Right Wing Nut House

There is something so anachronistic about royalty.

The basic tenet of it is revolting to republican sensibilities; that one human being is better than another simply because of who his father was. It bespeaks a breathtaking arrogance to believe that you can breed human beings like dogs or horses and expect one’s progeny to be superior to that of another.

That’s why I always thought the American fascination with Princess Diana was so troubling. Here was this nice woman of average intelligence with a little bit of style (bought and paid for with the taxes of hard working Brits) who not only achieved iconic status while she was alive, but whose tragic death turned her into some kind of Kennedyesque martyr.

A martyr to what? Evidently, she held babies afflicted with AIDS…but so do tens of thousands of nurses, aid workers, mothers and fathers around the globe.

They, however, don’t wear Christian Dior dresses and date Arab playboys.

And then there was that lionization of Diana for her “work” with clearing land mines around the world.

Our military, along with volunteers from all over the planet have been doing this for going on thirty years.

Yes, but they don’t have a son who’s going to be the next King of England.

It caused barely a ripple of anger back in 1982 when Nancy Reagan curtsied before Queen Elizabeth. If it had been Abigail Adams, I’m quite sure that John would have been impeached and poor Abby would have been subjected to that fine old all-American tradition of being tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. (’Tis a pity we gave up on that tradition…I can think of a few moonbats who’d look rather good in feathers.)

The reason for this diatribe against royalty is something the man who would be a would-be King said about those of us unlucky enough not to have had a Queen for a mother. Here’s Prince Charles in all of his regal glory:

“People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability. This is the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history.” (Courtesy of Drudge)

As opposed to having the “natural ability” to be…what? A Prince of the royal blood? A Dumbo-eared dilettante whose insufferable pronouncements about art, architecture, and the culture have shown him to be an elitist of the first order?

The quote came in a memo written by the Charles formerly known as Prince in response to a request by a Secretary for more training at work. The secretary in question, Elaine Day, is claiming sex discrimination and unfair dismissal against the prince’s household and described it as “hierarchical and elitist”, an institution run in an “Edwardian fashion” where everyone knew their place and those who did not were punished.

“Edwardian fashion” may be too generous and off by about 500 years. It seems more like the England of Henry VIII. My God! Even in this day and age, the British press referred to Diana “having done her duty” when she bore this lickspittle a male child to continue the bloodline. (As an aside, Charle’s great-Uncle was Kaiser Wilhelm who fought a little war against his relations at the beginning of the 20th century. The current occupants of Winsdor Castle used to go by the name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, only changing it to Winsdor to placate patriotic sensibilities.)

The web of connections involving past and present royalty in “old Europe” has been fodder for conspiracy theories for years. Thanks to the influence of the old Hapsburg dynasty that ruled first, the Holy Roman Empire and then the sprawling Austro-Hungarian empire, most of the old royal families of Holland, Spain, Russia, Belgium, Germany, and England are related in one way or another. What has always united them is money…and lots of it.

Thank goodness their political influence has been reduced to next to zero.

I’ve often felt that in addition to the recently diagnosed psychological syndrome PEST (Post Election Stress Trauma), moonbats are afflicted with something I’ll call Stupidly Hysterical Irate Twaddle; a condition that prevents the afflicted from accepting reality while forcing the poor unfortunate into paroxysms of hate-filled spite until, exhausted from the effort, they collapse into a heap of drooling, gibbering, quivering jello-brained mush.

This moonbat (who comes to use courtesy of David Limbaugh has a full blown case:

“The exit polls told the truth in 2000 and in 2004. Bush lost both times, but you repulsive republicans have stolen this country. You say we are fighting for democracy in Iraq yet you don’t trust it here. You have to rip off the American people to get your guy in…..your ends justify the means. You lie and steal. You should be ashamed.”

In a clinical sense, I suppose one could say that this particular moonbat also suffers from a regressive form of SHIT in that she reverts to a past hallucination and channels it forward to her fantasy of today.

“I just hope you wake up to the truth before our country, which I love so much, is totally destroyed. Every free thought curtailed, every spark of ingenuity thwarted. If America could speak to the world we would say we’re embarrassed. Embarrassed by the actions of the minority, the small minded, war mongers who have stolen our democracy. You are one of these folks and I hope you live to see the results of your insanity.”

As is obvious, the moonbat also suffers from Bi-locative SHIT as she obviously doesn’t think she lives in the same place that ordinary, sane Americans do. I’m not sure this moonbat can be helped until we find the root cause of her malady.

Maybe Michael Moore and Whoopie Goldberg could host a telethon…

HOW’S YOUR MOVIE IQ?

Pat over at Brainster’s has a great movie trivia quiz. Also, scroll down for the 70’s trivia teaser.

Great stuff, Pat!

The Captain is blogging the NYT article about the “agreement” reached between the EU and Iran regarding the radioactive mullahs promise not to process uranium in return for some very generous economic concessions.

And if you believe that, I know of a bridge in Tehran that you could pick up for a song.

As I pointed out here, the framework for the agreement mirrors the one with North Korea back in the nineties. And we know how well that worked out. Dearest Leader Kim was able to violate that agreement with impunity and, when the time was ripe, repudiate it completely.

The idiocy of the Europeans who’ve agreed to build a “light-water” nuclear reactor and sell the mullahs nuclear fuel is beyond belief. Fuel from such reactors cuts the time to enrich uranium by more than a third. If anything, it sets the mullahs back about 9 months in their quest to build nuclear weapons. And since there’s no verification protocols in place, I guess we’ll just have to trust the maniacs not violate the agreement.

