I have seen it, and it is good

I have finished watching the entire series of Firefly. After watching it, I only have one thing to say:

What were those idiots at Fox thinking?

Okay, I do have more to say. The show is good. It's not good in the way Babylon 5 was good, but rather it was good in the way Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the series, not the movie) was good. Of course, since the creator of Buffy, Joss Whedon, was the creator of Firefly, that's no surprise at all.

Firefly was a bit more serious than Buffy but it had its light moments. What it also had was clever dialog, engaging plots, very interesting characters, and a universe that provided almost unlimited storytelling potential, even when focusing on the crew of a single spaceship.

An example of dialog:

Wash: Psychic? Sounds like something out of science fiction.
Zoë: We live on a spaceship, dear.
Wash: So?

For those unfamiliar with the show, it is, quite literally, a space western. It takes place mostly on frontier worlds where people do ride horses, farm, and raise cattle since they're tried and true methods of surviving until the world is built up enough to support the more advanced technology. After all, what good is your robot farm implement if there aren't any repair shops for several parsecs?

Fox clearly didn't know what kind of a gem they had on their hands. They aired the episodes out of sequence, which is bad in this case since there is considerable continuity between them. Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation pretty much stand alone, with a few exceptions, but Firefly should be viewed in the proper order or there will be some confusion.

Fortunately, a feature film is in the works. The reaction to the show's cancellation, and the sales of the series on DVD no doubt got somebody's attention. I'm hoping that this leads to a resumption of the series, though it would probably fare better on UPN or WB, which both did a good job of handling Joss's other two series Buffy and Angel.

I'm not saying anything which hasn't been said before, though. For a much more thorough review, see this page.

That'll be the day

Oh this is rich.

This weekend, millions of Americans will go see The Day After Tomorrow -- the movie the White House doesn't want you to see.

You will note, of course, the COMPLETE AND UTTER LACK OF SUPPORTING INFORMATION FOR THIS CLAIM. The movie the White House doesn't want you to see. Since when? Since it makes for a good slogan, that's when.

At least they admit that it is an exaggerated story. Of course, then they state, "...but it will leave people wondering, 'Could this really happen?'" I'm certainly not wondering. I know the answer is a resounding "NO!" I leave the minimal effort at locating the information that thoroughly debunks this movie as an exercise for the reader. Nevertheless, some people will be taken in by this, and these are the people MoveOn and the Democrats in general are targeting. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Fark summed it up perfectly: "Moveon.org endorses The Day After Tomorrow as the movie the White House doesn't want you to see. Tin-foil hats selling like waffles."

Flying the flag

Boy, Fark sure is a goldmine, innit?

Here we have the story of an elderly gentleman who is living in a retirement community. Seems he has been hanging the flag of the United States off of his balcony every day since September 11, 2001. However, the community has a "policy against residents having exterior hangings such as windsocks, wind chimes, planters and flags."

An interesting irony is that the man, Donald Lamp, is the father-in-law of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

While I question the need for this policy (I'm assuming there's a reason for it but I can't think of one right off-hand), nevertheless it applies to everyone equally and doesn't make any exceptions. Therefore, reluctantly, I must agree with the apartment manager that he should take down the flag until and unless an exception is granted, or the policy otherwise revised to allow it. It is private property and, unless there are laws granting apartment residents the right to hang flags and other things off their balconies, the community has the right to regulate what goes on there.

I recommend that the community's board of directors re-examine this policy as soon as possible.

Uh, excuse me?

From this article:

A woman accused of bringing a gun to a girls softball game says she had no intention of using the weapon. Instead, Rhonda Smith claims she put it in her purse for protection.

Hmmm.... On the basis of this paragraph alone I'm inclined to side with Ms. Smith. Let's read on, shall we? Seems Ms. Smith became involved with an argument with another fan attending the game:

"This man was sitting beside me. He said, ugha! ugha! ugha! nothing. I said 'excuse me?' I said from what I gather you don't think our kids should score. Why?" asked Rhonda Smith.

Rhonda Smith was cheering her daughter's team when she says a fan on the opposing side began taunting her. "He told me you need to shut up."

I took the liberty of correcting an apparent typo, and the quote here isn't completely clear but it sounds like a man who was rooting for the opposing team told Ms. Smith that she needed to stop cheering for her daughter's team. It doesn't say just what Ms. Smith was shouting in support of her team but, unless it was liberally laced with profanity and/or she was shouting it through a bullhorn, telling her to stop cheering for her daughter just flies in the face of the whole purpose of having these events. Moving on:

Smith says the two exchanged words, then she went for help. "I was scared, upset. I was kind of angry that this team will do anything to beat us because we were first place last year and they were last place," says Smith.

I don't know if telling you to "shut up" qualifies as "do(ing) anything" but I get the impression here that there was more going on than just this incident. What happened next clearly shows that Ms. Smith felt personally threatened, and also feared for her daughter's safety:

Smith asked to have the man removed from the game but says nobody would do anything to help her. That's when she walked to the parking lot and picked up a case wrapped in a white towel. Inside the black case was a 380-caliber pistol.

Smith says she put it inside her purse, zipped it up and headed back to the game.

"I was thinking about the safety of my baby because like I said, I never seen this man before."

Predictable results followed:

But police say Smith shouldn't have had the gun at the game even though she had a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

"This behavior is not going to be tolerated," commented Lt. John Bradford with the Decatur Police Department.

Okay, police say she shouldn't have had the gun there. But was it *illegal*? If there was no law specifically banning firearms from that venue, then what she did was totally legal as she had a concealed weapon permit. Finally we have:

Smith admits what she did was wrong but says she never meant for things to go this far. "I'm sincerely sorry. I made a bad judgement call but I was afraid. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't. My life is over. My life as I knew it is over. I will never be the same again."

Rhonda Smith has been banned from all city park and rec softball games. The sheriff's department also revoked her pistol permit.

