions against Iraq." Right: countries with an equally bad or worse record, like Yugoslavia, which supply Iraq with illegal chemical, biological, and other weapons.

*The evil regime of crazed North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. WWP hack Deidre Griswold, who has been shoveling this manure for some 35 years, recently wrote, from the Communist hell itself, "People here in the socialist north of Korea are well aware of U.S. President George W. Bush's remarks branding their country as part of an ‘Axis of Evil.’ It has in no way dampened their ardor for their independent socialist system… Koreans today are celebrating… the continuity of leadership represented by unity around Kim Jong Il, who is pledged to follow the course of national independence and socialist construction charted by Kim Il Sung… the North Korean socialist system, which has kept it from falling under the sway of the transnational banks and corporations that dictate to most of the world." No mention here of the numerous individuals and families that have risked their lives and those of their relatives to escape the reality of North Korean socialism, or of North Korean international weapons sales, kidnapping of foreign nationals, terrorist attacks, or other details.

*In one of its most disgusting, and continuous, displays of admiration for genocidal fascists, WWP, the leaders of International A.N.S.W.E.R. are prominent defenders of indicted Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic. When the trial of Milosevic began last year at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands. The International Action Center (IAC), predecessor of International A.N.S.W.E.R, "sent a delegation to take part in activities showing solidarity with the defendant and opposing the ‘trial’ as a NATO frame up." They declared, "Washington and its NATO allies hopes (sic) to pin the guilt for the 10 years of civil war in the Balkans on the Yugoslav leader." Who in the world, aside from fevered extremists, believes this swill? WWP has also published expensive volumes defending Milosevic.

We conservatives occasionally give in to hyperbole, calling the likes of John Bonior, Maxine Waters and their ilk "America Last"ers. Well, it's true - and in a way, they are very corrosive influences.

But the organizers of last weekend's demonsrations were worse - people who are immersed in genuine hatred of America, of constitutional liberty, of Western Civilization and its tradition of individualism.

As the "Anti-War" movement continues, look for the major media to continue to ignore the story behind the story.

Flashback - So I filled

Flashback - So I filled in for Bob Davis last night on KSTP.

Now bear in mind, doing talk radio was in many ways the first big love of my life. A very dysfunctional love, of course - radio is an industry that goes through boyfriends faster than Cher or Julia Roberts. And it was a love that took me a few years to get over.

And I guess the best result you can get from a failed relationship is that you say friends. So hopefully talk radio and I can get along, get together, have a few drinks and a laugh or two from now on.

The evening was an extended series of flashbacks. I was on right after Tom Mischke, who I remember from long before he became the king of stream-of-consciousness radio. He used to call in to the old Don Vogel Show (his '85-'87 incarnation) with these anonymous, incredibly hilarious bits - and I was the first person who figured out who he was (his brother edited the newspaper I freelanced for, and he dropped the dime inadvertently. I sat on the secret for the next year or so).

A wierder flashback - a phone call from überblogger James Lileks. He's a household name on the blogosphere today - but I remember him calling into my old weekend graveyard-shift conservative talk show, arguing politics (he was a liberal then - and no less articulate verbally than in writing, then or now), back when he was working on his first novel. And as we argued about was the better expat North Dakotan ("Hah! I pour the ice tray down my pants, rub rubbing alcohol all over my body and THEN go running in the snow!". "HAH! Pants are for pansies!"), it was all I could do not to break up laughing on the air. God, it was a blast.

Stranger still, it's led to some mutual flashbacks - in today's Bleat, he reminisces about the whole scene we were in back in '87; our mutual pal, ex-hippie-turned-bodybuilding-talk-host Geoff Charles (whose show I produced), and even the lead singer of classic Twin Cities cult punk band The Clams (who used to be indistinguishable from Chrissie Hynde, and now has three kids at the same daycare as Lileks' Gnat).

And just like back in 1986, when I'd get lost in my harangues and the arguments and the fun of it all, two hours passed like it was a fast half hour. I talked too fast - in radio, you need to talk slow, and when you think you're going too slow, slow down some more) and jumbled some points and stammered a bit, but Kodiak the producer didn't call security, so it couldn't have been all bad.

When I finished my program on March 29, 1987, I had no idea it was going to be the last one I'd do, at least until I changed careers twice, got married, had two kids, got divorced. It felt like a big bloody stump in my life for years (although I got over it eventually).

And while it may well be last night was the last talk show I'll ever do, this time it's OK, one way or the other. It was fun, it was enlightening, it was a great rail dragster ride down memory lane in many ways.

Talk radio and I? We're just good friends.

Back To The Future- Some

Back To The Future- Some of you have amazed me by actually remembering what I did in my earlier life - a fact that never ceases to astound me.

I started in radio when I was 16 years old, at KEYJ in Jamestown, ND. After working for six years in North Dakota, I turned up (through circumstances that would make a very long post by themselves) at age 22 working at KSTP-AM in St. Paul. I started as an intern on the Don Vogel show, on the late Vogel's first hitch at KSTP. From there, I became a producer/engineer/sidekick, and then got a shot at doing my own show, "The Mitch Berg Show", on the weekend graveyard shift. The show was a lot of things; a weekly car crash, the biggest ego boost I'd ever had (people called, to talk politics with me!) and, although I'd only been a right-winger for maybe three years, it was conservative.

Now, this was long before "talk radio" and "conservative" became synonyms, a good two years before Rush Limbaugh left Sacramento to go nationwide. And it was the most fun I'd ever had. I could have stayed there, making $12K a year and doing comedy bits with Vogel and kibitzing about politics with the bar rush crowd forever.

But life moved on. Most of the staff at KSTP got fired one day; that was how Hubbard Broadcasting used to do business, although you'd never know it from the way most of KSTP's current staff has been working at their jobs for over a decade, now. I went on to other stations - KDWB, WDGY, even KFAI for a while. But it was never the same. And eventually radio just stopped being fun, and then stopped paying the bills. So I moved on. I got over it. I didn't want that any more.

Last fall - fifteen years, two careers, a marriage and divorce, two kids and a lot of life later, the old bug hit me. I think I was listening to some fill-in host, and thought "Criminy - even I was better than that". I called KSTP last fall, and asked if they ever, ever needed a fill-in talk show host, to give me a call.

Four months later, they did. I'm filling in for Bob Davis tonight. 10-midnight central, on AM1500.

It'll be interesting - either on its own terms, or in that "watching crashes at the NASCAR race" kind of way, but interesting in any case.

It'll be the first talk show I've done in almost 16 years. It could very well be the last I ever do. But it's interesting - while I never really liked the radio industry, and grew to really detest a lot of people in the business and the conditions that make them what they turn into (I'm talking top40 people, here), there's a rush to being on the air that is like nothing else - better than bungee jumping, better than driving really fast, or biking down a really long hill or busting off a magazine from a 1928 Thompson...you get the picture.

So tune in. However it turns out, it should be quite the event. I'll blog about it tomorrow.

Super-Size Rejection - The McDonald's

Super-Size Rejection - The McDonald's suit has been tossed.

Although he dismissed the suit, Judge Robert Sweet granted the plaintiffs the option of filing an amended complaint within 30 days addressing the problems that Sweet found in the plaintiffs' original arguments.

Sweet said some of the arguments could be compelling if addressed in more depth, including the allegation that the processing of McDonald's food makes it more dangerous than a customer would have reason to expect.

"If plaintiffs were able to flesh out this argument in an amended complaint, it may establish that the dangers of McDonald's products were not commonly well known and thus that McDonald's had a duty towards its customers," Sweet wrote.

In the current suit, he said, no such hidden dangers are shown.

Exactly.

There are grounds for suing people, and companies, for legitimate damages. That's why we have a civil court system! But as the judge quite rightly pointed out, this suit was based on none of those grounds.

"Where should the line be drawn between an individual's own responsibility to take care of herself and society's responsibility to ensure others shield her? The complaint fails to allege the McDonald's products consumed by the plaintiffs were dangerous in any way other than that which was open and obvious to a reasonable consumer," Sweet said in his ruling.

This is a very good thing.

DFL Regroups - The DFL

DFL Regroups - The DFL is in the process of trying to regroup from the fall elections, according to this morning' s Strib:

No leader of any group is yet claiming that there is consensus on what DFLers should do in 2004 and beyond. They have a bit of a breather because there is no Senate or governor's race until 2006.

Some DFLers are arguing that 2002 was largely a fluke caused by an extraordinary tragedy and an unforeseen aftermath, a controversial memorial for Wellstone that created a backlash against the party, in Minnesota and nationally.

Others argue that DFLers need to get more aggressively liberal and anti-establishment than ever and that the state's most successful DFLers have been Wellstone and Attorney General Mike Hatch, both noted for their advocacy for workers and consumers and their antagonism toward corporate wrongdoing and wealthy interests.

Still others see a gradual but steady change in the state electorate and favor a turn toward more centrist themes, like those favored by former President Bill Clinton.

So which route do you suppose they'll take?

Here's a hint - the article goes to great depth talking about the impact of Wellstone - both his political legacy and the effect of the plane crash on the elections. The simple fact that Jeff Blodgett is the man leading the process should tell you something; led by the sympathy/sentimentality vote, the Wellstone wing of the party - ultraorthadox, fundamentalist liberalism - will prevail.

And given the demographic shifts of the past few years, the DFL's fortunes will continue to slide.

My predictions are usually famously wrong - but I have a good feeling about this one.

Why We Fight - for

Why We Fight - for France and Germany - I was sitting in a local bookstore last night, talking politics with a small group of other people. Most of them were of the Volvo-Driving Perpetually Concerned class. One of them said "Well, we can't go to war - it'd alienate our allies".

Words failed me at the moment - or maybe it was tact. I didn't want to pick a fight at a bookstore when the point of the evening wasn't talking about world events.

Beyond the straight Ann Coulter line - "Who cares about our so-called 'allies'?" - though, a larger point started to form.

France and Germany "oppose" this war only to the point of having to get involved.

Andrew Sullivan expands on this point: The economic fruits of this war affect them, if anything, more than they do the United States - they are more dependent on middle eastern oil, and on having a reliable supply.

So once again, it's the English-speaking peoples versus the despots. And there's a reason for this. Terrorism is a far greater threat to countries founded on liberty. Terror's ability to cripple free societies, their travel and communications, their limited government, their cherished personal liberties, is felt far more keenly in the English-speaking world. That's why the civil liberties enthusiasts on the right and left are both right and wrong. Right to defend what they defend. Wrong to think that John Ashcroft is a greater threat in this respect than al Qaeda.

Statist and dirigist societies, on the other hand, with freedom less of a priority than among their liberal, English-speaking allies, cope with terrorists by ratcheting up police powers, making all sorts of concessions to the enemy, and muddling through. It's not so big a threat to their customary way of operating. Ditto with foreign threats. For most of the last century, France responded to external pressure in classic Gallic fashion: superficial remarmament, diplomatic ballet, appeasement, and, if necessary, tactical surrender or accommodation. And since the last war, Germany has placed superficial peace above all other priorities - whether defeating terror or accommodating Communism. When you don't have a deep tradition of internal freedom or inviolate national sovereignty, and when the external threat doesn't appear to be imminent, this kind of society instinctually avoids war. That's especially the case now. It's clearly the hope of France and Germany that the English speaking powers will bear the brunt of Islamist terrorism. By ducking out of the fight, they think they can avoid trouble once again, see the U.S. and the U.K. damaged, and make what best they can of the aftermath.

It's classical Macchiavellianism - let your opponents bleed themselves white. It saves you the trouble of having to defeat them yourself.

It's almost like Judo - letting your opponent use his strength against himself. If it works, that is.

Sullivan his his finger on it again, in an earlier post on the same topic:

So let's recap: vast gaps in his declaration to the U.N., discovered plans for a nuclear capacity, chemical warheads found that are unaccounted for, no real interviewing of scientists by U.N. officials. But the French are just pleased as punch. Do they have any proposals to make such inspections actually work? A vast increase in the number of inspectors, perhaps? Nope. Do they intend to support the military pressure on Saddam with their own troops? Nope. Germany has specifically disavowed such a course of action - ever. I'm left with the impression that they don't want to do anything serious, but they don't want anyone else to do anything serious either. Paris and Berlin know full well that the chances of the inspectors actually finding what Saddam has spent so much effort concealing is next to zero. And they also know that by delaying the potential war until the autumn, they will help keep the U.S. economy depressed (investment being crippled by uncertainty) and help the growing appeasement movement gain more strength. By then, war will become an even greater political risk for London and Washington, which is, of course, part of the Europeans' plan. Schroder and Chirac want regime change - in Washington and London, not Baghdad. And they are using every ounce of their diplomatic influence to achieve that. You see? They can get off their butts now and again, if they need to. The time is surely coming, alas, when the U.S. and the U.K. will have to acknowledge that these European powers are now de facto allies of Saddam. Because they sure as hell aren't ours.

These are the people that spawled Macchiavelli, that invented Realpolitik, that managed to gain control of much of the world even though they had a tiny fraction of the world's population. Playing enemies against each other is part of the job.

And "enemies", in this case, is exactly how we're seen, in the larger sense. We need to keep that in mind.

No Appeasement for Oil! -

No Appeasement for Oil! - Blogger Mike Campbell calls it right: the drive to war isn't about oil. The drive to appease - especially on the part of the French - is:

It seems like France will do anything to secure its Iraqi oil contracts. Relishing in its anachronistic role as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, France is threatening to veto allied military action to disarm the Iraqi dictator. Said French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, "If war is the only way to resolve this problem, we are going down a dead end. Already we know for a fact that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs are being largely blocked, even frozen. We must do everything possible to strengthen this process.

The United Nations, he said, should stay "on the path of cooperation. The other choice is to move forward out of impatience over a situation in Iraq to move towards military intervention. We believe that today nothing justifies envisaging military action."

The French would trade long-term danger for short-term security of their oil supply - in the hope that "something" will mitigate the danger before it's really, er, dangerous.

The Polls - Powerline analyzes

The Polls - Powerline analyzes the latest round of polls. You know - the ones the Democrats are crowing about:

The Post doesn't say much about the poll's methodology, except to note that it involved telephone interviews with 1,133 randomly selected adults, "including an oversample of 211 African Americans." This is a huge oversample--roughly 50%--and obviously would invalidate the data unless an appropriate correction were made. The Post does not indicate that any corrective measures were taken.

Even with the oversample, the data do not seem particularly noteworthy. The President's approval rating is of course down, but still strong at 59%, with a plurality of 36% strongly approving of his performance. The only area where his ratings are clearly down is the economy. It is curious how peoples' poll responses on the economy bear little correlation to actual economic trends. Significantly more people describe the economy as "poor" now than did during the most recent recession.

Opinion is always a trailing indicator of the economy - maybe the trailing-est indicator of all. Pundits were still yammering about the 1982-'83 recession well into 1987, as I recall.

Powerline concludes with this paragraph:

Based on the Post's methodological disclosures, it is impossible to say whether these data have any validity, or should be thrown in the wastebasket. At worst, they are consistent with the fact that there has been little good news on any front for quite some time (apart, of course, from the non-news that there have been no more major terrorist attacks). But the Post's casual admission of a gross oversampling of African-Americans raises the question whether it, like the Minneapolis Star Tribune--as the Trunk showed last October--has subordinated accuracy in polling to its own political agenda.

Read the whole thing, including the raw data they link to.

Travesty - Ronald Dixon is

Travesty - Ronald Dixon is a hard-working guy, Navy veteran, works two jobs to support his kids, his girlfriend, and pay the mortgage on a house in a decent part of Canarsie, Queens.

Ivan Thompson has a 14 page rap sheet - burglary, larceny, the works.

Thompson broke into Dixon's house. Dixon takes up the story:

At 7:30 a.m. on a Saturday five weeks ago, Dixon was home in bed because he had called in sick. It was almost time for Kyle to wake up and run down the hall to his parents' room to watch his "Barney" video.

"I was supposed to be at work the night before, and would have gotten home about noon," Dixon recalled. "I was not totally asleep, and I heard a squeak in the floorboard. I opened my eyes and see a person snooping around, peeping around outside my bedroom.

"The only thing I could think of was my family. I didn't want to move, until he went to my son's room, and he went in."

Dixon said Best called 911, and he got his weapon from a closet and slowly crept up to the room. He said he saw Thompson rifling through dresser drawers.

"I went in ... I looked in his face, I didn't know this guy, I was so shocked ... In a nervous voice I said, 'What are you doing in my house?' and he ran toward me, yelling, 'Come upstairs!' like there were other people with him. I shot him 'cause I thought more people were in the house."

The Brooklyn DA wants to prosecute him.

What for? Attempted murder? Assault? No, the shooting was pretty clearly legitimate self-defense.

No, the Brooklyn DA is charging Dixon with using an unlicensed firearm to shoot Thompson. It's a misdemeanor that could carry a year in jail - although the Brooklyn DA offered a plea bargain that'd "allow" Dixon to serve "just" four weekends at Riker's Island.

Let's let the NY Daily News article tell the story:

District Attorney Charles Hynes is in the difficult position of prosecuting a hardworking, law-abiding Navy veteran for defending his family and home.

But there were 486 shootings in Brooklyn last year, and the borough remains awash in illegal firearms. A spokesman said Hynes cannot condone the use of an unlicensed gun.

"That doesn't mean the prosecution should go full steam ahead," said Friedman. "There has to be some common sense involved."

"Common Sense" would involve differentiating between 486 shootings by drug dealers, thugs, robbers and other assorted human filth, and those by law-abiding citizens defending their families. That would be common sense.

I'll be following this one.

(Via Rachel Lucas)

From the "Watching NASCAR for

From the "Watching NASCAR for the Crashes" Department- MSNBC makes the least-surprising announcement in the history of media - they've signed Ventura to do a talk show.

The exact format of Ventura's show had not been decided, but it would include media criticism and a discussion of current events. A start date for the new show had not been set.

MSNBC President Erik Sorenson attended a farewell party for Ventura on Jan. 4. While in town, Sorenson and Ventura's attorney scouted locations at the Mall of America.

Mall spokeswoman Monica Davis confirmed the visit and the network's interest in the mall. She told Hauser that no agreements between the mall and the network had been signed.