IMAO, I think that this move virtually assures a strike by Israel before the summer is out. Given the Administration’s strong support for the Jewish State, I doubt whether we’d go along with any European effort at sanctions but, like Reagan did back in 1981 when the Israeli’s hit the Osirik reactor in Iraq, we’d register some kind of strong protest.

“This is William L. Shirer for CBS News and YOU ARE THERE…“

“We take you now to Normandy, France where just a few hours ago Allied troops began an historic invasion of the continent of Europe. Our cameras are following a company of United States Army Rangers as they work their way up the bluffs behind the landing area known as “Dog Green.” Correspondent Eric Severied has the story. We’d like to warn viewers that some of the images you’re about to see are graphic and disturbing.”

“Bill, we’ve been observing the Rangers for the last several hours as they’ve made their way up the draw behind “Dog Green” and what we’ve seen can only be described as graphic and disturbing. As the Rangers overrun enemy positions, we’ve observed unarmed German soldiers being brutally gunned down in the act of surrendering by American soldiers. We’ve seen wounded Germans, stunned and incoherent, wandering towards Americans and being shot for no reason and without an offer of assistance from any of the Rangers in the vicinity. By any standards of decent, human behavior, these are considered war crimes under the Geneva Convention.”

“While some may argue that the Rangers, being under fire themselves and German soldiers firing at Americans even while their comrades were surrendering can be used as an excuse for the Ranger’s behavior, the sad facts are that these actions are a dark stain on the American military and call into question the entire rationale for the war.”

*******

While there were no video cameras at Normandy or on any other battlefield during World War II, the above fantasy begs the question; what would the American people have thought if there had been?

“Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention…” (Geneva Convention, Part II, Article 13)

It appeared to be an extraordinarily tense situation.

A wounded Iraqi in Fallujah was lying on the floor of a bombed out Mosque being confronted by a U.S. Marine this past Saturday. Evidently thinking him dead, the Marines were surprised when the Iraqi moved:

“One of the Marines noticed that one of the severely wounded men was still breathing. He did not appear to be armed, Sites said.

“Well, heÂ’s dead now,” another Marine said.”

Sites is Kevin Sites, a freelancer embedded with the Marines working for NBC whose blog Kevin Sites Blog is one of the best sources on the web for information on the war.

The video of the incident can be found here.

If this were the whole story, a good case could be made for charging not only the Marine that fired the rifle, but his comrades who watched the unfolding drama, with war crimes.

But because this is not the whole story, an equally good case can be made for self defense.

“Sites reported that a different Marine unit had come under fire from the mosque on Friday. Those Marines stormed the building, killing ten men and wounding five others, Sites said. The Marines said the fighters in the mosque had been armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles.”

“The Marines had treated the wounded, he reported, left them behind and continued on Friday with their drive to retake the city from insurgents…”

The next day (Saturday) firing was again reported from the same Mosque.

“Sites saw the five wounded men left behind on Friday still in the mosque. Four of them had been shot again, apparently by members of the squad that entered the mosque moments earlier. One appeared to be dead, and the three others were severely wounded. The fifth man was lying under a blanket, apparently not having been shot a second time.”

“Sites was present when a lieutenant from one of the units asked a Marine what had happened inside the mosque. The Marine replied that there were people inside.

The second Marine shrugged in reply.”

A Marine from another unit had been killed the day before when a booby trapped corpse went off.

The judge advocate general heading the investigation of the mosque incident, Lt. Col Bob Miller said that depending on the evidence, it could be reasonable to conclude that the Marine was acting in self-defense.

What seems clear to me is that the ambiguity of this incident is a perfect argument for staying the hell away from the World Criminal Court that John Kerry and the Democrats would have forced the United States to join. Such an incident-caught on camera for all the world to see-could have been used by unfriendly powers to prosecute a soldier who may in fact be innocent while at the same time embarrassing the United States.

Chris Matthews devoted a segment of Hardball to the story last nite. As soon as I get a transcript, I’ll post excerpts.

WHY THE LEFT GAVE UP ON FREEDOM

Hindrocket at Powerline has some interesting thoughts on the left’s abandonment of the universal freedom of man that was a hallmark of liberal democratic thinking for nearly 200 years.

“Whatever happened to the left? When did it give up on the cause of freedom? I don’t know. But the American left’s abandonment of the cause of liberty is one of the saddest facts of modern history.”

I did a post on the death of the “Father of Deconstructionism” Jacques Derrida in which I pointed out the corrosive nature of deconstructionism and its effect on the left’s respect for and belief in western civilization:

“It’s my belief that Monsieur Derrida and his collegues severely undermined faith and belief in western civilization amongst the intellectual left in Europe and the United States. As a method of textual analysis, it was a benign force for change in criticism of the arts. As a vehicle for social commentary, it was a disaster.”

Liberal abandonment in the Natural Rights of Man theory has led inevitably to the conclusion that any western model of “freedom” is fatally flawed. The logical outgrowth of this abandonment-multiculturalism and cultural relativism-prevents liberals from supporting any action that would carry the western idea of individual liberty (even though leftists can’t themselves live without it) to anyplace where culture and tradition have prevented the rise of these “natural rights.

Ain’t having a relativistic worldview a bitch?

FLIGHT OF X-43A DELAYED

A problem with avionics forced the scrubbing of the much anticipated test flight of NASA’s X43A hypersonic aircraft on Monday. Engineers will try again Tuesday to break the world record for an air breathing vehicle as they attempt to reach the unheard of speed of Mach 10 or 7000 MPH.

Just 12 feet long and 5 feet wide, the X-43A jet is mounted on a modified Pegasus rocket designed to be carried aloft by a B-52 aircraft and released at 40,000 feet. The rocket will carry the X-43A to 110,000 feet and separate, allowing the craft to fly for about 10 seconds with its supersonic combustion jet operating.