Saying her life is over is a bit extreme, unless she's now a total social outcast and can't show her face among the backward masses that would have to be occupying her home town for that to be the case. In which case I would suggest that she move as quickly as possible to a state and community that recognizes the right to self-defense. It is true, however, that she will likely be unable to obtain a concealed weapon permit anywhere else since this will be on her record.*

I do have one question. How did the police find out she had the gun? Was she searched or did she draw it while at the game? If she was searched, why was that done? If she drew it, why did she do so? Was she physically threatened? The article does not say. In this case, we don't know the complete story. If she pulled out the gun and started brandishing it about, then she was indeed foolish and deserves the punishment she got. However, if that were the case, I have absolutely zero doubt that it would have been mentioned prominently in this article. My guess is that she did not draw the gun, except possibly in a defensive situation. If she didn't, somehow the police found out about it. In any case, nobody was hurt. She didn't hurt anyone, she did no harm. She clearly felt that she and/or her daughter were in danger and she took steps to provide their defense should it prove necessary. I would need to know more to be more definitive. What I can say, though, is that if she didn't break the law, then she should not have any legal sanction brought against her.


* I have a friend who cannot obtain a concealed pistol license (which is what we call it here in Washington State) because, some years back, she was pulled over on her motorcycle in Arizona. The officer found a small quantity of marijuana on the motorcycle. However, although she was arrested, she was never charged, let alone convicted. Yet the mere presence of the arrest on her record prevents her from obtaining the permit.

Purpose

So I've been doing this weblog for almost nine months now. Has it accomplished anything? I don't know. I'd like to think that at least one or two people have come here, read what I've written, and then had something to think about for a time. There are so many other blogs out there that I'm just one more voice in the crowd, shouting for attention. What do I wish to accomplish with it?

To be honest, I want to make a difference, no matter how small. In a sense, I've already been successful since this experience has made a difference in my life. Has it made a difference for anyone else? I don't know. There have been less than ten comments made since I set up commenting, and only one trackback. I spread trackbacks around when I can and it does drive some traffic this way. However, most traffic comes by way of search engines and there are noticeable spikes when big-news events happen and I write about them. These people probably don't know what they're going to get when they click that link in a Google or Yahoo search results page. Do any of them look at the words I've written and think, "He's got a point?" Or do they take one look, recoil in horror and immediately click their browsers' back buttons? Who can say?

Lately the frequency of posts has been lower. One reason is that I've been businer but another is that, whenever I hear about something I want to write about, I find that others have already written what I'm thinking and often have done it better. I could just post links to their writings but I don't want this to be a linking blog. I want to contribute original material to the discussions of the day. To be honest, I don't know how people like Misha, Mike, or Harvey do it. I look at their blogs, and many others, and wonder if there's any reason for me to continue doing this. Sometimes I just feel redundant.

But I do want to continue, regardless. I do want to be a source of original material so there will likely continue to be a relatively low frequency of posting. I'll probably start to diversify my topics more and not just focus on politics and the war. Only time will tell if I am successful.

All I ask is that, if you come here, and you read my words, and they've made a difference to you, please let me know. Even if they only give you something to think about, or even if they pissed you off, drop a comment and let me know. After all, when it comes down to it, I think that's the reason most bloggers do what they do....

We just want to be heard.

Enterprise season finale

Coming into the episode, I hadn't heard that Enterprise had been renewed for another season. I had heard rumors that it could be canceled but nothing concrete. After watching, it was immediately apparent that they were planning for another season. It ended with a cliffhanger in the now-classic Trek tradition.

Warning: Some spoilers will follow so don't read further if you haven't seen it yet and want to go into it cold.

The idea of having a season-long story arc is unprecedented in Trek. Other shows, notably Babylon 5, have proved that it can be done but Trek has, so far, shied away from long arcs. There have been overarching storylines, like the Dominion War in Deep Space 9, but not all of the episodes dealt directly with that plot. This season has been pretty much focused on the main plot. I think it was well done in that they were able to craft a story that fit into the time frame, and advance it in regular steps that more or less made sense. On that aspect, I give Enterprise good marks.

As has been a recurring theme since Enterprise debuted, time travel factored heavily in the entire story arc. Time travel in Trek has been hit or miss. Sometimes it's done very well, other times it falls flat. What bothers me about how it's handled in Enterprise is that Captain Archer is going to have so much knowledge of future events that it can't help but affect his actions going forward. The writers have been pretty consistent in having the Captain do what he thinks is right, even though Daniels has said he shouldn't do it. This final episode is no different. Daniels urges the Captain not to lead the strike team on the Xindi weapon but Archer basically tells him to take a hike and send him back to his own time. He believes the present is more important than a possible future and acts accordingly. Nevertheless, he still has this knowledge and it will give him certain advantages. Hopefully the writers will address this and handle it effectively and realistically.

The final fight scene was well done. The look on the reptilian's face just before the limpet bomb on his shoulder goes off was priceless, as was Archer's expression just before he stepped around the column to shield himself from the blast. Scott Bakula is one the most underrated actors in Hollywood in my opinion; anyone who enjoyed his work on Quantum Leap will likely agree with me. (My mother once commented that Scott was the first male actor she's ever seen who realistically portrayed being pregnant. Being a mother of three, she would know.)

The character of Hoshi really went through a tough time, too. Some nice work by Linda Park. She's a very sensitive character and it makes perfect sense that she would feel great remorse over helping the reptilians decrypt the arming codes, despite the fact that she had no choice. Her inner strength became apparent as she successfully resisted the drugs they gave her for a time, only succumbing when they gave her a second dose that nobody could have resisted. Again, we have an opportunity for the writers to continue this character's development.

Jolene Blalock turned in a nice performance. She's doing a good job of showing us a Vulcan who is not entirely in control of her emotions but is struggling to keep them in check as much as possible. Her slight fluctuations in voice and facial expression are slight but noticeable and convey her character's inner struggle effectively and with subtlety.

And Shran just rules.

As for the story, I think they did a pretty good job of wrapping it up. The new alliance between the humanoid, arboreal, and aquatic races of the Xindi and the Enterprise crew makes sense given the events up to that point. I didn't have to suspend my disbelief very much when it came to the final fight and the destruction of the weapon. The episode kept my interest and there weren't any "You've gotta be kidding!" moments. In all, pretty well executed.