Let's hope MSNBC picks some famously patient producers to work on the new program. Sources who've were involved with Ventura's various radio talk shows at two Twin Cities stations say that working with the former governor, mayor, wrestler and Navy UDT diver was a unique experience: Ventura is reportedly a bit of a prima donna. That's not unusual in the media - but he also apparently has very little actual aptitude for hosting talk shows, other than the flair for confrontation and hyperbole that characterized and stigmatized his administration.

Darwin In Action - "Human

Darwin In Action - "Human Shields" are leaving for Iraq.

A first wave of mainly Western volunteers will leave London this weekend on a convoy bound for Iraq to act as "human shields" at key sites and populous areas in case of a U.S.-led war on Baghdad.

"The potential for white Western body parts flying around with the Iraqi ones should make them think again about this imperialist oil war," organizer Ken Nichols, a former U.S. marine in the 1991 Gulf War, told Reuters.

His "We the People" organization will be sending off a first group of 50 human shields from the London mayor's City Hall building Saturday, part of a series of departures organizers say will involve hundreds, possibly thousands, of volunteers.

My money says "Dozens, maybe a hundred" volunteers. Although thousands of unwilling shields is probably not out of the question.

And in the "You'll Know Them By The Company They Keep" Department:

In Bucharest, more than 100 Romanian diehard communists said Tuesday they would travel by bus to Iraq to act as human shields in case of a U.S. attack.

Members of the tiny Romanian Workers Party, which took the mantle of ousted dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's defunct Communist party in 1995, said they would set off next month to support "the cause of the people."

The delusion of the far left is almost surreal, sometimes.

Indictment

David Horowitz has a scathing rebuke of the organizers of last weekend's rallies for totalitarianism.

He discusses the organizers' Stalinist sympathies, and their over-generosity in figuring the attendance.

But he also does something I've seen nobody else do - call prominent Democrats on the carpet for their associations with ANSWER and other Anti-America movements (all emphasis mine):

Another striking fact about this march in support of global terrorism was the presence of prominent Democrat officials on the platform. In San Francisco, the most powerful Democrat legislator in the state John Burton screamed, "the President is full of shit" and that the President was "fucking with us," while encouraging the general sentiment that America rather than Iraq was the outlaw state. In Washington, Democratic hopeful Al Sharpton attended and DC ex-congresswoman Cynthia McKinney read a speech with the following claim: "In no other country on the planet do so many people have so little as they do in this country." This from a person who notoriously commandeered a taxpayer-funded limousine to take her from her townhouse one block to her congressional offices every morning.

More disturbing by far was the presence of two of the most powerful Democrats in Congress, the potential head of the Ways and Means Committee, Charles Rangel and the potential head of the Judiciary Committee John Conyers, who is of course the author of the Reparations Bill and the icon of the Communist organizers of both marches. Rangel's appearance was especially troubling because he has been a nightly face on TV news shows presenting himself as a patriot and a veteran (he served fifty years ago in Korea) who wanted a military draft so that all America would be invovled in the nation's defense. His critics thought he had other agendas, like using conscription to sabotage the war effort. Apparently his critics were correct.

Before you jump to any conclusions - yes, I know there are Democrats who aren't actively anti-American. And "supporting the war" isn't the only bellwether of Americanism.

Here's the point: It would be absurd for me to tar all Democrats with that brush; it would be equally absurd for Democrats to ignore what the presence of Waters, Rangel, John Burton and Cynthia McKinney at the demonstrations represents.

Horowitz continues:

Americans who care about their country and its future should think about the following. This anti-American pro-terrorist movement is now larger than the anti-Vietnam pro-Communist "peace" movement was until the very end of the Sixties. Yet there is no draft. Before the draft the anti-Vietnam movement was very very small. Its demonstrations were numbered in the hundreds of participants, not even the thousands. The first big manifestation of the anti-American left was the Stop the Draft March in Oakland in 1965, which was four years after America's involvement in Vietnam got serious.

The second thing Americans should think about is the fact that this anti-American support movement for America's enemies has deep roots in the Democratic Party. I am a firm believer in the two-party system. I find it extremely worrying, therefore, that one party can no longer be trusted with the nation's security. This problem will not be easily fixed. But it won't be fixed at all unless attention is drawn to it, and we cannot do that unless we stop the charade of calling this a "peace" movement and recognize instead that it is anti-American movement to divide this country in the face of its enemies and give aid and comfort to those who would destroy us.

The "Divide America" movement - that could be a good nickname.

Backlash - Hyperbolic demonstrations that

Backlash - Hyperbolic demonstrations that attack the US while lionizing brutal dictators may have actually increased support for the war.

The Vietnam War. Oh, and the one that's going to start in a few weeks, too.

It's been an article of faith on the far left in America that demonstrations are a key to winning "the people over". Yet as Eric Alterman says, the record doesn't bear that out - then, or now:

...part of the problem is this awful organization, A.N.S.W.E.R., which has taken over the organizing of them.

It is a little-known fact — I discovered it while researching my senior honors thesis in 1981-82 — that the anti-Vietnam demonstrations may have actually increased support for the war. Nobody was more unpopular with the country than the demonstrators. Even people who opposed the war, according to Gallup data, disapproved of the demonstrators by vast proportions. (The alternate argument — equally unprovable — is that the movement helped end the war because it scared the Nixon administration into suing for peace for reasons of domestic tranquility. But this is belied by the collapse of the movement following the end of the draft.)

Had that particular conceit been true, McGovern would have been president.

Some demonstrations are effective because they show Americans that people just like them care passionately about a cause and are willing to show up in person to support it. This was certainly true of Martin Luther King’s demonstrations and I think it’s also true of Equal Rights Amendment and abortion rights demonstrations, and it seemed true of the nuclear freeze demonstrations I attended in the 1980s.

I suspect that Alterman is injecting his own beliefs into his piece. He was right about King - but had the ERA and abortion and freeze demonstrations been genuine expressions of the general public's will, the ERA would have passed, support for abortion would have risen and Ronald Reagan would have served one term. All of these movements were controlled by radicals of one stripe or another - unlike ANSWER, they were radicals of whom Alterman approved.

But Alterman continues:

But radical rhetoric denouncing America and everything it stands for — which is what I heard from the A.N.S.W.E.R.-chosen speakers in D.C. over the weekend — does more harm than good. They harden the other side’s resolve and turn away “normal” non-political people from a cause they might otherwise support.

Again, Alterman is superimposing himself into other peoples' consciences, and asking a "Chicken/Egg" question: If the "Anti-war" movement weren't run by Stalinists like ANSWER, would the factory workers and pizza deliverers and COBOL coders and office temps of America support the war any less than they do? Would their fundamental common sense lead them to fear Hussein's potential nukes and nerve gas any less than they do?

Would the memory of 9/11 motivate us any differently than it does, if the "anti-war" leaders were any less stridently absurd?

War Comes Home - The

War Comes Home - The 704th Chemical Company of the US Army Reserve - based in the Fergus Falls area in northwestern Minnesota - is being mobilized this week.

A high school pal of mine is a platoon sergeant in this company. Your best wishes and prayers for them, and all the other troops that'll be involved in whatever happens, will be much appreciated.

Long Day - I have

Long Day - I have two job interviews today, and two tomorrow. The two today are important - they're actually for jobs, as opposed to meets and greets with headhunters before they market my resume. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but these interviews are the ones that lead to the actual jobs. Prayers, vibes or any other metaphysical support are most appreciated.

I did get two fun perks today - I see that I made the Instapundit blogroll. I'm flattered.

And I got an email from the son of the president of Zaire, asking to let them deposit $400 million in my credit card while they try to escape their war-ravaged land...

Anyway, more blogging tonight. After I get done celebrating my newfound riches.

Why You Protested - Today's

Why You Protested - Today's post by megablogger Tacitus does something our major media is too lazy to do - shows you what the protesters are supporting.

Warning: The photos are not pleasant.

Artists Against War - Anti-war

Artists Against War - Anti-war activism - San Francisco style.

(Via Little Green Footballs)

The Real Purple Shady -

The Real Purple Shady - I saw Eight Mile, starring former bad-boy, now suburban daddy Eminem.

Pro: Eminem's not a bad actor.
Con: In some scenes, he looks like Adam Sandler with a crew cut.

Pro: Britney Murphy
Con: Not enough Britney Murphy.

Pro: I liked the movie.
Con: I liked it as much as the first time I saw it, when it was called "Purple Rain". I'm serious - plot point by plot point, it's almost the same movie.
Redirect Pro: That's not totally a bad thing - I loved Purple Rain, too.
Redirect Con: Nobody makes Britney Murphy jump into Cedar Lake.

Pro: The villain is a lot more villainous than Morris Day in "Purple Rain"
Con: The villain is not as funny as Morris Day in "Purple Rain".

Pro: Eminem's a really great rapper. Some of my friends, whose opinions I respect on many other things, persist in saying "rap's not music". Not true. And Eminem is not only the first rapper since Chuck D that I've genuinely enjoyed from a perfectly technical standpoint, he made me realize something today - he's the Keith Moon of rap. I mean, he'll start a lyrical stretch that'll loop and gambol all over the beat, make a literate point, and then, somehow, some way, end up on the beat again, against all odds, just like Moonie. It's amazing.
Con: STILL not enough Britney Murphy. She's in a really disposable role that makes less sense than any other in the movie. Sort of like Apollonia in "Purple Rain", really.

Pro: Eminem might be a closet conservative.
Con: The character of "Cheddar" is just appalling.

Pro: Kim Basinger, including a full-rear nudity scene.
Con: Science finally figured out a way to make Kim Basinger look dowdy and unattractive.

Pro: Shows Detroit, showcase of the failure of the nannystate.
Con: Coming from North Dakota, "Kick Dat Shit" means something different to me.

I give it a solid Silver.

Smoking Gun - The London

Smoking Gun - The London Telegraph has the best story I've seen so far about the UN's discovery of the "smoking gun" of Saddam (and Qusay) Hussein's involvement in a nuke program:

On the same morning that a team of inspectors had found the 12 artillery shells, another team of nuclear weapons experts had paid a surprise visit to the homes of two of Saddam's leading nuclear physicists who worked for Iraq's top secret for the Ministry of Military Industrialisation (MMI).

The ministry, which is run by Saddam's younger son Qusay, recently replaced the Military Industrialisation Organisation (MIO), the institution which historically has controlled the development of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction arsenal since the mid-1970s.

In their eagerness to get into the scientists' homes, some of the inspectors had been seen jumping over a garden wall.

Once inside they found what one Western official has described as a "highly significant" batch of documents which, on closer inspection, revealed that Saddam's scientists were continuing development work on producing an Iraqi nuclear weapon.

By the way, the leftist hate sites are quiet on these discoveries.

Barney Fife Award Nominee- What

Barney Fife Award Nominee- What is it about New York - they keep turning out grade-Z authoritarians like Nelson Rockefeller, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani (who has many redeeming qualities, but is no libertarian) and now Michael Bloomberg. Who just pulled the kind of stunt that earns one a nomination for the coveted Barney Fife award, for overweening, preening, martinetical exercise of petty authority.

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is fuming mad over Rolling Stones members smoking on stage at Madison Square Garden during an nationally televised concert this weekend, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

"The mayor sent cops to issue summonses," one stage source told the DRUDGE REPORT late Saturday. "But the cops watched the show, off stage, by a monitor, instead of stopping the concert."

MORE

HBO cameras captured band members Keith Richards and Ron Wood smoking cigarettes while performing.

"The band raced out of the Garden after they finished their last number, avoiding the police," an insider said. "The music had not even finished playing; and they were in cars already, spinning away. The did not even go to their dressing rooms!"

Amazing.

This is going to be an ongoing thing for me, by the way - Sullivan has his Sontags and Derbyshires and Begalas, I got the Barneys. I'll give out the award next December 31, and email the recipient to announce their award.

So if you have a government figure who is acting drunk with power, send 'em in. When I get through with 'em...well, they'll still be Barney Fifes, but we'll have had our laughs.

Jews Swinging to the Right

Jews Swinging to the Right - Ha'aretz reports that American Jews are moving to the right.

Bush's middle east policy is key to this growth - the perception of anti-semitism on the left is pushing some of the drift - but it's far from the whole story, according to Harvard's Steven Cohen.

Here was the part that fascinated me; education has an effect. But not the effect I'd expected; as they proceed from high school through grad school, Jewish women become more liberal - but Jewish men less so:

Curiously, the gap seems to be magnified by an unexpected and paradoxical education gap. Higher education exerts a clearly liberalizing influence on women, but has a slightly conservatizing influence on men. Among both men and women, those with a bachelor's degree are more liberal than those with just a high-school education. But men with a graduate degree are more conservative by most measures than men with just a bachelor's degree, while women become decidedly more liberal with a graduate degree - possibly a factor of gender differences in choosing fields of study.

The gender gap is not limited to the most educated. At every level of education, Jewish women are more liberal and less conservative than their male counterparts. The gap is greatest, however, among the best educated. Among those with just a high-school education, the liberal gender gap amounts to just 5 percentage points, growing to 15 points among the college-educated. It leaps to a full 24 points among those with a graduate degree, where just 39 percent of the men call themselves liberal as opposed to 63 percent of the women.

Many other factors - including the notion of a potential Joe Lieberman candidacy theoretically reversing this drift. Give it a read - it's a fascinating article.

Here's the interesting part - Moslems are supposed to outnumber Jews in America soon, if not already. They are a rapidly growing voting bloc. They tended slightly to the right before 9/11 - but it'd be interesting to see where American Moslems would vote today...

(Via Smart Genes)

Team Coverage - Powerline continues

Team Coverage - Powerline continues to provide some of the best coverage in the blogosphere of yesterday's pro-dictatorship, pro-nuclear-and-chemical, pro-torture demonstrations.

The coverage is a very long section - and all of it's worth a read.

Especially interesting; a note about an anti-Hugo Chavez demonstration in Miami that may have had more people in attendance than all of the "anti-war" demonstrations combined:

The Associated Press reports that "authorities estimated the group at over 50,000 people." So the anti-Chavez, pro-freedom rally by Cuban-Americans and others in Miami was likely larger than any of yesterday's antiwar rallies. How much coverage did it get in your local newspaper?

Also - they continue to tie the pro-chemical-warfare, pro-Kim-Jong-Il protests' organizers to communist organizations.

Daily Double Quiz Question -

Daily Double Quiz Question - Who wrote this:

A war with Iraq has become more likely in the past week. Thursday's discovery of undeclared poison gas shells was insufficient to trigger war alone. But here was the first concrete, and predictable, confirmation that Iraq's co-operation with Hans Blix's UN weapons inspectors has been less than complete. And Saddam Hussein's defiant speech on Friday even disappointed those who still hope that the Iraqi leader might choose comfortable exile in Libya or Belarus.

One thing which has been stressed too little in recent weeks is that it is Iraq's choices that have brought war closer. The debate in Britain and Europe continues to focus largely on what America is doing and why. Too often, it is overlooked that it is Iraq which remains, at the eleventh hour, in defiance of the will of its region and the wider world.

Was it:

A) The Washington Times
B) The Limbaugh Letter
C) Saturday's Ari Fleischer briefing

The correct answer is "none of the above". It's the UK's ultra-left (as in neo-Marxist) The Guardian, reacting to the warheads, the speech, and one presumes the discovery of the documents at the scientists' homes.

(Via Instapundit)

Cultural Archaeology - The Fixx,

Cultural Archaeology - The Fixx, Styx, Flock of Seagulls and the Alarm, among many others, are making big bucks - and presumably paying off their coke bills from when they were stars, twenty years ago - on the nostalgia circuit.

But if you want a real sign the eighties are back...

...well, words fail me. Read it yourself.

All Hail Chairman Martin -

All Hail Chairman Martin - The London Independent writes about the "West Wing" star in tones normally reserved for Kim Jong-Il in the North Korean press.

This bit here:

From his earliest days, Sheen has been a rebel, a nonconformist, a man who delights in challenging authority at the highest levels by standing four-square on his own unshakable moral sense. His radicalism has its roots in a certain populist strain of Catholicism stretching back to his boyhood in a large immigrant family in Ohio; it was nurtured by the shattering experience of the Vietnam War and the rise of Cesar Chavez, the heroic leader of the United Farm Workers' union in California in the 1960s and 1970s.

To this day, there is no company Sheen loves more than that of rebellious Catholic priests, the kind who publicly call for a return to the non-violent, peace-loving message of the gospels, who loathe war, loathe the consequences of US intervention in Latin America and elsewhere, loathe the injustices and disenfranchisement and poverty of the modern United States, loathe even the hierarchy of the Catholic Church itself for its cosy accommodations with the rich and the powerful...

...is the kind of thing I expect to see below a Socialist Realist painting, perhaps with "the Internationale" playing in the background.

Quote of the Day -

Quote of the Day - From the AP Wire:

"I'm hoping that the bus loads of people coming as far away as Oregon and Nevada give an indication that this isn't just the crazy loons in San Francisco - but we reflect the opinions of the entire United States," said Tim Kingston of the anti-war group Global Exchange.

More Press Omissions - The

More Press Omissions - The Strib's story on today's demonstrations in Minneapolis leads with this:

While protesting the 1991 Gulf War at a Washington, D.C., rally, Marlys Weber of Minneapolis wore a sign saying that her son, an Air Force pilot flying missions over Iraq, was over there.

Today, Weber will be back in Washington to oppose another war in Iraq, with a message about her grandson who is serving overseas in the Marines.

"I'm just using the same old, beat up sign and just putting 'grandson' " on it, Weber said. "Here we are, another generation and back at doing this again."

Weber will be among several hundred Minnesotans arriving in Washington for a demonstration today against a possible war against Iraq.

Just a typical Minnesota grandma, out to protest a war out of concern for her grandson?

Hardly. The Strib doesn't mention that Weber has a record in the "Pro-Dictator...", er, I mean "Peace and Justice" movement.

In the meantime, it says the following about the protests' nationwide organizers:

The rally and march are being organized by International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), the group that coordinated an Oct. 26 anti-war rally in Washington that drew more than 100,000 people.

Tony Murphy, an ANSWER spokesman, said he expects a similar or even larger crowd today. Murphy said there are 225 organizing centers across the country arranging trips to the march, 70 more than in October.