The X-43A test shot is part of NASA’s Hyper-X program, a research effort to try out propulsion technologies for high-speed flight within the atmosphere and into Earth orbit.

The “scramjet” is capable of flying at enormously high altitudes and record breaking speeds because, unlike regular jet engines, the X-43A has very few moving parts and instead, relies on oxygen being rammed at very high speeds through the engine where it mixes with a small amount of hydrogen that then ignites and propels the craft at hypersonic (more than Mach 5) speeds.

What makes this technology so exciting is that any craft using the scramjet could carry a much reduced fuel load thus increasing pay load. A scramjet craft could take off from a commercial runway and, theoretically, achieve earth orbit thus cutting the cost of near earth space travel to a managable amount. Currently, it costs around $2,500 per pound to place a man in orbit. Even cutting that amount in half would bring the dream of routine travel into space within reach.

“God has a hard on for Marines, because we kill everything we see. He plays His games, we play ours. To show our appreciation for so much power, we keep heaven packed with fresh souls. God was here before the Marine Corps, so you can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the corps.” (Gunnery Sargeant Hartman Full Metal Jacket)

I must confess to a sentimental fondness for Marines. When I lived in Washington, D.C. back in the 1980’s, I lived next to a young couple, both of whom were Marines working at the Pentagon. I learned a lot about Marines and the Marine Corps from Josh and his friends. The most important thing I learned is DON’T DISS THE CORP! If you’re not a Marine, you have no right to make observations detrimental to either their service or the Corps itself.

Doing so was not good for your health.

In fact, making an enemy of a Marine (as all those “fresh souls” in Fallujah have now found out to their sorrow) is never a wise thing. Marines are warriors. Marines are killers. And they are absolutely vital to maintaining the safety and security of the United States.

All societies have a “warrior class.” They are men who have sworn to defend society from all of its enemies even at the cost of their lives. And although this gives them a special status in those societies, they usually have a hard time during periods of peace.

Here in America, we’ve seen several individuals who, while excelling in the arts of war, have been miserable failures during peacetime. “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, a hero of the Revolutionary war (and father of Robert E. Lee) was a brilliant cavalry officer serving under Washington. But once the war ended and American liberty secured, he led a dissolute life…drinking, carousing, and gambling away not one but TWO fortunes he married into. He ended up in debtors prison and died an ignoble death.

Laktotan war chief Crazy Horse was another unfortunate who, through brilliant individual leadership and canny tactics, bedeviled the U.S. Cavalry for more than 8 years until, after the Sioux surrendered, he was killed by his own people on the tribe’s reservation.

Society in general looks down on its warrior class. That is, until something like 9/11 happens. And then we become VERY grateful that such men exist.

Marine Lance Corporal James Baker Miller is one such man. Miller is the Marine whose picture has graced the cover of more than 100 newspapers and countless thousands of blogs in the last week.

The picture is priceless. It’s a probable Pulitzer winner and has become an iconic symbol of the battle for Fallujah. The picture was taken by Luis Sinco, a Los Angels Times photographer. It shows Corporal Miller, his face smeared with camoflauge, a cigarrette dangling from the corner of his mouth; his eyes looking off in the distance giving a “thousand yard stare” that only men who’ve been in combat can understand. It is a face at once both heroic and innocent. He has a look of determination and weary acceptance, as if death a constant companion.

To my eyes, he looks very, very dangerous.

Take a good look at that face, terrorists. He’s coming for YOU. And if you’re dumb enough to engage him, you’ll be sent to meet your 72 virgins and Allah right quickly.

SHOULDA HAPPENED SOONER

Pat over at Brainsters has THE picture of the week…James Carville with well deserved and long overdue egg on his face.

What possessed this Clintonista attack dog to crack an egg on his balding, empty pate has more to do with what Mr. Carville has become since his elevation to truly bufoonish status on CNN’s Crossfire than with any attempt at self-deprecating humor. For one thing, the clown has no capacity for introspection, which should be a prerequisite for self deprecation of any kind. Secondly, anyone who could excuse the goings-on at the Clinton White House as “just having to do with sex” has no sense of shame, honor, or respect for the rule of law.

Now…if he’d smeared duck shit all over his face, that may have been more appropriate…

“Weeping, sad and lonely,
Hopes and fears, how vain, (Yet praying)
When this cruel war is over,
Praying! that we meet again.”

Oftentimes, in the very small of the morning, I sit in a totally darkened family room, my lover sleeping peacefully on the sofa, the only light the flickering monitor; the only sound the whirr of the fan cooling the innards of this magical box that whisks me from my home in the quiet rural Illinois countryside to the cacophonous uproar of the cities and towns that are the battlefields of the new Iraq.

War, the Great Destroyer, was once seen in apocalyptic terms. One of the four horsemen along with famine, pestilence and death, war was seen as punishment for the sins of an entire society; an allegory for an angry God punishing the people for disobedience, hubris, or rejection of the deity Himself.

As armies of old moved from battlefield to battlefield, they acted as marauding locusts, plundering, raping, pillaging until it must have seemed as if all of the ancient furies had been released to torment the innocent and bring down the wrath of heaven on the guiltless.

Modern warfare is, if anything, more destructive to civilians than in the past. Part of the reason has to do with the necessities of “asymmetric warfare.” When one side is at an enormous disadvantage militarily, the only option is to use civilians as sheilds against the technological and material superiority of your enemy. Hence, the urban warfare in Fallujah. Mosul, and elsewhere is directly related to the belief, at least in part, that using the innocent can be rationalized as one of the exigencies of guerilla war.