And then there's the cliffhanger ending. Of course, I was pretty sure that Archer had survived somehow. But the story took a 90-degree turn away from everything by throwing the Enterprise back to the 1940's during WWII. And of course we have Nazis, this time with an officer who is some type of alien. It's going to be interesting to see how this turns out but I have this creeping dread that Enterprise just jumped the shark in a big way. I'll watch it, though. It's Star Trek, after all, and bad Trek is still usually worth watching (with a couple notable exceptions, such as the execrable "Threshold" episode of Star Trek: Voyager).

Lileks gets Moore

I was perusing the last couple Bleats and I ran across the following in yesterday's missive:

I’m working on a column about “Farhenheit 911.” Found this quote from Moore’s own site, from April 14. That’s the infamous entry where he wrote “The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not ‘insurgents’ or ‘terrorists’ or “The Enemy.” They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow – and they will win.”

Noted. He also wrote: “I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.

Sacrificing American blood to earn God’s favor? Sound like anyone you know?

Despicable.

Does anyone still wonder why so many of us stand in awe of James Lileks?

Saw a bumper sticker today

I've seen it a couple of times before. It says, "Peace is patriotic."

I wanted to reply, "So is defending your country against an enemy that is determined to destroy it."

Sometimes I feel like Kyle Reese as portrayed by Michael Biehn in the original Terminator:

"Listen. And understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." (thanks to IMDB)

Until we are dead. Or until they are, whichever comes first. Fortunately, terrorists are human and not nearly as indestructible as a terminator machine.

Shoot all the clowns

The sub-title of this piece by Michael Moran at MSNBC.com is, "When the going gets tough, the messenger gets shot."

This implies that the messenger, in this case the media, is impartially delivering the news and that he is being shot because the news is bad.

Wrong-o. We're upset because there's both good news and bad news and the media is only delivering the bad. And it's doing so in such a way as to make President Bush and his administration look as bad as possible.

Imagine if Phedippedes, after having run back to Athens from the Battle of Marathon, had said, "The Persians forced back the center of our line and we lost 192 men, including Archon Callimachus," but forgot to mention that the Greeks had won the battle and routed the Persians who were, even now sailing to Athens to attack directly and get some payback for their 6000 dead. (The Greek army returned from Marathon in time to forestall the attack.)

Stephen Den Beste has more here.

The Charge of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade

There is little I can add to what has already been said by Misha, Serenity, and Steve Silver about this article in the New York Press. But I do want to add a couple of things:

When news of the Berg video hit Washington during a hearing on the prison abuse, newly energized Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum leapt up to announce, "If anyone wants to know what we're fighting and why we're fighting this war on terror, this is a good example of it." As with Lieberman's previous remarks, nobody thought to remind the senator that 9/11 and the "war on terror" have no reality-based connection to the mess we've created in Iraq. Nor did anyone mention that Berg's killers explicitly cited the humiliations of Abu Ghraib before cutting off the lad's head.

Misha has already addressed the connection between terrorists and Iraq. When it comes to the reason Berg's murderers did what they did, Abu Ghraib was just a convenient excuse. The reason they killed him was not in retaliation, but rather to shock and horrify the American people in an attempt to sway political opinion away from support for the war. They knew we'd feel bad about Abu Ghraib and they hoped to build on that. But if it hadn't happened, they would have found something else to blame it on. It may sound cold but there was nothing short of rescue that would have saved his life.

Which isn't to say Berg didn't die a horrific death. The point is that his death brings zero moral clarity to the invasion or the occupation. It does not justify some amorphous "war on terror," or dilute the meaning of Abu Ghraib. The lesson of Nick Berg is much more simple and timeless: Don't invade other people's countries and mess with their women. If you do, heads are gonna roll.

Earlier he pointed out how Berg's death was relatively quick. Now it's horrific. Only the latter is correct. I watched the video; there was nothing quick about it. Decapitation by guillotine is quick. Sawing your head off, over the space of about a minute, is not.

It is true that, by itself, Berg's murder doesn't justify the entire war on terror. However, that murder is just another thread in an entire tapestry of behavior that provides ample justification. Much larger threads, of course, include but are not limited to 9-11, the Madrid train bombings, the Bali disco bombing, and the attack on the USS Cole. Or did he forget all those? And the war on terror is not at all amorphous. It's rather concrete if you ask me. Afghanistan and Iraq are two battlefields in that war. There will be others, though most will hopefully be fought, not with weapons, but with ideas.

I don't mean to say I told you so but....

One of the justifications given for invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power was that he still had weapons of mass destruction, namely chemical and or biological weapons, as well as the potential to create nuclear weapons at some point in the future. The fact that he had chemical weapons in the past is beyond dispute, thousands of dead Kurds can attest to that. Since invading, some evidence of WMD's has been found. Now there is more concrete proof. Odds are, if you're reading this blog, you already know about this:

BAGHDAD, Iraq — A roadside bomb containing sarin nerve agent recently exploded near a U.S. military convoy, the U.S. military said Monday.

Bush administration officials told Fox News that mustard gas was also recently discovered.

One response I've heard from opponents of the war is along the lines of, "Big deal. That's only one or two shells. It's not a stockpile." Yeah, well a very small dose of sarin is lethal. The shell contained enough that, if it were distributed effectively, it could kill thousands of people. Let me repeat that: thousands of people.

The round was an old "binary-type" shell in which two chemicals held in separate sections are mixed after firing to produce sarin, Kimmitt said.

Fortunately for our guys...

He said he believed that insurgents who rigged the artillery shell as a bomb didn't know it contained the nerve agent, and that the dispersal of the nerve agent from such a rigged device was very limited.

The shell had no markings. It appears the binary sarin agents didn't mix, which is why there weren't serious injuries from the initial explosion, a U.S. official told Fox News.

Yeah, it's just two shells but does anyone seriously believe that's all there is? This guy doesn't:

Gazi George, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist under Saddam's regime, told Fox News he believes many similar weapons stockpiled by the former regime were either buried underground or transported to Syria. He noted that the airport where the device was detonated is on the way to Baghdad from the Syrian border.

George said the finding likely will be the first in a series of discoveries of such weapons.