Murphy is a local flak for Ramsey Clark, according to a Google search . Hardly someone who just happened to organize a peace protest, but you can't expect the Strib to bother with that...

More to come.

The Goods - Instapundit and

The Goods - Instapundit and Powerline have the details on the groups organizing the pro-genocide, pro-nuke, pro-torture rallies in DC and San Francisco.

Read them - and then read the NYT, the WaPo and the Strib tomorrow. See how closely the descriptions of the demonstrations' various movers and shakers jibe. Powerline in particular traces a number of named organizers to Communist front organizations. As Glenn Reynolds asks:

If the Ku Klux Klan organized a pro-war rally, even if a lot of the protesters were just useful idiots who didn't know who was behind it, I somehow think the Post would manage to ask a few tough questions.

I'm looking for details on any actions here in the Twin Cities. Stay tuned.

11:59:40 - Steve Den Beste

11:59:40 - Steve Den Beste of USS Clueless discusses the naval force that's been setting out for the Gulf in the past few days. There's a great explanation of the types of ships and what they do (not that I needed it, being from the great maritime state of North Dakota).

But here was his salient statement:

All these ships can reach the Gulf in less than two weeks. This is no joke; this is real. This is no bluff. This isn't just posturing. You don't deploy these kinds of forces in this kind of numbers unless you're really serious. And you do not send a force like this to a theater to sit on its ass for six months and only then go into combat. In the ideal case, they get sent at the last possible instant both because that maximizes readiness and because it minimizes the window of risk to the men and ships from enemy air, missile or submarine assault.

They're really going to start fighting, and soon.

Hindrocket of Powerline thinks the threat of these ships, and the Marines on them, will be enough to resolve the situation.

I don't.

I think Den Beste's right - we wouldn't go to the expense, disruption and immense trouble of sending this huge armada halfway around the world to "send a message". And although I hate to admit it, I think the "peace movement" has a point - this war is going to happen no matter what. I think the strategic benefits of deposing Hussein outweigh even the imperative of removing weapons of mass destruction.

The Marines will take two weeks to get to the scene. I bet this thing kicks off in February.

Harshing Sheryl's Mellow - You

Harshing Sheryl's Mellow - You may recall - Sheryl Crow made a famously vapid anti-war appearance at the American Music Awards earlier this week.

Andrew Sullivan digs into it in this Salon article:

I'm taking her too seriously, of course. I should ignore her. But the "anti-war" movement (I put it in quotation marks since appeasement will only make a bloodier future war inevitable) is happy to use celebrities for its own purposes. And so their presence in the debate has to be acknowledged, if only to be decried. So let's decry this moronic celebrity convergence. The weak arguments of the appease-Saddam left just got a little weaker. And the karmic retributions are gonna be harsh, man. Way harsh.

If you're a right-wing pundit, sometimes it feels like Christmas never ended.

Repugnant - "MoveOn.Org", a left-wing-fundedsite

Repugnant - "MoveOn.Org", a left-wing-fundedsite that started as an anti-impeachment propaganda machine, is back in action - and their latest effort is a revival of the "Daisy Ad". The original version of this ad, from 1964, painted Barry Goldwater as a warhawk who'd bring on a nuclear war if elected president.

The spots are airing in 13 major cities - including the Twin Cities. (I'm willing to bet the other cities are San Francisco, New York, Seattle...but probably not El Paso, Nashville or Houston...)

MoveOn favors appeasement of Hussein, and parrots the lefty line that "we can win without war" - that the inspections, allowed to run their course, will be enough to bring Hussein's nuke program to heel.

As weapons inspections in Iraq kick into high gear, most of us are breathing a sigh of relief. But some in the Bush Administration are still dead set on war, even if the inspections are working.

They are, indeed, working - if by "working" one means "providing a facade of activity that allows those pre-disposed to pacifying dictators to feel like they're doing something useful to prevent future terrorism".

And the "Daisy Ad" is just as wrong today as it was 39 years ago. Appeasement doesn't prevent war. Carter's pusillanimity in facing Brezhnev and Khomeini didn't bring peace, Reagan's fearlessness and stated willingness to back up his words with strength did. Of course war is nothing to dive into lightly. Never. But either is the blanket appeasement of dictators with weapons of mass destruction. Which is what "Move On" is all about - and what they're trying to scare you into. By the way - this ad sends kids into a panic, which naturally upsets the parents, too - which is, of course, the purpose.

If the little girl in the Daisy Ad gets vaporized, it'll be because "Move On" and its ilk won the day, and allowed the dictators of the world to tinker in their labs in peace, 'til peace no longer suited them.

Absolutely sickening.

The World is Getting Too

The World is Getting Too Wierd - If you'd told me in 1980, when I was still a liberal - or even in 1990 - that I'd ever be writing the paragraph below, I'd have rolled my eyes and wondered if de-instititionalizing the mentally ill were such a good idea.

Bill Clinton was in many ways more fiscally conservative than George W Bush (this, of course, before the tax cut proposal). Some of the Democratic candidates for 2004 are trying to move to Bush's right on foreign policy. And the Minnesota DFL is trying to spin themselves as budget-cutters.

DFL-controlled Senate committees worked furiously Thursday to pass their own budget fix for 2003, crafting a package that saves a little less than Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposal and might upstage the House GOP package by arriving earlier.

Of course, when you read the article you see that the DFL's newfound thrift is really a series of accounting tricks, but it's still oddly disconcerting to see any portion of the DFL painting itself as fiscally responsible.

As usual, the problem is going to be the moderate GOPers in the Senate.

One More Time - In

One More Time - In recent weeks, I've posted a few ideas about Iraq, North Korea, and why the President's current stance is not in the least bit inconsistent.

I heard it summed up better than I could, the other day on NPR.

Not only does the North have a history of being extremely aggressive for negotiations' sake, but they are surrounded by nations that are either hostile to them, or two keep them at arms' length. The Russians and Chinese regard them as "with friends like these..."-type allies, the South is the most heavily-armed democracy on earth, and the Japanese military is kept at a high state of readiness mainly against the North these days - and then there's us, the 900 pound gorilla in the area, with enough nukes to turn the Korean Peninsula into the Island of South Korea. None of Kim Jong-Il's neighbors are ripe for the picking.

In the meantime, an Iraq armed with nukes would be able to use them as leverage to gain control of half of the world's oil - and with it, the economies of the entire western world.

And that means busloads of peace protesters heading for Washington would have to play twice as much for gas. Are they ready for that?

By the way - this seems to have passed unnoticed; South Korea is in the midst of an orderly transition of power. Amazing what a few generations of free enterprise can do, eh?

Mindless Sanctimony Alert - You

Mindless Sanctimony Alert - You can tell a lot about someone's state of mind by their tone of voice. It's a subtle point, but true.

So I was coming up the stairs with a load of laundry at about 6AM, and I had the Channel 9 morning news on the TV (Mmmmm, Alix Kendall). I heard a voice - not well enough to make out words, but I could get the tone and delivery. The voice was male, but with lousy breath support - a small guy. He was speaking in short, clipped sentences, the tone rising at the end of each sentence in a tone that suggested "moral condescension" to me. I thought - "sounds like a "peace" protester. Probably from some Lutheran church here in the Twin Cities.

Sure enough, it was part of the Nine's live team coverage of a busful of middle-aged Volvo-driving perpetually-concerned people from a local church, taking off for DC to protest in favor of chemical weapons, terrorism, rape and mass-murder.

Stupid School Alert - Also heard on the Nine (mmmm, Alix Kendall) this morning: a first-grader brought a weed pipe to school for show and tell. The kid's teacher called the cops, and the parents were arrested - for child endangerment. So - for getting high occasionally (we don't know), the kid's parents will go through a trial, their parent-child relationship will be scrutinized by packs of county social workers and attorneys and the whole "Child Protection" industry.

So - anyone wonder if the teachers, school administrators, cops, social workers, judges and attorneys ever have a belt on the way home after work? Keep any beer or wine in the fridge, or a bottle of something stronger in the hutch? Maybe a highball after a rough day, or a pitcher of margaritas on a hot summer evening?

Oh, yeah - and the kid, a first-grader, was also suspended. The boy violated the "zero tolerance" policy.

I've never smoked chiba in my life - but the hypocrisy of this story just kills me.

Been Here, Done This -

Been Here, Done This - Saint Paul, of Fraters Libertas, who acfually lives in St. Paul, tells a tale that I've lived way too many times:

I was in the final leg on my trip home from work and turning onto my street, nearing my garage, I spied a beautiful young woman up ahead of me on the sidewalk...She was in a word, perfect, and I swear I saw her wistfully gazing off in the distance at the last fleeting robin's egg blue of the day time sky as the sun reluctantly slipped beneath the tree tops and roof lines that make up the western horizon in these parts...

I run across this from time to time in my neighborhood, too. And Saint's next bit is painfully true here as well:

Needless to say, a huge opportunity and one that doesn’t come around too often in my neighborhood. For whatever reason, old people and distinctly not beautiful people are the norm here in the residential familyland of inner city St. Paul.

Pardon me. I have to cry.

He's right, you know. I mean, sure - neighborhoods like mine are crawling with college girls, but they don't seem quite as interested in 40-year-old fathers of two as they do in the movies.

But it's the denouement that caught my attention:

A warm wave of confidence washed over me as I opened my car door, got out, and strode toward the predestined intersection of her, me, my garage, and the future. It was all falling into place. She arrived right on schedule, her head turned my way, her big baby blues looked into my own, the right side of my upper lip began to rise and with it the killer smile to be delivered and ....... I heard a man shouting. Actually, screeching is a more accurate description, screeching like a stuck pig. I turned my head toward this sound and I then heard angry words, frenzied histrionics about .... tax cuts.

My God, it was Jason Lewis. In my angel headed distraction, I left my car door open and the radio was on LOUD to the local talk radio station. And now, at the critical moment of my existence, Jason Lewis was engaged in the violent process of disabusing some caller of the notion that the richest 5% of Americans aren’t paying their fair share. Just as he was wailing “WHAT YOU LIBERALS DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND IS....” I turned my head back, just in time to catch my lovely future bride rolling her eyes, scoffing in my direction, and rushing past me and away down the street, forever. I stood there for several minutes, not believing what had happened and just listening. (Fade to black)

Aw, Saint. I feel for ya, Bro.

If it's any consolaton, it's probably good that you flushed out her bigotry before you got, say, married. I remember once, on a second date, with someone I was getting along with famously, the topic of politics came up. I gingerly mentioned that I was a bit right of center. The woman's face became flushed, and she looked at me with that look people get when the policeman in their rear-view mirror turns on the whoopie lights. "Oh, my. If I'd known that about you, I'd have never gone out with you in the first place".

So I'll see you down at the He-Man Woman-Hater's Club for happy hour, k?

Pink Pistols - Great article

Pink Pistols - Great article today on the growing gay pro-gun movement.

Doug Krick, a bisexual Internet engineer from Boston who once ran for office as a Libertarian, started the Pink Pistols in July 2000.

The club has no dues or registration rolls, but about 35 chapters have sprung up across the country, with a few thousand members who gather to target shoot and have dinner.

Krick, an avid sportsman, envisioned the group as a social club, but it's taken on a political agenda.

Members have lobbied against gun-control laws and even attacked an openly gay Massachusetts legislator who, like many gay civil rights groups, supports gun control. Others have vocally opposed hate-crime legislation, in keeping with their less-is-more philosophy of government.

Several of my gay friends are sympathizers; like a few female rape victims I know, they'd prefer to carry an illegal gun than go through another assault.

But there's more to the Pink Pistols than that:

Some lawmakers who support gun-control measures, including Democratic Assemblyman Paul Koretz of California, have called the Pink Pistols a tool of the National Rifle Association. But Krick and other members actually fault the NRA for accepting compromise gun-control legislation.

They're one of several groups that cater to specific groups of gun enthusiasts, such as Geeks with Guns and Jews for the Preservation of Gun Ownership.

About a third of Pink Pistol members are heterosexual, including Brian Hepler, who took over the Northern Virginia chapter when a bisexual friend stepped down.

He likes the idea that the club tweaks several stereotypes — that gun owners are mostly Christian right-wingers and that gays are victims.

"The idea is to try to show both stereotypes are wrong," said Hepler, who lives in Fairfax.

The article - and the Pistols' website - are both worth a read.

Lotus Eater! Unite! - The

Lotus Eater! Unite! - The Evanston, IL city council passed an anti-war resolution.

P.J. News - P.J. O'Rourke

P.J. News - P.J. O'Rourke has joined the Atlantic.

The Way We War -

The Way We War - Michael Barone, on how war has radically changed, even in the past decade:

The forces now gather- ing around Iraq are being marshaled by one of these "market-states." Industrial America fought its wars with industrial forces: huge armies and navies–15 million men in World War II–made up mostly of low-skill conscripts and equipped with relatively unsophisticated mass-production machines. The war was won with kids from Brooklyn and rural Texas and machines mass-produced in Detroit and Los Angeles. Today, postindustrial America is planning to fight its latest war with highly skilled professional soldiers and sophisticated high-tech machines. We need fewer people–and can expect far fewer casualties–to win quicker victories. Critics who look back at World War II with nostalgia and argue for shared sacrifice and a drafted military miss the point. We are no longer the kind of country that fights most effectively that way.

And I guess in a way I was one of those critics - not nostalgic for WWII, but definitely on board with the notion of a shared obligation to defend the country. My biggest qualm with the idea of National Service has always been that it's militarily redundant these days.

Here's the point that Instapundit found interesting enough to quote:

But the battleground is not just in the Middle East. Before 9/11, Bobbitt saw "the need for a shift from target, threat-based assessments to vulnerability analyses" and pointed out that "remote, once local tribal wars . . . have been exported into the domestic populations . . . through immigration, empathy, and terrorism." An open, high-tech society remains vulnerable to terrorism and cannot be entirely protected by centralized authorities. Our last line of defense must be those high-skill, high-tech, and high-initiative strengths. The heroes who brought down United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and the alert truck driver who engineered the capture of the alleged beltway snipers used cellphones and ignored centralized authorities' rules (the truck driver acted on leaked information) to stop determined killers. We can fight today's wars with fewer troops than we used to need. But every citizen should stand ready to fight at any time in any place.

As Glenn Reynolds says, this country needs to be less of a herd, and more of a pack.

Material Breach - Breaching Materials

Material Breach - Breaching Materials - 122mm chemical artillery warheads found have been found in Iraq:

"During the course of their inspection, the team discovered 11 empty 122 mm chemical warheads and one warhead that requires further evaluation," Ueki said in a statement.

As Andrew Sullivan says, the case for war is closed.

As, I suspect, Washington knew it would be.

The Sea Refuses No River - The soundtrack of my adolescent years (and much of the time since) has a zillion artists on it. But the big three were always Bruce Springsteen, the late Joe Strummer and Pete Townshend. My senior year of high school was framed by The River, London Calling and Empty Glass.

Townshend and the Who, in particular, was a blessing in that he proved there was no contradiction between literate and nebbishy and geeky on the one hand, and acerbic, angry and just plain rockin' on the other.

Morning radio has had a field day with his arrest and arraignment on child porn charges - and with his initial defense, that he's writing a book on the subject that touches on alleged sexual abuse he received as a child.

Know what? I believe it. Or at least I think Townshend's case is pretty convincing.

Blurgh - Sorry about the

Blurgh - Sorry about the light day yesterday. It'll probably be a bit light today too, although we'll see.

I'm at the stage of the job hunt that I hate the worst. The beginning is easy - there's noplace to go but up. And the end is is usually great - you get a job! But this part in the middle - where I"ve had some interviews I like with companies I'd love to work for, or for contracts I'd really like to take, and the interviews go well, but not perfectly (they never do), it's harder. There's anxiety - "I could have done that interview better", or "I dont' want to want this damn job this much". That's a tough one - wanting something leaves you open to incredible disappointment, all the moreso since my current financial situation is so relatively ugly. No, the middle stage of a job hunt is the worst because you actually have something to lose: Hope.

My experience says that's irrational - I interview pretty well, I should land something. But I haven't interviewed in such a crowded market since I've been in high-tech, even though my own field ("Human Factors") is pretty esoteric.

So your support is appreciated - not necessarily the tip jar (although I won't complain!) but your prayers (if you're so inclined) or thoughts as I set off on my eleventh interview in the past eight business days.

Good Sign? - Is it just me, or does F****dCompany.com seem to be carrying fewer stories of companies tanking these days?

Either there are many, many fewer companies to lose, or the economy's improving.

We'll get back to you on that.

HellPartners - It doesn't amaze

HellPartners - It doesn't amaze me that HealthPartners has been caught doing the same shenanigans that Medica and Allina were several years ago.

Despite the dubious business purpose of many expenses, controls at Minnesota's third-largest health insurer failed to prevent spending on unnecessary trips, gifts, dinners and entertainment, according to Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch, whose office released the investigative findings Wednesday.

Hatch said HealthPartners had a corporate culture similar to the one he found during his 2001 investigation of Medica and Allina Health System.

He said all three nonprofits made it too easy to spend money on executive perks and niceties, creating a "culture of luxury."

Nope. Doesn't amaze me at all. It would amaze me if it didn't happen. Because the system in Minnesota is almost perfectly designed to create such scandal.

Here in Minnesota the state government has carried out a decades-long mission to squeeze out all private health insurance. Essentially, here in Minnesota today you have a choice of a couple of big HMOs and a few beleaguered fee-for-service insurers who've managed to hold out (but probably won't be able to for long). State mandates and policy have made it all but impossible for all but the biggest of the mega "non-profit" HMOs to survive in Minnesota.

So is it a wonder that the executives of these organizations, knighted by the state to further the state entitlement culture, feel "entitled" to wallow in the trough the state created, and filled for them?

Hatch said that "culture" was inconsistent with the nonprofits' core mission of serving the public. Allina and Medica spent more than HealthPartners on such things, he said.

"The health care system itself has to be more accountable," Hatch said.

And yet it doesn't add up to Hatch - this "incompatibility of culture" isn't an aberration of the current system. It's an unintended but inevitable result of the removal of the free market from the healthcare business.

Just as the Enron scandal was a product of Clinton-era policies, the HealthPartners and Allina scandals are the nearly-inevitable product of government meddling in the private market. And the problem is, dealing with HealthPartners will create a feel-good illusion of having "done something", having treated the symptoms - but leaving the disease untouched.