There’s another more practical reason for using the deaths of innocents to further one’s war aims. In Iraq, the only hope for the terrorists, Sunni insurgents, and foreign fighters to succeed is if the Americans just simply go away. To achieve this, the enemy uses the international media-specifically the American press-to put pressure on the US government to withdraw. Their hope is to use the American people’s reluctance to inflict civilian casualties as a weapon to force the Americans into an untenable political situation at home and change public opinion so that wide spread protests and civil unrest will speed the American departure.

Is it worth it, then, to go into cities and towns to root out the enemy while destroying what you’re trying to save and cause the deaths of perhaps hundreds of innocent people? This, from a battalion commander in Iraq (courtesy of the Mudville Gazette.)

“I believe that we are making progress in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Despite the ravings of pundits and uninformed ambulance chasers, this fight doesn’t’ hinge on oil or payback. It isn’t about religion or race. And it damn sure is not about any innate desire to rule the world. These people will succeed or fail on their own merits. The task is daunting. You can release a person from bondage. You can remove a tyrant from power. You can create the conditions for liberty. But, you cannot simply grant or proclaim freedom. Freedom without honest action is a whisper in a storm just as change without vision and purpose is the illusion of progress.”

The old saw, “freedom isn’t free” seems to be more than a cliche. The commander points out what the Iraqi people are up against:

“This enemy has twisted and distorted things both sacred and profane to guide as well as justify its means and its stated end. Nothing is beyond the realm of the possible when it comes to the depths to which it will sink, the horror it is willing to commit, or the suffering it is willing to inflict. This enemy has no concept of mercy nor does it recognize combatants. Innocence is not a factor. You need only look at the headlines of the day to confirm that children, teachers, and doctors are murdered everyday by these villains. What makes them evil? I submit that it is not the act that earns them the epithet of evil - it is the intent to commit and the pride they draw from the act.” (battalion Commander quotes courtesy of My War)

It’s sometimes easy to put these facts out of one’s head, especially when advocating the vigorous prosecution of this war. By encouraging the idea of all out war on the insurgents, we are condemning civilians to a misery that is unfathomable to those of us who sit in our safe, warm homes and act as cheerleaders for the conflict.

To bring that point home, here’s the story of a young Iraqi girl living in Mosul. Her story is not about liberation, or freedom, or some nebulous notion of a better life in the futue. Her story is about the here and now of living in a place where bombs are going off and bullets are flying around and hitting loved ones. She doesn’t care who fired the bullet…all she cares about is who it hit:

“The morning came, I was sleeping at my room upstairs, and a war of bullets started… I decided to move myself down when it started to be a heavy fighting and there were also explosions and mom was shouting at me to get down… It was 10AM. My oldest sister was ready to go, but she can’t go in such situation so she decided to wait till it calms down.”

The girl, who calls herself “Aunt Najma, begins to be concerned about her sister’s husband (for security reasons(!) she calls her sister “S”)

“My brother-in-law was supposed to come before the Eid (A landmark day during Ramadan. Ed.). We didn’t know when exactly, because the hospital’s phone is broken… My oldest sister (Let’s call her S now) was so worried that he’ll come and get stuck in the other side of the city because of the curfew, so she tried to call him on a friend’s mobile, it wasn’t working but it did at about 11AM, she told her to tell him not to come because the situation is too bad and he won’t make it till here…”

“She said also that her father-in-law got shot in his leg while trying to get back from the clinic, and he’s in the hospital and that her husband should go with him since nobody in the neighborhood can move his head out of the door! The war was horribly improving.”

“Horribly improving” indeed.

“S called her brother-in-law, and he told her that he is in the hospital and that his father has DIED…

I can’t describe how I felt, I was crying and shaking and the tears wouldn’t go out… I just held Aya who’s just lost a grandpa and made sure she won’t cry and make things worse. S was terribly SAD, confused, and WORRIED about everything. Mostly about her husband who’s in his way to a big surprise and about her sister-in-law who’s alone at home in the middle of the war, pregnant in her 9th month…”

“Those were one of the most horrible moments in my life. People calling asking if what they’ve heard about S’s father-in-law was true, my sister crying and worried (I’ve never seen her like that), 3 cars burning in the street, and then S’s brother-in-law called and asked about the place where they keep the cotton (They brought his father home, and they’re trying to wash him like the Muslims do to their dead before burying them), there were no enough cotton and they can’t go out to buy some.”

The girl is deeply religious. I don’t think I’d be quite as accepting fo that kind of death:

“Nobody knows who shoot him, but everybody knows that he’s now in Heaven.
He died in the night of power, fasting, and shaheed. At least he’s seen his first grandchild who’ll carry his name (Aya)… His son said that this was the death that he’s always dreamt of.”

“Dad is trying to convince me that everybody has his own day to die and that not allowing him to get out is not a solution!! That’s how things are going on, the war is not over and I slept at the sound of bullets and explosions last night… Mom said that this war is the worst among all the others… The Arabic media didn’t mention anything!!”

“I’ll wake up tomorrow (If I’m alive of course) and put on my new clothes, and see if we’re going to get out…”

The comments on her post were equally compelling and poignant:

“Please know that the world has wrapped their prayers around you and send many, many hugs. May you sleep in peace tonight without anymore explosions, bullets and bloodshed.”

“You, at your young age, has learned that freedom comes at a high price. History shows us that many of the countries that recently lived under terrible terror can change and be free as Germany, Japan, South Korea. That people are the same all over the world in their love of freedom. Let this horror in Iraq be the last.”

“My dearest friends are those who, when they were young, bravely came through difficult times. You are strong, and from this struggle that surrounds you will become even stronger. From the sorrow you will taste life the sweeter. By supporting those around you, you will learn how to lead. You have a amazing future ahead of you. I wish you well and send you my best wishes.”