"Saddam is the type who will not store those materials in a military warehouse. He's gonna store them either underground, or, as I said, lots of them have gone west to Syria and are being brought back with the insurgencies," George told Fox News. "It is difficult to look in areas that are not obvious to the military's eyes.

"I'm sure they're going to find more once time passes," he continued, saying one year is not enough for the survey group or the military to find the weapons.

The theory that large amounts of Hussein's stock of weapons were moved to Syria, or through Syria to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. The current finds are certainly consistent with this theory. Not proof positive, to be sure, but supportive.

Hat tip to Mike for the link.

You've gotta be kidding, right?

Unfortunately, the answer to that rhetorical question is depressingly false. Via multiple sources comes this:

US athletes told to cool it at Olympics

We're so worried about how the rest of the world thinks about us. The more I hear about crap like this, the more I realize that nobody should do anything they don't want to solely to make someone like them. For example, when it comes to my relationships with other people, I'm going to be who I am and if they don't like me, then so be it. Naturally I'm not going to go out of my way to cheese them off, but I'm not going to hide who I am and pretend to be someone else just to get their approval. I'm not going to refuse to celebrate when I think there's something worth celebrating. I'm going to exult in victory if I'm victorious. Sure, I'll be gracious about it, and I'm certainly not going to ram it down my opponents' throats and trash talk them. But I'm not going to keep it inside either.

If a US athelete is victorious and wants to show his pride in his achievement and the country that helped make it possible, he or she should be able to, just as any athelete from any country should. (Personally, I can't wait until the day I see an Iraqi athelete running around the stadium wearing a medal and waving the flag of Iraq.) What's wrong with that?

GeekWithA.45 states it succintly:

Hiding light under a bushel is a fruitless gesture, and no one will ever gain or regain respect for America by noting how subdued and restrained the decorum of our athletes is.

People who hate us will boo and jeer (and kill) on ANY pretext, and this is blaming the victim political correctivism of the worst sort.

America's athletes should not hold themselves to any different standard of behavior than any other country's.

Whether it's on the scale of interpersonal relationships at school or the workplace, or the scale of international relations, it still comes down to the difference between tact and political correctness.

Outrage

I am going to address two issues in this post which have become interrelated. The first is something I've been posting about for a couple days, namely the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The second is the cold-blooded murder of Nick Berg, an American civilian contractor, the video footage of which has been televised on Arab television and is available on the Web. Mr. Berg was in Iraq working to help rebuild the country. He was not a soldier, nor was he a private security guard. He was just a good man trying to help. (Update: I thought I'd heard it was on Arab TV but apparently it wasn't. It's only available on the web.)

When it comes to Abu Ghraib, I will defer to the master himself, Emperor Misha I. His posts are filled with invective and reading them is much like listening to an angry young rock band like Linkin Park (whose album Meteora was playing in my car on the way to and from work yesterday). If you look through the crunchy guitars and the screaming vocals, you find that the songs are actually very intelligently written and the lyrics have real meaning. The same is true with Misha's writing. Once you look past the invective and the language, he actually has a valid point and he makes it intelligently.

In this post, he tries to bring some perspective to the whole situation. Some excerpts:

What they were, or at least what a majority of them were, is insurgents, partisans, guerillas, illegal combatants, call it what you will. This may seem trivial to you, but it's not quite that trivial to the victims of that IED that they blew up as a supply column drove by. It's even less trivial when you consider the fact that they were operating outside the Geneva Convention, which means that they had NO rights or protections under it.

Not to say that we shouldn't behave ourselves, it just means that we were under no obligation to do so. Under the actual rules of war that are often quoted when the ones quoting them sense an opportunity to aid our enemies, we could've strung them up by the wayside immediately, and we wouldn't have broken a single rule.

Here, of course, he's referring to the prisoners who were being kept at the prison and who were the subjects of the documented abuse. Regarding the actual abuse, which has been referred to as "torture" in the media:

Sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and stripping prisoners naked is as old an interrogation method as the art of interrogation itself. Sure, I know that it's not the kind of thing that you really ought to do to nice people, but we're not dealing with nice people here. Again, if you've managed to live your entire lives up until now thinking that such a thing would be too outrageous to even THINK about doing, then you really really need to turn off the boob tube and throw away the chick flicks, because that's just not a way to go through life.

And if you still feel that it's unheard of and should be discontinued immediately, then kindly don't come crying to me or anybody else when a terrorist bomb blows up in your local kindergarten because you couldn't stand the thought of a terrorist suspect being deprived of his dignity. You asked for it.

There's a concept called the Ticking Time Bomb scenario. Let's say you know that there's a time bomb planted somewhere which is scheduled to go off in a couple of hours. You have in custody the man who planted it but he's refusing to tell you where it is. What do you do? And, no, you don't get to pretend to be his brother like in the movie Face Off. You need this information or else hundreds, maybe thousands will die. Is extraction of this information by any means possible justified?

Now that wasn't the situation here, but these people were being interrogated. The information they have may prevent the injury or death of coalition troops. Isn't at least some form of interrogation justified?

In this case, it is possible to go too far, and I think that did happen. But some of the hyperbole that has been bandied about, the comparisons to My Lai and Nazi Germany, are just way over the top, as Misha addresses:

The civilians at My Lai weren't stripped naked, they were gunned down. There's a subtle difference there that even the most repentant among us ought to be able to recognize. If even that is too hard for you, then the fact that you're agreeing with Ted "A Bottle of Scotch and a Ride Across the Chappaquiddick" Kennedy ought to give you pause.

Josef Mengele didn't put leashes on prisoners, he marched them off and boiled them alive, among other things. Again, you just might be able to spot a slight difference if you look really hard.

And Saddam didn't pour the contents of broken glowlights (said contents being no more toxic than a Dr. Pepper, which may not be saying a lot) over prisoners, he dipped them in acid baths, unless he was feeling particularly grumpy, in which case he'd feed them, feet first, through industrial shredders.

So could we lay off the hysterical comparisons for a minute, please?

Regarding calls for Rumsfeld's resignation or firing, he makes the following pointed comment:

Sure. Let's talk about that. Right after the Pope resigns over the pedophile priest scandal. Sounds ridiculous? Well, it should, because it is. Glad you get the point.