Sad but True - I

Sad but True - I belong to the Presbyberian Church.

I know what you're saying; "Mitch! You're a conservative! How can you be a member of a church that is so unreservedly, unabashedly, unreconstructedly sixties-liberal?" The answer is, "it's not easy". My reasons are purely theological, and have nothing to do with temporal politics.

I remember during the prayer portion of a service a few years back, when news of North Korea's potential famine became known. An older woman - a very unpleasant person whose ugliness was utterly internal, a product of a character deficit - took the US to task for "allowing this unjust starvation" to take place, demanding that we work toward "peaceandjustice" (as if they're interwoven) by feeding the people...that Kim Jong Il could have fed himself, were he not wrapped up with building the biggest per-capita military in the world.

Someone sent me this today - enlightening, but hardly surprising. Totalitarians must rely on total enforcement of their "visions", including forcible removal of dissent. That means mass murder, and massive camps.

And yet, after three decades of reading about the Gulag and the Holocaust, this sort of thing still amazes and disturbs me:

NBC’s investigation revealed that North Korea’s State Security Agency maintains a dozen political prisons and about 30 forced labor and labor education camps, mainly in remote areas. The worst are in the country’s far Northeast. Some of them are gargantuan: At least two of the camps, Haengyong and Huaong, are larger in area than the District of Columbia, with Huaong being three times the size of the U.S. capital district.

And this leads to this:

Ahn Myong Chol, a guard at the camp (which is sometimes known as Hoeryong) from 1987 through 1994, examined the satellite photos of Camp 22 for NBC News. They were taken in April, eight years after he left. But he says little has changed. He was able to pick out the family quarters for prisoners, the work areas, the propaganda buildings.

Looking at the imagery, Ahn noted what happened in each building:

“This is the detention center,” he said. “If someone goes inside this building, in three months he will be dead or disabled for life. In this corner they decided about the executions, who to execute and whether to make it public.

“This is the Kim Il Sung institute, a movie house for officers. Here is watchdog training. And guard training ground.”

Pointing to another spot, he said: “This is the garbage pond where the two kids were killed when guard kicked them in pond.”

Read the whole thing.

I can hear the bleat from the far left already; "It's propaganda from the conservative, corporate media". Let's leave the absurd contradiction for a moment - damn straight it's propaganda. As well it should be. Americans should be angry, furious, disgusted about this. 9/11 and Israel's suicide bombers are acute instances of terrorism - but this sort of thing is chronic terrorism; not the terror of the roar and the sudden flash, but of the Orwellian "boot in the face - forever", varying only in intensity.

Kim Jong Il has to go, too. Sometime. By fair means or foul; the way of Hussein and Hitler and Amin, or the way of Gorbachev and Jaruzelski and Honecker. The means aren't important; the timing must be driven by the fact that Hussein is the greater danger. But he must go, and his whole regime with it.

Here's a question; what do you suppose the left'll do when satellite evidence of Castro's camps are revealed?

The New Republic Vs. Common

The New Republic Vs. Common Sense - The anti-gun lobby keeps going farther and farther down the logical evolution chain to build an argument. This article, by Eli Kintisch, in today's New Republic Online (registration required) proves it.

Recently I visited Potomac Arms, a gun shop on the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virginia. Making my way past the samurai swords and shotguns, I found the 17-inch Anzio Ironworks .50-caliber "take-down" rifle--named because it can be disassembled in less than 25 seconds--on display. Another brand of .50-caliber, an ArmaLite, was available in the back, a clerk told me. Buying either gun would not be difficult: Under the Brady Bill, I'd need to show identification, after which my name would be run through a computer to check my criminal and immigration status. With a clean record, I could pay and take the gun with me-- with no permanent state or federal record of the sale required.

Note the key qualifier, tossed-off as if it's an irrelevancy: "With a clean record".

Many types of firearms can be purchased that easily in the United States. Few of them, however, would be as dangerous in the hands of terrorists. A .50-caliber sniper rifle, experts say, would be more than capable of shooting down an airliner as it took off or landed.

The author seems to think this is a new development.

The Martini .60 caliber rifle, or the Springfield .45-70 caliber rifle, are both capable of knocking down airliners by the same token. Both have been available for roughly 130 years. Yet, oddly, nobody has snuck into an airport glideway to pot at aircraft yet. Why could that be?

More later.

While a .50-caliber rifle is heavy, and would need to be positioned in line with a plane's path, it has the twin benefits of being accurate from more than a mile away and of doing a great deal of damage on impact.

The author is clearly not very literate about firearms.

There is no particular need for the gun to be "in line with the plane's path", although that makes the shot easier.

Now, picture this 911 call: "Airport Police? There's a man sneaking into the bushes down off the runway apron, holding a REALLY huge rifle...".

Absurd? Not entirely, but if one is going to go to the immense risk of hauling a large, unconcealable weapon into a position from where an airplane - something passing overhead at over 150 miles per hour, never an easy target - can be hit, one might do it with a weapon suited to do more than poke holes in aluminum and people.

Unlike a terrorist, I, of course, hadn't bought a .50-caliber rifle at the store a few miles away.

And, as it happens, either had any terrorists.

Fifty-caliber sniper rifles are a relatively new weapon, dating back to the 1980s.

That is completely untrue. In fact, the very word "Sharpshooter" comes from the Sharps Rifle - a .50 caliber breech-loading single-shot rifle introduced...in the 1840's. The weapon is still a very effective "sniping" rifle today, by the way.

In World War II, the Browning machine gun, still popular today, fired .50-caliber bullets at a high rate of speed but with little accuracy.

The author is again confused. The M2 .50 caliber machinegun has a very low rate of fire, and is famously accurate - sometimes being used itself for "sniping" in WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

Equipped with telescopic sight, the modern .50-caliber rifle shoots bullets, one at a time, with equal power and vastly higher accuracy. Up to five feet long and weighing between 30 and 60 pounds, the gun fires six-inch-long, half-inch-wide bullets that can rip through a 3.5-inch manhole from 200 yards away. In addition to incendiary bullets, armor-piercing rounds are commercially available. During the Gulf war, American soldiers used these to penetrate Iraqi armor from as far as a half-mile away, doing so much long-range damage against one armored personnel carrier that Iraqi troops in the vicinity immediately surrendered.

US Special Forces snipers did a lot of damage with .50 caliber rifles during the war. But they're a different breed of troops than your typical terrorist.

Fifty-caliber rounds can penetrate armored limousines, airport fuel tanks, and, presumably, the presidential helicopter, Marine One. "This threat is not a gun-control issue but a national security issue," writes the Washington-based Violence Policy Center (VPC) in a soon-to-be-released study on airport security and the .50-caliber rifle.

And it's presumably been a threat since the .50 Browning (technically called the 12.7x99mm) round was invented - in 1918.

The military acknowledges the gun's specific threat to planes. As pointed out in the VPC report, several U.S. Army manuals warn against the risk of small-arms fire--such as that from a .50-caliber gun--against low-flying aircraft, citing heavy losses from ground fire in Korea and Vietnam.

The author leaves out several key parts of that factoid: the .50 caliber weapons that caused the aircraft losses in Vietnam were universally machine guns - because, for all of the author's hyperbole, rifles are historically a lousy way to attack aircraft when you're still on the ground. Could it happen? Sure. But the opporunities have been there for as long as flight as existed.

So the "Violence Policy Center" is, pardon me, "up in arms" over a weapon that is immense, very hard to conceal, hard to use effectively without specialized training, and a less effective option for attacking aircraft than other, less-common but more-concealable weapons with much lower profiles...

...and that are not sold at gun shops! Which is, of course, the real target here...

The article as a whole is a smorgasbord of faulty logic. I'd urge you to read the whole thing - but if you're a firearms rights activist, you already have. Many times.

Times v. Times - The

Times v. Times - The Washington Times takes on the NY Times, over the New York paper's shoddy math in attacking the Bush tax cuts.

Crowed - Sheryl Crow -

Crowed - Sheryl Crow - an inconseqential but relatively talented pop singer with an occasional way with a hook - warned of dire consequences of an Iraq invasion at the American Music Awards last night.

"I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies."

While it's tempting to ask Ms. Crow to broach that idea to the Palestinians and Israelis, the first order of business would be to tell Ms. Crow to seek forgiveness for "Soak Up the Sun" before advising others about Karmic issues.

Budget War - Governor Pawlenty

Budget War - Governor Pawlenty has started his effort to re-balance the state budget yesterday, according to the Strib:

Once Pawlenty unveils his proposals, he still will need the Legislature to take exceptionally quick action, passing the package in a matter of two to three weeks. Though legislative leaders have pledged their cooperation, fights over the size and scope of the cuts are bound to emerge in both the Republican-dominated House and the Senate, where DFLers hold a slim majority.

Once can also argue that, despite the November '02 election, the fiscal left still control the legislature. Many Republicans in both houses are moderates who'll vote for expedience - and higher taxes. Pawlenty himself is a fairly newly-minted conservative on these issues. Here's hoping he stays the course.

Pawlenty has said he wants action on his recommendations by early February; otherwise, he may resort to cutting the budget himself. By law, the governor has the authority to cut the budget whenever an economic forecast projects a deficit for the current fiscal period. Known as "unallotment," it would allow Pawlenty to bypass the normal legislative process and simply cut wherever he saw fit.

And while my record of predictions (last November notwithstanding) is dicey at best, I'll bet that's what it comes to. I suspect the DFL will want Pawlenty to take the heat for the budget cuts, and whatever pain they cause. This could be dangerous for the DFL, though; successful cuts and a rebounding economy could conceivably hand Pawlenty a second "Minnesota Miracle", a la Reagan in 1982.

The Legislature's track record on quick budget action has not been great. The state's fiscal crisis is as severe as it is in part because legislative leaders failed to enact long-range cuts in the last budget session.

The Strib is being too charitable, and doesn't explain that the legislature got into this mess by turning "one-time" expenditures from tax surpluses into permanent spending. With more GOP control in the leglislature, hopefully those days are behind us.

For All the Wrong Reasons

For All the Wrong Reasons - I've never really gotten behind the death penalty.

At first, it was because I was a liberal. But even since I became a conservative, I've always been queasy about state executions. Not because I don't believe some people richly deserve it; like Lileks says this morning:

I like it in the specific examples - traitors and child-killers - but not in general, and hence I have no consistent view on the matter. I’m being subjective, which is one of the things that ought not come into play when you’re talking about using the power of the state to kill. It’s one of those complex shades-o-gray issues that eventually comes down to yes and no.

Most of the stock arguments against the death penalty just don't add up to me. According to some statistics, rumors of unfair application are grossly exaggerated. It doesn't deter crime - but justice is as much about vengeance as it is about deterrence.

And for all that, I think it's still wrong - because there is an unacceptable risk that the innocent will be executed. Conservative pundits like Ann Coulter insist that DNA testing eliminates the possibility of error. Two responses to that:

• DNA is only as accurate as law enforcement and prosecutors are honest. Our system is fraught with law enforcement who have no compunctions about hiding or destroying evidence, especially in death-penalty cases, or ethically-challenged prosecutors who know that executions equal votes (still>.
• DNA sure seems foolproof - now. Thirty years ago, they were making the same claims about hair strand analysis. People were executed based on hair strand matching. Today, it's almost never used; it's just plain inaccurate. Who knows what the future holds for DNA?

Furthermore, death penalty cases are frequently fraught with other hazards; they frequently depend on circumstantial and forensic evidence (prone to being manipulated by the unscrupulous). They frequently involve grisly or heinous crimes, which have intense emotions attached - emotions that force investigators to quick conclusions, warp testimony and jury deliberations, and are manipulated to both legal and political ends.

Am I all for executing the killers of Katie Poirier, or Julie Holmquist (oops - he did it himself) or traitors and terrorists and mass-murderers? Of course. And the rumors of the death penalty's demise are exaggerated - Brendan Miniter has a decent article on the subject today:

This isn't the 1970s. Capital punishment is here to stay, in large part because the system isn't rife with errors the way it was in the 1960s. A full 70% of Americans still support the death penalty. But they are hesitant in applying the ultimate punishment, as they should be.

The execution of criminals for the most heinous crimes still draws little objection. There weren't many tears for terrorist Timothy McVeigh when he was dispatched 2 1/2 years ago. And tolerance for terrorists hasn't grown since then. Even Sen. John Kerry, who says he opposes capital punishment, makes an exception for terrorists.

The death penalty is even gaining strength in some quarters. Kansas and New York state both reinstated it in the 1990s. Virginia--which is getting first crack at trying sniper suspects John Malvo and John Muhammed--isn't squeamish about execution. And lawmakers there are considering making it even harder for the mentally incompetent to avoid justice. Prompted by the murder of eight-year-old Kevin Shifflett in Alexandria by a deranged man two years ago, state officials are considering removing the time limit officials have to make a criminal competent enough to stand trial. Currently, Virginia law allows officials to use medication and other treatments for up to five years.

USA Today reports that a growing number of college professors openly support the death penalty. Robert Blecker of the New York Law School opens his argument with three words: "Barbara Jo Brown." The story of this 11 year-old-girl--who was abducted, raped, tortured and then killed in 1981--draws "gasps from a crowd accustomed to dealing in legal theories," according to the paper.

To sum it up, all the argments against the death penalty are weak and unconvincing...except the one that is absolute and inviolable. As long as some cops seek revenge through the system, as long as some prosecutors put votes over ethics, as long as some juries can be manipulated into putting "closure" and expedience over justice, the innocent will end up on Death Row. And as long as governors blithely assume that the system works, they will ignore the fact that evidence of innocence is not grounds for a judicial reversal, and fail to provide their final role as a fail-safe for the system (my biggest criticism of President Bush).

So in the end, I agree with Lileks:

As most of them do. I’ve changed on this topic over the years; I used to support the death penalty, but I’m less and less certain as the years go on. When it comes to horrible crimes and ironclad proof of guilt, I’m not troubled by it - but it’s not always that easy. Anyone who thinks the system works owes it to themselves to read the recent New Yorker piece by Scott Turow, who served on a panel that advised Gov. Ryan about the death penalty. Turow was on the fence before he joined the panel, but decided against capital punishment in the end. I read the article, and thought, with regrets: yep. Can't do it anymore. Can't say yes. It’s not that I oppose it completely, but I feel less uncomfortable saying No than I feel saying Yes, and this is one of those things you'd best be certain about.

Until humans are perfect, I have to choose the lesser of the evils. Sad, but true.

Adios, VNS - On Election

Adios, VNS - On Election Night, 2002, I made one observation that I figured was just too far out to hope for : noting the absence of Voter News Service reports, I though it's be neat if we never had to deal with their irritating, unnecessary, and possibly result-skewing predictions again.

I truly can't make it up fast enough - VNS has assumed room temperature:

In November 2000, flawed information from VNS twice led networks to erroneousely declare a winner in the presidential election in Florida, the state that proved to be key to the outcome. The state's results were not determined until weeks later after recounts and a court battle that was resolved by the Supreme Court in favor of George W. Bush over Al Gore.

Following that embarrassment, VNS contracted with Battelle Memorial Institute, an Ohio-based research company, to rebuild its system. But in the 2002 election, VNS was unable to provide its members and other clients with results from exit-poll surveys. This material is used to help make projections of winners and to supplement the vote count with an analysis of why people voted as they did.

Good riddance. May their successors have just as much trouble.

I Wonder... if Excel Energy

I Wonder... if Excel Energy and my credit card company will accept this as an excuse?

Achtundsechziger - Germany fascinates me.

Achtundsechziger - Germany fascinates me. I minored in the language in college. I read the nation's history voraciously, especially the past century or so.

And its current situation may be the most interesting of all, as the German baby boom reaches its historical zenith. Geitner Simmons comments.

Inside the Anti-American Mind -

Inside the Anti-American Mind - In the days after 9/11, it was gratifying to see the way Americans reacted. Probably 99 out of 100 Americans pulled together behind the flag - and more importantly, behind the ideas it stands for.

But there were the others - the Ted Ralls, the Susan Sontags, the Normon "the rubble is more beautiful than the towers" Mailers.

Here's Victor Davis Hanson on the psychological roots of the "America Last" philosophy.

Is it because these elite Americans are so insulated and so well off, and yet feel so troubled by it, that they are prone to embrace with religious fervor ideas that have little connection with reality but that promise a sense of meaning, solidarity with a select and sophisticated group, moral accomplishment, and importance? Is it because of its very freedom and wealth that America has become both the incubator and the target of these most privileged, resentful, and unhappy people? And are their perceptions susceptible of change?

If the answer to the first two questions is yes, as I believe it is, then the reply to the third must be: I doubt it. The necessary correctives, after all, would have to be brutal: an economic depression, a religious revolution, a military catastrophe or, God forbid, an end to tenure. At least in the near term, and whether we like it or not, the religion of anti-Americanism is as likely to grow as to fade.

But it can also be challenged. The anti-Americans often invoke Rome as a warning and as a model, both of our imperialism and of our foreordained collapse. But the threats to Rome's predominance were more dreadful in 220 B.C. than in A.D. 400. The difference over six centuries, the dissimilarity that led to the end, was a result not of imperial overstretch on the outside but of something happening within that was not unlike what we ourselves are now witnessing. Earlier Romans knew what it was to be Roman, why it was at least better than the alternative, and why their culture had to be defended. Later in ignorance they forgot what they knew, in pride mocked who they were, and in consequence disappeared.

It's long, but worth a read through.

The Things We Do For

The Things We Do For Money - I meet people - socially, on dates, at family gatherings, wherever - and they ask what it is I do for a living.

And it's always hard to explain. So I'll give you an example; today's Bleat from James Lileks:

Jean-Charles, my French brother-in-law, asked me for some PC help - he wanted to make a home movie of his daughter’s birth, and just couldn’t seem to get anything to work. So I went over to his house to take a look. If I knew then what I knew now, I’d have brought a pistol and put a bullet through his PC. The movie-editing software was aimed at the consumer, much in the same way that North Korean artillery is aimed at Seoul, and it’s fairly recent. Apple’s iMovie has been out for a couple of years, so the PC boys have had ample time to study it, see what makes it work. And did they learn? No. There’s no incentive to learn. They developed an interface based on iMovie - clips on the right, editing line on the bottom, viewscreen in the middle. And then they PCified by adding seventeen icons and check-box options that had nothing to do with anything you wanted to do. Still, I figured I could help.