And this from a soldier’s wife:

“I am so very sorry to hear about your loss. I am the wife of a US Soldier who is in Mosul right now. Hearing things on the news here couldn’t possibly touch me as much as your posts have. I wish I had some way of expressing to you how sorry I am for your loss. I can’t even begin to imagine what it is like for you, being in the middle of everything that is going on. Just know that the Americans do love you. We only want to help bring peace to your country. I know there is a long, bumpy road ahead, but I believe, in the end, things will be better. Just hang in there and know that you have thousands of people praying for the safety of you, and your family. God Bless you.”

“If amid the din of battle,
Nobly you should fall,
Far away from those who love you,
None to hear your call.
Who would whisper words of comfort,
Who would soothe your pain?
Ah! the many cruel fancies,
Ever in my brain.”
(”When this Cruel War is Over” (1862)
Words by Charles Carroll Sawyer
Music Composed and Arranged by Henry Tucker)

“The many cruel fancies ever in my brain”…the worst we can imagine for the brave 16 year old girl. And yet, despite the rabid opposition from the international community and many in this country, is there a reason to hope for a brighter future for “Aunt Najma” and all the little boys and girls in that unhappy country?

If there is, it will be due entirely to the bravery and courage of the United States military and the grit and determination of the American people who are willing to endure the specter of innocent blood being spilled for a larger, greater goal; the freedom and liberty of people in the middle east and the goal of translating those concepts into safety and security for Americans at home.

It’s Saturday. I feel lazy. I went to the Riverboat last night and didn’t get home till 4:30 AM. But here I am, blogging away.

It constantly amazes me how difficult it is to come up with new topics, new angles all the time to satisfy the voracious maw that is this blog. As readers know, I generally don’t make a habit of including the personal in this journal. But I think the following posts illustrate something universal about the human condition and relate to some of my favorite things in life.

“FORTUNE FAVORS THE FOOLISH” (James Tiberius Kirk, Star Trek II)

The other day, significant Otherhawk and I went to the store to pick up a few essentials; Oscar Mayer Bologna, Velveeta cheese, Hellman’s REAL mayonnaise, and Rosen’s Jewish Rye…all of which no self-respecting man in western civilization can live without.

On the way out the door, Otherhawk did something she NEVER does; she bought two instant scratch-off lottery tickets. We sat in the car scratching them. Mine was a bust, no winners. But Otherhawk matched one number on the card.

We were expecting no more than a $5 or $10 winner. So, imagine our surprise when she scratched off the space where the prize amount was revealed:

THE PRIZE AMOUNT WAS $100,000!!!

That’s right…$100,000. We. Just. Couldn’t. Believe. It. In fact, it still hasn’t sunk in. The odds of winning the grand prize were 1:672,544. Which just goes to show you…

“THE FORCE WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU” (Obi Wan Kenobi)

I suppose this event would be called a “life changing” experience. At the very least, it comes at an extremely opportune time with Otherhawk laid up since last February with a workers’ comp claim and I, a 50 year old unemployed fat man trying to recapture the magic of his youth when writing came so easily and turning a phrase such a goddamn joy. This journal was, in fact, started as a way to exercise long dormant skills…skills honed for politicians and advocacy groups more than 25 years ago. The “finger exercises” these posts represent are slowly beginning to rekindle a belief that I might have something unique to say about this country, our culture, and the wonderful and wondrous people who inhabit this “city on a hill.”

HOT STOVE LEAGUE

The Captain has an excellent post on the debate in Major League Baseball over the use of instant replay:

“Upon further review, baseball will hold off on taking a look at instant replay. After watching umpires reverse almost every missed call in the postseason, major league general managers split 15-15 Thursday on whether to keep exploring the subject.” (Fox News, 11/12)

The Capn’ points out the games are gettting longer and longer and that instant replay will only exacerbate that situation:

“Now they want to use instant replay? Putting that in place will make an average ball game last longer than the director’s cut of Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King. If the experience of the NFL is any gauge, the extra time won’t result in significantly better calls, as most challenges seem to result inconclusively.”

Forget the fact that I LOVE LOTR…the Capn’ makes a good point. Replay, in addition to lengthening games, will I believe undermine that authority of umpires and significantly alter the game itself.

Anyone who follows baseball closely knows that the quality of umpiring has declined dramatically over the last 10 years. The easy explanation is the same for a decline in the quality of Major League pitching; expansion. The number of umpires has increased by 15% over the last ten years. And while this explanation deals superficially with the quality of umpiring, it doesn’t say anything to the sheer unprofessionalism of many of the newer umpires who, for some reason, seem to feel themselves anointed by God to inject themselves into games. Their biases for or against certain players are well known. Their short fuse when it comes to criticism by players and managers are, for long time observers of the game, both baffling and maddening.

The failure of umpires to enforce the rules already on the books especially with regards to the size of the strike zone, contributes in no small way to the length of games. Again, this relates to the hubris of many umpires today who don’t seem to feel bound by either tradition or the rules when it comes to trying to speed up the game.

At any rate, the Capn’ has some interesting comments about how to speed up the game starting with players should be unable to step out of the batters’ box once they step in. This is similar to a suggestion made by Bill James who says that players should have the ability to call a limited number of timeouts. Mr. James, who has both rabid admirers and fanatical detractors, also suggests limiting throws over to first base with runners on and limiting the number of times a manager can change pitchers within an inning. Both rules, I believe would radically alter the game. Mr. James doesn’t think so and believes that speeding up the game to make it more entertaining is what’s important.

I love baseball. I admit to not loving it as much since the onset of free agency, steroids, the designated hitter, the wild card, half-billion dollar contracts, and the ridiculous posturing, trash talking, and egomania of today’s players.

But, oh how I still love the game.