And, finally, when it comes to apologizing, he writes:

Unless you happen to be one of the perpetrators or their enablers, I'm having a really hard time seeing where this sudden urge to apologize comes from. I know that I didn't jam broomsticks up the arses of those prisoners, and I'll be thrice damned if I'll apologize for something I didn't do.

Everybody is busy saying "these assholes in Abu Ghraib don't represent America" and they are absolutely right. What I fail to understand is why we have to apologize for their behavior when they, provably, do not represent us. If I was to apologize for every assnugget American who ever fucked up, I'd be on my knees begging all day, and I don't have time for that. I'm too busy apologizing for shit I actually had something to do with.

The only ones needing to apologize (provided that they're guilty as charged, of course) are the ones who did the deed. You know, taking responsibility for your own actions and all that. It used to be something that reasonable people believed in, but apparently that's not the case anymore. Now we have to be responsible for everybody else's actions as well, as long as they carry a U.S. passport.

He closes with this:

In conclusion: I'm just as interested in seeing what the investigation turns out as everybody else is and, based on what little I know right now, I'm just as interested in seeing quite a few idiots taking a long trip to Leavenworth, but I do believe that we need to tone down the hysteria a bit and wait until the investigation is over.

The system is working so far. Why don't we let it work its way to the end?

Read the whole thing and decide for yourself if he has a valid point. I think he does.

This brings me to the murder of Dick Berg. First of all, read Misha's post regarding the video. Then decide if you want to follow a link to one of the mirrors that is hosting the video. I warn you now, the footage is uncut and unmodified. It is not a faked snuff film. It shows the real-life murder of a human being by decapitation. And it's not a quick cut with a guillotine or a large ax. His head is sawed off with a large knife and he has time to scream several times before enough damage is done to render him incapable of doing so. It's clear that the killers have had previous experience at it.

Yes, I watched it.

You wanna know why? It wasn't out of some sick desire to see a man die. It was because I didn't want to shield myself from the horror. I wanted to know what we were fighting against. I wanted to have it rammed into my brain beyond any question, any doubt, what these animals are capable of. I wanted to get mad. It's the same reason I looked at the pictures of people jumping out of the World Trade Center. I wanted to have full knowledge of what happened so that I could not, would not, be in denial about the events. I refuse to be naïve.

It was not pleasant (the understatement of the year). I'm pretty fortunate that disturbing imagery doesn't seem to affect my sleep very often. This just might. Watch at your own risk.

As usual, others with more experience at this sort of thing have said it better than I can. First up is Charles over at Little Green Footballs who writes:

When the Daniel Pearl video was making the rounds on the web, I refused to post a link because it was so soul-wrenching that I thought people didn’t need to see it. I thought September 11 was a big enough shock to the American public that we wouldn’t dare go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, I no longer believe that, and that’s why I’m posting a link to this goddamned obscenity. Watch it, if you think you can. It’s going to make you sick, and it’s going to make you mad.

And remember this: what you see in this video is what the mujahideen would like to do to each and every one of us.

Jim at Smoke on the Water is up next, and he doesn't pull any punches when he says:

Doubtless, those who killed Mr. Berg are worthy of nothing more than a bullet and a bonfire. I wouldn't even dignify them with a burial.

But they're only one enemy. They're the obvious enemy, and of course they are the primary target. But there are other enemies, and many of them are your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers and sadly, even some in your families.

I have a message for you left-wing fucktards who've spent the last couple of weeks wringing your hands over the stupidity of a few troops in Abu Grhaib. Listen to me closely when I tell you this:

You helped kill Mr. Berg, just as surely as if you'd held him down while they slit his throat and hacked off his head.

Your days of endless moral equivication, alligator tears and manufactured outrage over the offenses of a select few have been pure, unadulterated aid and comfort to the enemy. Which, is Al Quaeda and every other Islamofacist terrorist.

...

All you care about is your unceasing quest to regain power. To unseat President Bush. To appease the tyrants of the mideast, the U.N. and the E.U. You seek this at any cost, even if that cost is to American soldiers and civilians as they serve their Nation.

And you've succeeded for a moment, succeeded beyond your wildest dreams. You just helped kill an American Citizen. But it is a moment that may cost you for all eternity.

Misha follows up with this post where he writes:

The direct responsibility for the brutal murder of Nick Berg rests upon the heads of the five ragheaded scumbags in the movie who were afraid to even show their own faces, something that even the stupid shits of our own at Abu Ghraib weren't afraid to do, and it rests upon their head alone.

But there's no denying that certain parties emboldened them, and did so for political gain and nothing else. They showed themselves to be completely devoid of consideration for anything other than their own naked ambition, and they did so in the public eye, for all to see.

Oh, I bet they hadn't thought for a second that their campaign of hysteria would lead to anything like this, they're not exactly known for thinking very far beyond the immediate reach of their own probosces, but now it's come back to bite them in the ass, as well it should.

Say hello to the concept of "Karma", assholes. You're going to be spending a LOT of time together.

I'll end the linking with this post by doc Russia at Bloodletting who writes:

We have seen two sides in a war, defined by how they treat their captives, and how the respective body politics have reacted. A few of our troops did some bad things. The nation, as a whole is upset, and we have shown our colors through the acts of disciplining our own publicly, as well as a sincere apology from the very top.
Our enemy, after setting fire to, and defiling the corpses of civilians, have gone further without a single word of disapproval from within, much less any sort of corresponding act to prove sincerity. No amount of kindness, charity nor any number of apologies for the rare transgression will sway those who oppose us. The "moderate" muslims have shown their true colors not through their actions, but througfh their lack thereof. By their silence, they give tacit approval to the horrific actions of those who commit atrocities in their name. Those sabotuers in our ranks who do all in their power through passive aggression to defeat our efforts are not just traitors to our nation, but traitors to civilization itself.

The murder of this man is the responsibility of those who actually carried out the deed. It's so heinous that I can't help but want those cretins to die with their bodies immersed in pig fat so they'll die in the belief they will be forever denied the paradise their twisted religion tells them is their due.