He’d plugged in his camcorder, let it roll, and downloaded 25 minutes of video. As with iMovie, the program cut the video into separate clips, depending on when he paused the camera. But whenever you clicked on an individual clip to edit it, the clip went back to the beginning of the movie. Each clip had an icon that showed how the scene began, but each clip started at 00:00:01. Huh? I hunted around for the location of the clips, and found the right folder. There were no individual clips. The program recorded the video as one gigantic bolus, and pretended that the clips were discrete files, which they weren’t. So when you edited any portion, you were working with the entire 3.3 gigabyte file. I cannot begin to describe how farked this is. Trust me.

You've all worked with software like that, right? Especially (but not exclusively) in the Windows world?

I fix that. I work with projects to help them design software that is not, to put it in Lileksian, "farked" to use.

All by way of kicking off the second week of my job hunt. Nine interviews last week, one confirmed and one probable this week. Seriously need something to drop in the hoop. Wish me luck.

Hope In The Air -

Hope In The Air - While it's finally cold (blah) but there's no snow (worse blah) and after a week I'm still job-hunting (blah-iest), there is still hope in the air. it's just a tad over a month until pitchers report for Spring Training.

Twins Geek.com is where I fix up that jones.

Can't be too soon.

Fortuyn's Legacy, Minnesota's Lesson -

Fortuyn's Legacy, Minnesota's Lesson - Odd parallels here, in a story I first saw on Andrew Sullivan's site. In the Netherlands, a female Somali refugee is ready to take up Pim Fortuyn's cause - and much more.Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a 32 year old Somali woman who is under a fatwa for denouncing Islam's backwardness, seems a shoe-in to win a seat in the Dutch parliament.

There are lessons in this for Minnesota, too.

In a sense Miss Hirsi Ali is the heir to Mr Fortuyn's revolution, despite being part of a mainstream party and, with a fragile frame and diffident manner, seeming anything but a firebrand.

Just weeks ago she was in hiding, evading what amounted to a death sentence, after she said Islam was an oppressive, misogynist religion trapped in the 13th century that seemed to be at war with almost all non-followers.

"I was provoked by some guys shouting at me in a TV debate," she said in precise, fluent English, almost at a whisper. "So I blurted out, 'It's my religion, and my culture, and I can call it backward if I want'. But I was also drawn into saying I was no longer a practising Muslim and that set it all off, because the punishment for leaving the faith is death."

Her story is alternately inspiring and blood-curdling:

The daughter of a Somali dissident imprisoned by the Siad Barre regime in the 1970s, she grew up in exile in Kenya, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia. She was subjected to the cruel ritual of female circumcision aged five, then ordered against her will to marry a kinsman in Canada, who wanted her to bear him six sons.

"I was sent to Germany to meet him but I couldn't face it," she said. "So I slipped across the border into the Netherlands at 11 o'clock on a November night in 1992 and asked for asylum." She would have gone to England but Holland had an open border under the Schengen treaty. She was 22 and did not speak a word of Dutch. Finding odd jobs as a cleaner, and learning fast about the underworld of abused Muslim girls hiding in shelters, she educated herself, ultimately studying political science at Leiden University.

Although she's not a member of Fortuyn's party, she preaches the same synthesis of classical liberalism, individualism, and reappraisal of Holland's socialist system. Here's the money quote:

"I wanted to understand why the western countries were doing so well when the rest of the world seemed to be collapsing," she said. "I studied the history of European political thought from the Greeks and Romans up to the Second World War." Her favourite thinker is John Stuart Mill.

"I learned that people in the West value the autonomous individual. They understand the importance of science, knowledge. They are capable of criticising themselves and there is an ability to record history to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. It is exactly the opposite in Somalia where all the institutions of record are missing, and my grandmother's memories of the clan wars will die with her," she said.

And she has some lessons for Minnesota:

She was asked by the then ruling Labour Party to research why so many Dutch-born Muslim youths seemed to be at war with their host society.

Her conclusion was a blistering critique of the Dutch state policy of multiculturalism, which she described as a calamitous mistake born of "a misplaced sense of guilt or pity" that has allowed militant imams "preaching hate" to indoctrinate youths in segregated schools, all paid for by fat subsidies from the Dutch taxpayer. She is demanding an immediate end to state funding for 700 Islamic clubs, often run by hardline clerics.

"The Netherlands is a country that worships consensus and peace, but here you have newcomers who are not integrated into this system. They exploit the values of an open liberal society to reach illiberal ends," she said.

Illiberal - or criminal, or just plain corrosive of Dutch society.

Sound familiar to you?

The lesson is one our schools in Minnesota seem to have abandoned: while one needs to study, and be aware of other cultures, there is very little in any of them to emulate; certainly nothing in their political, judicial or social systems is worth lionizing, least of all at our expense.

Cultural Pathology - Steve Den

Cultural Pathology - Steve Den Beste of the blog USS Clueless is an excellent writer who's not afraid to delve deeply into the philosophical underpinnings of his stories.

A few days ago, he wrote about the story of J.C. Adams, a septuagenarian Atlanta shopkeeper who can only walk with the aid of a walker - but who killed an armed robber and wounded another when they tried to hold up his store. It's an inspirational story, if you believe in:

• the individual right of self-defense
• the right to keep and bear arms against those who'd harm you
• the power of the little guy to see to his own safety.

Den Beste closed with this:

He won't be prosecuted, and Americans everywhere are cheering for this old bastard. Part of why he won't be prosecuted is that there's no chance whatever that a jury in Georgia would convict him of anything. (I doubt they'd deliberate more than half an hour.)

Our overseas friends would do well to contemplate this example. What's remarkable about Adams is that he isn't remarkable. There are millions of Americans who would do exactly the same thing in the same circumstances. We don't give up what's ours just because someone else demands it, whether at gunpoint, or via crashed jetliners, or through diplomatic denunciations and accusations of unilateralism.

Whether it's small (a couple hundred dollars in a cash register) or big (thousand of dead in a terrorist attack) or mammoth (yielding our civil rights through acceptance of treaties), what we care about is worth fighting for, or else it isn't worth anything at all.

The sad thing is that there are people in Europe who are in jail now because they did what Adams did.

This truly does spotlight one of many key differences between our society and Europe.

Europeans apparently took enough umbrage for Den Beste to follow up. It's a very long piece, and worth reading completely.

But this was the part that grabbed me:

...a cultural decision about whether citizens should be men or mice will also manifest in foreign policy. The US didn't choose this war. We were attacked first. But now that we have been attacked, we're going to do what's necessary to make sure it doesn't happen again any more times than is absolutely unavoidable. We didn't decide that there would be a war; that was decided by those who made the plans for the attacks in NYC and Washington. Our only choice is where it will be fought, and how, and who will do the fighting.

Europe wants us to act as a passive and fearful citizen of the world, and to wait for the world's policemen to save us. They want us to absorb our damage and not fight back, and we aren't doing so. America is self-reliant. As individuals and as a group we won't stand passively and let others attack us. We'll defend ourselves; we won't sit and hope someone else takes care of it.

Adams represents the finest strain of America in his act yesterday, and I'm deeply proud of him. For all I know he may well be vile in other ways, but at the deepest level he demonstrated a nobility I'm glad to see. I feel not the slightest twinge of shame in saying that. Yesterday I said this:

Our overseas friends would do well to contemplate this example. What's remarkable about Adams is that he isn't remarkable. There are millions of Americans who would do exactly the same thing in the same circumstances. We don't give up what's ours just because someone else demands it, whether at gunpoint, or via crashed jetliners, or through diplomatic denunciations and accusations of unilateralism.

I want to emphasize this. If you don't understand why Americans are willing to act like this, and why we're proud to act like this, and why we are not going to stop acting like this, then you'll never understand anything we do and your international rhetoric will continue to be ineffective. This taps into the deepest strain of our character.

You're not going to get anywhere by treating this as cultural pathology. We think it's healthy, and quite frankly we've got good reason to believe that. You had better learn about this, and accept it as an essential part of the American character, and deal with it in your diplomacy. The only thing you're going to accomplish by trying to shame us about this is to alienate us, because we're not going to change.

Which has been the actual result since September of 2001, as the politicians and chattering heads of Europe have indeed been attempting to make us ashamed of this attitude. Americans are not interested in hearing "Let the attackers beat you up and kill you; sit passively and let the police take care of it." We're also not interested in hearing "Let the terrorists kill you; sit passively and let the UN take care of it." The only thing this has done is to increasingly convince us that Europe's chatterers are effete cowards.

Everything which is truly important is worth fighting to defend.

Years ago, it was interesting to read Art Spiegelman's "Maus" series of comic books, translating the story of the Holocaust into comic format, with mice representing Polish Jews and cats representing the Germans. And although I have known since junior high that Europeans have a different attitude toward authority than ours, Maus put it in first person; the mice always trusted authority to eventually get sane, or eventually save them. It's an extension of the attitude most Europeans bring to the debate on liberty versus authority; the way they instantly obey police; the way they trooped into the European Union; the way they assume the police will be there when they need them; the way they seem to implicitly believe the UN will come up with a solution to...whatever, even though that would be a first.

Makes one despair of ever getting any sort of "united accord" with them.

The Bush Personality Cult -

The Bush Personality Cult - Eugene Volokh on Paul Krugman's descent into madness:

Cult of personality? Whose personality? Bush's? Oh, yes, outside my office window I see the sign on the street corner -- "Long live Bush, hero of all times and nations!" Highways, schools, cities all over the country are being renamed after George W. Bush. There is talk of the month of May being renamed Bushember.

I'd like to ask KrugmanDowdFriedmanRichIvins - is the president as stupid as you say, or is he as devious and all-controlling as you also say? Which is it? Because it seems like a stretch to think that someone with the mojo to build a cult of personality in two years is also a drooling idiot.

Get back to me on this.

This is a President whose personality is, if anything, mocked by the media and a substantial sector of the public rather than glorified; and while the Administration naturally treats its leader politely, it isn't trying to create anything remotely like a cult of personality, nor could it succeed in any such attempt. And while Bush's stature has rightly risen since Sept. 11, 2001, he is probably a somewhat less commanding and prominent presence in his Administration than Clinton, George H.W. Bush, or Reagan were in theirs (not necessarily a problem for him, but a big problem for the cult of personality thesis).

Read the article.

(Via Instapundit)

Blog of the Rings -

Blog of the Rings - The Lord of the Rings" story, had Tolkien been on the Blogsphere (according to Alan Henderson). Hilarious.

(via Instapundit)

Religion and Politics - During

Religion and Politics - During the elections and in the immediate aftermath, many of us on the right noted this: while many on the right mix religion and politics pretty gratuituously, many on the left go one step further - view politics as their religion.

Yesterday, at the Uptown pro-Terror, pro-Antisemitism, pro-rape, pro-dictatorship demonstrations, the KARE11 crew noted a number of people wearing WWWD stickers - "What Would Wellstone Do".

I expect to see much more of the same at the Wellstone Symposium.

The Uptown pro-Terror, Pro-Antisemitism, Pro-Rape, Pro-Dictatorship Demonstrations - A couple of thousand people turned out yesterday to protest in favor of genocidal dictators, the extermination of Israel, gang-rape of the relatives of political prisoners, and the flouting of UN resolutions. The Star Tribune covered it.

The protest was organized by the Iraq Peace Action Coalition and supported by Women Against Military Madness, Nurses Against War, the Minnesota Anti-War Committee and CodePink.

The article states this as if they aren't all the same group.

Thousands of e-mails, phone calls and leaflets had gone out inviting people to the demonstration. All ages were represented, but it was mostly an adult group.

Organizers said they counted 2,400 people. "We were incredibly impressed with the numbers that turned out," Sundin said. "It was more than we expected in our highest hopes. People's energy was really high."

The temperature hovered around zero. If people don't keep their "energy...really high", hypothermia sets in.

The protest started about 1 p.m. and lasted about an hour. The group was spirited but controlled and stayed out of the way of traffic until spilling into the street and walking on Hennepin Avenue to Lake Street, then down Lake to Lyndale Avenue.

For those of you from out of town - that's "Uptown", which used to be the "artists quarter" of Minneapolis, and is now...well, let's call it "Berkeleyland, the Leftist Theme Park" - all sorts of franchises catering to the Volvo-driving, MPR-listening, Perpetually-Concerned culture. Organic coffee, multiplex arthouse theater, places where you can spend $200 on a saute pan...

Many who braved the cold said they felt compelled to show up and send a message to President Bush.

"I think it's important that everybody who is against the war make their voice heard," said Chris Baird of Minneapolis.

"I think that we would end up killing a lot of innocent Iraqis, and an action like that would not separate us very much from the terrorists," she said.

Snappy comebacks are reeling through my head. But the whole thought that someone, probably college-educated, actually believes this in 2003 is just too depressing.

Evan Swanson of Hutchinson said he joined the protests because "I believe we haven't seen proof of weapons of mass destruction. I don't think there's any rush. Let's do everything we can to keep the peace and negotiate."

Because "Peace" - however unjust and awful and fraught with peril for the US, is always preferable to war, right?

Said Chris Kujawa of Minneapolis: "I don't want to see violence in Iraq. I think it's unnecessary. I think the sanctions are working. I think the war is about oil and not about the weapons inspections."

So much illogic, on so many levels. Lord, where does one start?

And that's the first I think I've ever seen anyone on the left not call for an end to "unjust, child-killing sanctions..."

In fact, on KARE11's coverage of the demonstrations on last night's news and nearly every other hearing the left gets on the war, that was the big theme - "there must be a peaceful solution. Let's try diplomacy. The sanctions are working"...and the capstone, "somehow, diplomacy can fix the situation".

How? Someone suggest to me how "diplomacy" can work, against a dictator for whom diplomacy is purely nothing other than a means to preserve his power?

I'll be waiting.

John Kohring of Minneapolis said that he opposes a war with Iraq and that he is optimistic that public protest will change minds in Washington.

Public opposition to the war in Vietnam brought that conflict to an end, Kohring said, but the opposition did not take root until after the war was well underway. In the case of an Iraq war, "it's quite remarkable that there is such an outpouring" before it even starts, he said.

Kohring said he thinks protests such as the one Saturday have already had an effect by slowing the juggernaut of war. "Each of us has a responsibility to speak out," he said. "This war is not consistent with our values."

Jessica Miranti of Edina said that after 40 years of working for nonviolence she is becoming cynical and wondering whether she has had any impact at all. But, she said, she was out on the street again Saturday because "I am very concerned about this war with Iraq. I cannot imagine sending my grandsons into battle for purely economic reason."

She added: "I'm here because I want to be counted."

Well, that was what they accomplished.

I'm not saying I'm thrilled at the notion of war with Iraq. I think I've been clear on that.

But between the strategic leverage it'd give us against our enemies both overt and covert, and the definite need to pre-empt Hussein's weapons program, I think it's the lesser of a large number of evils.

Torn Signal - I'm kinda

Torn Signal - I'm kinda torn about the SUV "controversy".

On the one hand, Arianna Huffington continues to make a name as the RINOiest RINO in America. And her spin needs some work:

Responding to the growing public outcry over its reckless gas-guzzling ways...

Er, hold on, Ari - the only "outcry" is the one coming from anti-SUV activists. The only "outcry" that that is getting out to the public at large is that of people looking to buy more of them.

On the other hand - well, she brings up a few good points in the article. The SUV has benefitted from a lot of political and administrative legerdemain (even allowing for SUVs' obvious market appeal).

On a related issue - I hear a lot of people say they buy SUV's for "safety". I'm tempted to do the same - to be safe from SUV drivers. Criminy, some of these people climb on top of those humonganoid behemoths and forget all the basic rules of the road, and every hint of highway courtesy.

True story - after every blizzard, or whenever driving conditions get terrible, I keep a rough count of the proportion of vehicles in the ditch. SUVs end up in the ditch roughly in double to five times their proportional numbers. Yeah, it's unscientific - and it's certainly not the SUV's fault. But the theory that many SUV drivers buy them to compensate for their own inadequate driving skills seems to be a fair one. (No, of course I'm not talking about you. Criminy). And I say that as someone who used to drive a CJ7, and would love to do it again.

Here's what I'd pay to see: The doddering Greenie in the smoke-belching Subaru wagon with the environmental and "peace" stickers that cut me off on 35W at 36th yesterday, in a demolition derby with the dim bulb in the jacked-up F-350 Club Cab that ran the red light on Highway 55 on Thursday. Maybe a cage match, to boot.

Remembering Wellstone - As I

Remembering Wellstone - As I said at the time of his tragic and untimely death, I disagreed pretty forthrightly with pretty much everything Paul Wellstone stood for, at least politically - but, like many genuine conservatives, I had plenty of respect for him as a person.

While he was liberal enough to make Ted Kennedy blanche, and his convictions in that direction were utterly unshakeable, he had great intellectual respect for opposing viewpoints.

Now, his former employer - Carleton College, in Northfield, MN - is holding a public symposium on Wellstone, on February 28.

I mention that to give some context to what comes next.

This symposium was announced on the Minnesota Politics mailing list. I asked - on the mailing list - if anyone, especially Republicans, were interested in car-pooling to the event. I figure, it's worth covering. There's nothing about dissenting from Wellstone's beliefs that is inimical to morality, sensitivity, or for that matter anything Wellstone professed to beleive.

This was one of the responses posted on the mailing list - by a local Green activist:

Yeah, what could be more entertaining? Throw in the opportunity to get linked by Glenn Reynolds,

Reynolds would be great, but I'd like to get on Virginia Postrel's radar. But I digress

... and every Minnesota Republican with a Blogger account will be headed down to Northfield, ready to take (or at least claim) offense....

The only offense I could possibly take is the narrow-minded bigotry of some of Wellstone's supporters. While I disagreed, vocally and constantly, with Wellstone's politics, I expressed nothing but respect for him as a person, an intellectual and a fellow citizen. Would that many of his supporters were so honest.

Onward:

Are Paul and Sheila buried nearby? Maybe you could bring your digital cameras and post some JPEGs of you dancing on their graves. That would rawk the crowd over on freerepublic. That would get bumped and bumped again.

That ices it.