Baseball is still the national pastime. Football, you ask? Yes football is a more popular game …but there’s more to baseball than merely an athletic contest. Baseball is a state of mind, an existential rumination that, at its heart, is more reflective of America and Americans than any other institution we have today. Witness Terrence Mann’s speech (James Earl Jones) in “Field of Dreams”:

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”

Mann was talking about tourists coming to Iowa to watch “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and the other greats of the past play the game. But, couldn’t he also be speaking to the current controversey about the length of the games? How much will baseball, the pastime change if we fiddle with the essence of the game?

“Caution, my dear Mr. Gildersleeves…lest our emotions get the better of our common sense…” (”Death Takes a Holiday“)

We’ve had some fun here at the HOUSE since the election teasing our lefty friends about their genuine perplexity regarding the election and how that confusion has manifested itself in conspiracy theories of hacked voting machines and sinister vote counts.

So…enough already.

All the talk of secession and moving to Canada was silly enough. But now, talk has moved into the realm of the surreal…a Kafkaesque nightmare of blood, and murder, and mayhem against their political opponents. This from Bill Maher’s website (courtesy of WSJ Best of the Web):

“GW Bush and the American right wing Taliban are endangering the entire planet. If the rest of the world had a say, Bush and Cheney would be in jail.

Be honest. Who would not like to see Karen Hughes run over by an 18 wheel truck? Who wouldn’t like to see her carcass scattered all over highway 99?”

This kind of talk is a logical extension of previous threads having to do with apocalyptic warnings by the left regarding the establishment of some kind of quasi-religious corporate kleptocracy where children and old people routinely starve to death and liberals are rounded up and put in Haliburton built Christian re-education camps.

But is it real?

Hindrocket over at Powerline thinks so:

“This kind of insanity is everywhere in today’s Democratic Party. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: someone is going to get killed before this madness is over.”

If we take what the moonbats are saying at face value, you’d have to agree with the Rocket. But I think that, like the talk about secession and moving to Canada (as if our friends to the north don’t have enough problems with their own moonbats in Quebec) is just that; talk. And what’s revealing to me is something I’ve suspected for years and been unable to put my finger on until now…

Moonbats love the dramatic.

Whether this is a product of arrested development or something that goes to the very core of what passes for modern liberalism, take your pick. Being dramatic is the best way of getting attention. Outrageous exaggerations regarding everything from the reasons for the war (to curtail civil liberties) to the economy (to enrich the President’s corporate friends) logically leads further and further afield until you get the kind of wild-eyed flights of fancy that end up in the stratosphere of looniness the moonbats now find themselves.

Like teenagers who aren’t getting enough attention from their parents, moonbats are finding that in order to achieve the consideration they feel they deserve, they have to wreck the car or get arrested in order to feel loved and wanted.

Think about it for a minute…the moonbat’s aren’t happy unless they see themselves in the role of the underdog. Put upon by an uncaring, unfeeling world; their moral and spiritual superiority unrecognized or suppressed by a cabal of greedy, corporate media elites or sinister Christian yahoos, moonbats stand on top of the battlements waving the bloody shirt as the rest of the world looks on with doe-eyed admiration.

BULLSHIT!

This is the longest running TV show in history. And like “NYPD Blue” and “Law and Order” the scripts are getting tired and repetitive. This meme may have worked in the 1960’s but THAT WAS 40 YEARS AGO!. The graying of that generation of new left radicals has meant that THE RADICALS THEMSELVES HAVE BECOME THE ESTABLISHMENT! In education, the law, the media, the culture, religion, and to some extent the corporate elites, the anti-establishment left has failed to recognize one simple fact:

They won!

And yet…it just isn’t dramatic enough to be in control. Myths must continue. The old campfire stories of protests past are now being passed to a new generation who must invent their own storyline, their own icons. Angela Davis and Philip Berrigan just doesn’t do it for today’s moonbats. So they look to the Boss, or Eminem, or Michael Moore as examples of courageous crusaders for truth and justice.

They just don’t get it. Life IS NOT dramatic. In fact, most sane people prefer their lives to be as undramatic as possible.

Watching your child take their first step is dramatic.

Having your child look at you with that special look of love and trust is dramatic.

Seeing your daughter walk down the aisle at her wedding is dramatic.

And yes…watching your parents die is also dramatic.

These are real dramas going on in real people’s lives…not the kind of faux dramas being played out in the discussion forums of DU and Kos. And because the moonbats don’t understand that, they’ll continue to be irrelevant in a political climate where real people’s dramas trump the fantastical musings of maniacal moonbats every time.

FALLUJAH UPDATE:

Via The Belmont Club:

“Insurgents have set police stations ablaze, stole weapons and brazenly roamed the streets of Mosul as Iraq’s third largest city appeared to be sliding out of control, residents said. Explosions and fire from assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades echoed across the city and columns of smoke rose from at least two police stations set alight. At least seven police stations have been attacked in the past 48 hours.”

Wretchard points out that this was fully expected before the operation started. This from the Seattle Times of November 7:

“Reports are circulating among Iraqi and U.S. officials that large numbers of insurgents have already left the Fallujah area in anticipation of the coming invasion. The militants are reportedly fanning to other cities in the Sunni Triangle, where they will stage diversionary attacks — and underscore that despite an expected defeat for insurgent forces in Fallujah, the rebel movement remains strong.”

Are the thugs playing into our hands? Wretchard says that the Fallujah campaign can’t be understood unless you put it in the broader context of a total crackdown on insurgencies in the entire Sunnia triangle:

“But it is likely that while the battle for Fallujah is ending, the campaign for the Sunni Triangle is just beginning.”