But it's also true that they believed they could do it because they continue to believe that we are weak, that enough obscenities like this will convince us that it's not worth it to continue, and we'll pack up and walk away. The murderers said they killed him in response to the abuse at Abu Ghraib. First of all, it certainly wasn't a proportionate response. Second of all, it didn't matter. They were going to kill him anyway; Abu Ghraib was just a convenient event that they could play on. If the abuse at the prison hadn't happened, or hadn't come to light, they would have found some other pretext to kill him. Nothing short of rescue would have saved his life. They're hoping that those of us who are outraged at the events at Abu Ghraib will blame ourselves for Mr. Berg's death, that those of us who think Americans are no better than the creatures who carried out this horrific act will be able to sway public policy in their favor. That we will once again return to the policy of appeasement. After all, it worked in Spain.

And Charles is right. They want nothing more than to do the same thing to you, to me, to all of us. Think about that for a minute and then tell me that we should cut them any slack whatsoever. Tell me if there's any moral equivalence between the humiliation of some prisoners, who were in prison for a reason after all, and the deliberate, cruel murder of a man who harmed nobody. Tell me if those animals deserve any mercy whatsoever for what they did. Tell me they don't deserve to die in terror as Mr. Berg did. Tell me we're not better than they are. Go on, I dare you.

Unfortunately typical

Last week, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to pass House Resolution 627. The title of the bill is as follows:

H.RES.627
Title: Deploring the abuse of persons in United States custody in Iraq, regardless of the circumstances of their detention, urging the Secretary of the Army to bring to swift justice any member of the Armed Forces who has violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, expressing the deep appreciation of the Nation to the courageous and honorable members of the Armed Forces who have selflessly served, or are currently serving, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and for other purposes.

The vote was 365 to 50 with 19 not voting. Xrlq lists the Representatives that voted against the bill and invites the reader to detect a pattern. It's pretty obscure but it's there. (Note: Two of the representatives of my home state of Washington appear on the list.)

The capper, however, came when a citizen of California sent a fax to his Representative regarding his vote. The citizen is named Daniel Dow and he is a Staff Sergeant in the California Army National Guard. The Representative is Fortney "Pete" Stark of the 13th District, who is no stranger to controversy. SSgt. Dow was displeased that Rep. Stark voted against the resolution and decided to tell him so. In response, Rep. Stark called SSgt. Dow's phone number and left a message, the transcript of which I will include in its entirety:

Dan, this is Congressman Pete Stark, and I just got your fax and you don’t know what you’re talking about. So if you care about enlisted people you wouldn’t have voted for that thing, either. But probably somebody put you up to this, and I’m not sure who it was, but I doubt if you could spell half the words in the letter. Somebody wrote it for you so I don’t pay much attention to it, but I’ll call you back later and let you tell me more about why you think you’re such a great goddamn hero and why you think that this general and the Defense Department who forced these poor enlisted (laughter) guys to do what they did shouldn’t be held to account. That’s the issue. So if you want to stick it to a bunch of enlisted guys have your way, but if you want to get to the bottom of people who forced this awful program in Iraq, then you should understand more about it than you obviously do. Thanks.

Xrlq has the text of SSgt. Dow's letter in this post. He also has a link to an audio clip of the Rush Limbaugh show where Rush reads SSgt. Dow's letter and plays the recording of Rep. Stark's response. He then points out the glaring condescension and arrogance exhibited by Rep. Stark.

And he's right, you know. The liberal elite really do think very little of the clueless proles who make up most of the population of this country. We're obviously not smart enough to take care of ourselves, which is why we need them to take care of us. They try so hard not to let it show but, sometimes, they just can't hold it in any longer and their disdain shines through briefly but clearly. Take, for example, when Rep. Stark said, "...probably somebody put you up to this, and I’m not sure who it was, but I doubt if you could spell half the words in the letter. Somebody wrote it for you so I don’t pay much attention to it...." SSgt. Dow is obviously an illiterate grunt who can't think for himself nor write anything like a coherent letter. He must be being used by someone else!

Or when he says, "I’ll call you back later and let you tell me more about why you think you’re such a great goddamn hero and why you think that this general and the Defense Department who forced these poor enlisted (laughter) guys to do what they did shouldn’t be held to account." These poor enlisted guys obviously can't think for themselves, they obviously are little more than apes that don't know the difference between right and wrong.

Pete Stark is such a condescending and arrogant asshole, it's a wonder he's still in office. Hopefully this will get the airplay it deserves and the people of California will toss this dickwad out on his ear. I could make the usual comment about not holding my breath, they're Californians after all but I'm not going to (or at least I'm not going to say it and *mean* it). You know why? Because, unlike Pete Stark, I believe in the innate intelligence of people. Often it's repressed by ideology, liberal or otherwise, but it's there and all it takes is the right circumstances for it to come out. So, instead of being condescending toward the people of the 13th District, which would lower me to Pete Stark's level, I'm going to say that I'm hopeful that they see this guy for the jerk he is and put someone in his place that better serves his constituents.

As is often the case, hat tip to Misha.

Whoa!

Some of you may have heard of the Phantom game console which is being developed by Infinium Labs. It has been the subject of much skepticism, and the company's president has come under scrutiny due to past ventures that have failed rather completely. The most complete investigation I've seen was performed by HardOCP. However, the company and it's proposed product have suddenly become a whole lot more credible. For one thing, they now have Kevin Bacchus as their President and COO. As they state on their Management Team page:

Kevin has nearly 20 years of experience in the game development industry as a developer, marketer, production executive and platform manufacturer. Kevin was a founding member of the Xbox project team at Microsoft Corporation, where he was instrumental in the development and funding of the Xbox videogame console. Kevin served as the company's first director of third party relations and lead efforts that brought the hottest games to Xbox from more than 200 of the world's leading developers and publishers. Kevin previously served as the group product manager for DirectX, where he was responsible for promoting Windows as an entertainment vehicle and ensuring that the DirectX suite of tools became the primary choice for games and multimedia developers.