I'd figured the odds were maybe 1 in 4 I'd actually be able to do this. It's hard to find sitters, you know.

But after that crack - it's a lock. Even if I gotta drag the kids along, I'm there. I'll cover this event - the good, the bad, the Cantina-Band-Scene-esque. Because while Wellstone deserved all the respect conservatives give him, many of his supporters are no better than Klansmen, when you get right down to it.

Have fun, guys. Hope you rock the Blogdex charts. Don't forget the little people on MSD when you get linked by best-of-the-web.

I don't care if nobody reads it - I'll be there.

See you in Northfield on Feb. 28.

See "Trivial Pursuit, 2005" - Campaigns and Elections cites a few Minnesota stories in its Best and Worst of the 2002 Elections story.

More on Iraq - Jay

More on Iraq - Jay Reding - who has an excellent Minnesota-based blog - has excellent rejoinder to a really dumb San Fran Chronicle editorial:

Someone needs to be bonked over the head with a copy of Clausewitz. Exactly what benefit would oil companies get from a war in Iraq? Let's apply Occam's Razor here: could a cartel of oil companies secretly be manipulating US policy from the sidelines without there being one shred of evidence supporting it? If Enron can't keep a secret, what makes Mr. Morford think that Chevron or Exxon can any better - especially when it's something as monumental as this? Then again, one should never look to deeply into someone's paranoid rantings.

It's a long piece, and it's all worth a read.

Best News All Week -

Best News All Week - Whatever else is going on, at least she is blogrolling me.

Brightened my day just a tad.

Status Report - We take

Status Report - We take a break from our usual politics and current events to talk about me.

I had nine - count 'em, nine - job interviews last week. Most were with headhunters - they wanted to meet me before they started sending resumes around. Most of them had some opportunities in the hopper.

This is actually a good sign for the economy; my job (software designer, AKA "Human Factors Engineer", "Information Architect", "Business Analyst" or "User Interaction Designer") is something people need done at the beginning of a project. This means that companies are actually thinking about starting projects - much of it work deferred from last year, but it's still work. Barring any catastrophes, I think it's a sign that the economy's picking up. It's certainly a sign that my economy is showing promise after a one-week-and-counting depression.

Next week - interview at one Fortune 500, possible interview at a second, and an opportunity to start at yet another...

...for a two month gig as a technical writer. Now, with apologies to all of you techwhirlies who read this column, Aaaaagh. I spent four years trying to get out of tech writing into what I"m doing now!

But that's the end of my whining about it - one job in the hand is worth two in the bush, especially when most of the things I've been interviewing for probably won't start for another...wait for it...wait...two months.

Well, it certainly could be worse!

And thanks to those who've responded to my none-too-subtle redirection to my tip jar. Again, all funds received will go toward keeping "Shot in the Dark" online.

Blanket Pardon - I've been

Blanket Pardon - I've been wondering when this would happen - Ilinois governor Ryan plans to commute all Illinois Death Row sentences to life in prison.

"I have had mixed emotions concerning this issue," Ryan told the Sun-Times explaining while he'll reduce all of the sentences to--at most--life in prison. No pardons are expected. "Occasionally, it was on the front burner, sometimes on the back burner and sometimes off the burner as to what to do at all.

This is an issue I've always been torn over. I'm a conservative (anyone still have any doubts about that?), but I've always had qualms about the death penalty.

OK, let's be accurate - one qualm. I think the death penalty - constitutionally applied - is moral, and sometimes necessary.

I also think that it's almost inevitable that the death penalty will be mistakenly applied. The Stanford University Death Center Information Project raised a lot of hackles in 1987 with its report that a number of innocent people had been proven innocent. The report had its critics as well - few things are black and white with this issue.

But it seems clear that the innocent have been executed, and that nothing really prevents it from happening again, although some (like Ann Coulter dispute that, too). Prosecutors are not only human - some of them are corrupt humans with their minds focused on their politics. Executions equal votes, which is too tempting for some prosecutors.

My step-son's high school history teacher is a former Cook County (Chicago) public defender, whose crowning achievement was getting four innocent men released from Illinois' Death Row about ten years ago. They'd been convicted "beyond a reasonable doubt" - only because prosecutors had stashed or destroyed exculpatory evidence.

It happens. In Illinois, it seems to happen a lot. Hence, Ryan's action.

Can't say as I'd argue about it this time.

Your thoughts?

More to Come - Extremely

More to Come - Extremely busy day - I'll get some blogging done tonight and this weekend.

Expert Testimony - The "Today"

Expert Testimony - The "Today" show this morning will feature representatives from, as Katie Couric says, "Americans who don't want America to send troops into Iraq". Who are these "respresentatives"?

• "A clergyman". OK, fair enough. But (not having seen the story yet), I'll bet that the "clergyman" is a representative of a denomination that has cast its lot behind appeasement of all violent dictators. Maybe even my own, Presbyterian church.
• A Retired Admiral
• Martin Sheen. You know: the "Real President", the leader of the Democratic party. A man with vast foreign policy experience if there's ever been one.

UPDATE: The Reverend is, predictably, from the US Council of Churches. These are "america last-ers' of the worst order - the same people who raised money to send to Communist guerrillas in the seventies and eighties. The same people who turned out the troops to get Elian Gonzales sent back to his long-suffering father in Cuba - but refused to help a Cuban father in America whose child was being illegally held in communist Cuba. Some of his bon mots: "We saw women at a presbyterian church (in Baghdad) who are...committed to peacemaking". He carped endlessly about the sanctions. The Revererend has judged that the inspections are being given full latitude - nothing is being hidden. Honest Injun. "We're concerned about the children", he kept repeating. As if the rest of us aren't. He mentioned nothing of oppression, of the chidren that the secret police tortured, raped, murdered, nothing of the behavior that got the sanctions instituted...well, not like I expected that.

The admiral, a Mr. Shanahan, says "Iraq poses no threat today that would warrant an invasion. There is no smoking gun". He says he's more concerned with the "military aspects" - "Taking Iraq is not going to be a piece of Baklava...my experience with siege warfare is that it's the worst form of warfare". Of course, his experience was in WWII, Korea and Vietnam. In the Navy. Not to belittle that, but warfare has changed. To her credit, Couric asked the Reverend about the deception in Iraqi inspections, even held his feet in the fire.

Sheen was his inevitably sanctimonious self. "There is no reason to justify killing Iraqi children". "If we are a Christian nation...then this war denies and destroys our humanity", says Sheen, suddenly a great Christian leader. He went on to ask "if we know where the Weapons of Mass Destruction are, why aren't we telling the inspectors? [that's right - we're the problem].

Couric asked him "why haven't we heard more voices like yours?" Sheen answered with the biggest hooter of the morning: "We're ruled by fear and idolatry". But of course - anyone who disagrees with you isn't playing with a full deck. Yes, Martin, many of us do fear terrorists with weapons of mass destruction, of whatever origin, or fear the real result of future Iraqi WMDs - hegemony over the Middle Eastern oil supply on which many of our jobs depend. But there's a lot more to it than that.

Sheen ended with this: "And may I remind you, the only fear we have is fear itself.". I'm not making that up.

I'm going to slip into Kim du Toit mode: Let's hope this interview makes it onto the evening news. It'll set the left back even further.

Day Four - The third

Day Four - The third day of a job hunt is always the worst one. Yesterday, despite three excellent interviews (the fourth was pushed back to Friday at the interviewer's request), was no exception.

First interview of the morning at a management consulting firm downtown. Oh, Jeebus, I want a job downtown. Almost all my jobs in the last ten years have been out in the 'burbs. But there's a hustle and bustle downtown that I just love. The interview was just great - they placed people in my area in December (almost unheard-of). They MIGHT need another, and in any case I knocked the interview out of the park and they have possibilities at some other companies. I get the impression that there are big things brewing - in about a month or two. Yagh.

The woman with whom I interviewed *loved* my voice. So she put me in touch with her husband, a video producer who needs voiceover guys. We'll talk today. Hitch: All of my tapes from my years as a voiceover guy (1986-1989) are long missing.

Second interview: Lunch with another headhunter. Went quite well - possible openings at a big investment company. But - yup, nothing RIGHT now.

Third interview: rather booming little contract company downtown. This was a pre-interview for one I was supposed to do this afternoon, at a local retail megachain. They told me that (bad news) they might not need me in there this afternoon for the "real" interview (which is a "team" interview now, and might be limited to project managers), but (good news) they might need someone as early as Monday and (better but slightly less likely news) they might need me for more of a lead analyst position than as a tech writer.

And one resume that I sent - and expected to be promptly rejected - has apparently gone over quite well. The headhunter says she expects I could get an interview (full-time position as a "Systems Analyst" primarily focused on GUI work) as early as next week.

But the grind of it all hit me yesterday. Maybe a little existential panic setting in. Eight or nine interviews this week - none for next week, so far. And of course, lots of stuff that could, and probably will, set up in the next month or two; almost nothing hiring RIGHT at the moment.

Sigh. Hopefully today'll feel better. One interview, possibly two, today, plus two (including a second with the consulting gig I REALLY want) tomorrow.

Jebus, I hate this. I know I'm pretty good at looking for work. I only wish it paid. If it did, I'd be pretty flush at the moment.

I am too proud to beg. But I'll draw your attention again to the tip jar - proceeds of which go to keeping Shot In The Dark online.

Face - I rarely watch

Face - I rarely watch "Today". It's astounding, sometimes.

Right now they're interviewing former ambassador Donald Gregg, a North Korea expert. He sees the administration's big problem with North Korea being one of "not understanding Asian sensibilities" - to paraphrase him, "they had President Clinton in their laps. Then President Bush comes into office, calls them a member of the Axis of Evil...they lost face". Well, I suppose that's true. I suspect the Japanese lost face when we scrubbed them from the Pacific in WWII. But there was a reason for that.

On the other hand, Gregg called it correctly: Iraq has attacked its neighbors, used weapons of mass destruction, used its military force as an instrument of policy. North Korea not only has not, but is unlikely to.

Words to Live By -

Words to Live By - The blogosphere is full of people who wear their emotions on their sleeves. For whom animus comes easily.

I'm one of them, of course.

They - and I - should read this Lileks piece, which puts it into better perspective:

If a Baldwin offend thee, change the channel. I don’t hate Michael Moore, I pity him - he’s going to die in 15 years of a massive coronary on a cold tiled bathroom floor, awash in the blasts of his emptied bowels, his autopsy photos posted to The Smoking Gun's new 3D holographic photo section. People in Hollywood may be idiots; they may be full of sophomoric moralizing, they may trot off to Baghdad and play the puppet for a megalomaniac toddler-torturer, but I can’t hate them. You have to husband that emotion and spend it carefully. Once, twice, maybe three times in your life you’ll come across someone who just plain needs hatin’. Hitler. Bin Laden. Stalin. Barris. Check, check, check, Chuck.

One needs to have priorities.

And Barris would be one of mine.

Desperation? - As the Legislature

Desperation? - As the Legislature reconvenes, the sides are mapping out their positions in the Concealed Carry debate. While Concealed Carry Reform Now of Minnesota prepares to take advantage of the new Republican gains, the measure's newly-renamed opponents are staging their own protest (scroll down):

...several dozen pink-clad women from the Coalition to End Gun Violence lined the steps leading to the Senate chamber in a protest against expanded handgun rights.

For years, the DFL-controlled Senate has blocked House efforts to make permits to carry handguns available to more Minnesotans. But Republicans and conservative outstate DFLers who favor handgun rights now predominate in the Senate, making the measure a strong candidate for passage.

Readers of this blog already know that part. But here's the part I love:

Instead of emphasizing effects on public safety, the coalition distributed handbills Tuesday pointing out projected added costs of $600,000 for the measure. "Can Minnesota really afford concealed carry?" the handbill asked.

This, as "Welfare Rights" supporters cavorted nearby.

So they've abandoned the public safety angle, and are trying to attack the costs. This session is looking better and better.

The piece, by the way, is written by Conrad deFiebre, who has distinguished himself and the Strib by actually covering this issue fairly and honestly over the last few sessions. A rare kudo to the Strib.

"My Father Was a Gangsta"

I know some fellow conservatives who are appalled when I say this - but I love Eminem.

No, I won't let my kids buy the CD, and I'll wash my son's mouth out with Lysol if I catch him talking like that. But Marshall Mathers is the most riveting rap artist - yes, "artist" - since Public Enemy's Chuck D. But late at night, when I crank up my MP3s or dial up Microsoft Radio, I'm fascinated not only by his pure technical chops (he combines the speed of an auctioneer with the humor and articulation of a slam poet), but by the material. Some of the stuff on his new album, and the 8 Mile soundtract, is intensely, deeply gripping, sometimes moving - which is all I care about with music, whether it's classical, rock, bluegrass or gangsta rap.

But this part is new to me, and fascinates me - Chuck Eddy's Village Voice piece on Eminem as a single dad.

Eminem, of course, is Marshall's alter ego. And sometimes Eminem goes by the name Slim Shady. And sometimes he plays a movie character who shares a name with the protagonist of John Updike novels about suburban midlife crises. In 8 Mile, when Rabbit's buddies are doing their ceremonial Devil's Night-style arson on the eyesore shell of an abandoned Motor City crack house, he salvages a torn, burnt snapshot of a happy (black) nuclear family, gets all choked up, and says, "When I was little, I used to want to live in a house like this."

The piece is long, and chock full of contradictions, and absolutely fascinating.

Although Sam still isn't getting the CD.

Perfect Day - I liked

Perfect Day - I liked this bit on Fraters Libertas, partly because of the homage to newly, involuntarily-departed WCCO noon news host Bill Carlson, but to the whole imagery of being home, sick but not too sick, when you're a kid.

It's a cold January day. The winds whirl, the trees moan. Snow is piled in drifts that are measured in feet, not inches. But none of this matters to you today because today you are Staying Home. You've managed to convince your mother you (cough cough) don't really feel well and just couldn't make it today. She reluctantly agrees and it's on.

Whatever you want to eat, she'd whip up since "A hamburger and a malt are the only things that sound good to me". She'd also leave you alone to recuperate, but since a kid can't sleep ALL DAY, she would also move the small black and white TV into your room (for the duration of your sickness only).

There you watch the shows of the housewives and the unemployed: Price Is Right, Tic Tac Dough, maybe a Gilligan's re-run on channel 9, the Gong Show and for whatever reason the 12 o'clock news on channel 4.

I remember doing the same when I was a kid - the only changes in the ritual (maybe once a year) were that I NEVER got the burger and malt (Campbells Chicken Soup, baybee), Mom'd get me a bottle of 7up, and Dad'd bring me home a Mad Magazine after work.

My kids haven't discovered this ritual yet. There's only one parent in the home, and kids today are afraid of being alone, I think - moreso than when I was a kid.

As to the daytime TV lineup - the Fraters' JB Doubtless is probably too young to remember the real cool "sick day" TV - Match Game with Gene Rayburn, followed by that horrible thing with Burt Convy...which one was that? Oh, hell, everything with Burt Convy was horrible.

Speaking of daytime TV - I'm not watching any yet. After two days out of work, I've spent about eight hours on the phone, and now have nine interviews this week (including Tuesday's two). Four of them are today (Wednesday). So hopefully this unemployed interlude will be fairly brief. Fingers crossed.

And thanks to those who answered my muted plea yesterday - I got enough money to keep the site on the air a few months. Not that I'll turn anything else down - I mean, if I can do my February mortgage payment, that'd be fine too. But seriously - thanks for your generosity.

The Pyongyang Panic - It's

The Pyongyang Panic - It's been interesting, and a little depressing, listening to a lot of liberals - and not a few conservatives - flying into their respective lathers over the North Korea crisis. Conservatives worry about mushroom clouds over LA and Seattle - not without some justification, of course. Liberals hold up North Korea as a sign that the President's moves against Iraq are misguided.

I've been wanting to write coherently about the North Korea situation for weeks. The BBC went and beat me to it with this excellent piece.

Decoding North Korea is not easy at the best of times. That in itself is a Pyongyang ploy. An aura of mystery and a reputation for unpredictability are useful - they keep the world guessing, and nervous of provoking such a maverick state.

Blood-curdling rhetoric too is par for the course, making it hard to know when the North Koreans really mean it.

But all too many in America take it all at face value - left, right and media. One can not view the happenings of the past few weeks in isolation from the fact that this is the same North Korea that periodically lands commandos in the South, that has its navy muscle ROK and Japanese fishing boats, and to fire on the South's navy, that sends the odd mortar shell over the DMZ at the 38th Parallel just to liven things up. This is a regime that thrives on brinksmanship - as the BBC explains:

Brinkmanship is also a tried and tested tactic. North Korea tends to take an extreme stance before entering talks, so that that any slight concession is seized on by its interlocutors as a sign of progress.

In other words, Kim Jong-Il should have been a divorce lawyer.

Another key thing to watch - while Kim leads an immense personality cult supported by an Orwellian, nearly-airtight police state, he's not the sole arbiter of power in the North:

Nor, despite appearances, should we view Pyongyang as united behind the will of its leader, Kim Jong-il.

Earlier this year, North Korea showed signs of reaching out to the outside world.

But now North Korean diplomats are seeing those efforts in tatters - the EU is suspending aid and Australia has shelved plans to open an embassy.

This suggests that, as indeed they whisper, the real power lies with a benighted and inbred military, who have much to lose if peace breaks out.

For that matter, Kim Jong-il may himself be in thrall to his generals. Or again, creating a crisis could be a bid to stave off unrest at home, as hunger continues to bite.

Not unlike dealing with the Soviet Politburo in the late eighties.

Sun-Tzu said "keeping your opponents guessing" is a key part of the art of war. Kim Jong-Il knows this - and so, blessedly, does the Bush Administration, which has exhibited its own crafty use of disinformation on the world stage.

So, to liberals who point to North Korea as sign of the President's supposed pusillanimity, note this:

• North Korea is playing politics its own way. This "nuke scare" is nothing new.
• Not to make light of the situation, but lest one wonder: the North might have a nuke or two. We have hundreds. Kim could level part of Seoul - a city that, unlike any American city, would likely be ready for it - at the cost of his entire nation.
• Conquering Iraq gives us something we need to fight the entire war on terrorism, throughout the Gulf, Southwest Asia and North Africa - bases we don't currently have. From Iraq, US Central Command would be in position to squeeze Iran and Syria, plus leave the Saudis no doubt who was in charge in the region. This would give us immense strategic leverage against all the terror-supporting powers in the region - in chess terms, it's thinking a few moves ahead. North Korea, on the other hand, is already in a corner. It gets along with China and Russia as it needs to, and we already have bases in Japan and South Korea that give us a crushing advantage against their huge but obsolescent military.