Some pretty draconian measures are being taken not to let terrorists escape the Fallujah pocket. And Wretchard makes clear that the thugs are apparently killing non-combatants who aren’t cooperating with them:

“The grim job of sifting through the hostile neighbourhoods, also uncovered numerous corpses — not all killed by US military fire, said an AFP reporter embedded with the Marines. In one street, Marines found a body with its feet hacked off and a young man in a house with a bullet in his chest.” The Associated Press reports that military age men in Fallujah aren’t being allowed out. “Hundreds of men trying to flee the assault on Fallujah have been turned back by U.S. troops following orders to allow only women, children and the elderly to leave. … Once the battle ends, military officials say all surviving military-age men can expect to be tested for explosive residue, catalogued, checked against insurgent databases and interrogated about ties with the guerrillas. U.S. and Iraqi troops are in the midst of searching homes, and plan to check every house in the city for weapons.”

One word about casualties. It’s not surprising that the US is underreporting its casualties by a factor of three in that it’s sound military strategy not to give the enemy any hope that they’re inflicting extensive damage on American forces. Apparently, the Army hospital at Ramstein, Germany has received more than 200 wounded since the operation began. And while many of those may indeed be from other attacks, it’s clear that the figure of 69 wounded given by the army is false. Whether the KIA figure of 18 is also wrong is unknown. I know that we have had 4 KIA in the Chicago area alone since the Fallujah operation began. It seems likely that the number of Americans killed is indeed growing.

It’s time to grit our teeth and wade through the blood, America. And, if you’re the praying sort, say a few for those kids all over Iraq who’re now on the offensive.

BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY

The United States Air Force is looking into the idea of teleportation. To that end, they recently paid for a study that laid out some rather interesting possibilities:

“This study was tasked with the purpose of collecting information describing the teleportation of material objects, providing a description of teleportation as it occurs in physics, its theoretical and experimental status, and a projection of potential applications. The study also consisted of a search for teleportation phenomena occurring naturally or under laboratory conditions that can be assembled into a model describing the conditions required to accomplish the transfer of objects.”

The author of the study, Eric Davis of Warp Drive Metrics, broke down the various possibilities into 5 categories, including using worm holes, parallel universes, quantum “entanglement:”

“…quantum entanglement: the disembodied transport of the quantum state of a system and its correlations across space to another system…”

And, the system the study deems most likely for success, teleportation – psychic; which is the conveyance of persons or inanimate objects by psychic means. Mr. Davis calls this “p-Teleportation.”

Sorry Star-Trek fans but apparently the way Kirk and Spock scattered their atoms around the galaxy just won’t fly…at least according to Dr. Davis’ study. But he did speculate about a “Stargate SG I” type wormhole:

“The first solution can be found from the class of traversable wormholes giving rise to what I call a true “stargate.” A stargate is essentially a wormhole with a flat-face shape for the throat as opposed to the spherical-shaped throat of the Morris and Thorne traversable wormhole, which was derived from a spherically symmetric Lorentzian spacetime metric that prescribes the wormhole geometry.”

OOOKAAAAY…I’m not really up on wormhole geometry and I sorta forgot about the Morris and Thorne transversable wormhole…and I guess I was asleep when the prof was talking about a “spherically symmetric Lorentzian spacetime metric”… but I’m sure you get the picture…

This Veterans Day is especially poignant to millions of American families who have a loved one in harms way somewhere on this troubled globe.

To those who have a loved one peering anxiously over the sights of his rifle in Fallujah, we remember.

To those who have a loved one cautiously patrolling the streets of Baghdad, we remember.

To those who have a loved one helping to build a school in Najaf, we remember.

To those who stand by anxiously in the Balkans, we remember.

To those who sit quietly, vigilantly in front of radar screens and sonar sets around the world protecting us from those who would do us harm, we remember.

To those who have a loved one honored to stand vigil over me, my family, and my friends and neighbors, we are grateful.

And we will never forget.

And it is fitting, I think, to also remember how this day came about. To understand Veterans Day, it is necessary to understand World War I and how that war destroyed all previous concepts of war, of patriotism, of defeat, and of victory itself.

It was a war to end all wars that instead, ended the idea of unfettered nationalism. It made a mockery of the phrase “giving one’s life for one’s country.” And for one country, it meant the end of everything.

November 11, 1918 was the day France died.

In Barbara Tuchman’s book The Guns of August , the author shows how all of the “Great Powers” blundered, stumbled, and through a willful disregard of logic and reason, rushed into a war that needn’t have been. Through a combination of national pride, misunderstanding, and a false sense of inevitability, the war became a gigantic destructive machine, devouring men and material at a pace never before seen in the history of human civilization.

This insanity touched France more than any other country. And it’s impossible to understand the France of today without looking at the France of nearly 100 years ago and understanding how the very idea of the French nation was destroyed in the trenches that, to this day, cut across the French countryside like some gigantic, unhealed scar; a constant reminder of innocence lost and lives destroyed.

The great poet and essayist Robert Graves recognized and put into words better than anyone before or since, the true cost of the madness that was WWI. His autobiographical account of the war, “Goodbye to all That,” a scathing, unblinking critique of a society that would allow such madness, shows in agonizingly spare and lucid prose how “The Lost Generation” (a term Graves coined) was not only sacrificed on the field of battle, but also lost faith in the very concept of western industrialized civilization.

I mention Graves because he gave voice to an entire generation of western Europeans who fought in, what he termed, the war’s “love battles;” battles so horrific that only a sublime love could explain how human beings could participate in such extraordinary bloodletting and barbarity.

One such battle was Verdun. Mention Verdun to a Frenchman today and he will relate with pride the manner in which the French army stood its ground against relentless German attacks. “They shall not pass” is as famous a phrase in France as “Remember the Alamo” is in America. Verdun was by far and away the largest battle in human history. In “A Short History of World War One” James Stokesbury points out that, at one time or another during the nearly year long battle, more than three quarters of the French Army fought at Verdun.