They also have a new website with tons more information than before and the specs for the machine are a lot more detailed:

Infinium also revealed what's inside the receiver: an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ central processing unit, Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 Ultra graphics processing unit, and an Nvidia nForce2 Ultra 400 platform processor. The receiver will be manufactured at Taiwan-based Biostar’s production facility in GuangDong Province, China. Other key specs of the Phantom receiver are DirectX 9 compliant graphics and audio, Dolby Digital 5.1 channel audio, 256MB of RAM, and a 40GB hard drive.

Their business plan is akin to that of the cellular phone service industry:

To entice gamers to sign onto the Phantom service, Infinium is borrowing a page from the cell phone industry's book. The company plans on giving away a receiver, keyboard, and controller--to anyone willing to sign up for a two-year commitment to the service. The basic subscription package will cost $29.95 per month, with game prices to be set by publishers, but in line with retail, says Infinium. The service will offer game rentals as well, most often priced at $5 for three days. Gamers will also be able to purchase the hardware without any commitment for $199.

The game delivery model for the service sees games streamed on demand to a Phantom receiver over a broadband Internet connection. Subscribers will start off with a library of free games, to be supplemented with new titles each month. The service is to be available through a number of leading retail chains, though partners have yet to be announced.

So basically what we have is a dedicated gaming computer with a simplified set of peripherals and connections. I'm assuming it will connect to a TV, which will result in relatively low resolution (but very high framerates) compared to a monitor capable of 1024x768 resolution or better. The tech specs say it's, "HDTV and Dolby Digital 5.1 compatible," so it will also have component video and/or DVI output as well, and possibly standard VGA.

It will be interesting to see how well it does. Right now, games for consoles have to be tailored for the console environment. Ports of PC games sometimes succeed, sometimes not. With the Phantom, you're actually playing the game on a full-blown PC (albeit with certain restrictions) so it should take little effort to adapt the games to their subscription service.

Perspective

Cox & Forkum are political cartoonists from the conservative side of the fence. They note a a curious form of logic. In the accompanying post, the duo link to a couple of articles and quote from a post by Charles Johnson at his blog, Little Green Footballs. I include their comment and the quote from Charles here:

The first article notes that Bush is trying to counter a "worldwide wave of revulsion" over the prisoner abuse. Charles Johnson notes a disturbing double standard:

Remember that "worldwide wave of revulsion" when a pregnant Israeli mother and her four daughters were murdered in cold blood by Arabs who videotaped the atrocity? Remember the "worldwide wave of revulsion" when four security contractors helping to rebuild Iraq were burned alive, ripped apart, and hung from a bridge by Arabs in Fallujah? Remember the "worldwide wave of revulsion" when an Italian hostage was murdered by Arabs on video? ... You don't?

I'm as upset about the abuse at Abu Ghraib prison as anyone. The US claims the moral high ground and we sure didn't act like it there. Rumsfeld has announced that even worse images are soon to come. The outrage we all feel is righteous. But those that didn't feel outrage against the far worse atrocities that happened there before Hussein's government fell need to take a closer look at their beliefs and opinions and see if they're not guilty of a double-standard, especially if they claim the same failing in others.

OMG! She's back!

Many of us here in the so-called Blog-sphere/Blogosphere/whatever-you-wanna-call-it were dismayed when Rachel Lucas announced that she was going to discontinue blogging. Eventually, her URL led to only an empty page. The other day, Tuning Spork and Misha posted reveries about Ms. Lucas. I can't add anything to what they said except that she was also one of the first bloggers I read daily and who inspired me to write my own posts on the topics of the day; first on my LJ account and then here.

Then I get up this morning and I encounter this post by Misha which led me to this wonderful news. As she says, she won't have the time she had before, but we can now look forward to some choice rants from one of the best in the business.

And now it's off to add Rachel Lucas back to the blog roll.

More on Rall

MSNBC has this article on the furor surrounding Ted Rall's political cartoon that denigrates the memory of Pat Tillman.

Cartoonist Ted Rall says he has received numerous death threats over a cartoon he did this week that satirized the media’s response to the death of Pat Tillman, the former pro-football player killed in Afghanistan.

First of all, I in no way condone death threats toward Ted Rall. I do not want to see him killed. Those who threaten him with death, and especially anyone who may act to carry out such a threat, are no better than the criminals and killers he believes our soldiers and current political leaders to be.

Having said that, it would surprise me if Rall were exaggerating, if not outright fabricating, these threats against him. I would not put anything past him if it furthers his agenda. I think he's delusional, but he's not stupid.

Some 300 of the messages threatened Rall with “death or bodily harm,” he said, and he also said he had received several death threats by phone.

In my opinion, it's unlikely that he's answering his phone these days. He might be but I'm willing to bet the volume of calls he would actually be receiving is so high that he'd be spending the whole day on the phone.

The truth is, I want to see Rall's voice silent. Note the careful choice of words there. I did not say "silenced." I don't want him unable to speak, I just want him not to have any way of disseminating what he says unless he has to do it all himself. What I really want is for him to come to understand his error and apologize. However, I don't hold out much hope. Instead, I recommend that those who consider Rall's comics and writings to be offensive to write to Universal Press Syndicate, the company that syndicates Rall's cartoons, and tell them how you feel. Andrew Sullivan tells you how.

Whose fault is it?

Via this post by Dale Franks at QandO, comes the link to this missive in the Washington Post (at the time of writing, their server appears to be down). It's a predictible opinion piece on the recently revealed abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison. Dale does an incredible job of taking this guy apart. Here are a few choice selections:

An important measure of a society's values is what it condemns, both socially through ostracism or shame for minor offenses against its values, and legally by criminal prosecution for more serious offenses. Arab Muslim countries routinely use torture and abuse as a matter of policy. In the United States, we prosecute and jail abusive police officers and prison guards at the state level. Additionally, we expose them to federal civil rights prosecutions for the same acts. Then, of course, they are liable to civil action for damages from those they harmed.

To me, it seems the fact that we criminalize such behavior, condemn it, and prosecute it means that the abhorrence of abuse is one of our central cultural values. Mr. Kennicot seems to believe otherwise.

...