In other words - stay the course.

The Hair Squad - War

The Hair Squad - War correspondents go through boot camp.

Nearly 60 journalists from around the world participated in a course -- the second in a series -- designed to enhance their effectiveness and safety in combat. The first time the Department of Defense offered such training to journalists preparing to enter a potential war zone was in late November at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., officials said.

Fort Benning's 2nd Battalion, 58th Infantry Regiment, played host Dec. 16-20 to a number of war correspondents and photographers from CBS, CNN, The New York Times, Newsweek, Washington Post, and Al Jazeera.

Soldiers from various units and directorates led a crash course in combat survival, including the proper ways to enter and exit a helicopter, first aid, land navigation, reacting to direct and indirect fire, mine awareness and protection against nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.

"I've been in a couple of situations where this kind of training might've helped -- Kosovo, Belgrade, Saudi ..." said Kerry Sanders, an NBC correspondent from Miami. "Through all that, I never had any formal training. I'm pleased with this. It's a good opportunity, especially the NBC (chamber). The threat of chemical warfare seems more real this time around, and I do feel a little more prepared."

I wonder if the Army plans on sending any bloggers overseas? I volunteer...

I've been wondering for years when the military would break down and do this sort of thing - not only start working relationships with reporters, but try to develop some respect on the part of media people for what soldiering is about.

Everyone wins, I'd think; the media get the wherewithal to tell the stories that need to get out, while the military get to snicker at newspaper reporters trying to squeeze into Kevlar vests.

Shhhhhhhhhh - Just between us,

Shhhhhhhhhh - Just between us, the Third Mech Infantry Division is conducting the biggest live-fire exercises since the Gulf War, in the Kuwaiti desert.

UDAIRI RANGE, Kuwait (Army News Service, Jan. 3, 2002) -- More than 4,000 soldiers from 2nd Brigade and other elements of the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) conducted their first live-fire battle Dec. 21 at the Udairi Range Complex in Kuwait.

"I believe this is the largest Army exercise since Operation Desert Storm," said Maj. Gen. Buford C. Blount III, commander, 3rd Inf. Div. (Mech.), Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield, Ga. "An entire brigade with over 70 tanks and 70 Bradleys is here, and we have division command and control over everything."

The rest of the 3rd Infantry Division (Mech.) has now received deployment orders to Kuwait and will begin deploying next week, officials said. They said once together in Kuwait, the division will continue to train, honing its combat power and awaiting further orders.

Of course, it's not a secret what's going on - the departure of our troops is as quiet as a NASCAR race, and the training in Kuwait, and the "official" media's release over the weekend that allied Special Forces are already active in Iraq, is part of the psychological campaign against Hussein. The whole world knows what's going on.

On the Beach - My

On the Beach - My contract got "de-funded" last Friday, so I'm back job-hunting again. Two interviews today, three tomorrow. We'll see.

If anyone needs a software designer/Human Factors/Usability/Information Architecture/Content Producer guy, give me a holler.

And not to Sullivan anyone, but if the urge strikes you to toss a buck or two in my handy tip jar, it'd be most appreciated. Proceeds go to keeping Shot In The Dark online.

Stupid Radio Tricks - Stupid,

Stupid Radio Tricks - Stupid, but fun, anyway. Two Miami disk jockeys place a hoax phone call to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, disguised as Fidel Castro.

Get Barnard on this.

(via Instapundit)

Our New Dystopia - Over

Our New Dystopia - Over the weekend, several emailers told me I had to read yesterday's op-eds in the Strib for the new pieces by Lori Sturdevant and Jim Boyd.

Remember back in, say, 1993? There were tortured-sounding editorials in The Guardian, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and by the likes of the Cockburns and Dan Rather Daniel Schorr, about how crazy, ugly, inefficient and just plain different life was in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc? How the trains were running even less on time than before? About the difficulties people were having dealing with more than one opinion being allowed, or with prices not being set by central authorities, or with having to find a job on their own?

These pieces start with the same basic assumption: that as long as one group, or party, or side in an argument holds absolute control, it's the same as "consensus".

Sturdevent's piece sneaks up on you - starts by complementing Governor-Elect Pawlenty, then slides into some really ugly stereotyping:

Time was when there was no doubt: Minnesota, rural and urban, was one state. City people literally had country cousins. Suburbs were the clusters of stores and houses at the end of the streetcar lines that took the breadwinners to the big downtowns to work.

Read: Outstate Minnesotat was a bunch of "country cousins", people stayed down on the farm and let city people with the book larnin' do the governin'. Ya sure. And the burbs were just where people went to sleep at night, before taking the mass transit line, peace be upon its name, to the city. They knew their place.

Onward:

Folks throughout Minnesota listened to Cedric Adams at lunchtime and bedtime, cheered for the Gophers, and ended the summer with a trip to the State Fair.

And spoke with Swedish Accents! And ate Lutefisk! And indulged in more facile cultural stereotypes!

Minnesotans were nearly all white, nearly all middle-class, nearly all Christian.

And nearly all male! Er...whoops.

We return to Sturdevant:

The few who were not were shunted aside into city ghettos and the Iron Range, the better for the majority to pretend they did not exist.

So let's make sure we have this straight: If we were to say "America was a great place fifty or a hundred years ago - a place where you could fly the flag, where merit ruled, where taxes were low and self-reliance high, where you could both pray AND learn in a public school, where kids waited until marriage to have sex, families stayed together and neighbors cared about each other", many people of Sturdevant's ilk would accuse you of indulging in a sentimental cultural myth.

But when the writer is canonizing a cultural myth of the left - then apparently it's another matter:

That homogeneous Minnesota is gone -- and to the extent that it was a racist, insular place, good riddance. No Minnesotan should want to turn back the social clock.

But neither should any Minnesotan want to be rid of the legacy of Minnesota's monocultural era, for it includes things that have put this state on the map: a world-recognized University of Minnesota; a K-12 education system of notable quality; bountiful, well-protected natural resources; a sturdy transportation system; a helping hand for those less fortunate; richly varied cultural amenities.

The irony is this: Building and maintaining the things Minnesotans hold in common has become both more necessary and more difficult as the state has become more diverse. They are the things that acculturate the newcomers, provide opportunity, renew the economy and stabilize a fast-changing society. They are the touchstones of "brand Minnesota" in the global competition for prosperity.

So let me get this straight - the Ole and Lena, Yumpin Yiminy, Cedric Adams stereotype is what makes this state great?

Or is it:

But those common enterprises often take the label "government services," and as such, they are no longer as widely appreciated. Agreeing how and how much to pay for them was tough even before the recession hit.

Did you catch that? "But we did it, back before all those uppity conservatives shattered our, ahem, consensus".

Do you see the subtle link here? "Good Ol' Hunky Dory Ski U Mah Minnesota" equals government services. The alternative...:

Adams [John Adams, U of M Geographer] is a student of the burgeoning growth in Twin Cities suburbs since 1970. It coincides, he said, with an increasing psychological detachment of Minnesotans from a whole-state identity.

People increasingly believe they have little in common with Minnesotans who live in another region of the state, Adams said.

"Increasingly"? Does Adams believe that people in the Iron Range ever really identified with the rural southwest? Or that people in the Twin Cities ever gave the Red River Valley any thought?

But no, that's not the divide that troubles Adams and Sturdevant.

For example, "most people in the suburbs don't have anything to do with Minneapolis or St. Paul. More and more of the economy is outside the core cities." It has been pulled there, Adams says, by low-cost land, underpriced utilities, infrastructure improvements funded by someone else,

But not, of course, the failure of the big-state system spawned by the "consensus" for which Sturdevant pines. It couldn't possibly occur to Sturdevant (so it seems) that people are abandoning the cities and her precious "consensus" because the big state's efforts to "acculturate the newcomers" through relentless PC have alienated the people who foot the bills, and in fact is just a sentimental code-word for "subsidizing poverty", perpetuating that which it claims to abhor; programs to "provide opportunity" have wasted billions and provided no opportunity that the market couldn't do better; efforts "renew the economy" have dragged the economy, and trying to "stabilize a fast-changing society" stultifies it.

The message of Sturdevant's piece - "Shame on you suburbanites, farmers and other dissidents for not knowing your place, and falling into line behind the banner of Hubert and Fritz and Saint Wellstone. Shame! Do you not know, it's the Minnesota Way?"

Lileks says everything I did, but more succinctly:

The articles were part of a package about this shattered state, this bifurcated land riven by cultural schisms. Twas not always so. When the state was, oh, 60% Democrat and 40% Republican, we were united, marching into the glorious dawn with ours arms linked, a hymn on our lips to Great Leader Hubert and Dear Leader Mondale. Now that the state appears to be 60% Republican and 40% Democrat, however, we are like a cold bar of taffy smashed on the granite tabletop - pieces and shards, a whole no more. The reason? Individualism. The articles all lament the sad fact that Minnesotans no longer think of themselves as a collective, but regard themselves as individuals. And where are these doubleplus ungood rebels? They’re out there living in THE SUBURBS.

It goes on from there. Perhaps the piece should be saved in a time capsule, as a record of what we Minnesotans faced in our ruling...er, governing elites' attitudes.

Boyd's article ended with easily its best observation - something Ms. Sturdevant should have taken to heart before uncasing her Powerbook:

However we build on what is, it's better than wishing for what was.

Indeed. The old stereotypes are dead.

Time to wheel in the new ones!

One of the most important was reported last week in the newest census reports: Minnesota's population has grown by 65 percent since 1950, a much faster rate than any other state in the upper Midwest. Many of those new Minnesotans came from surrounding states, but many others came from farther away. Most have settled in the Twin Cities suburbs; they are weighted toward the professions; they tend to be Republican, and they were not steeped in the old Minnesota compact.

Alternate explanation: they weren't raised with Scando-Lutheran groupthink coloring their every human interaction.

The second influence has been the change in the parties, and it's not limited to Minnesota. The Republican Party has systematically rid itself of its moderate wing. It has managed to define its message simply -- economic growth through tax cuts -- while Democrats still struggle with a cacophony of discordant voices.

This observation should shock all of you Republicans. We're unified? I'll remember that at my next caucus meeting.

Seriously, there are deep rifts in the GOP - conservative versus moderate, single-issue pro-lifers versus those focused on economics, Rockefellers versus Reagans. But if we are seen as uniting around the "growth through tax cuts" message, we must be doing something right in spite of ourselves!

The upshot in Minnesota, as in most states and the nation as a whole, is that conservative Republicans sit in the catbird seat, and likely will for a long time. There is no middle from which a new consensus can be -- or needs to be -- formed.

The amazing part is that Boyd thought there ever was a "moderate consensus". When, as Lileks said, Minnesota was 60% DFL and 40% GOP, the "consensus" involved taking the very bleeding edge off the DFL's policies.

The third influence eroding consensus -- and civility -- is a popular attitude of disdain toward elites. People are better educated and more likely to work in white-collar jobs. They are less willing to defer to such intermediating institutions as the press, unions, the parties, government (including the public schools) and the influential "opinion leaders" of old.

And that really cheeses the metro DFL off!

They want to have their own say and to be much more in control of their own lives. They want more choices in where they live and how they live, including how they educate their children and how they save for their retirement. Far from being consensus-oriented, they are fiercely individualistic. Unlike the old elites, they also tend to be far less polite in pushing their personal agendas; thus the loss of civility in public discourse that so many -- usually from the old elites -- lament.

Read: All you uppity conservatives and your Talk Radio are upsetting the applecart.

Realism requires the recognition that individual choice is especially powerful right now. If any consensus is possible, it should be built around marshaling the power of choice in service to community. It's true in education, and it is probably true in health care, for example.

Boyd is both right, and a tad myopic. There's nothing inimical about "choice" and "community". Just in the way communitarianism is expressed by those with choice.

Boyd's piece is far the superior of the two - it eschews Studevant's sentimentalization of a lost majority's groupthink, and at least realistically assesses the changes of the past ten years.

So at least someone at the Strib gets it!

Dedication - A man shot

Dedication - A man shot at a Wendy's on University Avenue on Friday Night was back on Saturday.

A victim in the Saturday night shooting at a St. Paul Wendy's restaurant returned to the scene of the crime Sunday, this time for a bite to eat.

Turns out he's a regular at the fast-food stop on University Avenue and Dale Street, and his injuries from the night before didn't prevent him from stopping for a meal about 3 p.m. Sunday, according to an employee who witnessed the shooting.

Jaffer Seid said two of the shooting victims are frequent customers, though he doesn't know their names. Police on Sunday were not releasing the names of the three victims, all of whom were treated at Regions Hospital and released.

Somewhere, somehow, I'm sure Dave Thomas is smiling.

Tectonic Shift - Huge news

Tectonic Shift - Huge news in the Strib - three out of four citizens in or formerly liberal state favor cutting spending to raising taxes, according to the latest Minnesota Poll.

"These results certify what we saw in the election," said House Majority Leader Erik Paulsen, R-Eden Prairie. "Minnesotans are expecting first and foremost that the new administration conduct a top-to-bottom review of state government spending."

Said Dan McElroy, who officially becomes the state's finance commissioner and budget czar Monday: "It's reassuring to see that 76 percent of the respondents know that cutting spending has to be part of the solution."

The guys at Powerline are, as usual, right on point:

Pawlenty's victory illustrates the principle that the messenger is as important as the message. Pawlenty is a tremendously talented politician, who at age 41 may have a future on the national stage. He is such a palpably nice guy that even the staunchly Democratic Star Tribune, in an editorial this morning, calls him a "leader of obvious intelligence and decency" whose ten years in the legislature "have shown him to be a person of substance and genuine commitment to public service." (Of course, they're trying to soften him up for their plea to raise taxes.)

As someone who's lived in Minnesota for a little over 17 years, it amazes me - the "conventional wisdom" of this state ("suck it up and pay") is falling by the wayside, finally.

(Via Powerline and Fraters Libertas, who as usual are right on the money...)

Action - According to the

Action - According to the Boston Globe, US intelligence agents, and Special forces from the US, UK, Jordan and Australia, are already active in Iraq.

The operations, which also have included small numbers of Jordanian, British, and Australian commandos, are considered by many analysts to be part of the opening phase of a war against Iraq, even though the Bush administration has agreed to a schedule of UN weapons inspections.

Reactions to the news are, of course, mixed:

Naseer H. Aruri, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, said the Bush administration was being duplicitous in conducting undercover operations while agreeing to the UN weapons inspections.

''Certainly, the Arab world and the Islamic world would see it as being inconsistent with the weapons inspections, as well as an infringement on Iraq's sovereignty,'' Aruri said. ''It makes clear that the public acceptance of the UN mission and inspection process was more of a tactic than anything else.''

James M. Lindsay, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was a member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, said that few countries outside the Middle East would object.

A while ago, I ran the same story, from Debka. And I took a lot of heat from local liberal observers of the scene for doing it.

Hey, I can't be wrong all the time, right?

A New Nixon? - I'd

A New Nixon? - I'd wondered if Gore's move - abandoning the '04 election - mightn't be a Nixonian move.

Ronald Bailey wonders the same thing, in Reason Magazine.

Kimchi For The Soul -

Kimchi For The Soul - James Robbins on the current North Korea crisis in National Review Online.

It's been comical, watching the left smell blood regarding the President's approach to terrorism, again and again and again, since September 11. Remember all the approaches? We've been through:

1. "Homeland Defense means defending the homeland - not going overseas!
2. "Afghanistan will be a quagmire!"
3. "Er, we only captured the major cities!"
4. "But we don't have Bin Laden Yet!"
5. "But what about Iran?"
6. "Er...what about North Korea?"

This, like the others, doesn't stand up. Robbins:

Meanwhile the crisis has given the president's critics something new to carp on. Last month's "Bin Laden before Iraq" line has now given way to "Korea First." When you put Iraq and North Korea side by the side, the case can be superficially compelling. After all, U.N. inspectors are searching in vain for Iraqi WMDs, and the DPRK practically admits having them. Iraq has no functioning breeder reactors, North Korea is firing theirs up. Iraq has admitted and cooperated with international inspectors, the DPRK gave them the boot. Saddam has a repressive Arab Socialist regime, Kim runs a nightmarish Stalinist totalitarian system. Iraq has a relatively weak army in poor morale; North Korea has 10 million fanatics under arms, the largest standing land army in the world. Iraq is restricted by no-fly zones, Korea is not. Saddam has gassed thousands of Iraqis at various points in his rule; Kim is starving millions every year to have the resources he needs to support his war machine. (Note: If millions are dying, where are the bodies? Can we get satellite images of mass graves? Are they being burned in crematoria? There's an image.) North Korea is bad news, no question about it. All other things being equal, it should be getting more attention. But all things are not equal. The Middle East is much more important to U.S. national interests than the Korean peninsula, primarily because it is the source of much of the world's energy supplies. It is also a region that has lately shown a propensity to export its extremism to undermine U.S. allies and attack the homeland. North Korean exports, more tangible things like missile technology, can be more easily interdicted. Furthermore, the Iraq issue has been developing for a year (or a dozen). The Allies cannot turn on a dime and deal with North Korea exclusively, then expect to be able to go back to pick up where they left off with Saddam.

A critical inequality is the military equation. North Korea would be a much tougher adversary than Iraq even if it only had conventional forces. The probable presence of nuclear weapons make the situation even more difficult. Unfortunately, deterrence works in this situation as in any other match-up between nuclear states. Concerted action on the part of the United States without the certainty that North Korean nuclear weapons could be destroyed or neutralized severely alters the risk calculus. Thus the critics who say we should go after North Korea because it is strong have it completely backwards — we should deal with Saddam first because for the moment he is weak. We have been preparing for that conflict. Get it done while we can.

When you live in the world of theory - as so many of the left's wonks and punditry do - it all seems so easy.

I See Your Friggin' Escalade...

I See Your Friggin' Escalade... - and I raise you this!