And therein lies the story of the death of France. The Chief of the German General Staff, General Von Falkenhayn, swore that “he would bleed France white” at Verdun. He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. France suffered nearly 2 million casualties in defense of…what? Ten square miles of absolutely useless real estate, battered, bombed, cratered like the surface of the moon with the bodies of over 700,000 French and German soldiers pulverized by repeated and futile bombardments.

Towards the end of this carnage, the attitude of French soldiers changed dramatically. It was not uncommon for troops being relieved to “baa” like sheep as they passed replacement soldiers on their way to the slaughter. And the architect of the defense of Verdun, Marshall Petain, was eventually ground down himself and relieved. Understanding what that battle did to Petain and the entire French army is the key to understanding what happened to France in World War II. The fact is, the French army and, by extension, the French people lost faith not only in France, but in the superiority of Western Civilization itself.

The shameful performance of the French army in World War II is a direct result of the horrors of Verdun. France surrendered to Germany in World War II while 2/3 of its army had never fired a shot in anger. The rise of the collaborationist government headed up by Marshall Petain was (despite French protestations today to the contrary) a popular move amongst a large segment of the French population. Fascism was an attractive alternative to the kind of carnage the French people expected to occur during World War II. It wasn’t until more than 3 years after the French signed a shameful armistice (terms of which required nearly 5 million French soldiers to languish in captivity until the war was over) that any real opposition to the Petain government emerged.

What did the French lose on November 11, 1918? In short, they lost the notion of French “exceptionalism.” The “victory” and subsequent Treaty of Versailles showed the French that nothing they could have possibly gained; not the reacquisition of territory lost to Germany in the Franco-Prussian war, nor a share in German colonies in Africa, nor even the humiliation of of the Kaiser was worth the death of 5 million Frenchmen.

Ever since that day, the French have been searching for a national identity to replace the proud, confident nation that so blithely and so willingly went to the slaughter at Verdun and other places. This is not an excuse for France’s current obstructionism and anti-americanism. But, by way of an explanation, it may give us pause this Veterans Day to remember that France, more than any other nation, has suffered the horrors of war and felt it to the marrow of its bones.

FALLUJAH UPDATE:

Once again, great post over at Belmont Club about the battle in Fallujah. Wretchard gives us an overview of our grand strategy both there and for the rest of the insurgency as he dissects a press release from a former Republican Guard commander who’s acting as a spokesman for the resistance:

“By plotting the enemy strongholds on the map it is at once evident that they are coextensive with two pathways. The first goes northward along the Euphrates from western Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi, Hadithah, Anah and Qusabayah — along the river and road from Baghdad to the Syrian border. The omission of Qusabayah from mention is very peculiar, since it has been the scene of battalion sized battles between infiltrators and Marines guarding the Syrian frontier since the earliest post-OIF days, but I include it here on that account. The second set of towns goes northeast along the Tigris towards Tikrit and parts of Kurdistan: Hawijah, Balad and Samarra. A spur runs off toward the Iranian border: Baqubah and Baladruz, on the road to the Iran. It is hard not to think that we are looking at their lines of communication.”

The plan appears to be to interdict men and material from Syria and Iran by isolating and reducing several towns that are acting as “waystations” for the resistance…something like an underground railroad of death. Wretchard speculates about the overall political strategy:

“Every campaign has a political dimension. The campaign in the Sunni Triangle is probably aimed at convincing the enemy that resistance is now futile and their best hope lies in participating in the new Iraqi government through elections. Personally (speculation alert!) I doubt it can achieve as much. The campaign will absolutely gut the enemy as a guerilla force, but it will not be enough to prevent them from terrorizing Sunni politicians who may wish to participate in the coming elections. But this will only postpone unconditional Sunni defeat for another year because a terrorist enforced boycott will mean that Kurds and Shi’ites will dominate the new administration and most importantly, its Army.”

I can understand the Sunni’s reluctance to participate in the elections. They’ve dominated Iraqi politics for generations and are loathe to share power of any kind. Are there any Sunni politicans who have the courage and foresight to participate in these upcoming elections? None have stepped forward to date.

NEW SPACE PRIZE ANNOUNCED

On the heels of the “X-Prize” awarded to the first commercial vehicle that made it into space (see my post here) comes “America’s Space Prize,” a $50 million bonanza to the first commercial firm that can build a spacecraft to achieve some very lofty goals, including reaching orbit, carrying at least 3 passengers, and docking with another privately built space module. There are some other, very interesting requirements to win this prize:

7. The contestant must be domiciled in the United States of
America.

8. The contestant must have its principal place of business in the
United States of America.

Where the X-Prize was open to international compettition, this prize seeks to limit itself to American firms.

Frankly, I think that’s an excellent idea. While the $50 million won’t go very far in recovering development costs for such a project, the technology used to win the prize will be priceless. And given that the launch vehicle will for all intents and purposes be capable of carrying weapons as well as people, it makes sense to keep the contest in the U.S.

The prize is being offered by Bigelow Aerospace Corp. of North Las Vegas.

The winning team must launch before 2010 and must make two flights of the spacecraft within 60 days.

Read the link via Spaceship Summer for all the details.

THE NEW WORLD ORDER

In keeping with party directive RE1657823950012, we have once again updated the world map to reflect approved changes made at this years “Are You Ready For Some Football?” Party Congress. These changes supercede any and all changes made in the past and maps shall be altered immediately or the usual penalties apply (see Party Handbook entitled “Dealing with Criminals, Gangs, Counter-revolutionaries, and other Lickspittles).