Ah. I see. So, we bear a collective responsibility. Funny, that's the same arguments the Russians made at Nuremberg. All Germans are guilty, collectively. Therefore they should all be punished. By that reasoning, we are all guilty in some way of murder, bank robbery, arson, muggings, and various and sundry other crimes, because, every day, someone commits those crimes in America.

This is one of the great lies of the Left, that society is sick and twisted, and that the evil that men do is a result of the corrupting influence of society, not because people are equally capable of good and evil, and are personally responsible for the choices they make. The poor, for example, commit crimes because they are poor, and victims of society's injustices.

Although, one notes, the Left doesn't similarly argue that possessing wealth makes one more spiritually noble. Odd, that. If lack of money makes one prone to criminality, why doesn't the abundance of money make one virtuous? But, I digress.

The key argument is that we are, at the same time, collectively responsible for everything that any one of us does, but individually responsible for none of them. It's the corrupting influence of society that makes us do it.

This was stupidity on toast when Rousseau came up with the idea 200 years ago, and it hasn't gotten any less stupid in the two centuries since.

Read the whole post, it's a thing of beauty.

The Left can be partially characterized by two beliefs. The first is that we should strive for equality of results (i.e. every student gets an 'A') rather than equality of opportunity (i.e. every student is given the chance to earn an 'A' if they apply themselves). The second is the concept of collective responsibility rather than that of the individual. Membership in a group is considered the primary factor in a person's identity and is responsible for their behavior. As Dale says in his post, the belief is that "The poor, for example, commit crimes because they are poor, and victims of society's injustices."

I don't discount the effect that environment and experiences have on people's decision-making processes. However, they are still individual actors. They make the choices, the choices are not made for them. They weigh the pros and cons of their possible courses of action, and then choose what course to take. Then they must accept the consequences of those actions, at least in a sane society.

Regarding the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, the events were despicable. Those responsible should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. However, I refuse to bear the blame for what happened there because, quite simply, it's not my fault. Just like I refuse to bear the blame for slavery, or the actions of serial killers.

And let us keep things in perspective. Regardless of how contemptible the actions of a few soldiers are, they pale before the atrocities committed in that prison before the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Where was the outrage then? As Dale states, "when 'we' do it, it's a crime. When 'they' do it, it's policy."

In the same vein, Mike at Cold Fury comments on an article he ran across. An excerpt:

But the most telling thing that guarantees the remembrance of the despicable Abu Ghraib events – events that are nothing like as execrable and endemic as the news of Islamist monstrousness we hear on any given day of the week – is not the concern for basic decency and human rights that most soldiers share with all of us, but the fact that you and other “patriotic” libs like yourself will take this as confirmation of something you knew all along, and will remind us all of incessantly and forever: that all soldiers at bottom are somehow twisted people who serve not out of a sense of patriotic duty, but out of a deep and perennial sadism and a desire to violently lord it over others, inborn emotions and desires that can be occasionally glossed over but never really removed from inherently unevolved people.

Your problem is not with the individuals who committed these awful acts; your problem is not even with the acts themselves. No, it goes quite a bit deeper than that. Your problem, and that of many others on the Left, is with the very existence of soldiers, and armies, and warfare, and nation-states acting in their own self-interest.

It's the same disdain for the military expressed in the Ted Rall cartoon that led to this post I wrote the other day.

Google

Yesterday and today have shown a large spike in traffic to this blog. Of course, it's all relative. In this case, a large spike is anything more than 50 visits. I usually get 10 or less per day. Looking at my Site Meter logs, most of these hits are coming from Google searches. I find this very interesting though, in hindsight, I probably shouldn't be surprised. I assumed that most of my traffic would come from the links in comments I leave on other blogs, as well as trackbacks. That's certainly not the case now.

So, any other actual bloggers who read this, is this what you see on your own sites?

Ted Rall hits bottom, digs even deeper

According to this notification, MSNBC pulled today's cartoon by political cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall.

It's subject is Pat Tillman, the pro football player who gave up a lucrative contract with the Arizona Cardinals in order to serve his country, and who made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan.

You can see the cartoon here at Ted Rall's website.

It fills me with disgust. Rall is an execrable excuse for a human being. He has no concept of honor, integrity, or duty. He mocks those who protect his right to draw and publish the excretions of his worthless mind.

I believe that, for Rall, what he says is not just commentary, is not his attempt to point out issues that merit further discussion. No, he actually believes it. He believes that Tillman was just a dumb jock that wanted to join the military so he could kill Arabs. He believes that our forces killed more civilians then enemy combatants.

He's living in the tortured dream world of his fevered imagination, consumed by conspiracy theories and outright hatred of this country.

The man is a worm.

Update: Although MSNBC says they pulled the cartoon, it's actually still available in its usual location. You can also get to it by clicking Comics and Games on the left sidebar and then clicking the link for Ted Rall. Did MSNBC change its mind?

Update Mark II: Unsurprisingly, I wasn't the first to post about this. Michelle over at A Small Victory beat me to it. What is surprising is that I beat Misha to the punch, but he eventually came through as only he can. Matt Blackfive keeps it short and sweet.

Tales of Irony

So Supreme Court Justice David Souter likes to go jogging in the evening. That's good; it keeps you in shape, it's a nice cap to the day and helps you sleep better.

Unless, of course, you happen to be attacked by a gang of hoodlums.

No matter how good a shape Justice Souter is in, he's not going to be able to fend off a group of determined attackers. Not with his bare hands anyway. No, the only way he would have been able to do so is if he were armed, and the most effective armament would be a handgun.

And here's the irony: Justice Souter supports gun control and disarmament of the people. And, even if he wasn't, even if he owned a gun, it's still illegal to carry it in Washington D.C. It's no coincidence that D.C. has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country, along with other cities that prohibit law-abiding citizens from going about armed such as Los Angeles and Chicago.

It is said that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. Now we will get to see if that adage is true. I won't hold my breath, though. I think the most that will happen is that Justice Souter will either stop jogging out on the street or will have armed guards to protect him while he does. After all, he's a Supreme Court Justice and, just like Hollywood stars such as Rosie O'Donnell, are simply more important, simply worth more, than the rest of us peons and therefore rate such protection.

See also comments by Kim, Spoons, and Misha.