While it is only a design concept for now, the car will become a reality if Lutz gets his way. Outfitted with silk carpets, a crystal Bulgari clock, smoked-glass roof and a chilled-champagne compartment, the Sixteen is a homage to the elegant Caddys of the 1930s that served as chariots for presidents, Hollywood stars and gangsters. But that mammoth engine beneath its gull-winged hood—the first V-16 Detroit has churned out in 62 years makes it something new: a luxury muscle car, meant to be driven, not driven in. (Although you can retire to the Tuscany-leather rear seat, which reclines into a bed.)

OK. When can we kick off the next dotcom boom? I wanna be in on this one, this time...

The Horses They Rode in

The Horses They Rode in On - The Independence Party's Dean Barkley's term in the Senate is over. Jesse Ventura leaves office tomorrow.

So long guys. Don't let the doors smack you on the way out.

Ventura went out with his one of his patented, pointlessly-combative, petulant press conferences.

Ventura went out much as he came in nearly four years ago -- outspoken and combative.

He pointed out that his 72nd and final judicial appointee, Terrence Walters of Rochester, had been an unsuccessful finalist for the bench several times before, and he likened him to a Navy sailor who vomited while doggedly trying to qualify for frogman duty.

Ventura even tossed a parting shot at his predecessor, saying that former Gov. Arne Carlson had denied him and his aides access to the governor's office until noon on Inauguration Day of 1999. On Monday, Ventura said, things will be different.

The Pawlenty team will have the run of the place beginning at 8 a.m., several hours before the governor-elect is sworn in.

While refusing to disclose what he will be doing as a private citizen -- a national cable TV talk show has been rumored -- Ventura dropped one small hint. At an invitation-only $100-a-person going-away party at the Marriott City Center Hotel in Minneapolis tonight, he said, "my new boss will be there."

Asked at a State Capitol news conference what his new job will be, he said: "None of your business."

He also said he expects to have no future role in public affairs except as a voter. "I'd rather critique the media," he added, "because no one does that, and I think someone should. As of Monday, you will fear me."

Friends in the media - including some of his former radio industry colleagues - say Ventura has the most irredeemably bloated ego in the history of Minnesota Politics.

If you're not from Minnesota, you might still be buying into the myths he and his handlers were passing off four years ago. He ran as a libertarian, populist conservative - all about personal responsibility, lowering fees, concealed carry reform, cutting taxes. In dealing with a (at that time) perennial surplus, he asked Minnesotans in a famous radio ad "How does $1000 for every man, woman and child in your household sound?".

As soon as he got into office, though, he surrounded himself with DFLers - Tim Penny, Dean Barkley, Ted Mondale; his cabinet included only one Republican, Charlie Weaver. He raced for the left - he caved in to Roger Moe on his first three budgets. His administration raced for the left - spending surpluses, de-emphasizing roads for light rail, caving in to the left on issue after issue.

For all of his populist/libertarian rhetoric, his administration was a make-work program for "moderate" DFLers who couldn't get endorsed at a regular DFL convention.

Speaking of which - Dean Barkley, whom Ventura appointed to finish Paul Wellstone's term, also left office last week.

Barkley, who was sworn in on Nov. 12, served only seven weeks, but his tenure was long enough to whet his appetite.

"It's not a bad gig, if you can get it," he said.

In an interview, Barkley said he "definitely would consider running for higher office again, if the right opportunity came."

Having worked as a top official in Gov. Jesse Ventura's administration, his aspirations are not necessarily limited to the Senate.

"I learned a lot about what it's like to be governor, and that's a nice job also," he said.

Barkley's Senate service gained him a mention in the record books. He is one of at least 30 senators in the nation's history who served less than two months, according to a list compiled by Betty Koed, assistant historian with the Senate Historical Office.

Barkley, like Independence party gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny, was a career DFLer - perhaps more "moderate" than the DFL leadership, but only slightly less liberal in practice.

Adios, Dean. Good Riddance, Jesse.

Wierd - Long day, plus

Wierd - Long day, plus stranger server bugs.

Hopefully back up and running shortly.

R.I.P. Joe Foss - Joe

R.I.P. Joe Foss - Joe Foss, former governor of South Dakota, and before that US Marine fighter pilot and, for a while, America's leading fighter ace, died today at 87.

In 1943, flying from Henderson Field, on Guadalcanal Island, Foss shot down 26 Japanese aircraft in a matter of days.

Foss "spurred an entire nation into a resolve that we would win the second World War and make the world a safer place," [Current South Dakota governor Bill] Janklow said. "All the things that he accomplished pale in comparison to the fact that back in the deep dark days of the early '40s when America needed a hero, Joe Foss was there."

He was indeed - and his accomplishments kept rolling. He went on to govern South Dakota, lead the original American Football League, and was a past president of the National Rifle Association.

The passing of the World War II generation is a national tragedy, unavoidable as it is.

(Via Rachel Lucas and her History Project)

Molnau - Governor-Elect Tim Pawlenty

Molnau - Governor-Elect Tim Pawlenty has appointed his Lieutenant-Governor-Elect, Carol Molnau, to lead the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

By having the lieutenant governor at the helm, the financially strapped state gets to pocket the transportation commissioner's annual salary of $108,000. Molnau, who will become the first woman to run MnDOT, will receive the lieutenant governor's salary — $78,197 per year.

"In my view it's time for the lieutenant governor to get to work. Without being unkind, it's not the most demanding job in the world," Pawlenty said.

Jesse Ventura's second fiddle, outgoing Lieutenant Governor...let me look this up...ah, yes, Mae Schunk, took umbrage to Pawlenty's remarks:

"We're not like a spare tire. A spare tire you put in a car and it hangs there until you need it," she said. The lieutenant governor is "like a backup quarterback. When you need them they are prepared, they're actively engaged, they're knowledgeable, they know the plays and they know what has to be accomplished if they can get out there."

Sort of like...a spare tire?

The appointment drew criticism from the usual suspects - the non-profit community and the Minnesota Left:

"We are concerned about the selection of Lt. Gov.-elect Carol Molnau as commissioner of MnDOT. In the past she has judged transit projects by ideology and politics," Lea Schuster, executive director of Transit for Livable Communities, said in a written statement.

"She's never been a fan of transit. I don't think the transit community found the strongest advocate in her appointment," said [former Republican In Name Only] Sen. Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar.

Pawlenty's three key issues were public safety, no new taxes, and easing the Metro's traffic congestion through road construction, a switch from the Ventura administration's fixation (inherited from the Metropolitan Council, the Twin Cities' un-elected planning-body-cum-government) with light rail. Molnau's appointment shows he's serious about the issue.

Not to say I entirely agree with Pawlenty's road-centric views - there's a very strong case to be made for commuter rail in and around the Twin Cities, using existing rails and right-of-way, and older rolling stock. According to some estimates, a genuine commuter rail line could actually break even or turn a profit - in the private-sector sense of the term! - if run under those conditions.

But that's not what Tim Penny, Jesse Ventura, and the Met Council want. They want light-rail - custom-built, brand-new, on freshly-purchased rights of way, on rails incompatible with any other rolling stock. And that means money - lots of it - and endless financial losses, to make what is in effect a statement to the world, rather than a transportation solution.

Hate, Part IV - News

Hate, Part IV - News that Bill Frist - the new Senate Majority leader and a cardiac surgeon in the real world - saved yet more lives in yet another accident (this is his third incident) brought up yet another shocking deluge of left-wing conspiracymongering on "Democratic Underground", according to "Right Wing News".

Mail - I got this

Mail - I got this one today:

Mpls Star Tribune editorial board? [Today’s editorial - George W. Bush, A toast to his internationalist side].

They "toasted" him for doing what they've always wanted him to do - defer to the "international community". They fought him tooth and nail on the means he took getting there.

That you've been so immersed in nothing but extreme neo-con blather from every possible angle shows in your inability to even know what a liberal looks like, much less what their goals are.

So many possible answers to this:

1. I'm no "Neocon". Never have been. I'm a conservative. Or, to be perfectly, anally accurate, I'm a fiscal and social conservative, and a judicial and legal libertarian. Any questions?
2. I live in St. Paul. I most assuredly know what a liberal looks like.
3. My parents, many of my friends, most of my church, and many of my most admired people are liberals. We co-exist quite well, thank you! Can the writer (assuming he's reading this) say the opposite? How much of your circle is conservative? And how threatening do you find it?

But based on your writing you think it's anyone who doesn't look, speak and think exactly like you do.

As to "thinking like I do" - well, yes, it seems reasonable that liberals and I think differently.

As to "speaking" differently - is holding opposing views such a crime? Or was that a jape at my North Dakota accent?

The only reason you don't realize how small your world is is because there are so many of you - intellectually lazy, emotionally stunted, impressed (and driven) by money and proud of your collective numbers.

Let's look at that whole paragraph, point by point.

Is my world small? (What's with the assumption that conservatives wouldn't be, if they were only exposed to "the truth"?)? Hm. I speak or read five languages, I have travelled widely, I have spent half of my life as a liberal and half as a libertarian conservative. I've interviewed policymakers and hookers, athletes and brainiacs, thugs and flashes in the pan. I've learned ten musical instruments, beaten people with pool cues, and held my children when they were seconds old. I've taught myself how to do a job in which most people have Masters or PhDs. If my world is small - well, the view is amazing.

Am I intellectually lazy? I'll let the reedder jugde wether I em.

Am I emotionally stunted? That seems a big judgement to make based on reading an article on a blog.

Am I impressed (and driven) by money? Ten years ago, I and my family were far below the poverty line. Having money sucks less. White liberal guilt is lost on me.

Am I proud of my "collective numbers"? In Minnesota? Yes, I am. In the seventeen years I've lived here, Minnesota has swung from being solidly liberal - voting for Mondale and Dukakis, for Hubert's sake - to being a "toss-up" state by many national reckonings. This, we've done against a hostile media and an academic and administrative establishment that tries to nullfy us at every turn. Am I proud of whatever numbers we've been able to amass? Absolutely.

The writer concludes:

Just because you're articulate doesn't mean your not another parrot.

And just because I'm a conservative doesn't mean I am.

Although for some reason, I have a craving for saltines...

New Project - Kos, of

New Project - Kos, of the Daily Kos, has started a new project, Polstate.com.

This project seeks to get bloggers of diverse political viewpoints from all fifty states (and overseas) to contribute local/regional political content.

Natch, I'm covering Minnesota, along with "Moderate Left" blogger Jeff Fecke.

The Political State Report rolled out yesterday, and should be an interesting experiment.

Moderate Left - My roll

Moderate Left - My roll of local blogs (I'm in Minnesota) grows again - with Jeff Fecke's list of regional political awards fro 2002. Some interesting stuff. But I have to comment on his "Biggest Loss in Minnesota Politics" category:

James Janos, a.k.a. Jesse Ventura. I'll be chatting about the Guv in a few days, but in a nutshell, he changed Minnesota politics--for about four years. Though he failed miserably to reach his potential, thanks to his unfortunate petulance, there's no question that he was a wake-up call to the DFL and Republican parties in this state. That the DFL refused to wake up is to their ongoing shame and electoral misery. The Body also made Minnesota politics fun.

In the same sense that hearing how you behaved while you were blind drunk at the New Years party is fun? Yes, he did!

After a few years of the bland, vaguely nice Tim Pawlenty, I think we're gonna miss the big lug--in theory, at least.

The left underestimates Pawlenty. He's not only a genuinely great guy - he is as good a speaker and as articulate a politician as any you'll find in this state.

Honorable Mention: Tim Penny. He was clearly the best candidate for Governor--something that Minnesota will realize when Pawlenty cuts the budget by 10% across the board without considering a tax increase.

Let's indeed hope Pawlenty has the balls to follow through on this. The budget cut could be the best thing ever to happen to Minnesota.

Let's hope his crushing defeat doesn't spell the end for the former U.S. Rep--and let's hope it doesn't make the DFL think that they had anything but a horriffic choice for Governor in Roger Moe.

I once admired Penny. That was before his headlong race for the left during the gubernatorial campaign. As for being the best candidate for governor - well, that's a matter of pespective, isn't it? Certainly better than Moe (or Loury, or Dutcher), but in the end, Penny was just another big-tax, big-spend, DFL-Lite politician.

Like Ventura, without the feather boa and the galloping ego.

Anyway - kudos to Jeff Fecke for covering Minnesota from his perspective.

Media Wars - This article

Media Wars - This article talks about one of my favorite topics - why the left not only can't win the "alternative" media war (on talk radio and the blogosphere), but can't even figure out why.

(Via Powerline)

Murderapolis - Minneapolis got about

Murderapolis - Minneapolis got about an hour into the new year before
someone got murdered.

The murder happened in a neighborhood that residents are working tirelessly to clean up. Despite their efforts, the people that live there say drugs and prostitution are rampant again. Neighborhood activist Donna Ellringer says police arrest drug dealers around the clock, but she says the courts have been lenient and dealers are often back on the streets in days or less.

"All of a sudden the gangs and drugs come back. In the last three to four weeks, it's been out of control," Ellinger said

Police are still trying to determine if the murder was drug or gang-related. They say no suspects are in custody.

For those of you from outside Minnesota (and those of you in Minnesota who don't pay much attention to the Twin Cities' urban core) - the Phillips Neighborhood is a monument to the failure of fifty years of liberalism. The neighborhood - mostly old, solid homes built from the 1890s to the 1920s - was a respectable working class neighborhood until "Urban Renewal" and the federal government drove I-94 and I-35W into the heart of the neighborhood (their crossroads marks the northwest corner of the neighborhood now), gutting property values and beginning the immense middle-class flight from central Minneapolis that has still not abated.

Then, Minneapolis' socialistic landlord-control laws, and Minnesota's confiscatory rental-property taxes, gave the small landlord a choice - maintain a property properly and lose money hand over fist, or let it decay and cover their mortgage and tax payments.

And Minnesota's welfare system turned the inner city and its newly-undesirable property into warehouses for the poor - while the system's misplaced generosity and myopia imported more poor from around the country. They brought their drug trade and gangs with them...

...and here we are. Another poor schmuck dead in Phillips. The community again cowering in their distressed housing, the city's honest citizens disarmed by a patriarchal government, the liberal judicial system unable to impose order, much less justice, the police mistrusted by both the city's minorities (who feel singled out as well as unprotected) and the whites (who feel disempowered and unprotected, too).

I'm so utterly glad I live in St. Paul.

Green Christmas - Due to

Green Christmas - Due to a recent technicality in Minnesota election laws, the Green Party of Minnesota will maintain 'major party' status.

Ralph Nader put the Greens in the major-party league when he attracted 5 percent of the 2000 presidential vote in Minnesota and at least one vote in every county. Aside from sure spots on the ballot, it qualified Ken Pentel for $240,000 toward his gubernatorial campaign and brought lesser amounts to other Green candidates.

In the days after the 2002 election, many thought the Greens forfeited their special status because they failed to get at least 5 percent in any statewide race.

They were saved by a 2001 law change that left statute books with ambiguous language. It effectively gave them a pass for one election cycle.

Unless a Green Party presidential candidate meets the 5 percent threshold in 2004, however, it's back to square one. The race for the White House is the only contest that will appear on all Minnesota ballots in two years. Gordon said he's not sure who - if anyone from his party - would run for president.

Although I predicted that the GP would lose major-party status - and, by the "5% rule", I was right - I'm still frankly amazed by the disintegration of the Minnesota Green Party. The Independence Party I rightly flagged as a Ventura-driven phenomenon - but I figured the Greens had enough oomph among the Volvo-driving, terminally-sensitive PC caste to get 5% somewhere in the state.

Glad to see I was wrong.

Speaking of Volvo-driving, Terminally-Sensitive PC Caste - I was driving down Hamline Avenue in St. Paul yesterday, behind a woman in a late model Volvo sedan. Guess what kind of woman?

If you guessed fiftysomething, pudgy, earth-motherish, wearing a Peruvian alpaca knit cap and a VERY posh-looking coat, you may proceed to the next section of this posting. If you didn't, do - and then proceed.

Her bumperstickers included

• "Regime Change Begins At Home"
• "Re-Elect Gore in 2004"
• "You Can Not Simultaneously Prepare for Peace and War

I need to print some of my own, I think:

• Regime Change Begins Where the Government Kills Its Opponents
• Get Over It - 2000 was The Law of the Land, Stupid
• Preparing for Peace Without Being Able to Defend It is Worthless

Hm. That can be on next Chrismas's list...

Conventionial Wisdom - North Carolina

Conventionial Wisdom - North Carolina Senatory John Edwards seems more and more a shoe-in to run for president.

Now, I've heard three different, inevitably contradictory, versions of "conventional wisdom" on this:

1. Knowing that, should present conditions hold, running against Bush is a suicide mission, Edwards is really setting himself up for a Vice Presdidential run in '04, to set up name recognition for a run for the presidency for real in '08.
2. Edwards' run is analogous to Nixon's run in '60 against Kennedy - counting on at least building name recognition and a nationwide base, probably on the cheap - rather than spending like he'd have to to make a credible try at winning, he'd scale his effort more toward going nationwide and set up a credible campaign organization for '08.
3. If something seems too good to be true - or, by corollary, too bad to be true - it's probably not. Edwards is counting on some disaster to cut the knees out of under the Bush administration in time for the next election - either a military disaster, or a double-dip economic slump to turn the electorate's attention back toward the domestic matters that the Democrats still feel confidence about (whether justifiable or not).

Any ideas? I personally think #1 is the closest - Edwards has to know that no non-Democrat-activist outside of the Scrapple Belt knows anything about him, and it'd be nice to build the name recognition on someone else's dime.

Of course, I've been wrong before...

Happy New Year! - I

Happy New Year! - I haven't spent New Years out of my house since...yeesh, probably 1994. New Years generally involves buying a bottle of sparkling apple cider, playing games and doing stuff with the kids until midnight, then running around the house banging pots (and occasionally shooting off illegal bottle rockets smuggled in from North Dakota the previous summer) at midnight.

Last night started off being no different. Took the kids skating at the Roseville Ice Arena, and got a thoroughly unexpected invite from a friend to a party at her house. New Years among adults (and their kids, of course) - unthinkable! And fun!

And most of the people at the party were in the wine business, so I even had champagne I actually enjoyed for the first time ever.